Still no Rainbow Roadtrip in some of Western Europe

[FirePuppy 627]

By the looks of it, it's assumed that My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip is currently forbidden in some Western European countries, such as France, Germany and Italy. However, all three are usually much, much, much more lenient on censorship than the rest of the world, especially the United States.

According to Wikipedia, La Commission de classification cinématographique can actually ban films but cannot make cuts to them, although the latter power is rarely used, and in Italy, it is not possible to block the release of a new film or demand edits for any reason.

But really, how could at least three usually lenient countries do such an extremely rare, yet horrendously cruel thing to the MLP fans about a 100% kid-friendly film? This is far much worse than the way Onward, Lightyear and Strange World faced censorship themselves in Middle East countries.

On a side note, everything G3 was released in France, Germany and Italy, and there are absolutely no other unreleased American animated cartoons in any of those three countries, at least that I know of.

Edited October 21, 2023 by FirePuppy

[Tacodidra 59,800]

It's definitely not forbidden – there's nothing objectionable in the movie.

I guess it's just that no one has bothered to release it in those countries for some reason – maybe its rights are sold separately from the series? It's not new even with G4 MLP – the Friendship Is Forever clip shows never got a release in most countries.

[Misty Shadow 7,085]

Yeah..."forbidden"?  Where did you hear that from? The movie is completely inoffensive, this is just your typical weirdness with certain things not getting a full international release. 

[Nightfall Gloam 18,237]

I doubt it had anything to do with censorship here. For some reason, especially towards the end of G4, Hasbro was being weird with releasing things (RIP FiM not getting an official DVD release of season 9)

Not entirely sure why Rainbow Roadtrip and Friendship is Forever had limited releases though, but as far as I can tell, there was nothing in any of them that would usually be censored.

[FirePuppy 627]

I just learned tonight the hard way that you guys were right all along. I do admit, censorship isn't the clear reason why some animated specials just don't get released in a long time. It could most likely be because of obligations with other companies, in the case of Hasbro still refusing to leave Discovery Family after their contract was supposed to be terminated much earlier than it does now.

Whatever's happening, I still want to see Danish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Castilian Spanish, Swedish, Thai and Turkish dubs of this special get released someday, since there's a lot more content dubbed in these languages compared to the ones Rainbow Roadtrip has already gotten.

For what I know, Netflix exclusively hosted most of the previous specials, but Hasbro decided to stay on Discovery Family for another several years, and rejected their agreement with Netflix. I'm hoping that next year, Hasbro will not renew their contract with DF again, since that channel is obviously trying to make more room for WB cartoons, and Hasbro will be forced to move on to another service, where they'll easily be able to release everything including Rainbow Roadtrip worldwide. By the way, YouTube won't work because the show always keep stopping at Season 4 of FiM, so it'll have to be anywhere other than YouTube.

Edited March 19 by FirePuppy