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Title: W.I.T.C.H.
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, you have nothing to worry about. The W.I.T.C.H. comic is as clean as the show (which in turn is as clean as Harry Potter), although it is more serious. Your kid is not going to be shocked or led astray. People who like Sailor Moon should definitely pick up this comic. Fans of the show W.I.T.C.H. should pick this up for entertainment, as the comic is better than the show for the first season at least. Purist W.I.T.C.H. fans should avoid this as the transformation sequences are censored. (Can you believe it?). |
W.I.T.C.H. came out in January 2005 as a television show. Before that it was a book series with comic inserts in the front and back. Then graphic novels were released. Because of these efforts, W.I.T.C.H. has gained a huge fan-base. And I’m not complaining. For oncewe get an American/Italian shoujo that deserves its fame. Despite the fact that this comic book shares roots with Sailor Moon in terms of origin, which is the most famous shoujo anime in the US, W.I.T.C.H. does fly out of the copycat trap that snagged Tokyo Mew Mew. W.I.T.C.H. doesn’t focus on one person solely. It focuses on the five girls whose first initials are in the title: Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, and Hay Lin. (Clever title, isn’t it?) It also focuses on a girl named Elyon Brown, but I’ll stick to the five girls first. What happens is that Will and Taranee move to Heatherfield just as the school year starts and make fast friends with Irma, Cornelia and Hay Lin. Recently the girls have been experiencing strange incidents: Irma can make her history teacher ask her questions she knows on oral quizzes, Cornelia can clean her room with literally the snap of her fingers, and Will starts seeing her older self in mirrors with wings. Then Hay Lin’s ailing grandmother Yan Lin gives Will a pink crystal called the Heart of Candracar and says that the five girls are the Guardians of the Veil and Will is their leader. What is the Veil? Before the girls can ask, a blue monster appears at the Halloween dance and Elyon disappears after leading the girls into a trap at the school gym. Then Yan Lin dies, so the girls have only Will to guide them. Will herself is unsure about her position as leader. There was one point where she had to make a serious decision and when she makes it, the other girls disagree. In the end everything works out, but it takes a long time before she gains confidence.
Eventually the new Guardians learn that the Veil is a barrier separating Heatherfield from Metamoor, a medieval world where an evil ruler named Phobos is draining the world’s magical energy and trying to crush rebels and obtain the Heart of Candracar. Elyon is his sister and the rightful heir to the throne, which muddles things as the girls are friends with Elyon and want her to return to Heatherfield. And in Candracar, where the Oracle is watching over the Guardians, his comrades are not sure if the girls can handle the responsibility. And they might be right. Twelve holes have appeared in the Veil, so people from Metamoor can travel to Heatherfield if they choose to do so. The question is whether these people help Phobos or the Guardians. It sounds complicated, doesn’t it? I just summed up the first five books or so. This is as simple as I can make it. And there are even deeper things, like the relationship between the rebel leader Caleb and Phobos and Cornelia’s friendship with Elyon. Which brings me to Elyon. She is the rightful queen of Metamoor, but Phobos takes her in and convinces her that the Guardians are her enemies. He plans to drain her of her magical energy on her coronation day. For the first couple of books or so she does seem like she’s the Guardians’ enemy. Later on, however, she slowly realizes that she’s rooting for the wrong side.
Even more so, W.I.T.C.H. is good because its five title protagonists are realistic. Irma, Hay Lin and Taranee are derived from the Sailor Soldiers’ personalities, but the maturities and complexities of their character shines out. When bad things happen or are left open-ended, they stay with the girls for the rest of the series. The girls’ relationships to their families and to boys are realistic. In the beginning there was the whole thing about a nerd named Martin having a crush on Irma (which was one of the few predictable elements), but later on he gained character. For a while, events that happened in the real world were kind of predictable and played for laughs, but later on the writers decided to make what happened on Earth matter as much as what happened in Metamoor, although occasionally gags ensue. Will likes a guy named Matt, but constantly faces obstacles because her powers keep interfering; her relationship with her mom is disintegrating as she can’t tell her mom about her job as a Guardian. I can relate to all the girls, whether it’s about coming up with artistic ideas, avoiding immature boys, fighting with my parents, trying to get good grades, and trying to decide between boys.
I once made a list in my Tokyo Mew Mew review of what elements were copied from Sailor Moon, but I think I’ve already disproved several of the elements here. Any other similarities are handled so that you don’t mind much. In fact, W.I.T.C.H. in terms of any connections with Sailor Moon is a tribute. It keeps things like the girls having nude transformation scenes (or supposed to- see below) becoming beautiful and big-breasted when they are in Guardian form, but with other things like Elyon being the princess of Metamoor and Will growing into her role as the Guardian leader it’s original and inspiring in its own right. The art style is not typical manga, but then again it’s Italian, not Japanese. Do note this, however: the characters are not distinct sometimes; there are occasions where they’re figureheads in the distance and there’s little to no detail. (This occurs in the beginning. Later on the artists get better.) But when there’s detail, character designs are original and beautiful. In fact, everything about the art is beautiful, from the streets of Metamoor to Will’s house on a rainy day. The colors are also very bright, which helps in balancing the serious tone in later books. That might explain why the art style is like a cartoon and why even the villains don’t look as menacing as their characters suggest. I do believe that if Disney had printed this in black and white that the original spirit would’ve been lost and the results would be ugly. They did a good job in picking their artists, who are unfortunately unnamed on the title. The writers are unnamed too, for that matter, except for the ones doing the book adaptation.
What makes me really mad is that Disney decided that showing the girls naked as they transformed was not appropriate and censored every scene where breasts were shown. Entire panels or pages have been cut. Someone didn’t let them know this fact: when the breasts resemble tennis balls, no one cares. Because of this mistake, I’m lowering my initial grade by one count. That’s why I prefer reading the book versions of the comic books because there’s less censorship. (What were the book versions? Essentially someone took the time to transcribe most of the comic to words. I like these better than the actual comic because they provide more character depth and description.) Until W.I.T.C.H. gets released uncut, I suggest that if you want to read the comics, then you should read them in the bookstores but not buy them. Or if you don’t want the bookstore owners to throw you out, request for the books from your library. Or if you don’t care about the censorship at all (and there are people who don’t), then buy the books. Write to Disney and request that they release it with no censorship. Also ask them to put the creators’ names on the covers so we know who’s writing and drawing this comic book. They deserve the credit.
- -Review By Jaya Lakshmi - -