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fandomhigh_ooc2007-05-20 01:14 pm
Fandom Spotlight: W.I.T.C.H.
So what is W.I.T.C.H., anyway?
Once upon a time back in 1992, there was a Japanese series called "Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon". It made a lot of money based on the idea that maybe if girls liked a series that focused on one girl with magic powers in the tradition of Bewitched, that maybe girls would like a series about a team of five different girls with magic powers who fought evil as superheroes. And it turned out they did. A lot. This simple idea was an enormous worldwide hit that spawned 18 volumes of manga, 200 anime episodes over five seasons, 3 theatrical movies, a live action series, a whole host of musicals, and a lot of similar kinds of series by other people.
Nine years later, the creative minds at Accademia Disney in Milan were looking for an idea for a new comic series, one that would appeal to girls. A writer named Elisabetta Gnone and an illustrator named Alessandro Barbucci came up with an idea they were sure that would be a hit: a team of five different girls with magic powers who fought evil as superheroes. Sound familiar? :) They launched the series in April 2001, and it quickly became the most popular new comic created in the 21st century, and the fourth best selling magazine in the world (with all editions combined), after Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Reader's Digest. Really.1 It's currently being published in over 20 languages in 51 different countries around the world.
What follows this is a summary of the main plot of W.I.T.C.H. from the Italian comics -- ignoring almost all the differences in the cartoon and novels and manga -- and using English spellings of names & terms where they exist and French names where they don't, because that's the languages I read it in.
1Or so both the Philippines and UK W.I.T.C.H. pages tell me, citing some data from Brand Republic. Anyone want to refute this?
W.I.T.C.H. for Total Newbs
At its most basic level, W.I.T.C.H. is a multiethnic version of Sailor Moon set in the unnamed English region of continental Europe, but with fewer mad scientists and more Evil Overlords (TM). The title is an acronym made up of the names of the five main characters: Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, Hay Lin. Every plot arc is divided into 12 chapters, which run over a year from April to March in Italy, and several months later in other countries. (The French editions are about six months behind the Italian ones, and even longer when I finally get them here. I just picked up the July 2006 issue a couple of weeks ago.) There's also special larger issues, which are about 180 - 300 pages long, that include new special side stories and digests of past chapters. These come out anywhere from once a year, like in the Philippines, to three or four times a year, like in France. The series defines itself as a fantasy series, and has one long narrative running through all the 74+ chapters.
W.I.T.C.H. is unique as a series in that it's extremely international in origin. Because it's owned and created by Disney Publishing Worldwide, different creators from Italy, France, the United States, Japan, and Denmark have all added parts which can be counted as canon. As such, it's hard to describe the one definite version of W.I.T.C.H. because there's at least four different ones, but I'll try do it.
The Main Characters
Since W.I.T.C.H. is a *very* long series (if it were put into manga-style 180 page books, it would be at 25 volumes and still going), there's a lot of characters who appear in it. The ones listed here are some of the major ones. The names might sound kind of weird because all the characters are named by Italian writers with an odd sense of what good English names should be.
The Guardians of Candracar
Wilhelmina "Will" Vandom: Will is the unofficial leader of the team. She's a tomboyish girl with shoulder-length red hair and brown eyes who's new to the town of Heatherfield at the beginning of the series, and gets to have things explained to her for the audience's sake. She and her Mom move there to get away from her crazy estranged Dad. She's a kind of shy and awkward in her civilian identity, but very focused and concerned on her duty as a Guardian. The Oracle has assigned her to be the keeper of the Heart of Candracar, which means that she keeps an immensely powerful pink crystal inside her right palm, which she can summon and use to restore order to different worlds. Through the Heart, she can control the element of aether/energy/quintessence, and also has the bonus ability of being able to talk to machines and other appliances. Oh, and her obsession with adorable froggie things is totally part of canon. :)
Irma Lair: Irma is the jokester of the team. She's a slightly heavier girl with wavy shoulder length light brown hair and blue eyes. She lives with her police officer Dad, housewife Step-Mom, and a bratty little brother. Irma is very cheerful and outgoing, and likes making jokes and gently teasing the other girls on the team, especially when she's stressed. Out of the main characters, Irma is the most boy crazy, and the only one who both doesn't end up with a steady crush and is constantly being chased by a lovesick nerd with a crush on her. Irma controls the element of water, and also has the ability to change the appearance of things and slightly predict mundane events in the near future.
Taranee Cook: Taranee is the sensitive member of the team. She's a dark-skinned girl with glasses, dark blue hair in a beaded braid on the side of her head, and brown eyes. She lives with her Mom, Dad, and hot older brother. Taranee is the quietest member of the team, and is very concerned about all the superheroics the Guardians do, and whether or not they should or need to do what they do. Her appearance changes the most when she transforms, as she gets a whole new hairstyle with a lot of small ponytails. She retired from the team for a bit, but eventually decided to fight again. Taranee has control over the element of fire, and also has the ability to use telepathy. Her Guardian uniform has the unfortunate combination of striped tights under green hotpants.
Cornelia Hale: Cornelia is the tough member of the group. She's a tall girl with waist-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She lives with her upper-class parents and very bratty little sister. Even though she might seem like a focused Ice Queen who doesn't care about anything but her clothing and her figure skating trophies, she's actually a very caring individual who will do whatever it takes to protect the people she loves. Cornelia had a lovely tragic romance where she met and fell in love with her soulmate, but due to her trying to balance her civilian life with her Guardian life, and the fact that he lived on a different world, they came to realize that they couldn't be together. Cornelia has control over the element of earth, and can also manipulate plants and move things telekinetically.
Hay Lin: Hay Lin is the creative member of the group. She's a petite Chinese girl with purplish-black hair tied back in a pair of knee-length pigtails, and brown eyes. She lives with her parents and (formerly) her Grandma above her family's restaurant. For some reason she's always referred to by her full name. She's a very artistic person, and usually always has an art project of some kind on the go. She's the one that came up with the acronym of W.I.T.C.H. even though the other girls decided that it was lame and didn't use it. She tries to be the peacemaker in the group and sort out any arguments that might pop up. Hay Lin has control over the element of air, and can sometimes see the past. Despite all the Guardians having fairy-type wings as part of their costumes, she is the only one that can fly.
Other Good Guys
The Oracle: The Oracle is an omniscient and immensely powerful person, who can see everything that happens at once, and makes it his duty to keep balance in all the different worlds under his protection. He lives in Candracar, a place at the exact center of the universe, and is the one who gave the Guardians their powers. The Oracle seems to be an elected position, as Himerish, the current Oracle, loses the title for a bit during one of the story arcs.
Elyon Brown: Elyon is a friend of Cornelia and the other Guardians, who turns out to be the long lost heir of the world of Metamoor. Although her evil older brother Prince Phobos uses her as a pawn in his own evil plans at first, she manages to break free and defeat him. Elyon has the power to manipulate matter, and as the Light of Meridian, is possibly more powerful than the Guardians.
Orube: A somewhat catlike warrior from the world of Basiliade. Orube joined the team when Taranee quit for a while, and has stayed on with them ever since. Although she doesn't have any magical powers, she is a very skilled fighter. When hiding out on Earth, she uses the name Rebecca Rudolph.
Yan Lin: Yan Lin is Hay Lin's Grandmother, who also controlled the element of air for the previous team of Guardians of Candracar (incidentally, whose initials spelled C.H.Y.K.N.). Even though she dies in the second chapter, her soul is chosen to be the representative from Earth to Candracar, so she sticks around to give the girls advice and plot exposition.
The Bad Guys
Prince Phobos: The main villain for the first plot arc, and somewhat of a reoccurring villain thereafter. Phobos is the ruler of the world of Metamoor, who wishes to destroy the Guardians and add to his own powers by going on to conquer other worlds. He has plans for his long lost little sister, none of them good. He's evil. Eeeevil. Evil evil evil.
Cedric: Prince Phobos' right hand man. Like many of the monstrous looking inhabitants of Metamoor, Cedric is a snakeman who can also take on a human appearance at will. He's a dangerous enemy, and the Guardians only barely defeat him sometimes. After Phobos is overthrown, Cedric is stripped of his powers and banished to Earth and hides out as a clerk in a bookstore full of old and unusual books, which leads to other problems later...
Nerissa: The main villain for the second plot arc. Nerissa was the keeper of the Heart of Candracar for the previous team of Guardians until she went mad with power and murdered one of her team mates. She was sealed away, but found a way to escape, and is determined to get her revenge on all the former and current guardians. Will is terrified of ending up like her.
Ari & Yua: The main villains of the third plot arc. Ari was a simple farmer on the world of Arkhanta, until the day when he captured a banshee named Yua and used her magic to make himself king. He's very angry at the Oracle for not helping his mute son Maqi, and decides to wage war against Candracar instead. Unbeknownst to him, Yua also has revenge plans of her own...
Endarno: The main antagonist of the fourth plot arc. Endarno and the Oracle used to be good friends back when they were both alive, but something about Endarno's personality drastically changed shortly before his appearance in the series. By using underhanded methods, Endarno managed to be promoted from the council member in charge of guarding Prince Phobos' cell to the new Oracle of Candracar. The Guardians have to deal with a new Oracle who hates them, while also completing their missions to save other worlds and keeping up with their day to day life.
Jonathan Ludmoore: The main villain of the fifth and current plot arc in the French issues. He's an evil sorcerer who came to Earth from Metamoor centuries ago, and is currently trapped in an evil book owned by Cedric. Despite being a book, he's trying to conquer the world.
The Many, Many, Many Different Versions of W.I.T.C.H.
So, what kind of format is W.I.T.C.H. available in?
Um, that's a very good question.
Because W.I.T.C.H. is owned by Disney, and a) Disney likes to make as much money as they can in as many different ways as they can, and b) Disney America really strongly believes that girls don't read comics at all since they clearly haven't been to the manga section of a bookstore there's a lot of different versions out there, and it's especially confusing to say which is the "true" canon in North America. These are the main forms of W.I.T.C.H.:
A monthly comic magazine: This is how the original version is published in Italy, and how it's published everywhere else but North America and Japan. The magazine features 10-60 pages of articles aimed at tween and teenage girls, along with a new 60 page full color comic of W.I.T.C.H. per month. Each issue usually includes a free gift featuring the one or more of the main characters to encourage people to buy it. English editions of this are published in England, Australia, and the Philippines. Other language versions are published extensively throughout Europe, South America, and South-East Asia.
A children's novel series: This is what the United States and Canada get. They claim that they're 140 page original novels with "comic inserts", but they're really just novelizations of the comic chapters written by Elizabeth Lenhard (who also novelized a few episodes of Charmed) with a couple pages of the original chapters stuck in at the beginning and the end. They're pretty terrible and poorly written. Avoid them if you can.
Graphic Novels: Quite awhile after the chapter books came out, Disney America quietly released some graphic novels. Each one has two original chapters (120 pages of comics), and although they're edited a bit to remove some mild nudity that only those strong Europeans can handle, add in some utterly pointless Americanization, and written in a headachey all-caps font, these are still really good.
The cartoon show: Since Disney enjoys milking as much money as they can out of things, there's also a W.I.T.C.H. cartoon show, which was animated in France and dubbed into English. Two seasons have aired so far, with a third on the way. This is the best known form of W.I.T.C.H. in North America. Since each plot arc of 12 chapters has to fill 26 episodes per season, it's a very loose adaptation of the comic. There's a whole wikipedia entry about the differences between the two. The English dub currently airs on Toon Disney in the United States, Family Channel in Canada, and BBC2 in England. As a cartoon series, it's okay, and it's a decent introduction to the world of W.I.T.C.H..
The manga: Comics work very differently in Asia and Europe, so Disney Japan decided to do a black and white manga adaptation of the story. The manga was done by Haruko Iida, and ran in Asuka Magazine, a monthly fantasy/science fiction themed manga magazine aimed at high school girls. Sadly, since Japan already had lots and lots of Magical Girl series of its own already, it wasn't very popular, and the series was cancelled after the second volume came out. It's supposed to be pretty good.
The other books: In addition to the novelizations, there's also nine original novels written by Danish author Lene Kaaberbøl, which are five side stories not covered in the comics, and a four part original plot arc. These are available in North America, and all through out Europe. I've heard so-so reviews of these, but they're still better than the novelizations. There's also four or five books out under the title W.I.T.C.H. Secrets, which offer advice to tweens about friends, boys, dating, health, gossip, etc. If you're a 10-year-old girl needing some life advice about becoming a teenager, these books are just right for you. Anyone else, skip 'em.
Links to stuff:
W.I.T.C.H. on wikipedia, which is a very through article with details on all the different versionsThe Unofficial W.I.T.C.H. Website Comic Scans: has full scans in photobucket accounts of the first 50 or issues
W.I.T.C.H. FTP: downloadable English versions of the same scans
The American opening to the cartoon series
The opening sequence to the second season (I like this one)
Official American Site with heavy emphasis on the cartoon
Official UK Site which has a little bit of everything
Official Philippines Site with games and downloadable wallpaper
The first graphic novel for sale on Amazon
The first chpater book for sale on Amazon
The complete listing of all the books avilable in North America
And I think that's about everything. Any questions, comments, freshly baked pies, shirtless icons, accusations of insanity?
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Nerissa was a much more interesting villain than Ari.