Winx Club (season 5-8)

Winx Club is an animated series created by Iginio Straffi. The show's first four seasons are agreed to be good by most, and they were produced in Italy. The show was relaunched in 2011 for more seasons, now produced with Nickelodeon/Viacom from the United States.

Fans of the original seasons are divided into the newer ones, which were made for a younger audience. Some fans blamed the new American writers, but it was the original creator Iginio Straffi who decided to change the show to be for pre-schoolers. He said himself, "In the last ten years, the animation audience has skewed younger. Nowadays, it's very difficult to get a 10-year-old to watch cartoons... The fans of the previous Winx Club say on social media that the new seasons are childish, but they don't know that we had to do that".

In General

 * 1) The animation has changed from traditional to lazy Flash animation. The characters' movements look restrained and stilted, and the lip-syncing, at times, doesn't line up with what they're saying.
 * 2) It is a disgrace to the original Winx Club series.
 * 3) The main characters have been flanderized and seem to have most of their character development drained away; the biggest offenders being Bloom, Stella - her childishness went up to eleven, with her throwing actual tantrums over not getting her way, and Tecna - her personality went back to season 1 levels, thus leaving her character unfinished.
 * 4) Each season's premise got more and more juvenile as they went on.
 * 5) The voice acting now ranges from okay (the Winx) to horrible, with the worst offender being Twinkly from Season 8.
 * 6) Many of the new characters such as Roy, the Selkies, and the Lumens (which includes the aforementioned Twinkly) are bland and underdeveloped.
 * 7) Nex was also another unnecessary and forced addition to the main cast, being a total jerk. His romance with Aisha is very poorly developed.
 * 8) Gradually with each season the Winx are seen returning more and more to being students in Alfea, which doesn't make sense since they graduated after getting Enchantix in season 3 and even tried to work as teachers in Alfea at the beginning of season 4.
 * 9) Roxy (who was the main focus of season 4) has been reduced to just a supporting character who rarely appears or is seen fighting in this fairy form. Roxy practically disappears in season 8.
 * 10) Characters like Mirta and Lucy never returned.
 * 11) Diaspro continues to make pointless appearances as an antagonist for Bloom and Sky and has already been virtually defeated in season 3.
 * 12) The love relationship between Musa and Riven continues to go from bad to worse.
 * 13) The show has been renewed for a 9th Season and still in production since 2020 despite many fans didn't want it.

Season 5 (2012-2013)

 * 1) In 2010, Iginio Straffi announced that production on a fifth season of Winx Club had started. The season was intended to focus on the "further adventures of the seven magical fairies" as they gained a brand-new ability to choose between fairy forms.
 * 2) * Executive Meddling: The season momentarily halted production when the international media company Viacom became a co-owner of Rainbow. By 2011, the previously-planned fifth season had been shelved. The combined Rainbow/Viacom decided to retool the season to focus on the oceans and pollution, which was a terrible idea.
 * 3) Several continuity errors that ignore events that previous seasons established. The most notable is the retconning of Daphine's death. The pet shop Love & Pet, which was one of the main focuses of season 4, also disappeared without any explanation with the Winx not working anymore, their Fairy Pets disappearing from the plot and the Winx becoming students again.
 * 4) Several shots use ugly-looking CGI animation that looks like it came from a video game from the 6th, 7th, or 8th Generation such as PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox One, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch. (this carried on into the third movie and season six as well).
 * 5) The actual 2D animation has been hit with a slight decline; though season four was the first season to be Flash animated, it still looked very beautiful. Here, it looks slightly rigid and odd. Seasons six and seven follow a similar pattern.
 * 6) The Trix somehow make a return and take up way too much screen time than they should.
 * 7) An utterly pathetic villain by the name of Tritannus, who spends most of the season doing a prolonged temper tantrum.
 * 8) The blatant environmental themes that feel out of place.
 * 9) The Selkies are unnecessary additions being Pixies' rip-offs as little mermaids. Their designs are also lazy since all are practically identical only differing in the color palette along with having little to no individual personality, which makes them forgettable, and leaves many people unable to differentiate each one.

Season 6 (2014)

 * 1) The season has even more continuity errors ignoring events that previous seasons established.
 * 2) Selina and Eldora were fairies who had lived on Earth since long before Bloom discovered her powers in the first season. How did the Wizards of the Black Circle (the main villains of season 4) never locate them?
 * 3) The Pixies return this season after being absent since season 4, however, Digit and Tune have been inexplicably replaced by Caramel and Cherie (characters originating from PopPixie) as Tecna and Musa's bonded Pixies. Something that doesn't make sense mainly because Digit had powers that matched Tecna (powers to control technology), while Caramel is just a Pixie who makes sweets.
 * 4) It is mentioned that if someone stays for a long time within the Legendarium universe that person would be trapped in the book, however, the other Pixies were trapped in the Legendarium from the second episode of the season remaining in the book until the end of the season, where Aisha come in to get the pixies out. Also, how long will one be in the Legendarium until they become permanently trapped in the book?
 * 5) Selina feels like an unnecessary addition to the main cast, so much so that she was forgotten in the following seasons.
 * 6) Stella notably begins to be flanderized this season by becoming more immature and often using magic to change her friends' clothes, as if her friends could not have more freedom to choose their clothes on their own.
 * 7) In some episodes, especially in Episode 13. The English dub gives the girls extra dialogue and sometimes giggles, to the point where it becomes so annoying, it can be compared to a certain film adaptation of a dinosaur show, ruined by 20th Century Fox. This has been translated into many other Non-Italian versions as well.
 * 8) Musa and Riven relationship also became even more flanderized to the point of breaking up. Riven leaves the group at the end of this season.
 * 9) Certain scenes like the final battle with Alcheron felt quite rushed, Bloom just locked him in a chest without much effort.

Season 7 (2015)

 * 1) An overly saccharine premise and easily the most sugar-coated of all of them.
 * 2) Three words: THE. BUTTERFLIX. DANCE. The show's worst transformation sequence; generic outfits, repeated and oddly edited stock footage, and a god-awful song. Not to mention the full version of the transformation sequence drags on for too long.
 * 3) This season wastes Roxy's potential since the season is focused on Fairy Animals and Roxy is the Fairy of Animals.
 * 4) The personalities of Winx's Fairy Animals are just annoying or unlikeable, for example, Shiny is obsessed with Brandon, Amarok is a silly "dog" who always makes a mess, Critty is a snobbish and rude cat, and Squonk is a crying baby.
 * 5) The designs of most Fairy Animals look like rejected Pokémon.
 * 6) The Pixies once again had their roles reduced in the plot.
 * 7) Kalshara is a shameful rip-off of Cheetara from Thundercats, with the same powers as Beast Boy.
 * 8) Kalshara and Brafilius are the two most incompetent villains who have appeared in the entire series, mainly because they don't even try to fight Winx.
 * 9) Plotholes: Some of the Fairy Animals that the Winx obtain are found in past times (Squonk for example is found in prehistory) and being taken to the present time. In doing so they would most likely be causing butterfly effects by altering the timeline after removing a living being from the past.

Season 8 (2019)

 * 1) The low-quality animation hits its peak here; not only is the animation much more Flash animated, but the Winx now look younger when now, they should at least be in their late teens/early adults. Even the Specialists look much younger than the Winx.
 * 2) More glaring retcons like the sudden return of Valtor, who died back in season three, and Trix's backstories, particularly Icy and the attempt to make her likable that falls flat on its face.
 * 3) Aisha and Flora were once again whitewashed, causing a big controversy.
 * 4) Orion’s character design is a complete rip-off of a character from Shardbound, an indie game. No seriously, we’re not joking here.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Unlike most seasonal rots, there is a perfect explanation for it courtesy of Straffi himself: In the last ten years, the show's audience has skewed younger. Nowadays, it's very difficult to get a 10-year-old to watch cartoons... The fans of the previous Winx Club say on social media that the new seasons are childish, but they don't know that we had to do that. However, this does sounds like the creator was trying to excuse the constantly changing age demographic, the terrible storytelling, and making the characters forgettable, as if he was supporting the “cartoons are for kids” stereotype.
 * 2) The animation has slightly improved with improved sound effects, high-quality graphics, and multicolored backgrounds, much like the 2011 Nick specials.
 * 3) The character designs still look cool and cute, mainly from seasons 5-7.
 * 4) The Winx’s outfits start to be more demure and less revealing.
 * 5) The cheap and plasticky CGI animation was discarded in seasons 7 & 8 (which was due to budget cuts at Rainbow following the box office bombing of their movie Gladiators of Rome); since then, the background designs have improved.
 * 6) Some creative concepts such as the planets the Lumens live in.
 * 7) Many of the songs including the openings, endings, and songs of the transformations are memorable and catchy.
 * 8) The new villains, Tritannus (in his monster form), Selina, Kalshara, and Brafilius, as well as the new characters like human Daphne, Nex, Thoren, and Krystal have really good designs. The same can go for the new Fairy Form designs like Harmonix and Bloomix.
 * 9) Passable voice acting, mainly from the Atlas Oceanic Sound and Picture era (which dubbed the 2011 specials covering seasons 1 and 2, redubbed all of the seasons 3 and 4, and recorded the original tracks for seasons 5 and 6).
 * 10) Nex’s jerkiness was toned down after he won the Love Triangle in season 6, although he is still widely hated by the fanbase.
 * 11) There are still several good episodes.
 * 12) For original Italian fans like you, despite the whole original show being considered the most hated, overrated, and forgettable, the characters were not at all flanderized.
 * 13) Unicorn Of War and other fans did many diffrent creative version of the show which is pretty cool.
 * 14) The new seasons do have interesting concept that have executed poorly could've been better.
 * 15) Seasons 5-8 at times have a positive impact.

Videos
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