W.I.T.C.H.

Ducktales is great, and Gravity Falls is still pretty recent, so no, I can't.

Gravity Falls isnt from "These Days"

Why not? It's still fresh in everyone's memories.

And there's still Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, which ended just this year, or Tangled the Series, which is still ongoing.

Everyone hated the ending and the last season was kind of awful. Of Star I mean.

Edited by AegisP on Aug 11th 2019 at 9:40:44 AM

I didn't hate the ending, and thought the last season was just fine.

Okay, I admit I'm only acting on hearsay anyway. If you like it, it cant be that awful.

The ending was controversial, but for the most part people still like the series as a whole. And I'll echo the sentiment about Tangled.

It's not like WITCH didn't take a while to find its footing. Season One was decent but it was Season Two that everyone sings praises about. Season Two took all the scattered elements of its predecessor that were good and brought them together into something even better. Literally, in cases like the Knights of Vengeance. Raythor is my second favorite character after Will.

Heck, I'm still surprised how much I liked Will. Normally these Five-Man Band series put the most generic character as the leader. Being the leader is their character. Will brought so much more to the table and that really hooked me in.

I even like how they titled the episodes in season 2 — the ABC Saga — because it makes it so much easier to remember what happened in what episode. No need to remember the whole title, just the letter.

It's also really cool how they'll namedrop the word in the title during the episode, sometimes so subtly you have to rewatch before you realize what they did.

Man, but Will's arc in season about facing the stigma of holding the place Narissa did, the questions of if she's destined to fall the same way or go mad from power, and her refusal to let that happen- to give in to pride and paranoia and her insistance on being a better person. That was so good.

W.I.T.C.H and Teen Titans kinda blew away the bar for Cartoons in my childhood, and W.I.T.C.H especially did it for what other people dismissed as 'girly shows'.

I confess, I never paid much attention to this show until I wanted to check out another one of Greg Weisman's works. Though I still prefer his season, season one was a bit better than I expected. It was a pleasant watch either way, and I hope people can discover it via Disney Plus.

Anyone else see Shagon as basically a more kid-friendly Angelus?

They're the Superpowered Evil Side to the heroine's love interest.

They psychologically torture said heroine for pleasure.

They both have an "angel" theme (Angelus' name, Shagon's appearance).

Edited by windleopard on Aug 12th 2019 at 7:35:28 AM

One key difference, though — Will had no idea Shagon and Matt were the same person.

I always liked how Shagon used Matt's memories to trick Will into thinking he did something horrible to Matt, which made her hate him, which is what he feeds off of.

If Shagon kills Will, Nerissa wins. If Will kills Shagon, Nerissa still wins, because it turns out he was Matt the whole time. It's that devious bit of plotting that really makes me like Nerissa as a villian.

Actually Will killing Shagon wouldn't really work in Nerissa's favor given that she needed him and the other Knights of Destruction as a power source to fuel her and the other ex-Guardians. It's also why Shagon kept using the fact that he knew where Matt was as leverage even though he had no intention of telling Will.

In fact, I wonder if Matt might have a bit more control over their body from early on. We see him expressing concern for Khor a few times, which doesn't vibe with a guy who is called "the Angel of Malice" and whom despises being treated with compassion.

Edited by windleopard on Aug 12th 2019 at 11:49:00 AM

I agree. This makes tracking down an episode soo much easier.

My favorite part of this whole relationship of hate was when the Knight of Destruction first attacked the Guardians and Shagon immediately shoots off this psychological bullet at Will and she has the perfectly reasonable but very backfiring response of totally losing her head.

Shagon: "You mean like I stayed away from Matt?"

Will: "Matt? What did you do to him? Did you hurt him?"

Shagon: "How much would you hate me if I did?"

Will: "YOU'RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT!"

She's already shooting out lightning before she actually attacks just from her temper being out of control

I added a review for the show not long ago, so I won't waste anyone's time by repeating that here. But I'd like to expand on one particular issue, if you can call it that: season 1.

I could not possibly disagree more vehemently with the popular assessment of the first season (including that in this very thread). In fact, I would strongly contend that the show would not have been a fraction as incredible had it had the second season team of writers throughout. Because for all of Greg Weisman and co.'s brilliant, mind-blowing plot twists in season 2, it is season 1 that stands out more compared to other Western animation for one simple reason: it absolutely nails characterization, in a way that no other cartoon even approaches.

In W.I.T.C.H., just about every single character with sufficient screen time, whether major or minor, is not only engaging from the very beginning but also makes an absolute mockery of cliches and stereotypes, often seemingly to the point of intentional parody. And then there's the dialogue, super hip yet intelligent and with purely unforced humor - Andrew Nicholls and Darrell Vickers' professional comedy experience, far from being the millstone that Weisman apparently thought it was, was absolutely instrumental.

Of course, most cartoons don't particularly bother with character depth, just as they don't with story depth or any other kind. But of those that do, they always seem to fall into one particular trap that's also far too common with other "quality" media: the writers think that character development is a substitute for good character writing. No, no - a thousand times no!

The characters in a story have to engage the audience right from the start. If you intentionally write characters poorly just to "develop" them later, you are already alienating a critical chunk of your audience, and more importantly you're needlessly harming the quality and integrity of your own story. This is not to say that writing characters the audience should outright hate is always a bad thing - consider those villains that we all love to hate. But there is a huge difference between full-fledged hate for good reason, and severe irritation and annoyance for a bad one.

Yet despite season 1's setup, this actually nearly happened in season 2. Episodes N to R in particular come so close to full-on character derailment, turning the girls into near-caricatures one by one, that they almost act as a showcase of what each of the W.I.T.C.H. girls would be like if this were a "regular" cartoon characterization-wise. Given that Weisman and co.'s other animated series are unfortunately also no exceptions to this, the conclusion seems obvious.

(Oh, and speaking of artistic integrity, the US version of W.I.T.C.H. is butchered almost to 90s anime dub levels. Please watch the original if you can, especially since it's actually on DVD. But that's a whole other story.)

Edited by modernponderer on Oct 11th 2019 at 4:15:02 AM

[is still waiting for this show on DVD]

I can agree with that.

I watched the show really slowly and with a moderate amount of depth as I was writing a recap/IWIW series while doing it.

And I definitely noticed how great the characterization of everyone was, even if I absolutely made fun of Will's tendency to resort to Crime at the first opportunity.

"also makes an absolute mockery of cliches and stereotypes"

I think my favorite example of this is in the episode with the pop star Vance Michael Justin. How he and Martin become fast friends, because they both have a keen interest in sound engineering.

I didn't expect you of all people to drop in right after my post! Your IWIW was the best I've seen for this show by far... out of the handful that exist, but still. (Even if you misinterpreted some things; that "birthright" line was referring to Elyon, who doesn't need a talisman to create folds - not Will, who obviously does.)

I have to strongly disagree on your example, though. In fact, it's a great example of what I'm criticizing the second season for, and what many other shows tend to do: "Oh look here's an undeveloped character, let's give them a completely unexpected character trait and call it a day!" This particular instance made for a fun gag, absolutely, but it is meaningless in terms of genuine characterization. (As a side note, it's from episode O, which is obviously in the N to R range that I mentioned.)

Now Will's quasi-criminal tendencies, on the other hand - that actually is an excellent example of what I'm praising the first season for. (How ironic.) It's just so completely against the grain, whether for a supposed kids' show, or for the main character, or for the leader of the good guys... or girls. And it makes not only her, but also the show as a whole that much more interesting.

Edited by modernponderer on Oct 11th 2019 at 7:32:58 AM

Yeah, I definitely did misinterpret a few things along the way. It took me a few minutes to work out what you meant by the "birthright" line, but in hindsight wow that was a big mistake on my part.

The VMJ-Martin connection might just be a one off gag, but I still love it because I've never seen that particular setup before. But I can see why you'd prefer other examples of characterization over it.

The lack of a moral lesson for every episode was just so refreshing.

I think it was episode 5 with the conclusion of the episode being they should gaslight Professor Collins to hide their mistakes where I first realized the creators were not planning on having the girls learn the correct lesson each time.

Obviously, they still learned lessons some of the time. Like with Not!Lila Sondra a few episodes later.

But it's still one of my favorite aspects of the show.

I still wonder what would have happened if this series had gotten more seasons like Winx.

...there's an original version? There's no mention of that on its wika page. And the cartoon was made for America, by American writers. It was released in other countries, but there's no mention of major changes to the show.

Edit: Oh, hey, 32ndfreeze! I read your WIW just recently, too! Nice to see you're still around. One other little slip-up that bothered me, though — Sand Pit from season 2 is not the Kaithim from season one — it's actually the living sandpit from an earlier episode, which the Guardians glassed.

Edited by drac0blade on Oct 11th 2019 at 8:18:17 AM

Well, the comics the show was based off of are Italian, so maybe they assumed the show itself was originally Italian.

Related, I've noticed a trend among certain people to adamantly state the original language version of anything is the best ''unless' it's English. It's a very specific brand of elitism/pretentiousness (not saying the poster is necessarily like that, but the comment made me think about it).

I'm well aware the show was made in English - I actually just added International Coproduction to the Trivia page, with far more details than that. But the version aired in the US differs from the original in several ways:

1. Most obviously and importantly, the opening is replaced. YMMV on how good the US one is; IMO it's absolutely awful (it looks like a YouTube fan AMV, and a poorly-made one at that - I can hardly believe the video was considered broadcast quality). But this causes far more problems than may seem at first:
   • The music does not match the show at all because it's not by the original composers, and the Background Music was built around the original theme like with many other cartoons. (Well, that and it's far too hardcore for the show, though it certainly fits the Action-Hogging Opening... but that's another YMMV.)
   • The opening doesn't change between seasons even though their premises are very different, but does randomly change mid-season 1.
   • The ending instrumentals are also the same throughout, which furthermore means that "S is for Self" is missing the final portion of the song during the credits... that might seem relatively unimportant, but it really adds to the already huge emotional impact of the episode (especially the first time around, since it's completely unexpected).
2. The US version is the only one with a different audio pitch. Even in Canada (which also uses NTSC), the pitch was the same as on the PAL DVD releases. This makes everyone sound older - obviously a problem with a show starring adolescents - and also butchers the music, which in this series specifically relies on tempo far more than in some other shows.
3. The first two episodes are unnecessarily joined together, have two scenes outright cut out, and have very over-the-top narration added at the beginning that completely ruins the suspense.
4. "Walk This Way" is Out of Order. Now, it's one of the least continuous episodes in the series, so it wouldn't matter much... except that it breaks the continuity surrounding the Book of Secrets between the end of "The Mogriffs" and the start of "The Underwater Mines". (There's also the whole episode W airing on Halloween thing, but it seems to have been spared this by the obviously alphabetical titles... thanks Greg Weisman.)
5. And of course, the fact that it isn't on DVD means that you're watching the show in potato quality, butchering the gorgeous French artwork as well.

Edited by modernponderer on Oct 17th 2019 at 4:18:06 AM

OMG you are right the USA opening is fucking awful.

EDIT:, I hate to say this you guys but you should have done your research before accusing others like that.

Edited by AegisP on Oct 12th 2019 at 9:58:34 AM