Review: Winx Club (Season One)

After a chance encounter with the fairy princess Stella, 16-year-old Bloom learns that she has mystical powers. She is subsequently transported to the world of Magix, where she enrolls in the magic school Alfea. There, she and Stella form a special team known as Winx Club with their friends Flora, Musa and Tecna. Together they must learn to master their special abilities and best the mischievous trio of witches known as the Trix.

Winx Club is an Italian animated series created by Iginio Straffi. Its first season consisted of 26 episodes and aired in 2004.

At its core, Winx Club is a healthy mix of She-Ra: Princess of Power and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon with a dash of Harry Potter. The series owes a lot to the magical girl genre as it focuses on a group of teenage girls who transform into powerful heroines in order to fight the forces of evil. We’re introduced to the world of Winx Club through Bloom, a seemingly normal girl who was raised on Earth. She’s bright, inquisitive and moralistic. Much of the first season focuses on Bloom and her search for the truth about her past, much of which is a total mystery to her, as well as her blossoming relationship with Sky. Bloom’s character and her arc are surprisingly deep, as the season explores subjects like adoption and self-doubt. Bloom can be a bit bland at times, which is why it helps that she’s contrasted and complimented by her group of friends. Stella is the scatterbrained fashionista, Flora is the gentle environmentalist, Musa is the sarcastic music lover, and Tecna is the logical scientist. Their characters are mostly secondary in comparison to Bloom, but they are given their fair share of the spotlight. For instance, we see that Stella can be a bit of a screw-up and Musa’s interactions with her love interest Riven proves to be volatile at first.

The first season largely revolves around the Trix’s constant pursuit for power and their eventual mission to acquire the powerful Dragon's Fire. As antagonists, the Trix are nasty, vindictive and relentless. Though they initially seem like mere nuisances to the Winx Club, much like the Misfits were to Jem and the Holograms, their plots become more and more deadly as the season wears on. This cumulates in an intense and harrowing battle during the final episodes, where the Trix attempt to invade Alfea and the combined might of Magix must unite against them. This multi-part finale exemplifies the season’s pervasive darkness and maturity, which seems at odds with the demographic it aims for, and shows just how high the stakes are in this world. In fact, it is its tone that partly makes Winx Club so interesting in its first season. It is further helped by the directional quality the stories have, as the Trix’s schemes and Bloom’s identity crisis work are interwoven into an evenly paced arc that stretches across the entire season.

The animation is perhaps what is the weakest about Winx Club’s first season. The style itself is interesting and provides the series with a unique aesthetic, but the quality of it is both inconsistent and crude. Its usage of CGI makes everything seem dated and the backgrounds aren’t quite as detailed as they should be. The characters themselves also look awkward at times, both facially and when they move around. Action sequences also have a tendency to be rather static and laughable, which is unfortunate since the series depends heavily on magical conflicts. This unevenness also spills out into the voice work. The Cinelume/RAI English voices aren’t the best since the characters don’t sound distinctive enough and their line delivery isn’t the best.

The first season of Winx Club does a remarkable job of establishing a unique cast of characters and the magical world they live in. The concept itself isn’t wholly original, but its execution is bright, fun and entertaining. There’s a depth to the characters and their stories that is uncommon in most animated series aimed at younger audiences, which is actually quite refreshing. Overall, I appreciate the efforts made to create a series of overarching storylines that lead towards an explosive conflict in the season’s final episodes. Individual episodes can be a bit childish at times, but the general tone for the first season is consistent and its pace keeps audiences engaged. While the low quality of the animation and voice work hinder Winx Club quite a bit, the lovable characters and captivating storylines are enough to really illustrate why this series was able to transform itself into a profitable franchise.

RATING: B-