| My Little Pony: The Manga - A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 2 | |
|---|---|
| |
| Published: | April 7, 2020 |
| Writer: | David Lumsdon |
| Artist: | Shiei Ludwig Sacramento (toning) |
| Letterer: | Nicky Lim |
| Editor: | Julie Davis Shanti Whitesides (assistant) |
| See also | |
| Credits • Gallery • Allusions | |
| Issue guide | |
| Previous A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 1 |
Next A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 3 |
My Little Pony: The Manga - A Day in the Life of Equestria Vol. 2 is an original English-language manga published by Seven Seas Entertainment on April 7, 2020, and the second of three volumes in the A Day in the Life of Equestria series. It is written primarily in the "yonkoma" comic strip format.
Summary[]
| Table of contents | |
|---|---|
| Chapter title | Pages |
| Chapter 1 | 6-19 |
| Chapter 2 | 20-33 |
| Chapter 3 | 34-47 |
| Chapter 4 | 48-61 |
| Chapter 5 | 62-75 |
| Chapter 6 | 76-89 |
| Chapter 7 | 90-103 |
| Chapter 8 | 104-117 |
| Sketch Gallery | 118-123 |
Chapter 1[]
The manga begins on the morning of the day before Ponyville's Great Cake Bake Festival. Pinkie Pie wakes up filled with excitement for the festival the next day. Going around town, she meets with her friends, some of whom are busy with festival preparations: Applejack and her family are hosting an apple-bobbing contest (which Apple Bloom is helping Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo train for), Rarity is making special dresses to sell, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are training for the three-winged race, and Davenport is sponsoring a lemonade stand to attract customers to Quills and Sofas.
Twilight Sparkle, having forgotten about the festival, has been busy trying to solve an ancient Mesoponytamian puzzle sphere loaned to her by the Canterlot Museum of Antiquities. When Pinkie Pie visits Twilight about the festival and distracts her from her work, Twilight accidentally knocks the puzzle sphere off the table, and it shatters to pieces. That night, Pinkie Pie goes to bed with Gummy, still excited for the festival the next day. Soon after she goes to sleep, a mysterious force of energy washes over Ponyville.
Chapter 2[]
The next morning, Pinkie Pie wakes up excited for the Cake Bake Festival, but everyone she encounters behaves as if it is still the day before the festival. Applejack is still setting up the Apple family's apple-bobbing contest, Rarity is still preparing dresses to sell, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are still training for the three-winged race, Davenport is still setting up the Quills and Sofas-sponsored lemonade stand, and Twilight is still trying the solve the Mesoponytamian puzzle sphere (which Pinkie's distraction again causes her to break).
Pinkie Pie goes to the site of where the festival is being held and finds nothing there. Believing everyone else in Ponyville is throwing her a surprise festival, she covers her eyes and expects ponies to jump out of the bushes, but nothing happens for several hours. In her state of fatigue, Pinkie nods off to sleep. When she unexpectedly wakes up in her bedroom the next morning, she believes she has missed the entire festival.
Just like the previous morning, everyone Pinkie meets acts like it is still the day before the Cake Bake Festival. She thinks this is also part of the elaborate surprise everyone is throwing for her, but when she once again goes to the festival site, nothing is there, and nothing happens for hours.
Chapter 3[]
The next morning, Pinkie once again wakes up in her bedroom, despite falling asleep at the festival site the previous evening. She now believes everyone in Ponyville is pranking her, and she decides to wait it out until they stop. However, the same thing happens every day over the course of a week. Pinkie begs Applejack to call off the prank, but Applejack has no idea what she is talking about.
In an act of desperation, Pinkie decides to prank the town back by painting mustaches on everyone's faces in the middle of the night, using paint that takes two days to wash off. But when she wakes up the following morning, everyone's faces are completely clean. Pinkie tells Applejack what is going on, and Applejack reasons if everyone is repeating the same actions, they would do so whether or not Pinkie is present. To test this theory, Pinkie secretly monitors everyone's actions while in hiding. Just as Applejack theorized, everyone does the same actions in Pinkie's absence, proving they are not taking part in an elaborate prank.
To prove her findings further, Pinkie Pie eats a few apples at Sweet Apple Acres (without picking them from the trees first). The next day, she discovers that none of the apples have been eaten, thus proving that the entire town is trapped in a time loop and only Pinkie herself is aware of it. Pinkie Pie is also horrified to realize this means the Cake Bake Festival will never arrive.
Chapter 4[]
Believing herself to be the cause of the time loop, Pinkie Pie takes the Friendship Express train as far away from Ponyville as possible in an attempt to break the loop, but this fails. She turns to Mrs. Cake for advice, and Mrs. Cake asks if she "accidentally destroyed an ancient artifact of questionable origin" recently. Pinkie Pie remembers Twilight's Mesoponytamian puzzle sphere and hypothesizes that solving its puzzle will break the time loop.
Over the course of several loops, Twilight and Pinkie attempt to solve the puzzle sphere (breaking it multiple times in the process) before they eventually succeed. Inside, they discover a projector that projects hieroglyphs referring to the Mesoponytamian sun goddess Pink'ty Vazbench. Realizing the puzzle sphere has nothing to do with the time loop, Twilight suggests turning to Princess Celestia for help. When Twilight mentions it will take at least a day before Celestia replies to a letter, Pinkie spends several iterations of the loop trying to abduct Celestia and bring her to the Castle of Friendship (which Celestia is not too concerned about).
Pinkie explains the time loop situation to Celestia, and they and Twilight spend the night trying to figure out its cause. After eliminating every other possibility, Celestia believes she has determined the cause of the time loop. But before she can reveal what it is, the loop reaches its end, and Pinkie Pie wakes up in her bedroom when the day resets.
Chapter 5[]
In the next iteration of the time loop, Applejack brings Pinkie Pie to Twilight after recent events have left Pinkie "too depressed to deliver a punchline". Twilight gathers all the Mane Six together to discuss the time loop situation, and Pinkie starts to doubt the loop will ever end after the now numerous times they have tried to break it. As Pinkie recalls all of the day's repeated events, Applejack notices a discrepancy. Every iteration of the time loop involves Apple Bloom accidentally pushing an apple cart down a hill and into Dr. Hooves. But in every repeat of the loop except for the first, Dr. Hooves is absent.
Pinkie Pie goes to Dr. Hooves' science lab to ask about this, but Dr. Hooves has no memory of being knocked over by an apple cart. When Pinkie presses further, Dr. Hooves says it is not possible for a pony to be in two places at once, but Derpy reminds him of when they encountered their own time-traveling counterparts some time ago. Some time after that incident, Derpy discovered a muffin-shaped time machine and hid it from view. The time machine is locked, and Pinkie suggests turning to Star Dancer, who Pinkie still believes is an alien from outer space.
When Pinkie, Dr. Hooves, and Derpy go to Star Dancer's house, they find it covered in several weeks' worth of accumulated dust, even though Dr. Hooves had visited just a few days before. Realizing that Star Dancer's house is outside the time loop, Dr. Hooves theorizes that Star Dancer is not an alien but a time traveler. As Pinkie Pie searches the house for clues, she appears to slip into another dimension and vanishes into thin air.
Chapter 6[]
Upon stepping into another dimension, Pinkie Pie finds herself in a futuristic environment where she briefly runs into herself from three minutes in the future. She eventually runs into Star Dancer, who has been trying to fix the time loop. Star Dancer reasons that Pinkie's awareness of the time loop is how she discovered and entered this "subspace pocket" dimension. It is revealed that Star Dancer captured the time-traveling Dr. Hooves and Derpy in a bubble of frozen time, and Pinkie Pie accidentally unfreezes them.
Star Dancer's boss from the previous volume reveals himself to the group: Dr. Hooves' archnemesis and alternate-reality counterpart Professor What, with whom Star Dancer is completely infatuated. Professor What reveals that he created the time loop with his "ouroboros equation", but he intended to loop the day of the festival, not the day before. He also reveals that Dr. Hooves is the reason why the time loop is off by one day.
Chapter 7[]
In a flashback, the time-traveling Dr. Hooves and Derpy pursue the evil Professor What to the story's timeline and crash their time machine just outside Ponyville, where the Derpy of this timeline soon discovers it. A short while after that, Dr. Hooves has a run-in with Apple Bloom's apple cart. Later on, they track an energy signature to Star Dancer's house and find her and Professor What's subspace laboratory, where Dr. Hooves discovers blueprints for something called an "infinity drive".
Professor What had planned to create a time loop on a day of high excitement and collect the resulting energy to power his device. Just before Derpy sets off a booby trap that traps her and Dr. Hooves in a time bubble, Dr. Hooves tampers with the infinity drive and sets it to create the time loop on the day before the festival so that it would take longer for Professor What to collect the energy he needs.
Back in present day, Professor What intends to put Pinkie Pie back in the time loop, but she runs away and attempts to deactivate the infinity drive. Professor What corners her and tries to ensnare her in an electrically-charged net, but she avoids capture. The net short-circuits the infinity drive, and the ensuing energy overload engulfs Pinkie, Professor What, Dr. Hooves, and Derpy, causing them to drift helplessly between realities. Dr. Hooves shackles himself and Professor What together, and they, Derpy, and Pinkie separate and become lost in time and space.
In one reality, Pinkie Pie upsets the local populace and is sentenced to decapitation via guillotine. In another reality, Dr. Hooves and Professor What shrink down to tiny size and end up in a bowl of carrot soup that Fluttershy is about to feed to a sick Angel. In yet another reality, Derpy is also shrunken down and ends up inside Cranky Doodle Donkey's snow globe from A Friend in Deed.
Chapter 8[]
Just before Pinkie Pie's execution is carried out, Star Dancer appears to save her, using a "time anchor" watch to tether herself to her and Pinkie's timeline. Pinkie asks Star Dancer about her allegiance with the evil Professor What, but Star Dancer insists that he is merely misunderstood and truly has the multiverse's best interests at heart. Before Star Dancer can bring Pinkie back home, the energy of the infinity drive causes Pinkie to become displaced in time again.
Pinkie ends up in her own timeline but in ancient Mesoponytamia thousands of years in the past. There she finds a stallion assembling the puzzle sphere that Twilight will eventually come into possession of in the future. In order to leave a message for herself in the future, Pinkie poses as the sun goddess "Pinkiekitty Vasebench" (corrupted into "Pink'ty Vazbench" by her worshipper) and instructs the stallion to inscribe specific hieroglyphs inside the puzzle sphere, which Pinkie and Twilight will eventually translate thousands of years later. Suddenly, the energy of the infinity drive drags Pinkie off to another time period.
Pinkie Pie, Derpy, Dr. Hooves, and Professor What wind up back in Star Dancer's subspace lab. Before Dr. Hooves and Derpy can take Professor What into custody, the infinity drive overloads even further, to the point of explosively expanding upward into the sky over Ponyville where everyone in town can see it. With Dr. Hooves, Derpy, and Star Dancer incapacitated, Dr. Hooves tells Pinkie to pull the infinity drive's kill switch and shut it down. Professor What warns Pinkie that pulling the kill switch will collapse the spacetime they all currently occupy and reset everything back to normal, thereby foiling his plans to dominate the multiverse.
Professor What attempts to bribe Pinkie with a never-ending party—a joyous celebration that loops infinitely. Pinkie is enticed at first, but she resists the temptation and pulls the kill switch, and the time loop is broken.
Epilogue[]
Pinkie Pie wakes up on the morning before the Great Cake Bake Festival once more. She races past Applejack toward Dr. Hooves and Derpy's time machine. While Professor What has mysteriously vanished, Star Dancer is taken into custody for being his co-conspirator and committing crimes against the time-space continuum. Pinkie Pie is saddened over Star Dancer's fate and hopes she will be back for the next festival. A short while later, Professor What returns and breaks Star Dancer out of prison so that they can continue their work.
The next day, the Mane Six and Spike are enjoying the festival together, though Rainbow Dash is upset over only winning second place in the three-winged race. Twilight eventually joins them after trying and failing to solve the puzzle sphere. Nearby, Pinkie Pie is fast asleep, having slept through the entire festival and completely exhausted from her time-looping adventure.
Quotes[]
Chapter 1[]
- Pinkie Pie: The Great Cake Bake has got to be my favoritest of all of Ponyville's festivals. All those yummy cakes and fun activities!
- Applejack: Now, hold on. I distinctly remember you sayin' the Marshmallow Pie Jubilee was yer favorite.
- Pinkie Pie: All of Ponyville's festivals are my favorites! But don't tell the other festivals I said that... They might get jealous!
- Pinkie Pie: I'm sure these will be big sellers! I mean...they look good enough to eat!
- Rarity: Why, thank you, darling! That's kind of you to say-- ...Wait... Out! Out! Out! My creations are not for eating!
- Pinkie Pie: Aww... I was only gonna taste them a little...
- Pinkie Pie: Nothing's gonna stop me from having all that fun! Well, yawn... Unless something really mondo bizzaro happens to Ponyville... But the odds of that are... yawwwwn...
Chapter 2[]
- Applejack: Howdy, Pinkie. You excited fer tomorrow's big festival?
- Pinkie Pie: Ha! "Tomorrow's" festival...? Good one, Applejack. The festival is today, silly.
- Pinkie Pie: You're still working on dresses? What have you been doing all this time? You seem to have the same number as you did yesterday.
- Rarity: Whatever are you talking about, darling? I've been working nonstop and have at least doubled my output.
- Pinkie Pie: But... that would mean... Rarity! Did you stop me from tasting your dresses yesterday so you could eat them all yourself?!
- Pinkie Pie: I...I don't understand... The Great Cake Bake was today, wasn't it?
- Applejack: Howdy, Pinkie. You excited fer tomorrow's big festival?
- Pinkie Pie: Very funny, Applejack. You know perfectly well the festival was yesterday and I missed it...
Chapter 3[]
- Applejack: Howdy, Pinkie. You excited fer tomorrow's big festival?
- Pinkie Pie: Ha.. I "sure am," Applejack.
- Applejack: Howdy, Pinkie. You excited fer tomorrow's big festival?
- Pinkie Pie: I sh-sure ammm...
- Applejack: Howdy, Pinkie. You excited fer-- ?!
- Pinkie Pie: I give up!
- Pinkie Pie: If I hear someone telling me that the Great Cake Bake is tomorrow one more time... I'm gonna scream.
- Applejack: Well, the good news is, the Great Cake Bake really is tomorrow.
- Pinkie Pie: Auuuuugh!!!
- Applejack: Don't take this the wrong way, sugarcube...but you're startin' to sound a little loopy!
- Pinkie Pie: Oh, I'm loopy! The entire town is loopy! These past few days have been loopy! In fact... it's like something has caused all of Ponyville to be stuck in an endless loop... and I'm just not noticing it!!
- Pinkie Pie: This is proof positive that yesterday was today, and that tomorrow will be today too, and so will the day after that, and the day after that! And I figured it out all on my own! Isn't that great?
- Applejack: Well, I don't rightly know if that's great... Won't that mean tomorrow's festival will never get here?
- [beat]
- Pinkie Pie: Noooooooooo!!!
- Applejack: No, really, I'm pretty sure it does.
Chapter 4[]
- Mrs. Cake: Did a black cat cross your path?
- Pinkie Pie: No.
- Mrs. Cake: Did you spill some salt without tossing it over your shoulder?
- Pinkie Pie: No.
- Mrs. Cake: Did you accidentally destroy an ancient artifact of questionable origin and thereby attract the wrath of powerful entities unknown?
- [beat]
- Pinkie Pie: Mmmmaybe?
- Princess Celestia: Hello, Twilight Sparkle. I'm being kidnapped! Isn't it exciting?
- Twilight Sparkle: You kidnapped Princess Celestia??!!!
- Pinkie Pie: Yes, try to keep up.
- Pinkie Pie: We don't have time for a party!
- Twilight Sparkle: ?
- Princess Celestia: ?
- Pinkie Pie: Oh no! I've become my mother!
Chapter 5[]
- Twilight Sparkle: What happened to her?
- Applejack: Well, she won't rightly tell... I think she said somethin' about bein' "too depressed to deliver a punchline"?
- Twilight Sparkle: Oh... I... don't get it.
- Pinkie Pie: Exactly!
- Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie: How do we know we're really in this "loop"?
- Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie: Um, Rainbow Dash, this is really bothering Pinkie Pie... so I think we need to keep an open mind...
- Rarity and Pinkie Pie: After all, darling, we have been through our fair share of strange adventures.
- Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie: Yeah, I guess so...but...
- [beat]
- Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie: Wonderbolts! Sonic rainboom! Banana pudding!
- Twilight Sparkle: Um...Pinkie? How many times have we had this conversation?
- Pinkie Pie: Too many times!
- Pinkie Pie: Applejack! Do you know what this means?!
- Applejack: N-No...?
- Pinkie Pie: Neither do I!!
- Pinkie Pie: You found a time machine and you hid it?
- Derpy: I didn't want them to take it away agai-hai-haiiiiin!
- Derpy: Hey, wanna go see if Star Dancer's got any of those cherry tartlets in her freezer?
- Dr. Hooves: ...Yes...
Chapter 6[]
- Future Pinkie Pie: Yoo hoo! Pinkie Pie! Down here!
- Pinkie Pie: Oh! It's me! What am I doing down there, silly? Are you my reflection?
- Future Pinkie Pie: Actually, I'm you three minutes from now!
- Star Dancer: How did you get here, exactly?
- Pinkie Pie: I 'unno? How are you here?
- Star Dancer: Oh, well, we supercharged some ions to create a subspace pocket slightly out of phase with the standard chronal flow of-- uh... I mean... uh... I found a magic mirror?
- Pinkie Pie: Oo, yeah! Those can be tricky!
- Star Dancer: I'm not a space pony!
- Pinkie Pie: Don't you mean future pony?
- Star Dancer: I-I'm not that, either...
- Pinkie Pie: I don't know if you remember me, but--
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Of course, you're that Pinkie Pie we rescued from, uh... I want to say...the ravenous sharkticon pits of Quintessa Prime?
- Alternate Derpy: Zombie world.
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Of course, the zombie world! Who was I thinking about on Quintessa Prime?
- Alternate Derpy: It was a robot Fluttershy.
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Right, the one that could turn into a car!
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Pinkie Pie, may I introduce my--and I use this term loosely--arch nemesis... Professor What!
- Pinkie Pie: What?!
- Professor What: Yes, that's right.
- Pinkie Pie: Who?
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: No, no, it's "Hooves." With a "V", dear.
- Pinkie Pie: What?
- Professor What: No, I'm "What"!
- Pinkie Pie: Who?
Chapter 7[]
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Remember, now, with an adversary like the Professor, you must learn to expect the unexpected. Pony-eating frescoes, stained-glass assassins, giant bees composed of haunted chipmunks...anything and everything might be an enemy agent!
- Alternate Derpy: Apple cart!
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Yes, I suppose that, too, could be--
- Alternate Derpy: Time muffins! The good ones from Canterlot Prime!
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Good luck catching a Pinkie Pie--she's driven antagonists across multiple timelines to near madness.
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: "In case of emergency, shackle the two biggest brains together so they are forced to work together to get out of it."
- Professor What: How is this a plan?!
- Twilight Sparkle-1792: Your Majesty... ze common ponies have no bread to eat.
- Pinkie Pie: Oo! I know! Let them eat cake!
Chapter 8[]
- Star Dancer: Stop zis execution at once, citizen!
- Twilight Sparkle-1792: What eez ze meaning of zis?
- Star Dancer: I am zee state guillotine eenspector and I have determined zis guillotine to be unfit for use!
- Twilight Sparkle-1792: Ridiculous! Why, we have ze finest guillotine in all of Prance!
- Star Dancer: I suppose you've seen too much. Truth is... I'm really a time traveler from the distant future!
- Pinkie Pie: No waaaay!
- Pinkie Pie: Behold! I am the goddess Pinkie... uh... Kitty... Vase... Bench... Pinkiekitty Vasebench!
- Mesoponytamian Pony: H-How may I serve you, o great Pink'ty Vazbench?
- Professor What: I can give you gold! Jewels! Your own moon! A...a...
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Ha! You're actually trying to bribe a Pinkie Pie? Good luck! They're practically incorruptible!
- Professor What: A never-ending party!
- Pinkie Pie: Zgk...!
- Alternate Dr. Hooves: Oh dear!
- Pinkie Pie: I hope they won't keep you away too long, Star Dancer.
- Star Dancer: Aw, don't worry about it...It'll probably be a light sentence of two or three million years... give or take an ice age.
- Professor What: Well, don't just sit there... We've got work to do!
- Star Dancer: Y-Yes!
- Twilight Sparkle: I've never known Pinkie to sleep through even a slumber party!
- Applejack: Aw, let her get some shut-eye... Poor filly looked like she hadn't got a wink o' sleep in moons!
- Pinkie Pie: Twilight, Twilight! Last night I dreamt I was eating a pillow, and when I woke up my cake was gone!
- Twilight Sparkle: That's, uh... normal, isn't it?
