Winx Club is an Italian animated cartoon that premiered in 2004. Six fairies find their way through battling evil wizards, witches, and monsters across the magic dimension. Through the years, the Winx grow closer as friends on the journey to become the best fairies they can be.
One of my favorite cartoons to this day is Winx Club. It is a very creative series with the best storytelling and plot that keeps me glued to the screen. It also has such detailed and intricate concepts of magic that keep my inner child at peace. Like other magical girl shows, there are multiple main characters each getting their time to shine as you root for your favorite one. Even the villains are written to be loved to hate, particularly Icy, Darcy, and Stormy of the Trix.
The main six characters, AKA the Winx, are such a diverse, dynamic, and cohesive group. The members of the Winx are:
- Bloom – Fairy of the Dragon Flame
- Stella – Fairy of the Shining Sun
- Flora – Fairy of nature
- Musa – Fairy of music
- Tecna – Fairy of technology
- Aisha – Fairy of waves
Bottom: Flora, Bloom, Stella
Their color palettes are really pleasing to the eye, and their unique powers and personalities balance each other out. Flora is a gentle soul with a soft color palette catering to her plants, while Tecna is a straight-forward less emotional girl with hot-pink pixie cut and digital powers. Their personalities and magical abilities are the cause for the series’ excellent character dynamics and developments.
Lore and World-building
The lore of Winx Club sets a standard that all cartoons should attempt to follow. 16-year-old Bloom from Earth discovers she’s a fairy and goes to Alfea college to learn about herself and her magic. Eventually, she realizes she’s adopted and from a planet called Domino, a desolate planet destroyed by the three Ancestral Witches. She continues to grow her powers and learn about her past, as she is finally met with an opportunity to save her planet and free her birth family.
In each season, the fairies have a new challenge which gives them a new transformation. Each new transformation gives them a leg up on spells they couldn’t use before. Enchantix is an elegant fairy form earned when a fairy sacrifices herself for someone from her home planet. It has the power of fairy dust which can remove any dark spell. Sirenix is the magic of the ocean, an ancient power that allows them to swim faster and breathe freely underwater. Believix is a power given to the Winx when humans start to believe in magic again, after the Wizards of the Black Circle are on the hunt for the last fairy on Earth.
Artstyle
The Winx Club artstyle is my standard for cartoons. The eyes are pretty and the hair is gorgeous. When characters have bangs or any hair that covers their eyes, the hair becomes transparent so that the covered eyes are visible. In later seasons, the hair is drawn with colored outlines which really makes each character more vibrant and stand out. A majority of the main characters have blue or green eyes, but they do fit each character perfectly. The characters are very stylized in terms of proportions but they’re still drawn really well.
Fashion
The fashion of the show is one of its major strengths. Across the main series, spinoffs, comics and more, the main six girls have over 1,000 outfits combined. Their casual outfits, fairy forms, and ballgowns do not fall short. Each one makes a statement and is very underrated.
Music
Since 2004, Winx Club has always had great music. From the opening themes to the background music, the entire show is full of goosebump-worthy tracks. The songs from transformations are arguably the best and most iconic of the series. From pop and rock to sad and slow, Winx Club always delivers in the music department.
Legacy
Winx Club’s original story line spanned over three seasons and a feature-length film. At 26 episodes each, the original series from 2004 to 2007 was a complete success. So much so that another season continued the timeline in 2009, and again with a second film in 2010. After seven successful years, in 2011, Nickelodeon USA cosigned a deal with the company Rainbow to produce seasons five and six. They also redubbed previous seasons to catch the audience up until that point.
In 2015, a seventh season was confirmed and produced, and a Netflix spinoff cartoon World of Winx was produced in 2016-17. A final season of the main series was released in 2019. And finally, the infamous live-action adaptation FATE: The Winx Saga was released with two seasons in 2021-22. Fans are also waiting an animated reboot in 2025; 21 years after the original premiere.
Many fans are nostalgia biased and only cherish the first four seasons, calling it the “golden era” But I think the entire franchise is the epitome of good animation, conflict, storytelling, and lore. Arguably, some of the best animation, music, and plot came in the later seasons. Winx Club is a very binge-able series with over 200 episodes at 22 minutes each. Along with three canon films and watch-worthy spinoffs, about 90% of the series is available for free on YouTube. If you’re looking for a new show to dive into, you should definitely check out Winx Club.