Yona

Yona, or Yona Yak, is a female yak and one of the Young Six who first appears in season eight of the show as a student at Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship. In the series finale The Last Problem, she is an employee at Rarity's Carousel Boutique years in the future.
==Development==
Yona was first previewed in a 2018 "MY LITTLE PONY SERIES" image within Hasbro 2017 Investor Day webcast presentations from August 3, 2017.
==Depiction in the series==
===Season eight===
 In the season eight premiere School Daze - Part 1 and Part 2, Yona enrolls in Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship as a student, having been brought to Ponyville by Prince Rutherford to represent the yaks. In her debut, Yona is excited at first to meet ponies and tell them all about Yakyakistan. However, when Twilight's strict adherence to the Equestria Education Association's guidelines causes the school courses to be dull and boring, Yona acts arrogant and egotistical out of frustration, saying everything yak-related is the best.
When Yona cuts class along with Sandbar, Smolder, Gallus, Ocellus, and Silverstream, the six hang out together and end up becoming good friends. When they return to school for Friends and Family Day, they accidentally ruin the event and cause damage to the school. Chancellor Neighsay of the EEA perceives their fun and games as an attack orchestrated by non-pony creatures, and the offended tribe leaders pull their students out of school, including Yona.
 Not wanting to say goodbye to each other after the school is closed, Yona and her friends go into hiding at the Castle of the Two Sisters. While they have fun together at first, they come under attack by ferocious puckwudgies, and the Mane Six, Spike and Starlight Glimmer save them. When Yona and her friends are asked to come back to school, they are reluctant to continue their boring lessons, but Twilight and the others assure them things will be better and more fun than before. After Twilight defies the authority of Chancellor Neighsay and reopens the School of Friendship, Prince Rutherford allows Yona to re-enroll.
In Grannies Gone Wild, Smolder, Yona, and Sandbar reluctantly listen to Rainbow Dash gush about the Wild Blue Yonder rollercoaster in Las Pegasus. In Horse Play, she takes part in Twilight's play about Princess Celestia.
 In Non-Compete Clause, Yona and her classmates are taken on a teamwork field trip by Applejack and Rainbow Dash. One of the activities is canoeing, something which Yona is nervous about, due to being unable to swim. When the canoe crashes against a rock (due to Applejack and Rainbow's arguing), Yona's life-vest is torn, and she almost drowns before being saved by Ocellus and Silverstream. Afterwards, Applejack and Rainbow get the students lost on a nature walk, and the two end up trapped over a ravine while trying to cross it. Yona and the rest of the students work together to save them. Once they return to school, Yona and the other students nominate both their teachers for the "Teacher of the Month" award, believing they were pretending to argue in order to teach the students how not to work together.
In Molt Down, Yona appears on the balcony of the School of Friendship, and later in the library.
In Marks for Effort, she appears attending Pinkie Pie's class on sharing cupcakes and compliments. When Ocellus compliments her and throws her a cupcake, Yona jumps up and eats it, landing on Pinkie afterwards. She is later seen exiting the school with her friends after a test.
In A Matter of Principals, Yona and her classmates are shown various magical artifacts by Twilight just before she is summoned by the Cutie Map. When Iron Will substitutes, he makes Yona act assertive and shout at the other students to be her friends. She and her friends are later forced to run laps by Discord, who conjures up a bugbear to chase them. Yona is unable to keep running, but Starlight Glimmer saves her by blasting the bugbear away. During the Spell-venger Hunt, Yona is paired up with Sandbar, and before they find one of the artifacts, Discord's ghost traps them in quicksand. Yona and her friends are present when Starlight Glimmer apologizes to Discord for not including him and offers him the job of "vice headmare".
 In The Hearth's Warming Club, a prank ruins the Hearth's Warming tree, and the students are all under suspicion for it and charged with cleaning up the mess while they are questioned one by one. During this time, Yona tells her friends about the yak holiday of Snilldar Fest, during which she had her hair braided for the first time. When the guilty party doesn't come forward, the students start accusing each other. When Gallus confesses that he was the culprit, resulting in him having to stay for friendship lessons over the holidays, Yona and the others all choose to stay with him. As they finish cleaning up, Yona offers to braid Gallus' feathers, which he declines.
In Friendship University, Yona and her friends appear looking at a flyer for the titular university. In The End in Friend, she and her classmates observe Rainbow Dash and Rarity as part of Twilight's lesson on compromising in friendship.
In A Rockhoof and a Hard Place, Yona becomes an admirer of Rockhoof, not only due to his great size and strength (similar to a yak), but his storytelling style. She is stunned when she later hears that, due to feeling out of place in modern Equestria, he wishes to be turned to stone. She makes him the subject of her essay on heroism and shares that she went through similar difficulties to his when she first came to Ponyville. Yona and Twilight then work together to persuade Rockhoof to serve as Equestria's keeper of tales.
 In What Lies Beneath, Yona and her friends start to question their friendship due to comments made by Cozy Glow. During their studies for an upcoming test, they discover a cavern beneath the school, where the Tree of Harmony interacts with them. As part of a test, the Tree forces Yona to confront her fear of spiders. After befriending the spiders, Yona escapes with the rest of her friends.
In the season eight finale School Raze, Yona and her friends go on a field trip to Cloudsdale just before a crisis in Equestria causes magic to start disappearing. The loss of magic causes the cloud-walking spell Starlight cast on the class to fail, with Yona almost falling to the ground before caught by Gallus and Ocellus. After Twilight and her friends leave for Tartarus to investigate, Yona and her friends discover Chancellor Neighsay taking over the school in their absence, and Neighsay captures them under suspicion of stealing Equestria's magic themselves.
After Sandbar and the Cutie Mark Crusaders help them escape and reveal Cozy Glow's true sinister nature, they try to free a magically-trapped Starlight Glimmer, but Cozy catches them and convinces the students to turn on them. Yona and the others get trapped with Starlight and are nearly sucked into another realm with all of Equestria's magic, but they are saved by the Tree of Harmony, and they succeed in foiling Cozy Glow's plans.
===Best Gift Ever===
In My Little Pony Best Gift Ever, Yona and the rest of the Young Six appear at the beginning, boarding the Friendship Express. Yona also briefly appears celebrating Snilldar Fest in Yakyakistan during the ending montage.
===Season nine===
In Uprooted, Yona and her friends experience a shared dream that turns out to be a summons from the Tree of Harmony. Returning to the School of Friendship, they learn from Twilight that King Sombra destroyed the Tree. They decide to find some way of making a memorial for it, but Yona's friends all have different ideas of the best way to do so. After breaking up their arguments, Yona proposes using the remains of the Tree to create a treehouse. Their small, unimpressive effort is then magically transformed into a beautiful structure, revealing that the Tree's magic still lives.
 In She's All Yak, Sandbar asks Yona to go with him to the School of Friendship's Amity Ball. Yona, believing the event to be catered more toward ponies, gets some of her teachers to help her become more pony-like and proper. At the dance, she surprises her friends with her new look and personality, but she accidentally causes a lot of damage while dancing, and runs away in utter embarrassment. When Sandbar finds her at the Treehouse of Harmony later, he tells her that she never needed to change herself and that he asked her to go with him because she was already "the best Yona". The two return to the dance together, where they are declared the winners of the Pony Pal Contest, and Yona teaches her friends and schoolmates the "Yakyakistan Stomp".
Yona is mentioned by Starlight in Student Counsel, as she explains that Yona is having problems with her braids. She also briefly appears during CMC Appreciation Day in The Last Crusade.
In 2, 4, 6, Greaaat, Yona joins the School of Friendship cheerleading squad for the school's buckball game, with Rainbow Dash as their reluctant coach. Yona's overeagerness to dance and stomp throws her teammates off-balance, not helped by Rainbow's inattentive coaching and dismissal of cheerleading as a whole. After she learns her lesson, she coaches the squad for real and helps Yona dance in sync with her teammates.
In Dragon Dropped, Yona appears as Gabby gives Gallus mail from Griffonstone. In A Horse Shoe-In, Yona appears in Spoiled Rich's class and during the parent-teacher conference with her parents and Dr. Hooves. She also appears during Trixie's "field trip" when Trixie brings a part of Froggy Bottom Bog into the classroom.
 In The Ending of the End - Part 1, Yona and the rest of the Young Six work together with Starlight Glimmer and Trixie to evacuate the School of Friendship while Cozy Glow, Queen Chrysalis, and Lord Tirek are on the loose. In Part 2, Yona rallies the yaks of Yakyakistan to help the ponies in their final battle against the villains, and she helps the Mane Six and Pillars of Old Equestria defeat them.
In The Last Problem, Yona attends Twilight Sparkle's coronation ceremony. She later appears as a fully grown yak and an employee at Carousel Boutique in future Ponyville and in Applejack's group shot during The Magic of Friendship Grows.
===Clip show===
Yona and the rest of her cheer squad appears as Rainbow Dash gives them praise after their performance in a past memory of 2, 4, 6, Greaaat in Deep Tissue Memories.
==Other depictions==
===Friendship is Magic shorts===
In Mystery Voice, Yona and her friends attend Rarity's lesson on how to make traditional Hearth's Warming dolls.
In Teacher of the Month, Yona and her friends are shown in flashbacks depicting how Fluttershy earned the titular award, and later attending the "student appreciation day" party held by Applejack and Rainbow Dash. In Starlight the Hypnotist, Yona is briefly shown in a flashback, accidentally scaring Twilight with the ladybug Fluttershy assigned her to care for.
===IDW comics===
Yona appears in celebrating Nightmare Night with her friends. In , she attends the All-Equestria Mane Styling Conference with Fluttershy, Zephyr Breeze, Silverstream, and Sandbar. In , she plans to perform a traditional Yakyakistan ceremony and give woven friendship brackets to her friends for her midterms project, and like the rest of her friends, she shows concern when Ocellus overworks herself to perfect her own project. In , Yona and the rest of the Young Six assist Rainbow Dash in her training for the Draytona Breach 500, and she later joins Big McIntosh and Spike in providing emotional support for the actual race. In , she and Spike watch the race from an airship, only to learn from a pair of dragons that Rainbow Dash is unknowingly carrying a stolen dragon artifact in her cart. When the thief tries to take the artifact and make a run for it into Yakyakistan, Yona stops him by dropping down on him via parachute.
In , Yona and her friends are in Canterlot for a field trip before the Knights of Harmony attack. They are later seen held hostage by the Knights, forcing Twilight and her friends to stand down. In , Yona and the rest of the Young Six join the fight against the Knights of Harmony and help in finally defeating their leader Danu.
In My Little Pony: Feats of Friendship, Yona and her friends form a team to take part in the titular event, and are joined by exchange student Swift Foot. Due to Swift Foot's machinations, Yona is made to believe the others don't respect her culture, and for a time speaks only in "yak" to spite them. Ultimately, Yona and her friends reconcile, with Yona being both amused and touched by Silverstream's failed attempt to speak yak.
In the Friendship is Magic: Free Comic Book Day comic, Yona appears on page 12 at the breakfast banquet for Princess Twilight's first sunrise as ruler of Equestria.
In , Yona takes part in the final battle against Queen Chrysalis' evil changelings and the Decepticons, protecting the Crystal Empire's magical items from Shockwave.
In , Yona and her friends are transported to Cybertron, encountering Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch and being confronted by the Decepticon Soundwave. When Soundwave's attack gets them all trapped, Yona helps convince Soundwave to work together with Octavia and Vinyl to escape by offering him their magic.
In , Yona and her friends take to the new lessons being taught by Violet Shiver, Black Belle, and Shadow Storm quite rapidly. Yona in particular creates a talking "spooky cookie" in Black Belle's home-ec class which threatens to "curse" whoever eats it. In , she and her friends are attacked by Smooze-infected party decorations.
Yona is briefly seen in the fourth issue of My Little Pony: Classics Reimagined - Little Fillies, attending Jo's class alongside the rest of the Young Six.
====Feats of Friendship description====
*Likes: Yakyakistan, all things yak, sharing all things yak with great friends, also all of Yona's friends!
*Dislikes: Used to hate spiders, until one day Yona realize they only want to be friends! Yona loves friends!
===Storybooks===
Yona appears on the cover of the adaptation Meet the New Class.
===Commercials===
Yona appears in the promotional music video Saved by My Friends.
===Software===
Budge Studios' mobile game Pocket Ponies.
====My Little Pony (mobile game)====
Yona, Future Yona, and Pony Yona are characters in Gameloft's mobile game. Yona serves as protagonist of the She's All Yak event, while Future Yona is the final event prize. Yona is also a boss battle helper during the "Reflections of Harmony" event. w:c:mlp-gameloft:School of Friendship LTS. Yona's in-game description states, "Likes: her friends; representing Yakyakistan at the School of Friendship; smashing stuff. Dislikes: tripping over her braids; tripping over her hooves; tripping over everything else." Future Yona's in-game description states, "It isn't ours to speculate on Yona's future, but we'd bet it involves sandy shores, loving moments, and lots and lots of stomping." Pony Yona's in-game description states "Yona is great just the way she is--but if you're curious to see what she'd look like as a pony, well...here you go!"
==Appearances==
Starting with The Maud Couple, Yona also appears in the theme song.
==Merchandise==
Enterplay collectible card game Friends Forever #57 C, #58 R, and #Pƒ1.
Yona is featured on a magazine card.
==Personality==
 Among the Young Six, Yona is portrayed as very excitable and clumsy, initially frequently tripping over her own hair. Like most yaks, she speaks in broken English and in the third person. She harbors a lot of pride and love for her home of Yakyakistan, repeatedly proclaiming everything yak-related to be "best" and wanting to share that with the other creatures of Equestria. Her pride for her heritage at the expense of other creatures is somewhat conceited at first, but after getting to know some of her fellow students, her jabs at other creatures become more playful. In What Lies Beneath, it is revealed that Yona suffers from arachnophobia, a fear of spiders, but she overcomes it with the help of a spider named Spindle. In She's All Yak, Yona becomes self-conscious about fitting in among pony society, wanting to be the "best pony pal" for Sandbar.
==Quotes==
==Gallery==
==See also==
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==References==
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ru:Йона
Category:Featured articles
Category:Non-pony characters
Category:School of Friendship students
Category:Supporting characters
Category:Young Six
Category:Fashion designers