i listen to a podcast while im working and the most 'no they not-' definately was art uni horrors. the number of times I got distracted by the story, stopped the video, rewound it and let out a sigh? oophmhmhm i also really like "Girl" terms discourse and What is CAMP? (classic ahaha) but idk i binged all the episodes in a couple of days and I don't fully remember what was where. The one about Red Shoes stand out - if i remember correctly it was about the death of the author or about the separation of art from the creator and the one about Sonmi's comeback ?? why im trying to answer or choose im bad at that because the podcast is great
My favorite ones are Sunmi and her feminine horror concept and history of art ones, cause they decentralize weird men from art discourse. Lately I've enjoyed movie reviews with bissistant🐥🐣🐤
One thing I loved about WITCH was that the girls had conflicts that weren’t caused by magic- rather that it’s conflicts that are grounded and personal to each girl (Will’s dad, Taranee’s strict mom, etc). It gave a lot more relatability to these girls and I like to think it that its fans were heard and seen from those girls.
^^^This, I still remember to this day my shock reading the comic as a kid, when Taranee's mom slapped her in front of her friends for going out late with boys and wearing makeup. All the panels in that scene have stuck with me to this day in a way that none of the monster fights have. They really weren't afraid to go there and (as far as I remember) handled the repercussions of that scene in a really mature way for a comic book for kids.
The idea of Disney execs being super concerned about the eyes being too manga is incredibly funny to me considering how inspired by Disney anime style is.
8:27 i love how winx and witch were basically ruined by americans company, also why we italians were so obsessed with the "magic transformation girls" shows in the first 2000? kinda iconic to me, we need to bring back the magic tho 😭
Because magical girl transformations are amazing. I promise you I would NOT remember Sailor Moon or Tokyo Mew Mew or WITCH and Winx Club if not for the transformation sequences
@LisaFevral Even if they decided to make live action versions of these in movies or TV series, I won't be watching. The era of Super girls is over and I just want to watch romance. No girl power or fighting going on. Bridgerton is my fix
I just remembered how the girls got away from their parents' supervision in the comics. They made astral drops, which are temporary clones of themselves, who do chores and homework while they're away lol.
There was a wild plotline where the astral drops rebelled and wanted to be their own people, and the girls basically had to contend with the fact that their alternate selves are self aware beings and that they want to keep them enslaved in order to get out of doing chores. Also the clones were kind of evil and tried to take over/sabotage their lives
@@hannahs5783 yeah, it was a whole arc lol. Having temp clones who did chores and homework would have been such a dream for kids. It felt like reading a horror story when they decided to take over lol/be their own people.
Im sorry??? The NERVE of complaining about the eye design when that's LITERALLY THE DESIGN OF EVERY EYE IN THE MAJOR FEATURE FILMS FROM DISNEY SINCE TANGLED????? God I hate corporations so much
I don't think it's actually a matter of "eyes". That's just an easy thing to fixate on, when you're a hyper wealthy executive and have *no* idea what you're talking about. A long time ago, back in the danga, "manga" was *DEFINED* by the "eye-style" in the boardrooms of the west. You, a busy executive, see the *EXPLOSION* of popularity in your competetion in a language you don't understand made by people you don't know from a country you've never been to. You turn to the people you pay to understand shit for you, and those people are only *slightly* less uninformed as you are for answers. It's the *same* reason *EVERYTHING* was a "pokemon" for a while. Digimon is pokemon, Beyblade is pokemon, Yugioh is pokemon, Spirited Away is a pokemon! Everything is pokemon unless its a Goku or a Gundam. Naruto is a Goku, and Evangelion is a Gundam. Why is it like this? Because of the most immediate, marketable superficials. Giant robot? Gundam. Cute monster thing? Pokemon. Anime man who fights? Goku. Girls with big round eyes? Sailor Moon. For this, execs were more concerned about making things that looked like they were manga, because Disney execs at the time were pretty worried about the rise in popularity of eastern media as their own brand was shifting to Live Action entertainment. What's funnier, right, is if you *change* the eye-shape of the girls to something more like, say, the classic GI Joe cartoon the girls look suddenly *VERY* adult, very mature. Very *NOT* Disney.
@@nananamamana3591 but didn't she say in the video that they had reservations about the eye design specifically BECAUSE it felt too manga? I'm criticizing the fact that they had the audacity to do that and later use the same design that the creators had to insist upon in every freaking animated movie. Even before Tangled, the eye design of The Princess and The Frog was already starting to make the same choices that Frozen eventually exaggerated and now every important character has those eyes.
@@LunaWitcherArt Yes, that's what I'm saying. The landscape of animation changed in the intervening years of WITCH and things like Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and more. Like, she brings up that they couldnt even identify what was a WITCH character's eye, a "manga" eye, and what was the eye of one of Disney's own (EXTREMELY profitable) princesses. The problem is *deeper* than "they critized it then, but they used it later!" it's that they *ALREADY* had been using it! Ariel, Belle, *and* Jasmine all have large, round eyes. The problem isnt that they would go on to to adopt this characteistic across all their characters, it's that these people handling budgets and greenlights had *no* understanding what they were talking about, and were picking on something they *thought* was the "problem" based on their purely superficial understanding... when the art style was *already* something that had been *SUPER* successful for them previously, they just couldn't tell because they *AUTOMATICALLY* equated large expressive eyes to manga/anime, rather than Disney's golden age. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm pointing WHAT the mentality was behind the decision making.
Never actually watched w.i.t.c.h before, but i like the idea that the character with “energetic fiery” personality aka Irma has water as her element, and the “collected calculated” aka Taranee has fire as her element… its quite fun to see them switched from the expectations of the respective element’s personality stereotypes🌞✨
What I like about the show is that Cordelia is the character than would normally be over sexualised . Stereotypically pretty blond tall feminine girl yet her transformation outfit is arguably the most conservative giving a more maternal vibe instead.
since Cornelia is more into fashion than being just pretty it's obvious choice She herself likes long skirts, her guardian outfit is more of chique and fashionable italian/french girl. Taranee who is supposed to be stereotypical nerdy girl has short tight clothes because she's more into action and dance. I like how show referenced comic through some unnecessary scenes when she's trying to think about something or discuss with girls and she spinned on pole
Show writer Greg Weismann confirmed that Nerissa and Cassidy were in love and dating up until Cassidy's death. And this was DOUBLE confirmed by writers who went on to work on Legend of Korra when they faced similar restraint from Nickelodeon to air Korra and Asami's same sex relationship.
Yeah. I never really saw it in the one character she brought up that they were trying to queer-code, but Nerissa & Cassidy were pretty damned on the nose that something was going on there.
Hi! Italian that watched the series and read part of the novel! 1. The part of “Will doesn’t say anything during the transformation or makes random noises” I think it’s an English dub thing because in Italian she says something among the lines of “the four elements” and the the others say their elements which makes sense 2. Yes the break up of Caleb and Cornelia was due to a poll in Italy. BUT I’ve seen people online on Italian forums discussing it and they all said that they voted for them to stay together and that the result doesn’t make sense to them. So they speculated that the writers didn’t have the energy to write a nice relationship so they made up the results of the poll. 3. Also Elisabetta Gnone is also the author of a series of novel (with beautiful drawings) that was quite popular in Italy. This was after W.I.T.C.H.
@@TempoLOOKING All of Europe has traditions with witches, this also goes for Italy. We also have a lot of people doing magical traditions still to this day and holidays connected to this old traditions like Befana (you can search it on Wikipedia). But I don’t know what you mean with RONE (?).
character pages being catnip for kids is so so real. i recently bought all of the "bratz annual" books that came out yearly and had nothing but bratz character pages and little stories about the bratz. would have LOVED it as a kid
Also its probably convenient to write, because any decent writer i imagine comes up with a lot stuff about characters that dont make sense to include, but is from the writers doing characters as byproduct what they come up with ideas for characters that are there but useless. So the small side stories are probably really easy to make as they probably came up , but are cute side stories that still are really nice. Or interesting facts that just didnt make it in. I guess its convenient for writers too using all their sidenotes of characters and discarded ideas , and fun and even , helping with characters. I would guess why its so common.
This deep dive is sooo necessary. I want to see more people talking about W.I.T.C.H. because it is an amazing series and it deserves better. I have the comics, I saw the cartoon, I have dolls (which are fake, but I didn't know that when I was a child and I absolutely loved and still love them). And I am till this day a big fan
The Cornelia/Caleb breakup also pissed off my sister and I when we read the comics. Also, I also noticed Hay Lin didn't have a surname. No wayyy the writers thought her surname is Lin gaaahhh. Hay Lin was my fave btw. She's so cute!
@@calebgoodman3028 Yeah, weird in hindsight. It was just the whole buildup of them being soulmates then breaking up that was annoying. Also, he was made from a plant fullgrown so his age was unclear. Still weird that he kinda looked like an adult (?), but at the time we were reading we didn't know anyone's ages.
Italian here. I wasn't reading Witch at the time of Cornelia and Caleb's breakup, but it's funny now reading online that some italians think the vote was actually fake and the authors just wanted to give the responsability to the fan to make them breakup, when it was actually already decided. Also, just a fun fact: in an interview, Elisabetta Gnone (one of the original trio who created WITCH) said that the second arc of the comics was bad because it was made by a man who didn't priotized emotions lol
Okay I think I have the answer for the whole aging up thing. So in magical girl shows like Creamy Mami and Full Moon Wo Sagashite, there were actually studies done with girls where the results were that they wanted to be older to have more freedom, they always looked up to older girls as role models. It kind of goes along with what you said towards the beginning of capturing an age demographic by showing them characters that are a certain amount older than they are so they can aspire to be like that character. I don’t condone the sexualization of the characters, but it does make sense to have them be “adults” so that kids could look up to them and also have the characters put into more intense situations.
right yea, it's just really common to for there to be a wish fulfillment element there. "if these magical girls get these cool powers, wouldn't it also be cool if i looked like my role model that gets all the freedom and capability that comes with being an adult".
@lakiceae5900 yeah and also can you imagine the fight scenes if they looked like 12 year olds? I imagine they made the conscious decision to make them look like adults so it wouldn’t be so jarring when they got smacked around
Its all about the phantasy of being able to age up and do all the fun adult things (by Kids mind of course, like the freedom, and respect), but still being able to return to be a Child with all the perks that come with it. Like playing Barbie.
"Your style" was my FAVORITE magazine growing up! Glad you mentioned it! I would love to read more of those magazines, such a shame they stopped publishing them. Also a fellow Russian here
I saw WITCH and clicked immediately.. the way i was HOOKED on these comics was unbelievable. It had everything i loved: diverse group of girls with distinct personalities, BEAUTIFUL art, and superpowers. When u mentioned the room plans and character profiles, ugh i lived for that stuff!!!!! i dont know how i was introduced to them, but i live interchangeably between Saudi Arabia and Sudan so i would buy it from both countries (even though it was double the price in Saudi!!) The publisher is the same so the print was in arabic. 1. I remember there was a storyline where they went to the beach. Since its an arab publisher, those girls were covered up intensely at the beach 😂 also when they transformed, exposed bellies and thighs were always covered over! 2. Any physical intimacy with boys would be removed, so there are times when i would be like "what just happened??" 3. No tarot cards or palm readings, only horoscopes! It was so nice to revisit such a huge part of my childhood.. i used to love sketching them around my notebooks and each girl was my fav at some point (until i gave up and admited to loving them all!) They were a bit pricey so i wasnt able to purchase them as much as i would have liked.. and i still have my few copies from way back then. If the comics are ever made available i would buy them all in a heartbeat.
Will not having anything to say during her transformation is still so funny to me I always thought they felt bad during s2 they invented her lightning powers they even gave it lore like her ability to give life the writer's were like here girl u have so many things to say now 😅
Will seemed so out of place in their early battles too, but what was girlie supposed to do with no powers ? I have this vivid memory of her throwing a vase at one of the bad guys lol
The writer for the second season did stated multiple times that Nerissa and Cassidy were more than friends! But of course it would never be shown loud and clear at that time
I have just finished watching and I just want to say, as a person who has been hyperfixated on the WITCH cartoon for a LONG time, thank you so much. It’s such a joy to see this world and story presented in a form of such a great deep dive.
Girl I had no idea about the creative differences between the staff for the show. I always knew that the comics were different from the cartoon based off of what other people said (I never read the comics), but I never knew WHY. Your researching skills are amazing and I hope you continue to see success on TH-cam !!
WITCH Style was also published here in Poland, for a time alongside the original WITCH magazine (and often had nicer artworks). And the heart of Kandrakar was definitely included several time in either as an accessory. Also, I really feel bad for Taranee, she was so often treated as a secondary character, has the least interesting guardian outfit and generally was an interesting character, who didn't got as much a space to shine as Will or Cornelia. (That also applied to Hay Lin a bit, but her outfit was great, even with the socks instead of tights - I always assumed the skirt was in duo with hot pants, but like in Aisha's winx).
W.I.T.C.H. was crazy popular in Poland, I remember waiting every week impatiently for a new magazine to come out (just after I learned how to read lol!). Growing up, I didn't really understand a lot of things going on in the comics, so I have never noticed the weird plot holes haha... 2 years ago a polish publishing company embarked on the nostalgia train and collected the comics into books of 400-500 pages. Ofc I'm collecting them all lol. I also finally fulfilled my childhood dream and bought all the 5 W.I.T.C.H. dolls second-hand online in excellent condition and my heart is full of happiness. I can't wait to have a daughter so that I can share the comics and dolls with her 🥺 I didn't have TV growing up so I wasn't even aware that there was a TV show lol.
It was same in Slovakia I had a lot of magazines that my mother would buy me from time to time. I loved it so much even when I was confused by story sometimes as well😂
I love both W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club. Fun fact: these are some VAs who did characters for both W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club (Nick dubbed): Mitchell Whitfield voiced Phobos and Professor Palladium; Kath Soucie voiced Nerissa and Countess Cassandra; Jim Cummings voiced Tridart the Despair and the Ice Spirits (Winx season 3); Nika Futterman voiced Officer Rose Wolfe in W.I.T.C.H. (season 2) and Omnia (Winx season 5); Grey Griffin (DeLisle) voiced several characters in both series, including Miranda and Queen Weira in W.I.T.C.H. and Professor Griffin and several of the Winx's moms include Queen Luna, Niobe, Marion, and more! Oh, and the legendary Dee Bradley Baker! His work consists mainly of vocalizations of animals and monsters. You may recognize him as Appa, Momo, Naga, and Pabu from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra series. Not only can Baker vocalize animals, but his speaking roles are so vast and varied, going from low and deep, monstrous beings like Lord Cedric and the Gargoyle to high-pitched goofballs like Martin Tubbs and Professor Wizgiz!
thank you for covering such an underrated piece of media Lisa! I was one of those girls who was so enamored by witch and winx, i didnt even know there was some sorta rivalry going on between the series lmaooo, but i was much closer to WITCH aesthetic wise, the darker and more medieval look of the worlds by my first ever rewatch of the series in my adulthood i was genuinely surprised by how much 2nd season stands on its own, specifically Nerissa'a antics made it so high stakes for the girls, i would even argue if they kept better writing choices and continued the story the series could have been of the same caliber as the last airbender, but alas... i can praise the series for what it meant to me in my childhood literally forever, it introduced me to "edgier" stylistic choices in girl targeted media which made me fall in love with it at the time. It really was and felt sooo different from other cartoons at the time having darker colors while keeping flimsy nature of girls relationships and life on earth, my inner alt 8 year old was thriving i think the reason as to why the age up happens is in the history of mahou shojo as genre since one of the first ever known representatives of it had "ageups" as a core mechanic of transformation. it is a bit of "problematic" troupes of early mahou shojo that was kinda revamped during utena and sailor moon days, when one of the main target demographics of the genre shifted to young women, only leaving out the beautification process of the characters.
Yeah season 2 really benefits from not being episodic and leaning into Neruda being more complicated and connected to the guardians! I also didn’t pay attention to the rivalry, and I still love both as well ahahab
Girl I haven’t even started the video but THANK YOU for creating this🙏 I adore this series and still have some of the graphic novels. It was a pillar of my childhood that I none of my friends watched or had heard of growing up. It means a lot, thanks for your time & effort🥲💕💕
Герл ты гений 😭🙏 обожала, обожаю и буду обожать чародеек! Часами сидела на сайте, где подбирала шмотки для Вил 😇😇 и до сих пор где-то комикс лежит и журналыыыы
that anecdote about the eye guessing game cracks me up. it's a matter of public record that osamu tezuka and his generation of post-war mangaka/animators were inspired to draw eyes like that by... disney movies. because they saw how big eyes emoted better.
Also, I could be wrong about this, but I think I remember someone explaining that anime faces are more based on cats than on humans? Like a lot of anime faces don't actually look all that japanese? And cats have large eyes compared to their size.
Thank you so much for this video, it is so refreshing to see someone else who is interested in Witch, Winx and Bratz. This is so empowering to see, as an adult women we do not have to leave behind things we were interested in as a child. We can still be into them and have fun like we should 🥰✨
Yeah, I still still have a soft spot for Winx. I was obsessed with it as a child and my triplet sisters were too. I probably would probably would cringe a lot if I watched it now. But you have guys in their 30's still whining about transformers/dragon ball/he guy, so I think I should be allowed to still think about what touched me as a girl.
This brings back nostalgic memories! I used to bug my mom when I was younger to buy a copy of witch. It was heartbreaking when the story ended, I remember it was so abrupt and felt like a big cliffhanger. Now that I watched your video, it kinda makes sense why. The capitalistic mouse really ruins nice things.
@@calebgoodman3028 oh, i meant the comic book. Wasn't their last enemy those things that look like the scream painting? Unfortunately, I'm not up to date with witch now though cause I don't live in the city anymore. Also, in the country I live in, I don't think the comic book is released here anymore.
@@hewwo_uwu Oh. In that case you'll be happy to know the comic ended rather happily with a total of 139 issues. It was still a bit weird since the last chapter spent a big part on this new fusion power called Sixtar and the girls gaining enhanced senses despite there not being a fight in this last issue. Other than that they have a party, everyone is happy looking back on all of their adventures and how much they mean to each other which was just a really lovely way to close off. The final page even recreated the first page of the comic with the Oracle about to speak so it all comes full circle.
@@calebgoodman3028 thank you for the info! I'll try to scour the internet to see if I can get my hands on the remaining copies you mentioned. I'm hoping someone uploaded it online since witch has almost no presence in my country sadly.
about the striped thights, I feel like they are more connected to their fairylike guardian apearance. I remember a lot of fairy/elf/pixie/fae-like beings in my childhood having either stiped thights or being dressed like a princess. A few examples with striped thights I remember are: - some schleich fairy/pixie figurines - some of the fairies in Amy Brown's illustrations - a tiny book about a wishing fairy with pink and white striped thights that I forgot the name of
Defo, plus its totally a stereotype for witch clothing to have striped tights, so as a costume element to tie together the WITCH title and the more fairy inspired outfits, it really works
A SHOUT OUT? From the deep dive Queen herself?! I’m not worthy 😭 But seriously thank you so much, SEO is not our friend 😂❤ Okay back to devouring the rest of the video 👁️ 👁️
OMG THE LUBA RANT YES!!!!!!! Even as a child I hated and didn't understand her. Since sometimes I would end up missing some of the magazines I always assumed they explained her motivations in an edition I missed but when I read all of it as an adult I realized she is just crazy
Society( or in this case, a large greedy corporation)always trying to pit powerful all girl groups against each other. Winx Club/W.I.TC.H solidarity for life.
Ok, so... that's gonna be a long one, maybe even too long to be an YT comment. I usually don't feel the need to comment under YT videos, but this one made me feel some feelings & brings lots of nostalgia (the comments under it as well), so I just need to threw some things out my head through my keyboard. This video essay was on my watch list for a while & I finally had the time to watch it. For some reason I was convinced that 4 hour long vid must be a rant of the gargantuous 11 arcs, over 100 chapters journey that the comic series was & when I found out that's gonna be 'only' 2 first arcs in comparison to it's TV show, I felt a little bit taken aback, but also curious how it can take so long to talk about seemingly so little material. And oh boy, I was so wrong. Lisa, you did great job with covering all the W.I.T.C.H. lore (both in & outside the story), plot holes and the characters, not to mention the great parts about art direction & design! À propos the design & fashion - I think I can bring something to the table in terms of W.I.T.C.H. fashion magazine (Styl W.I.T.C.H. was it called in Poland & like other commenters mention, was not only russian thing). If the polish fansite I found is to be believed, it originated in Italy under the name 'WElcome' somwhere back in July of the year 2006. That was trial basis & a hit enough to had 1st 'official' publicacion in november same year. WE was a name of character introduced to the main series at the time. Originally acted as the sort of host of 'WElcome', but later in line the little comic stories with it and main cast got a bit marginalised in favour of the fashion, beauty & home decoration tips, quizzes & generally changed into mainly lifestyle magazine with a lil bit of magic sprinkled here & there. And it had trinkets too!!! (I think I had a heart of Kandrakar [or Kondrakar as it was changed in polish translation] necklece and like a hand fan or something like that from it, quality wise they weren't super great, but also were mad cute & kind of 'for free', so that was a win for my tween-self). The name 'WElcome' doesn't translate into anything fun in all of the languages, hence the 'Style W.I.T.C.H.' translation in some versions. Last issue was published in december 2013, being the 59 of them. Futhermore I vividly rembember not only the comics & magazines & TV show, but also playing Flash/browser games that was being made at the time. There was one action based and one dress-up game I vividly remember. And I think at least one of them was published originally on official site Disney Channel (or whatever it was called at the time) had, but obviously was later copied all over the different sites with games for kids. Does anybody else still remember that? In terms of favourite scenes or episodes in the show - for me it would be episode when they were stuck in a painting, I just loved the aesthetic & vibe of it & the plot was decent enough, sadly I can't remember whether in was in the first or second season. The ones I wish didn't happen - anything related to Miranda really. Forgot this character even existed, until it was mention in video & the thought popped in my head "Miranda? Who's that?" and then the snippets from the show was presented & my brain goes 'uhh, the annoying spidery girl'. For the comics I would say my faves & wished-to-be-gone scenes/motives/characters come in play much later in the series (in the arcs 6-8, especially 8 since it was the one I decided to stop reading comics as I dislike the direction it was taken in), so I'm not sure if I should share it. I would rather not spoil anything for those, who didn't have the chance to read through the whole thing back in 2000s/2010s. You read through my whole blabbering? Gee thanks, I would give you a bear with a spotlight, if I could!:p And Lisa, once again hats off to you, great vid!
I loved the deep dive! :) Just to let you know, the magazine was also launched in Brazil, I had quite a few of them! They would come out monthly, but I never got to finish the story :(
2:25:34 Thank you for saying this. I always say that Caleb's presence in the series is one of the biggest negatives and I hated how they focused on him so much. Literally, he appeared in Season 1 more than taranee The same thing with Blunk Why does this character even exist The series is supposed to focus on five girls, not Caleb
Iirc in the novels, the justification for Haylin being the only one able to fly was because she had control over the air. The wings were not actually functional. It was more of an accessory. Thus, the rest weren't able to fly.
yeah, I just don't see the point of the wings then. Obviously Hay Lin can fly bc of air power, but why give her and everyone else wings anyway? I think they probably didn't think twice about it haha
Hm. Okay. But then why did they have wings in the first place. I know there are lots of birds who stopped being able to fly, but shouldn't wings...make you able to fly. I get why they ignored that in the show.
I've been a fan for so long and I used to have a wallpaper of the show on my old phone, You really work hard for these deep dives! And we are here to support you with everything you do and go through. Love your channel ❤
Thank you for the shout out! I loved that Irma shirt! And your part about Phobos's age was so timely for me, I'm working on a Phobos age theory right now!
I read the comic magazines when they came out and was super upset about Cornelia and Caleb's breakup. I always thought it was such a wierd choice to have him fall in love with Elyon. Cornelia lost both her first love and best friend. I have never heard about the fan vote 😮
The graphic Novel is amaaaaazing! In Brazil we had the magazine and the animated series. I was obsessed about the magazine, the animated series not so much...
Just finished watching the entire thing. I could've listened to another 4 hours ahaha. Thank you so much for covering this, there's really not a lot of material about this show, especially on TH-cam!
4 hours? 🤩 hellll yeah i can hyperfixate so good to this 🙏🙏🙏 ok but w.i.t.c.h was my shiiiit when i was a kid, it was actually something that got me into drawing because i loved the artstyle so much. It also got me into anime as well. I feel like the artstyle in the comics is so beautiful and nice for the demographic it was made for. Like it all seems so magical right. I really liked the marks on Calebs face too like it shows that hes not a human from earth. I also vividly remember a chapter in the magazine that was from some prison world and the prisoners were like stone? And they like broke free or whatever, but there was suuuuuch a cool character there, some lady with like glowing eyes or something like that hahah, i cant actually remember her name or anything but i remember being so mesmerized with that character design back then
I grew up in France and I subscribed to the "Witch mag" magazine for years! I was a big fan of the comic! Never knew there was a show before! You can easily find some old french issues on the web
I only had a cursory knowledge of W.I.T.C.H before this deep dive but I did hear about the whole debacle of "Winx Club ripped off WITCH" and the lawsuits. I've always seen that as nonsense mainly because there is a finite source of things to take inspiration and only so much originality the human mind is capable of. Of course, there's going to be overlap and similar themes between two or more pieces of media in the same genre such as the Magical Girl Genre because so many Tropes are standard for them. Just look at Shonen anime and how much they take from the same pool of sources (Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, etc.) and cannibalize each other for story elements yet no one bats an eye. As The Unicorn of War once said, we need to strive for Magical Girl Coexistence.
Also its a pretty different vibe, what a weird argument, even if it did rip off it did change it entirely in that hypothetical. They have a pretty different tone aestetic, and so on. Whats next, will disney sue captain planet???
On the girls aging up, Irma has used her adult version to seduce an older(?) crush in the comics TWICE. As far as I've read😅 Also, when you said the animated version of the girls was younger, I was shocked coz all screenshots I've seen makes them look older in their civilian forms.
To be fair, the first time could work as a cautionary tale about not doing that when her crush turned out to be a creep and Irma freaked out so much that she turned him into a frog. Like, immediately contrasting what "older" people would want with a young girl like Irma being completely surprised by it.
@@cidevant002 yeah, like Irma wanted to be older and date older guys so bad. Obviously, she was a kid, so I get the naivety. The second time also didn't work out for her at least. 😅
One thing I like most about Nerrissa in the show. This is what we are shown that despite the fact that she is of course a villain, she is not devoid of the human traits of a simple person . She constantly locked Caleb in at the beginning of the battle so that he would not be in danger of being accidentally hit. She gathered the old guards not because it served any purpose, but because these are her friends with whom she is to some extent comfortable living. Moreover, we are not told about this directly through the characters, but are left to figure it out for ourselves. Yes, u can say that the zombification of 3 of her former friends was coupled with other goals - the withdrawal of the Kondrakar council from the game and revenge, the theft of Zambala’s heart and and hit the new guards by taking away their mentor figure. BUT she could do all this absolutely and without caring about her old friends. Even after realizing, seeing that manipulating them like zombie soldiers is not very effective in battle because they are not capable of minimal creative problem solving beyond the direct stupid execution of orders, she did not take all their powers for herself. She did this only when they stopped obeying and were knocked out of their trance
They sold the magazine in switzerland as well! I got a subscription on every birthday of mine for years so i had a magazine every month 😍🥰✨🧚♀️ Thank you so much for this awesome video ♥️
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT I was sooo into Witch when I was 13, loved the tv show and since I was peniless, I couldn’t buy the magazines in spanish, so I had to read the comicbooks online in english. I remember it improved my english so much, the first pages took me forever to translate but then I got faster, much better than school. In my school you were bullied if you liked cartoons and anime, so Witch and The last airbender were my secret passions. I loved this deep dive. I wonder how the comics ended? At some point I outgrew the comics and stopped reading them.
Cedrik Snake design was one of those things that stayed in my mind for decade even thou I frogoten about the show It was nice to revisit this show The theme songs are now in my playlist
I LOVED this series as a kid. When I was a kid, they were serializing them into light novels, and I would always get them through the scholastic book fair in elementary school. I remember bringing it up to friends when I was a little older, but somehow everyone else had grown up with Winx Club instead and had no idea what I was talking about 😂😂
Damn. The dedication. I'm impressed. I don't know why it was recommended to me, but I have fond memories of the show and I was hooked by your video. Thx for the analysis !
Hey just wanted to let you know, as somebody that works in kids' tv animation, getting picked up for 52 episodes is very very standard if you've got someone big backing the franchise (like Nick or Disney). The episodes then all get made one after another non stop, but are usually released in two 26 episode seasons to give the artists a bit of a gap to finish up and to let the investors decide whether the first batch performed well enough to commission a series 3+4. I'm speaking from a 3D animation pov, but usually the production will kick off around a year and a half or two before the first episode airs. A 52 episode series will take about three years from being funded to last episode delivery. If it's a more budget production, 32-ish episodes might happen. If they're very certain it'll be a hit, they might sign you on to do 52 episodes + a double episode length tv special. One of my biggest grievances is that often, I'll be starting on episode 1 of 52 (I'm at the beginning stages of production), and we'll only have 10 or so scripts approved and ready to get storyboarded. Which means that we end up with very bland characters, no big ideas, personal growth or overarching plots because noone has thought ahead that far. Especially if you have several writers who won't keep consistent personalities. I'd love to work on something that follows a bigger plot and doesn't feel like it completely resets with every episode.
I think for Disney it is more common, but not for pre-teen stuff(like the popular shows were renewed per season, not 2 or more at once), and they don’t seem interested in continuing those shows after only a few seasons, unless the target audience was younger than 8:(
I think the second season show runner for witch tried to do more of a serialized approach instead of episodic, which makes more sense for this story(and other stories, if we’re being real ahahah)
I remember in 2023 there was a relaunch of comics (w.i.t.c.h. Reboot), and in Russia it was made in hardcover. I still regret that I didn't have the money to buy all the books
lisa (and fellow lisa fans), which of lisa's podcast episodes are the most entertaining?
I’ll pin this bc I can’t really tell myself tbh ahah
i listen to a podcast while im working and the most 'no they not-' definately was art uni horrors. the number of times I got distracted by the story, stopped the video, rewound it and let out a sigh? oophmhmhm
i also really like "Girl" terms discourse and What is CAMP? (classic ahaha) but idk i binged all the episodes in a couple of days and I don't fully remember what was where. The one about Red Shoes stand out - if i remember correctly it was about the death of the author or about the separation of art from the creator
and the one about Sonmi's comeback ??
why im trying to answer or choose im bad at that because the podcast is great
My favorite ones are Sunmi and her feminine horror concept and history of art ones, cause they decentralize weird men from art discourse. Lately I've enjoyed movie reviews with bissistant🐥🐣🐤
I like the what is art one, the Susan one, the sakura one, and others I can't remember the specific titles of
I watched the film Camp then listened to What is Camp? Then watched First Kill as an experience behind verbal description
girl breakfast, girl lunch, girl dinner, girl dessert, girl FEAST
Girl smorgasbord, girl banquet, girl buffet, gurl midnight snack. Long ago the four elements were balanced,
Girl
@@nailinthefashion 💀💀
@@OfficialROZWBRAZEL they once lived in harmony, but then the corporation nation attacked,
Girl ATE
One thing I loved about WITCH was that the girls had conflicts that weren’t caused by magic- rather that it’s conflicts that are grounded and personal to each girl (Will’s dad, Taranee’s strict mom, etc). It gave a lot more relatability to these girls and I like to think it that its fans were heard and seen from those girls.
^^^This, I still remember to this day my shock reading the comic as a kid, when Taranee's mom slapped her in front of her friends for going out late with boys and wearing makeup. All the panels in that scene have stuck with me to this day in a way that none of the monster fights have. They really weren't afraid to go there and (as far as I remember) handled the repercussions of that scene in a really mature way for a comic book for kids.
That’s very true
@@BakaAngel93 you're so right. I had forgotten about that scene but reading your description of it immediately popped the visual of it into my head.
The idea of Disney execs being super concerned about the eyes being too manga is incredibly funny to me considering how inspired by Disney anime style is.
not them not knowing their own lore AHHA
@@LisaFevrallol yup
It's pure racism / xenophobia
@@UmuPadoru yeah
8:27 i love how winx and witch were basically ruined by americans company, also why we italians were so obsessed with the "magic transformation girls" shows in the first 2000? kinda iconic to me, we need to bring back the magic tho 😭
Because magical girl transformations are amazing. I promise you I would NOT remember Sailor Moon or Tokyo Mew Mew or WITCH and Winx Club if not for the transformation sequences
I dunno, what was going on in Italy during the early 2000's?
It’s due to the popularity of Sailor Moon, gal must’ve been popping in Italy
@handsoaphandsoap no tourist. Italy ALLWYS has.
Italy had the sense to appreciate manga and anime from the beginning. I was always jealous of italians for that reason😢
We can all agree there's no denying that Nerissa stands out as one of the most compelling cartoon villains of all time.
She really was so good! What do we need to do for more female villains like that?
The VA knocked it out of the park too
Thanks Captain Obvious (genuine)
@LisaFevral Even if they decided to make live action versions of these in movies or TV series, I won't be watching. The era of Super girls is over and I just want to watch romance. No girl power or fighting going on. Bridgerton is my fix
@@suezcontours6653there were people who weren't watching back then too
The issue isnt that the Era is done but that people want quality
I just remembered how the girls got away from their parents' supervision in the comics. They made astral drops, which are temporary clones of themselves, who do chores and homework while they're away lol.
There was a wild plotline where the astral drops rebelled and wanted to be their own people, and the girls basically had to contend with the fact that their alternate selves are self aware beings and that they want to keep them enslaved in order to get out of doing chores. Also the clones were kind of evil and tried to take over/sabotage their lives
@@hannahs5783 yeah, it was a whole arc lol. Having temp clones who did chores and homework would have been such a dream for kids. It felt like reading a horror story when they decided to take over lol/be their own people.
I remember that so vividly!
I LOVED that plot, i felt so mature reading about what almost felt like what today we would call AI rights conflicts.
They shifted lmao
Im sorry??? The NERVE of complaining about the eye design when that's LITERALLY THE DESIGN OF EVERY EYE IN THE MAJOR FEATURE FILMS FROM DISNEY SINCE TANGLED????? God I hate corporations so much
they literally don't get anything AHHA
I don't think it's actually a matter of "eyes". That's just an easy thing to fixate on, when you're a hyper wealthy executive and have *no* idea what you're talking about. A long time ago, back in the danga, "manga" was *DEFINED* by the "eye-style" in the boardrooms of the west. You, a busy executive, see the *EXPLOSION* of popularity in your competetion in a language you don't understand made by people you don't know from a country you've never been to. You turn to the people you pay to understand shit for you, and those people are only *slightly* less uninformed as you are for answers.
It's the *same* reason *EVERYTHING* was a "pokemon" for a while. Digimon is pokemon, Beyblade is pokemon, Yugioh is pokemon, Spirited Away is a pokemon! Everything is pokemon unless its a Goku or a Gundam. Naruto is a Goku, and Evangelion is a Gundam.
Why is it like this? Because of the most immediate, marketable superficials. Giant robot? Gundam. Cute monster thing? Pokemon. Anime man who fights? Goku. Girls with big round eyes? Sailor Moon.
For this, execs were more concerned about making things that looked like they were manga, because Disney execs at the time were pretty worried about the rise in popularity of eastern media as their own brand was shifting to Live Action entertainment.
What's funnier, right, is if you *change* the eye-shape of the girls to something more like, say, the classic GI Joe cartoon the girls look suddenly *VERY* adult, very mature. Very *NOT* Disney.
@@nananamamana3591 but didn't she say in the video that they had reservations about the eye design specifically BECAUSE it felt too manga? I'm criticizing the fact that they had the audacity to do that and later use the same design that the creators had to insist upon in every freaking animated movie. Even before Tangled, the eye design of The Princess and The Frog was already starting to make the same choices that Frozen eventually exaggerated and now every important character has those eyes.
@@LunaWitcherArt
Yes, that's what I'm saying. The landscape of animation changed in the intervening years of WITCH and things like Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and more.
Like, she brings up that they couldnt even identify what was a WITCH character's eye, a "manga" eye, and what was the eye of one of Disney's own (EXTREMELY profitable) princesses.
The problem is *deeper* than "they critized it then, but they used it later!" it's that they *ALREADY* had been using it! Ariel, Belle, *and* Jasmine all have large, round eyes.
The problem isnt that they would go on to to adopt this characteistic across all their characters, it's that these people handling budgets and greenlights had *no* understanding what they were talking about, and were picking on something they *thought* was the "problem" based on their purely superficial understanding... when the art style was *already* something that had been *SUPER* successful for them previously, they just couldn't tell because they *AUTOMATICALLY* equated large expressive eyes to manga/anime, rather than Disney's golden age.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm pointing WHAT the mentality was behind the decision making.
"since tangled" that's 15 years after their talk you realize 😂😂😂
I'm a simple woman. I see someone talking about W.I.T.C.H., I come
Same
same
I'm a simple man. I can finally openly like W.I.T.C.H. without being bullied (we all liked W.I.T.C.H. but everyone denied)
I know it's always the underrated shows
HOLY SHIT 4 HRS???? that’s more than i slept last night omg we are getting FED
Holy shit you too? Omg I got like 3 hours how much did you get lmao
@@lizabee484 around 2-3 as well haha a real “women in stem moment” for me:’)
Never actually watched w.i.t.c.h before, but i like the idea that the character with “energetic fiery” personality aka Irma has water as her element, and the “collected calculated” aka Taranee has fire as her element… its quite fun to see them switched from the expectations of the respective element’s personality stereotypes🌞✨
What I like about the show is that Cordelia is the character than would normally be over sexualised . Stereotypically pretty blond tall feminine girl yet her transformation outfit is arguably the most conservative giving a more maternal vibe instead.
since Cornelia is more into fashion than being just pretty it's obvious choice She herself likes long skirts, her guardian outfit is more of chique and fashionable italian/french girl. Taranee who is supposed to be stereotypical nerdy girl has short tight clothes because she's more into action and dance. I like how show referenced comic through some unnecessary scenes when she's trying to think about something or discuss with girls and she spinned on pole
Show writer Greg Weismann confirmed that Nerissa and Cassidy were in love and dating up until Cassidy's death. And this was DOUBLE confirmed by writers who went on to work on Legend of Korra when they faced similar restraint from Nickelodeon to air Korra and Asami's same sex relationship.
Ok so I was reading that the right way then ahahahah
They ARE anakin and padme
Yeah. I never really saw it in the one character she brought up that they were trying to queer-code, but Nerissa & Cassidy were pretty damned on the nose that something was going on there.
in the comics as well? Or just the tv show where they pretty much did there own thing and it's not really canon?
@@19Rena96yeah, the tv show is not even canon so like they can't confirm anything
Hi! Italian that watched the series and read part of the novel!
1. The part of “Will doesn’t say anything during the transformation or makes random noises” I think it’s an English dub thing because in Italian she says something among the lines of “the four elements” and the the others say their elements which makes sense
2. Yes the break up of Caleb and Cornelia was due to a poll in Italy. BUT I’ve seen people online on Italian forums discussing it and they all said that they voted for them to stay together and that the result doesn’t make sense to them. So they speculated that the writers didn’t have the energy to write a nice relationship so they made up the results of the poll.
3. Also Elisabetta Gnone is also the author of a series of novel (with beautiful drawings) that was quite popular in Italy. This was after W.I.T.C.H.
So...what's up with Italy and witches? Especially after that RONE thing.😊. I always thought that was more Germania or Slavic.
@@TempoLOOKING All of Europe has traditions with witches, this also goes for Italy. We also have a lot of people doing magical traditions still to this day and holidays connected to this old traditions like Befana (you can search it on Wikipedia). But I don’t know what you mean with RONE (?).
to the last bit: do you mean Fairy Oak? I loved those growing up, they sold them outside Italy too, but it wasn't popular unfortunately
@@babettmezofi296 yess!! Fairy Oak!
Would it that hard to give them scenes to do stuff keep it spicy and talk and , dunno date but talk a lot.
character pages being catnip for kids is so so real. i recently bought all of the "bratz annual" books that came out yearly and had nothing but bratz character pages and little stories about the bratz. would have LOVED it as a kid
they just really hit when you're 6-14 ahahaha
Also its probably convenient to write, because any decent writer i imagine comes up with a lot stuff about characters that dont make sense to include, but is from the writers doing characters as byproduct what they come up with ideas for characters that are there but useless.
So the small side stories are probably really easy to make as they probably came up , but are cute side stories that still are really nice. Or interesting facts that just didnt make it in.
I guess its convenient for writers too using all their sidenotes of characters and discarded ideas , and fun and even , helping with characters. I would guess why its so common.
4 HOURS???
Damnnnn...
This is your longest deep dive-
This deep dive is sooo necessary. I want to see more people talking about W.I.T.C.H. because it is an amazing series and it deserves better. I have the comics, I saw the cartoon, I have dolls (which are fake, but I didn't know that when I was a child and I absolutely loved and still love them). And I am till this day a big fan
Now class remember to thank Lisa for her hard work
🥹🥰
Thank you Lisa ❤❤❤
The Cornelia/Caleb breakup also pissed off my sister and I when we read the comics. Also, I also noticed Hay Lin didn't have a surname. No wayyy the writers thought her surname is Lin gaaahhh. Hay Lin was my fave btw. She's so cute!
Well... Caleb was a grown adult in the comic version. Would not be a good look having him knowingly dating a teenager.
@@calebgoodman3028 Yeah, weird in hindsight. It was just the whole buildup of them being soulmates then breaking up that was annoying. Also, he was made from a plant fullgrown so his age was unclear. Still weird that he kinda looked like an adult (?), but at the time we were reading we didn't know anyone's ages.
@@calebgoodman3028But he ends up with Elyon XD
@@chriss96dk Good point. I wonder why they went with that as they just made Caleb a huge hypocrite, with Elyon being even younger than Cornelia.
Lin is Hay Lin's surname.. hence Yan Lin. Its a Chinese name.
mother is feeding us finally 😭
Italian here.
I wasn't reading Witch at the time of Cornelia and Caleb's breakup, but it's funny now reading online that some italians think the vote was actually fake and the authors just wanted to give the responsability to the fan to make them breakup, when it was actually already decided.
Also, just a fun fact: in an interview, Elisabetta Gnone (one of the original trio who created WITCH) said that the second arc of the comics was bad because it was made by a man who didn't priotized emotions lol
Okay I think I have the answer for the whole aging up thing. So in magical girl shows like Creamy Mami and Full Moon Wo Sagashite, there were actually studies done with girls where the results were that they wanted to be older to have more freedom, they always looked up to older girls as role models. It kind of goes along with what you said towards the beginning of capturing an age demographic by showing them characters that are a certain amount older than they are so they can aspire to be like that character. I don’t condone the sexualization of the characters, but it does make sense to have them be “adults” so that kids could look up to them and also have the characters put into more intense situations.
right yea, it's just really common to for there to be a wish fulfillment element there. "if these magical girls get these cool powers, wouldn't it also be cool if i looked like my role model that gets all the freedom and capability that comes with being an adult".
@lakiceae5900 yeah and also can you imagine the fight scenes if they looked like 12 year olds? I imagine they made the conscious decision to make them look like adults so it wouldn’t be so jarring when they got smacked around
In full moon, they transformed her into a 16 year old so she could attend an audition... And so she could have a healthy body :(
Its all about the phantasy of being able to age up and do all the fun adult things (by Kids mind of course, like the freedom, and respect), but still being able to return to be a Child with all the perks that come with it.
Like playing Barbie.
there’s literally a scene in the comics where Irma transforms to get into a college (?) party
ТВОЙ СТИЛЬ WAS MY JAMMMMM GIRL those couple of times i successfully convinced my parents to buy it - it felt like i got my hands on VOGUE not less
Same I felt fancyyyy ahahah
It’s the way that you have the wings consistently edited behind you in the world building part 😂 I love the attention to detail 😂🫶🏽
"Your style" was my FAVORITE magazine growing up! Glad you mentioned it! I would love to read more of those magazines, such a shame they stopped publishing them. Also a fellow Russian here
Yeah! Such core memories
This magazine was also published in Poland!
I can’t explain how much I love having a youtuber that knows and explains european lore to a north american audience
I saw WITCH and clicked immediately.. the way i was HOOKED on these comics was unbelievable. It had everything i loved: diverse group of girls with distinct personalities, BEAUTIFUL art, and superpowers. When u mentioned the room plans and character profiles, ugh i lived for that stuff!!!!! i dont know how i was introduced to them, but i live interchangeably between Saudi Arabia and Sudan so i would buy it from both countries (even though it was double the price in Saudi!!) The publisher is the same so the print was in arabic.
1. I remember there was a storyline where they went to the beach. Since its an arab publisher, those girls were covered up intensely at the beach 😂 also when they transformed, exposed bellies and thighs were always covered over!
2. Any physical intimacy with boys would be removed, so there are times when i would be like "what just happened??"
3. No tarot cards or palm readings, only horoscopes!
It was so nice to revisit such a huge part of my childhood.. i used to love sketching them around my notebooks and each girl was my fav at some point (until i gave up and admited to loving them all!)
They were a bit pricey so i wasnt able to purchase them as much as i would have liked.. and i still have my few copies from way back then.
If the comics are ever made available i would buy them all in a heartbeat.
idk if the comics are available in arabic rn, but you might gonna be able to get the English Yen press reprint online!
clicking on the video and seeing the first section say production and LAWSUITS was crazy. fantastic video
Thank you🥰 I’m glad you liked it!
Will not having anything to say during her transformation is still so funny to me I always thought they felt bad during s2 they invented her lightning powers they even gave it lore like her ability to give life the writer's were like here girl u have so many things to say now 😅
Will seemed so out of place in their early battles too, but what was girlie supposed to do with no powers ? I have this vivid memory of her throwing a vase at one of the bad guys lol
@@ahuman3064 she kept throwing stuff at monster's like table's
The writer for the second season did stated multiple times that Nerissa and Cassidy were more than friends! But of course it would never be shown loud and clear at that time
Ok so I got the vibes right AHAHAHA
He hints at it in my recent interview too!
@@digitalbloodlines exactly! ;)
4 hours full of Lisa showing appreciation for W.i.t.c.h are 4 hours of a masterpiece✨
I have just finished watching and I just want to say, as a person who has been hyperfixated on the WITCH cartoon for a LONG time, thank you so much. It’s such a joy to see this world and story presented in a form of such a great deep dive.
omg I'm so happy you liked it!!🥰🥰
Girl I had no idea about the creative differences between the staff for the show. I always knew that the comics were different from the cartoon based off of what other people said (I never read the comics), but I never knew WHY. Your researching skills are amazing and I hope you continue to see success on TH-cam !!
thank you sm🥰🥰 and yeah, it was mostly disagreements between the creatives making the show and the corporate world
WITCH Style was also published here in Poland, for a time alongside the original WITCH magazine (and often had nicer artworks). And the heart of Kandrakar was definitely included several time in either as an accessory.
Also, I really feel bad for Taranee, she was so often treated as a secondary character, has the least interesting guardian outfit and generally was an interesting character, who didn't got as much a space to shine as Will or Cornelia. (That also applied to Hay Lin a bit, but her outfit was great, even with the socks instead of tights - I always assumed the skirt was in duo with hot pants, but like in Aisha's winx).
W.I.T.C.H. was crazy popular in Poland, I remember waiting every week impatiently for a new magazine to come out (just after I learned how to read lol!). Growing up, I didn't really understand a lot of things going on in the comics, so I have never noticed the weird plot holes haha... 2 years ago a polish publishing company embarked on the nostalgia train and collected the comics into books of 400-500 pages. Ofc I'm collecting them all lol. I also finally fulfilled my childhood dream and bought all the 5 W.I.T.C.H. dolls second-hand online in excellent condition and my heart is full of happiness. I can't wait to have a daughter so that I can share the comics and dolls with her 🥺 I didn't have TV growing up so I wasn't even aware that there was a TV show lol.
It was same in Slovakia I had a lot of magazines that my mother would buy me from time to time. I loved it so much even when I was confused by story sometimes as well😂
In Czechia too! I loved it!
I love when Phobos is forced to go to earth and just becomes a useless anime boyfriend lmao
I love when he's forced to be normal, he just can't accept a life outside of a palace or a prison ahahahah
@@LisaFevrallol same
I love both W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club. Fun fact: these are some VAs who did characters for both W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club (Nick dubbed): Mitchell Whitfield voiced Phobos and Professor Palladium; Kath Soucie voiced Nerissa and Countess Cassandra; Jim Cummings voiced Tridart the Despair and the Ice Spirits (Winx season 3); Nika Futterman voiced Officer Rose Wolfe in W.I.T.C.H. (season 2) and Omnia (Winx season 5); Grey Griffin (DeLisle) voiced several characters in both series, including Miranda and Queen Weira in W.I.T.C.H. and Professor Griffin and several of the Winx's moms include Queen Luna, Niobe, Marion, and more! Oh, and the legendary Dee Bradley Baker! His work consists mainly of vocalizations of animals and monsters. You may recognize him as Appa, Momo, Naga, and Pabu from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra series. Not only can Baker vocalize animals, but his speaking roles are so vast and varied, going from low and deep, monstrous beings like Lord Cedric and the Gargoyle to high-pitched goofballs like Martin Tubbs and Professor Wizgiz!
Winx Club Nickelodeon dubs is suckish. Thank goodness they won't bring it back again because they will nearly destroy the Winx Club franchise.
Irma is so water sign coded I love her sm 🫶🏻
О я тоже помню те журналы. Мои к сожалению выбросили. Я так рада что вы выпустили 4часовое видео про одну из любимых франшиз детства
Так приятно знать что кто то еще помнит про все это 🧌🥹
You can't even type W.I.T.C.H anymore because the song comes up, even tho its a banger song
Yeah exactly ahahahha
True
thank you for covering such an underrated piece of media Lisa! I was one of those girls who was so enamored by witch and winx, i didnt even know there was some sorta rivalry going on between the series lmaooo, but i was much closer to WITCH aesthetic wise, the darker and more medieval look of the worlds
by my first ever rewatch of the series in my adulthood i was genuinely surprised by how much 2nd season stands on its own, specifically Nerissa'a antics made it so high stakes for the girls, i would even argue if they kept better writing choices and continued the story the series could have been of the same caliber as the last airbender, but alas... i can praise the series for what it meant to me in my childhood literally forever, it introduced me to "edgier" stylistic choices in girl targeted media which made me fall in love with it at the time. It really was and felt sooo different from other cartoons at the time having darker colors while keeping flimsy nature of girls relationships and life on earth, my inner alt 8 year old was thriving
i think the reason as to why the age up happens is in the history of mahou shojo as genre since one of the first ever known representatives of it had "ageups" as a core mechanic of transformation. it is a bit of "problematic" troupes of early mahou shojo that was kinda revamped during utena and sailor moon days, when one of the main target demographics of the genre shifted to young women, only leaving out the beautification process of the characters.
Yeah season 2 really benefits from not being episodic and leaning into Neruda being more complicated and connected to the guardians! I also didn’t pay attention to the rivalry, and I still love both as well ahahab
Girl I haven’t even started the video but THANK YOU for creating this🙏 I adore this series and still have some of the graphic novels. It was a pillar of my childhood that I none of my friends watched or had heard of growing up. It means a lot, thanks for your time & effort🥲💕💕
You're so welcome! and I'm really excited for you to watch it eheh
Герл ты гений 😭🙏 обожала, обожаю и буду обожать чародеек! Часами сидела на сайте, где подбирала шмотки для Вил 😇😇 и до сих пор где-то комикс лежит и журналыыыы
that anecdote about the eye guessing game cracks me up. it's a matter of public record that osamu tezuka and his generation of post-war mangaka/animators were inspired to draw eyes like that by... disney movies. because they saw how big eyes emoted better.
and disney execs def don't care about their own damn artistic influence ahahah
Also, I could be wrong about this, but I think I remember someone explaining that anime faces are more based on cats than on humans? Like a lot of anime faces don't actually look all that japanese? And cats have large eyes compared to their size.
Thank you so much for this video, it is so refreshing to see someone else who is interested in Witch, Winx and Bratz. This is so empowering to see, as an adult women we do not have to leave behind things we were interested in as a child. We can still be into them and have fun like we should 🥰✨
🥰🥰
Yeah, I still still have a soft spot for Winx. I was obsessed with it as a child and my triplet sisters were too. I probably would probably would cringe a lot if I watched it now. But you have guys in their 30's still whining about transformers/dragon ball/he guy, so I think I should be allowed to still think about what touched me as a girl.
The witch your style magazine was also sold in Poland!! I remember having an issue with hay lin on the cover and being obsessed with it
This brings back nostalgic memories! I used to bug my mom when I was younger to buy a copy of witch. It was heartbreaking when the story ended, I remember it was so abrupt and felt like a big cliffhanger. Now that I watched your video, it kinda makes sense why. The capitalistic mouse really ruins nice things.
I assume you only mean the show, because the story didn't end until October 2012. We also just got a new W.i.t.c.h. book last year.
@@calebgoodman3028 oh, i meant the comic book. Wasn't their last enemy those things that look like the scream painting?
Unfortunately, I'm not up to date with witch now though cause I don't live in the city anymore. Also, in the country I live in, I don't think the comic book is released here anymore.
@@hewwo_uwu Oh. In that case you'll be happy to know the comic ended rather happily with a total of 139 issues. It was still a bit weird since the last chapter spent a big part on this new fusion power called Sixtar and the girls gaining enhanced senses despite there not being a fight in this last issue. Other than that they have a party, everyone is happy looking back on all of their adventures and how much they mean to each other which was just a really lovely way to close off. The final page even recreated the first page of the comic with the Oracle about to speak so it all comes full circle.
@@calebgoodman3028 thank you for the info! I'll try to scour the internet to see if I can get my hands on the remaining copies you mentioned. I'm hoping someone uploaded it online since witch has almost no presence in my country sadly.
Omg I will clean my room, my apartment, my building, the whole neighborhood to the tune of this video
about the striped thights, I feel like they are more connected to their fairylike guardian apearance. I remember a lot of fairy/elf/pixie/fae-like beings in my childhood having either stiped thights or being dressed like a princess. A few examples with striped thights I remember are:
- some schleich fairy/pixie figurines
- some of the fairies in Amy Brown's illustrations
- a tiny book about a wishing fairy with pink and white striped thights that I forgot the name of
Defo, plus its totally a stereotype for witch clothing to have striped tights, so as a costume element to tie together the WITCH title and the more fairy inspired outfits, it really works
A SHOUT OUT? From the deep dive Queen herself?! I’m not worthy 😭
But seriously thank you so much, SEO is not our friend 😂❤
Okay back to devouring the rest of the video 👁️ 👁️
when I saw your comment a couple of days ago I was like OMG you're in the video ahaha
@@LisaFevral haha! Girl I’ve watched your videos for YEARS I feel honoured
I was so surprised that I didn't put two and two together bc I recognized your pfp, but not the name until I found your channel on my own ahaha
OMG THE LUBA RANT YES!!!!!!! Even as a child I hated and didn't understand her. Since sometimes I would end up missing some of the magazines I always assumed they explained her motivations in an edition I missed but when I read all of it as an adult I realized she is just crazy
Society( or in this case, a large greedy corporation)always trying to pit powerful all girl groups against each other. Winx Club/W.I.TC.H solidarity for life.
Ok, so... that's gonna be a long one, maybe even too long to be an YT comment. I usually don't feel the need to comment under YT videos, but this one made me feel some feelings & brings lots of nostalgia (the comments under it as well), so I just need to threw some things out my head through my keyboard.
This video essay was on my watch list for a while & I finally had the time to watch it. For some reason I was convinced that 4 hour long vid must be a rant of the gargantuous 11 arcs, over 100 chapters journey that the comic series was & when I found out that's gonna be 'only' 2 first arcs in comparison to it's TV show, I felt a little bit taken aback, but also curious how it can take so long to talk about seemingly so little material. And oh boy, I was so wrong. Lisa, you did great job with covering all the W.I.T.C.H. lore (both in & outside the story), plot holes and the characters, not to mention the great parts about art direction & design!
À propos the design & fashion - I think I can bring something to the table in terms of W.I.T.C.H. fashion magazine (Styl W.I.T.C.H. was it called in Poland & like other commenters mention, was not only russian thing). If the polish fansite I found is to be believed, it originated in Italy under the name 'WElcome' somwhere back in July of the year 2006. That was trial basis & a hit enough to had 1st 'official' publicacion in november same year. WE was a name of character introduced to the main series at the time. Originally acted as the sort of host of 'WElcome', but later in line the little comic stories with it and main cast got a bit marginalised in favour of the fashion, beauty & home decoration tips, quizzes & generally changed into mainly lifestyle magazine with a lil bit of magic sprinkled here & there. And it had trinkets too!!! (I think I had a heart of Kandrakar [or Kondrakar as it was changed in polish translation] necklece and like a hand fan or something like that from it, quality wise they weren't super great, but also were mad cute & kind of 'for free', so that was a win for my tween-self). The name 'WElcome' doesn't translate into anything fun in all of the languages, hence the 'Style W.I.T.C.H.' translation in some versions. Last issue was published in december 2013, being the 59 of them.
Futhermore I vividly rembember not only the comics & magazines & TV show, but also playing Flash/browser games that was being made at the time. There was one action based and one dress-up game I vividly remember. And I think at least one of them was published originally on official site Disney Channel (or whatever it was called at the time) had, but obviously was later copied all over the different sites with games for kids. Does anybody else still remember that?
In terms of favourite scenes or episodes in the show - for me it would be episode when they were stuck in a painting, I just loved the aesthetic & vibe of it & the plot was decent enough, sadly I can't remember whether in was in the first or second season. The ones I wish didn't happen - anything related to Miranda really. Forgot this character even existed, until it was mention in video & the thought popped in my head "Miranda? Who's that?" and then the snippets from the show was presented & my brain goes 'uhh, the annoying spidery girl'.
For the comics I would say my faves & wished-to-be-gone scenes/motives/characters come in play much later in the series (in the arcs 6-8, especially 8 since it was the one I decided to stop reading comics as I dislike the direction it was taken in), so I'm not sure if I should share it. I would rather not spoil anything for those, who didn't have the chance to read through the whole thing back in 2000s/2010s.
You read through my whole blabbering? Gee thanks, I would give you a bear with a spotlight, if I could!:p And Lisa, once again hats off to you, great vid!
I loved the deep dive! :)
Just to let you know, the magazine was also launched in Brazil, I had quite a few of them! They would come out monthly, but I never got to finish the story :(
2:25:34 Thank you for saying this. I always say that Caleb's presence in the series is one of the biggest negatives and I hated how they focused on him so much. Literally, he appeared in Season 1 more than taranee The same thing with Blunk Why does this character even exist The series is supposed to focus on five girls, not Caleb
OMG you unlocked the best memory of my childhood - I had totally forgotten this existed
the outfit in the world building part is incredible i loved it !!
Iirc in the novels, the justification for Haylin being the only one able to fly was because she had control over the air. The wings were not actually functional. It was more of an accessory. Thus, the rest weren't able to fly.
yeah, I just don't see the point of the wings then. Obviously Hay Lin can fly bc of air power, but why give her and everyone else wings anyway? I think they probably didn't think twice about it haha
Hm. Okay. But then why did they have wings in the first place. I know there are lots of birds who stopped being able to fly, but shouldn't wings...make you able to fly. I get why they ignored that in the show.
"disney was difficult to work with" disappointed but not surprised!
I've been a fan for so long and I used to have a wallpaper of the show on my old phone, You really work hard for these deep dives! And we are here to support you with everything you do and go through. Love your channel ❤
omg thank you so much🥹
I just realised how long this video is and omg. I never subscribed faster. I have no words for the amount of work that went into this. wow. ❤
Thank you🥰
the Oracle shades 😭 im here for it
Loved the video! I was such a big Witch girlie growing up. This was a much needed nostalgia trip
Thank you for the shout out! I loved that Irma shirt! And your part about Phobos's age was so timely for me, I'm working on a Phobos age theory right now!
🤍🤍🤍 will love to see what you think about his age ahah
Already rewatching after a month being up and I am STILL eating it up. Tysm for this masterpiece of a deepdive YT video 🙏🥰
I'm glad you're enjoying it, thank you for watching hehe🥰🥰
I read the comic magazines when they came out and was super upset about Cornelia and Caleb's breakup. I always thought it was such a wierd choice to have him fall in love with Elyon. Cornelia lost both her first love and best friend. I have never heard about the fan vote 😮
The graphic Novel is amaaaaazing! In Brazil we had the magazine and the animated series. I was obsessed about the magazine, the animated series not so much...
Genuinely enjoyed every minute of this
Just finished watching the entire thing. I could've listened to another 4 hours ahaha. Thank you so much for covering this, there's really not a lot of material about this show, especially on TH-cam!
Yeah that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk about it haha
4 hours? 🤩 hellll yeah i can hyperfixate so good to this 🙏🙏🙏 ok but w.i.t.c.h was my shiiiit when i was a kid, it was actually something that got me into drawing because i loved the artstyle so much. It also got me into anime as well. I feel like the artstyle in the comics is so beautiful and nice for the demographic it was made for. Like it all seems so magical right. I really liked the marks on Calebs face too like it shows that hes not a human from earth. I also vividly remember a chapter in the magazine that was from some prison world and the prisoners were like stone? And they like broke free or whatever, but there was suuuuuch a cool character there, some lady with like glowing eyes or something like that hahah, i cant actually remember her name or anything but i remember being so mesmerized with that character design back then
I grew up in France and I subscribed to the "Witch mag" magazine for years! I was a big fan of the comic! Never knew there was a show before! You can easily find some old french issues on the web
4 hour long deep dive and starting out with the Cedric inspired look, this is already the best day of the year
Cedric the throne room vixen ahahahah
Omg, it is literally my longest deep dive that I've listened to entirely and I LOVE IT. Lowkey hoping for you to cover the rest of the comics 😭😭♥️
4 hours? We gonna eat good
FR
I only had a cursory knowledge of W.I.T.C.H before this deep dive but I did hear about the whole debacle of "Winx Club ripped off WITCH" and the lawsuits. I've always seen that as nonsense mainly because there is a finite source of things to take inspiration and only so much originality the human mind is capable of. Of course, there's going to be overlap and similar themes between two or more pieces of media in the same genre such as the Magical Girl Genre because so many Tropes are standard for them. Just look at Shonen anime and how much they take from the same pool of sources (Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, etc.) and cannibalize each other for story elements yet no one bats an eye.
As The Unicorn of War once said, we need to strive for Magical Girl Coexistence.
Negative legend...boy Disney is ass
Both are just based on sailor moon/magical girl mangas/animes. The west acting like these ideas were new/original was just pretty ignorant.
Also its a pretty different vibe, what a weird argument, even if it did rip off it did change it entirely in that hypothetical. They have a pretty different tone aestetic, and so on.
Whats next, will disney sue captain planet???
On the girls aging up, Irma has used her adult version to seduce an older(?) crush in the comics TWICE. As far as I've read😅 Also, when you said the animated version of the girls was younger, I was shocked coz all screenshots I've seen makes them look older in their civilian forms.
To be fair, the first time could work as a cautionary tale about not doing that when her crush turned out to be a creep and Irma freaked out so much that she turned him into a frog. Like, immediately contrasting what "older" people would want with a young girl like Irma being completely surprised by it.
@@cidevant002 yeah, like Irma wanted to be older and date older guys so bad. Obviously, she was a kid, so I get the naivety. The second time also didn't work out for her at least. 😅
1:35:53 I love the way they changed her transformation design in the show.
Yan Lin is one of the best character in the series!
Girl heard me dying of boredom at my office job and jumped in to save my friday❤
I had a feeling that my fairies are calling out to me😭
Four hours of W.I.T.C.H. discussion? Sign me up immediately!
One thing I like most about Nerrissa in the show. This is what we are shown that despite the fact that she is of course a villain, she is not devoid of the human traits of a simple person . She constantly locked Caleb in at the beginning of the battle so that he would not be in danger of being accidentally hit.
She gathered the old guards not because it served any purpose, but because these are her friends with whom she is to some extent comfortable living. Moreover, we are not told about this directly through the characters, but are left to figure it out for ourselves. Yes, u can say that the zombification of 3 of her former friends was coupled with other goals - the withdrawal of the Kondrakar council from the game and revenge, the theft of Zambala’s heart and and hit the new guards by taking away their mentor figure.
BUT she could do all this absolutely and without caring about her old friends. Even after realizing, seeing that manipulating them like zombie soldiers is not very effective in battle because they are not capable of minimal creative problem solving beyond the direct stupid execution of orders, she did not take all their powers for herself. She did this only when they stopped obeying and were knocked out of their trance
You said unnecessary, but I needed it! Love WITCH and started rewatching it last year and even got the first book ✨
They sold the magazine in switzerland as well! I got a subscription on every birthday of mine for years so i had a magazine every month 😍🥰✨🧚♀️
Thank you so much for this awesome video ♥️
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT
I was sooo into Witch when I was 13, loved the tv show and since I was peniless, I couldn’t buy the magazines in spanish, so I had to read the comicbooks online in english.
I remember it improved my english so much, the first pages took me forever to translate but then I got faster, much better than school.
In my school you were bullied if you liked cartoons and anime, so Witch and The last airbender were my secret passions.
I loved this deep dive.
I wonder how the comics ended? At some point I outgrew the comics and stopped reading them.
As a 2000s kid who collected all the magazine issues and McDonald's toys of W.I.T.C.H, thanks for the 4 hour video ❤
you just sent me into such a nostalgic spiral with Твой стиль, i literally forgot it existed
A four hour video commentary on one of my favorite childhood shows….IMMEDIATELY WATCHING
Absolutely obsessed with the term *Queen Babe* 👑💕 this show was ingrained in my brain ever since I was a kid, also Lisa is serving as usual ❤
ikr I'm snatching it for my own vocabulary ahahah
Cedrik Snake design was one of those things that stayed in my mind for decade even thou I frogoten about the show
It was nice to revisit this show
The theme songs are now in my playlist
Girlllll- you ate this up! A lot of people don’t give this series the respect it deserves
BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DEEP DIVE ON A SHOW I'VE NEVER WATCHED BUT REALLY WANT TO!! I'm so excited, I'll be eating this up for days!!!
I lived for w.i.t.c.h. as a kid, thanks for the trip down the memory lane.
I LOVED this series as a kid. When I was a kid, they were serializing them into light novels, and I would always get them through the scholastic book fair in elementary school. I remember bringing it up to friends when I was a little older, but somehow everyone else had grown up with Winx Club instead and had no idea what I was talking about 😂😂
Damn. The dedication. I'm impressed.
I don't know why it was recommended to me, but I have fond memories of the show and I was hooked by your video.
Thx for the analysis !
Thank you for watching🥰🥰
Hey just wanted to let you know, as somebody that works in kids' tv animation, getting picked up for 52 episodes is very very standard if you've got someone big backing the franchise (like Nick or Disney). The episodes then all get made one after another non stop, but are usually released in two 26 episode seasons to give the artists a bit of a gap to finish up and to let the investors decide whether the first batch performed well enough to commission a series 3+4. I'm speaking from a 3D animation pov, but usually the production will kick off around a year and a half or two before the first episode airs. A 52 episode series will take about three years from being funded to last episode delivery. If it's a more budget production, 32-ish episodes might happen. If they're very certain it'll be a hit, they might sign you on to do 52 episodes + a double episode length tv special.
One of my biggest grievances is that often, I'll be starting on episode 1 of 52 (I'm at the beginning stages of production), and we'll only have 10 or so scripts approved and ready to get storyboarded. Which means that we end up with very bland characters, no big ideas, personal growth or overarching plots because noone has thought ahead that far. Especially if you have several writers who won't keep consistent personalities. I'd love to work on something that follows a bigger plot and doesn't feel like it completely resets with every episode.
I think for Disney it is more common, but not for pre-teen stuff(like the popular shows were renewed per season, not 2 or more at once), and they don’t seem interested in continuing those shows after only a few seasons, unless the target audience was younger than 8:(
I think the second season show runner for witch tried to do more of a serialized approach instead of episodic, which makes more sense for this story(and other stories, if we’re being real ahahah)
I'LL LEAVE MULTIPLE COMMENTS AS I WATCH CAUSE THIS WORK IS HUGE
Girl I forgot how messy witch was but it was my fav also loving the astariojn bits im glad you simp for him as much as I do love your deep dives Lisa
astarion brain rot is so real over here😭😭 when a guy is pretty like a girl😭😭
Not me orderning the graphic novels right after your deep dive! So many forgotten memories❤
The aestarion lines... impeccable taste as always!!
😏😏
It caught me off guard and cracked me up way to much
I wish I could like this video multiple times, it's a masterpiece!
thank you🤍🤍🤍
Props to those three ppl pushing through!! For the show!!
I remember in 2023 there was a relaunch of comics (w.i.t.c.h. Reboot), and in Russia it was made in hardcover. I still regret that I didn't have the money to buy all the books