As I’m sure no one who’s seen my recent reblogs is surprised to learn, I’ve been really wanting to crochet something Dungeon Meshi related. So behold Kensuke!
Sorry, this pattern is kinda rough. I originally drew this for a scholarship submission for Lauren Hom’s Passion to Paid class. You can find the original version on my Instagram. I didn’t get the scholarship, but here’s a pattern taken from the overall design elements I made!
When you are still talking about a show you are too old for..
warning: it’s loooong (TL;DR section at the bottom)
Just to be clear I have no intention to look into and review any more Winx Club related content and it’s not just because the current environment is not conducive to this kind of endeavor. After I finished paying off my debts I considered getting back to this but eventually decided against it because some of my thoughts regarding this show have changed a little and I overall no longer see the point. One of the things I wanted to accomplish when I first started was to figure out why this show never appealed to me when it first came out on the FoxBox and well, the answer was very simple if not ridiculously obvious. This show was not made for me.
I was a few months short of 13 when the show premiered in the US and had just enough experience in the genre to have expectations, and this was the problem. When western magical girl series started to show up in the early 2000s, I expected shows that improved upon the standards and cliches left by the likes of Sailor Moon and its genre contemporaries, not just in terms of visuals but writing as well. Winx Club however, seemed more in line with the type of cartoons that (since the 80s) popped up every now and then as promotional material for emerging lines of fashion dolls generally targeting younger girls, with the only difference being that it had a progressive story-line. Even if you argue that Winx Club was not so merchandise-driven in its first seasons, contemporary fashion and aesthetics had always been the selling point. By then, shows that prioritized visual appeal over writing and seemed to exists primarily as toy commercials, were starting to lose my interest. I was also getting tired of certain staples like romantic relationships being bland but senselessly overemphasized and characters (specially protagonists) being archetypes with little to no complexity.
As an adult, I since looked back at shows of similar quality/target audience and I have surprisingly been able to find joy within them leading me to another conclusion. It’s not that I am too old and weary to appreciate animated media aimed at young girls. It’s more likely that Winx Club is a sore spot for me because it is the show that made me realize (if subconsciously) that networks in charge of delivering animated media to mainstream television were no longer invested in appealing to me. As a non-white, lower-middle class girl who was never all that into relationship-melodrama I felt that most cartoons of my day didn’t really catered to my interest and I think I saw the rise of Winx Club as a bitter indication that even the animated genres that I liked or tolerated would eventually become completely inaccessible to me.
I had some trouble finding out what the target audience bracket was for the first season. From what I eventually gathered it is either 4-8 or 5-10, although apparently concept-wise the show was intended for a slightly older age group. I give more credence to the first bracket because honestly I think this show works best as baby’s first magical girl series. The less experience you have in the genre, the less fed-up with tropes and the less expectations you have going in, the better.
Lets just make a thing clear. There is no such thing as being too old to watch cartoons. An art medium is not inherently tied to an age group. Unfortunately, everything is at the mercy of capitalism, specially art produced for entertainment. There is a lot of stupidity and outdated ideas governing how mainstream shows are made and to whom they are made for. Industries don’t like to take chances and they are reluctant to change in accordance to society unless an increased in profits can be assured to some degree…
Look, look! I swear I was just going to post a simple paragraph-long note to whoever cared, stating I was not going to continue reviewing Winx Club even though I am no longer in debt. But, I made the HUGE mistake of looking at the Wikipedia page, specifically the part where they quoted show creator Iginio Straffi defending the controversial choices made for season 8, and here I am, annoyed and rambling. To paraphrase, he claims kids around 10 years and older just don’t watch cartoons as much as they used to (sure, Jan) and they just had to retooled their show for a younger demographic and that just means it cannot be as complex as it used to be. Yes, complex is a word he ascribed to the earlier Winx Club content (level of complexity to be clear). I rolled my eyes, I died a little inside and overall I also decided, among other things, to never read another Iginio Straffi interview ever again.
In an effort to wash away this BS and exorcise some demons let me throw here some of my still lingering unwarranted Winx Club thoughts in no particular sequence before this platform collapses any further:
Winx Club is one of if not the longest running western magical girl group series and its success is likely attributed to the fact that back when it premiered in the US, it was the only accessible and visually appealing series to come out of the genre since the beginning of the millennium. It practically had a monopoly of its intended audience. In my neck of the woods, it was available without the need of a cable/satellite subscription. In contrast, Dinsey-owned W.I.T.C.H. didn’t have that same accessibility and I don’t think I even need to bring up anime in general. The one other magical girl show from around the same time that I remembered coming across in syndicated broadcast was Trollz, and well you look that up and tell me how much staying power that looked like it had.
If the show has struggled in recent years is of course NOT because older kids don’t watch cartoons nowadays. Rather I think the show runners are not quite grasping how the circumstances surrounding their target audience have changed since the early 2000s. There are a lot more options out there in terms of entertainment even if you narrow things down to only western magical girl cartoons, not to mention that Winx club no longer has an edge on accessibility. I also think we consume media faster and that along with all the new options of entertainment means we have less head space to dedicate to one single show. Putting a new coat of paint to the newer seasons is simply not enough to remain relevant.
Adding to the above, It’s been well over ten years since the show first premiered. I don’t have data to prove this, but I am willing to bet that a sizable chunk of viewers were there from the beginning or joined at the start of the Nickelodeon era. It makes little sense for changes in writing to include hacking its continuity, rewriting established lore and deleting whatever meager character development they ever had. Maybe it’s not a good idea to turn your show with progressive storytelling including aging characters, into a cash cow you intend to milk for as long as you can and beyond. Maybe they should have given the early seasons a proper conclusion and laid the groundwork for new groups of characters to lead fresh series within the same universe...or you know, a full reboot.
I am not saying that the show should suddenly conform to my tastes (though that would be nice) after all it was not made for me. I just think that people that stuck with it deserve more than what they have been getting. I saw some positive feedback with regards to World of Winx but from what little I saw I don’t think it was good enough to be the series for older fans. Tone might be slightly different but writing-wise it feels more or less the same as the current series. The attempts at humor are still not landing for me at least. Also, how old does Straffi thinks the older fans are? 10? Who knows, maybe season 8 did its job in drawing-in the next gen, and maybe the planned live action series will be all that the older fans have been asking for. I do wish them the best.
Regarding things that I changed my mind about (though only a little bit)...In more than one occasion I referred to Bloom as a mary sue and this has been digging at me. Either the term has become toxic and too often unfairly assigned to any female character in a leading position, or it was always an improper way to discuss mediocre writing. There are main characters that are created in part to serve as vehicles of indulgence for its intended audience. I don’t think these these type of characters need to be complex to be successful or serviceable but I do think relatability and/or likability are indicators of whether or not a specific indulgent protagonist is effective. I didn’t find Bloom to be effective but she seems to be popular enough with the younger range of fans and that’s what matters. All I am saying is that Bloom could have easily been better and all it would have taken was for the writers to slightly lower the pedestal they put her on. Otherwise, they should have just stuck with the Magical Bloom title so no one would have delusions that the show would ever focus on anyone else.
I stand by most of my other major criticisms of the series. Though I admit that when I was looking at each episode I would spend an unreasonable amount of time on small things or personal pet peeves.I maintain however that to whom a show is intended for should not be a determinant of quality and there are things worth discussing even if one is not within the age-range of said audience. However, it’s not hard to tell what Winx Club is mostly about; it’s romance-centered. If you are not all that invested on that sort of stuff or you don’t like what the show is offering, then there is little point in sticking around because you are just going to get more and more caught-up on the flaws. The fantasy world elements while ambitious in scope are not well developed and consistency is an issue since the beginning that only gets worse as the series goes on. Unless you can subsist solely on the aesthetics and merch-friendly elements, I wouldn’t bother beyond the first movie.
If Winx Club had been the definitive blue print shaping the future of western magical girls shows, I would probably feel justified in making this much of a fuss. However, pretty much any other show I have seen after the fact has been a deviation and an improvement. I believe that’s because more content creators that grew up with the genre (and understood the many ways it could be improved) are finding opportunities to bring their appreciation for it into the mainstream. It’s pointless for me to still complain about the older stuff. Heck, I can even find good things to say about Angel’s Friends and this is definitely a cartoon that was shaped by the success of the fairy school show.
Winx Club is fine, it has as much right to exist as any other piece of mindless entertainment aimed at any demographic. And that’s that.
TL;DR
I am not reviewing Winx Club stuff anymore. I just had a lot of thoughts that were brought up by an annoying Iginio Straffi quote I saw on the Wiki page while I was working on that last post. Extended rambling is what I apparently do when I am mildly upset. I barfed all this out in the hopes that I won’t think about this show again anytime soon.
If morbid curiosity gets the better of me, I might give future Winx Club content a watch. I just won’t post about it because it seems I am incapable of finding joy in it.
No, I don’t take criticisms of the bad spelling/grammar of my ramblings. Let this mess be. This is also not a place for debate, the only discourse I welcome here is whether or not relatability is a word. Online dictionaries say it’s fine but my word processor says it is not a thing. Discuss! (JK)
Freaking finally! I came out with the rough-draft for this back when I was watching season 4 of Winx Club and it has been haunting me since. This is all I remember of that season. Let it be an indicator of what my state of mind was back then.
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