The Winx Club Reboot & The Pixar-ification of Animation
If you want good animation, support good animation.
Earlier this year I finished watching Scavenger’s Reign with Billy and our friend, Ben. There were about 12 episodes, around 24 minutes each. Scavenger’s Reign follows a handful of survivors on an alien planet after the crash of their spaceship. The story is often dark, anxiety-inducing, and gory- each episode feels like the longest 20 minutes of your life. The rub is that you just can’t look away. This unsettling series is delivered in a nearly pastel colour palette. Aside from the compelling writing, substantial characters and beautiful colours, the creativity of the world-building itself is a major feat. The planet is host to a seemingly never ending array of alien flora and fauna that look and move like nothing you’ve seen before- well, perhaps that isn’t true. My good friend and watchmate, Ben, came fully loaded with a heavy backpack full of sci-fi art books and comics by legendary illustrators and artists. As the three of us poured over these works (that Billy and Ben seemed to know all about and I was just becoming privy to) it was clear that the creators of SR were inspired by works of Jean Giraud et al.
I was watching an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball where Gumball and Darwin try to return a video game to the store after learning it was incompatible with their console. Unfortunately, Larry refuses to provide a refund leaving the brothers to spend the episode campaigning their case. One of their pursuits includes a parody of “We Are The World” the charity single written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, performed by a “supergroup” of 1985’s highest profile popstars. In the gag, Gumball and Darwin appear to be singing “refund the world” in a recording booth, with a lo-fi TV filter.
It is not an uncommon practice for shows created for children to have gags for the adults in the room. If a child is watching a TV program, it is likely that there is an adult nearby. In fact, in an interview with Wired, Pendleton Ward, the creator of Adventure Time, discussed the watchability of the show amongst all ages:
“We’re just making it for ourselves. I feel like all the writers and board artists are writing all the jokes and dialog, we’re all just trying to make ourselves laugh and keep ourselves interested. Everyone’s so brilliant and creative who’s writing and creating the show that to write it for anyone else would be boring for them…I think everyone’s just trying to make themselves laugh and keep themselves entertained primarily.”
This is a quote referring to Adventure Time but I believe it applies to the culture of modern animation. Animation is not the choice form of entertainment with young people opting for social media, and everyone else settling with the constant churn of platform-produced original series’. Additionally, animation seems to have a reputation of being either juvenile, like Bluey or Peppa Pig, or vulgar adult comedy, like Big Mouth or Family Guy. Or it’s high-budget CG productions like Moana or Shrek.
Outside of the big corps like Disney and Dreamworks, animation relies on the labour of love. The creators behind animated projects are often passionate consumers of other animated projects themselves. They’re not just writing for kids OR adults anymore, they are writing for people who enjoy animation across the lifespan. While these programs feature characters that are drawn up and manipulated, they feel transparent. I can see the homage to sci-fi art legends. I can see the adults making a band-aid gag on a show marketed for children who wouldn’t get it. I can feel the humanity seeping from these projects, even when they do not portray humans at all.
Yes, my partner is an animator, and I have had the privilege of attending his work parties and events- mingling with other people who work in- and enjoy- animation. However, my affinity to animation runs deeper than just these past two years. When I was younger, I refused to consume media that wasn’t animated. (My only exception to this rule was Space Jam.) Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks seemed too old. Movies like The Labyrinth and Neverending Story freaked me out. 2D animation only.
A show that specifically fascinated me was Winx Club. As a resident of North America, Winx Club aired on 4Kids’ block on Fox’s Saturday morning programming. I caught the Winx on 4kids so infrequently so I relied on the internet for content- usually in the form of fan-made drag-and-drop dress up games. Interestingly, I didn’t really have the opportunity to actually watch many episodes in my youth.
Nearly two decades later, thanks to the internet, many of my favourite old cartoons are available in their entirety on Youtube. During the midst of the pandemic, I watched seasons 1-3 of Winx Club. Often we are blinded by nostalgia and revisiting the media of our youth doesn’t produce the same magic and wonder it did back then (See: most PS2 games). However, with the wisdom of maturity, you are able to appreciate and critique with a keener eye. Frankly, I was impressed at how well WC held up. While it certainly is a cartoon aimed at elementary school-aged girls, it managed to be captivating, riveting, and hilarious to me, a mid-20 something woman.
The original creator of Winx Club, Iginio Straffi announced a Winx Club reboot early 2024. At present, there have been a couple teaser trailers and a few bits of concept art made available to the public. The reboot will be done in CG as opposed to the earlier (and most well-known) seasons which were all 2D. Fans have been circulating the teasers and art accompanied with opinions and speculation- typical, normal fan behaviour.
Here’s the thing: Winx Club has been running for almost two decades with several different shows, movies, and adaptations that all target different age demographics from preschoolers to young adults. Like the variations in content, there are also variations in the fanbase. I fall into the camp of season 1-3 truthers, which I believe are the most loyal despite rejecting 75% of the franchise. To understand why, I will provide some background.
Winx Club was created in Italy and therefore, originally aired in Italian. It was picked up in North America and translated to English, airing on 4Kids, a kids programming channel that was eventually acquired by Fox. However, the creators of Winx Club were unhappy with the 4kids dub and they were stripped of their licensing. After that, it was picked up by Nickelodeon, previous seasons were re-dubbed and the production for S3-4+ beyond continued. This is important because this means that there are three-ish versions of season 1-3: The italian, the 4kids dub, and the Nickelodeon Dub. Even today, among all types of Winx fans, there is constant discussion and debate about which is the best/truest to the spirit of the show. However, the general consensus is that s1-3 is great regardless of version.
After season 3 things seem to change. The animation style for S4 is different, but the characters, story, and energy of the show remain consistent. I have only made it through a few episodes of S4 before I stopped watching, though. Sometime after S4, the show begins to completely change. The Winx Club used to explore themes such as relational conflict, romance, violence, death, and evil. The later seasons seem to forgo all of that in order to target a demographic of literal preschoolers rather than young girls. It went from Sailor Moon to Daniel Tiger. I don’t have a linkable source on this, but many Italian fans report that the success of the Winx Club also led to success of licensed merchandise. RAI, the broadcasting company that originally aired Winx Club in Italy, mandated the creators to target a younger demographic in order to sell more merchandise such as toys and dolls. And of course, the Netflix adaptation, Fate: a Winx Saga missed the mark so badly that it is pretty much irrelevant in the subreddit at this point.
((((((You can see why fans of s1-s3 are disappointed in the subsequent iterations of the Winx Club. ))))))
When I saw the reboot announced from the original creator and original studio, I felt pretty good about it! The concept art looks awesome: the characters look cute, Alfea the fairy school is beautifully rendered, and they yassified Knut! At the recent Italian Comic-Con in Napoli, Straffi confirmed that the reboot will be new with a “throwback” feel. A reddit user also graciously translated some of the main points of Straffi’s livestream from the comicon, including that the target audience is not only children, but adult audiences who are Winx fans. As a S1-3 truther, this is great news! To me, this sounds like Straffi and Rainbow studios are going back to their roots and creating a reboot that is in the spirit of the Winx, and even improved from its premiere 20 years ago!
But it seems not everyone feels the same way…
In my Youtube suggestions was a video by pop culture-essay Goliath, ModernGurlz, titled, “for the love of god stop rebooting the Winx” As the title states, MG is not in favour of a reboot. Part of MG’s rationale is that the “reboots” that came before did poorly and were not in the spirit of the first three seasons which are considered the best. Another foundational argument against the reboot is the disdain for the “Pixar-like” 3D animation style. MG believes that this makes it indistinguishable from many other similar animated shows such as Mermaid Magic or Fantastic Ladybug. Most of the comments from the reactionary masses chime in about how the style of the reboot is targeting younger girls without paying any respects to what current fans want- and what they want is certainly NOT 3D animation. Many of the comments are lamenting the homogenous nature of the CG animation style that is currently popular: “why can’t they just make it 2D again??”
I don’t disagree that the original 2D animation style is superior and that the stylized animation gave the series its charm. I also don’t disagree that 3D animated series all tend to look the same these days. But have any of these angry commenters given pause to think about why that is? The 2D animation space has been struggling in recent years due to what I call The Pixar-ification of Animation. This term refers to a sort of positive feedback cycle that has been going around and around since Toy Story. Disney and Dreamworks release a hi-fi, blockbuster CG animated movie and they make a lot of money from it. They become the recognized face of animation and create new standards that smaller studios are trying to emulate- not to copy, but to appeal to the masses’ frame of reference. My speculation is that the homogeneity of 3D animation is largely due to investors and producers only funding projects that look like they could make a big wad of cash off of Pixar’s coattails.
I hate to bring this back to a place of ACOTAR…
I came across online discourse on the potential for a TV adaptation. I have always said that ACOTAR would be the perfect adaptation to make with stylized 2D animation for a number of reasons. I went to the comments (of course!!). To my surprise, there were heaps of people calling for an animated adaptation voicing similar sentiments that I had as well as many other good points. Unfortunately there are just as many (if not more) loud voices that earnestly detested the idea of an animated adaptation stating that “animation is for kids” and would “refuse to watch if it’s a cartoon.”
After an attractive season 2 teaser, Scavenger’s Reign also got the ax after Netflix bought it from Max with hints at funding S2, but then quietly dropping it. The creators have been candid online about how hard the fight (their words) was to get S1 made. They are still looking for new avenues to get funding and I sincerely hope they do because, damn. That was a good show made by some talented, passionate people. I think S1 is on netflix so…go watch it!! Now!!! I will attach a link to Joe Bennet’s full statement on instagram here:
It’s all about the bottom line and animation as a medium is just not respected and therefore, not as heavily marketed or valued as such. In fact, streaming platforms such as Netflix have strict marketing distribution guidelines that don’t allow producers to campaign their show until a month before its release, which is a heinously insufficient time allotment to create hype and awareness. The shows then do not perform as well as other programming and are strategically cancelled after a few years as a “tax write-off”. The animation industry is put in a limbo, ready to be first on the chopping block as soon as the executives aren’t happy with the numbers. Prolific animator, Elizabeth Ito, said to the LA Times: “I think it’s just trying to figure out how we get our more independent community back and how do we stop all the money from only going to these rich dudes.”
Animation is often led by a community of artists who truly want a better world but are at the mercy of streaming executive giants who are happy to create endless barriers for artists as long as it translates into financial gain for themselves. It would have been cool to have a 2D Winx reboot but if you were a producer in the precarious world of animation, 3D seems to be more reliable. It’s safer to invest in a Disney Princess look-alike in this day and age. This is not to discount the merit of 3D animation and the skills and talent that goes into a CG project’s creation. Frankly, I think Straffi and his team of talented artists and animators are cooking up something good and, despite my affinity for 2D animation, I am super stoked to watch the Winx Club reboot. I do wish 2D got the love and praise it deserves. But perhaps the tides are turning. Arcane: League of Legends on Netflix was a sensation, and Flow, an indie Lithuanian 2D film won the Oscar for best animated picture this past season. There’s more out there than just Pixar, Dreamworks, and even Studio Ghibli. Sometimes it takes more work to find it, and we have to be louder in our appreciation.
Here are some works that I have been into lately:
Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects (2025) that follow an eccentric scientist/botanist after he discovers a Peruvian mushroom that is able to cure all ailments (even death??). This is currently releasing weekly!
Based off a YA series of the same name, Supernatural Academy (2022) follows long lost shapeshifting twins who are imbrued with more power than they originally thought and they set out to save the school, and the world, from the forces of evil.
Acclaimed French-Belgian animated film, Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds (2023) is a psychedelic and heartwarming tale of navigating grief and finding your voice. Some describe this movie as “France’s answer to ‘Spirited Away.’”
Based on the famous story books, Frog and Toad (2023) is definitely a show for little kids but damn it’s funny and outrageously wholesome. The colour palette is easy on the eyes, the sketched look of the art style is so cool, and the backgrounds are simply gorgeous. If you need a break from the overstimulation of everyday adult life, watch this. Of if you have some little kids in your life, they would probably love this- I certainly do!
i just freaking love animation!
