When people say Friendship is Magic has beautiful animation I just think about every strand of hair that was animated in G3 and the fluid movement and expressions.
Actually G3 does have some great animation. I wish G3 had the sort of series length that FiM does, because it looks really nice, but I would say FiM edges it on animation because the backgrounds tend to be less static.
It’s a budget thing, though. FiM has a war chest compared to G3 getting nickels & dimes that Hasbro dropped through the cracks. The show is really pretty.