Magical Bloom

[WinxClub4Life]

Magical Bloom is a big part of Winx History. It was the pilot episode of Winx Club,a pilot episode is a term for an episode that is supposed to show an test audience and see what they think and it can be vastly diffrent then the final product or it might get cancelled,these are usually not shown to the public and quite a lot of times it turns into lost media which is unfortunetly the case with Magical Bloom The production began in 1997 in about July which is when Sailor Moon was concluding. Sailor Moon was an inspiration behind Winx Club,it was an Japanese Shoujo Manga which had two anime's,many musicals and an live action adaptation that was really loved! (Just my opinion but Fate could never!) And it was brought to Italy too and was very successful and so that was how the inventor of The Magical Girl genre was starting to conclude and Iginio Straffi decided this could be a perfect oppurtinuty for a similar but still very unique cartoon,something more European compared to Sailor Moon who came from Japan,so Rainbow got to work,it was a very small company at the time but they did have big success with one of their cartoons Tomy And Oscar and this concept had true potential so they wasted no time and got to work,little is known about Magical Bloom but today I wanted to educaute fans about Magical Bloom! I will make other posts so this one won't take so long!

[WinxClub4Life]

Chapter 1: The looks of Winx of the 90's

The characters were VASTLY diffrent in Magical Bloom,at least some of them!

Bloom has only a single change in her casual outfit her blue crop top has a yellow heart back then and her wings were the same and her tiny crown and her hairstyle was the same in her fairy form and she had a turtle neck dress with transparent very light blue arms and blue non-transparent skirt with blue leggings and a pair of light blue boots with an tiny orange heart in the knee,and in Mattel's Season 1 Bloom's doll box in her bio she is called Fairy Of The Wind,some people theorized this was the case in Magical Bloom but Iginio Straffi says she has always been The Fairy Of The Dragon Fire or Flame whichever you prefer. In the transformation sequence she slowly turns to the screen does a pose and the transformation ends...an intresting choice for the transformation of the Main Character...

Flora started off as a white person,it feels off and bizzare tl look at Flora like this because you want to say it is whitewashing but there was no Latina Flora and she also had purple hair. She wore a beige crop top with a green skirt and sandals. In her fairy form she was wearing a tube top dress with a tutu-like skirt and her wings were similar,the shape was the same but it was yellow and much bigger and detailed and she has green ballet shoes with beige leggings,there is also one concept art with her dress being beige instead of the hot pink like all other concept art and her flower choker and was completely pink and the sequence had Stella turning into her flower necklace and then Flora getting surrounded vines and then Flora getting free of them and then the vines turn into leaves and cover the screen and turn into pilot Musa's wings

Stella was named Sasha which means guardian or a person guarding and she wore purple eyeshadow and a green cropped tank top with a sunflower and she wore orange pants with a Spanish cut and with a golden belt with suns and she had the same sandals as her casual outfit in Seasons 1 and 2. In her fairy form she had the exact same hairstyle but the same can't be said for her dress it was a orange top that I am unable tl explain because I am not that educated in fashion terms and she had an orange mini skirt and it was attached to the top with a chain and she also had the Scepter Of Solaria and her wings were just larger. In the transformation,she appears out of nowhere with her scepter and spins while flying and creates a forest background and poses in the Sun with her scepter and then we cut to Flora's choker.

Musa was Lisa (I can't be the only one thinking of Lisa Fevral) in Magical Bloom and she also seems to be Asian represantation of the group,she had short green hair and she had a pink-like light red shirt with an long sleeved cream colored shirt under that with cream colored pants and red sneakers,her fairy form had similar wings to that of pilot Flora's but they were seemingly upside down and she had a red dress with puffy sleeves and a knee long cape with a cut in the middle and a white shirt underneath and white knee long leggings and red boots and she used her flute as a weapon to do spells. In the transformation she spins while playing the fluit and smashes it to the floor and seperates the floor into two pieces and then it cuts to Tecna's eye

Tecna was called Tina and she was a robot,a cyborg fairy if you will,her physical apperance was the same but she had a pink top with a T on it and a blue jacket and capri combination and she had the same sneakers as in Seasons 1-2 but they were blue and her fairy form was practically the same except it had some green and sliver details and her transformation sequence is her opening her yes and smiling to the camera but then spotting and then attacking a beast by dodging him and then hitting him on the back and then it cuts to Bloom. Fun Fact: other people at Rainbow wanted to take her out of the show but Straffi INSISTED she would still be inside the show,can you believe that?! And then he hardly gave her any screentime and she was hardly in ANY merchandise,now that is a bit of a suprise LOL!

I will be posting other chapters whenever I have time! Which is probably tomorrow but right now I have low battery and it is late here so Good Morning,Good Afternoon and Goodnight!

[juleic1123]

I love all these details! I really need to do an article/event/new about all the magical bloom things Iginio shared on insta!

[WinxClub4Life]

I love all these details! I really need to do an article/event/new about all the magical bloom things Iginio shared on insta!

I didn't watch all of them as I don't have insta and it was going to be and was reposted or the details were shared on YouTube but I have a special intrest for this,I have been watching a lot of Ray Mona videos lately and she finds A LOT of lost media,I would want to tell her about this but I am pretty shy but I want to see the pilot in HD so badly! A whole lot of Winx fans and people who found a lot of lost media would come together to make one mass documentary potentially revealing every detail,Rainbow refuses tk show it but they know we want it,I am crossing my fingers that is just a marketing strategy so that once they tease the release of the pilot we woukd get more excited,Rainbow sure knows how to promote themselves so maybe it should be lost for a little longer so that the company would be able to make more,honestly the things in the above and Mattel Winx Doll Reproductions are my biggest wishes,still hoping they would turn into reality,anyway I will post chapter 2 a few hours later (if I stop being so lazy ) and it will be about the diffrences in the locations and the other characters (The Trix,The Specialists etc.) Chapter 3 will be about Magical Bloom's plot and why it failed,Chapter 4 will be about the rise of W.i.t.c.h and Winx Just Fairies and will give subtle hints of some drama between the 2 fandoms Chapter 5 will be about the general success of the final product and the lawsuit by Disney against Rainbow Chapter 6 will be the second last and will be about The Evoloution Of Winx and Chapter 7 is about the reboot,the spin-offs (exclusing Pop Pixie cuz why not LOL) and the future of Winx and what fans think the brand should do and what the fans really want,so this is my current plan and maybe I will touch on other things like character essays,explaining the world building of Winx Club,and maybe one full thing explaining EVERY SINGLE THING in Winx Club,like a Winxpedia again this is what I want to do so but right now I am not ready and after I start school (me and mom moved to a new home going great btw fyi so I will skip a week and they were going to repeat things anyway and I am a straight a student 80-90 is nearly every single one of my test scores not tying to brag) I will also have tennis so I will try anyway to all of you that just returned to school,I wish you a happy and educational year!

September 13 : Sooo,I am being undecisive on how to write Chapter 6 so it might be cancelled so I will seperate Chapter 7 into two pieces.

[WinxClub4Life]

Chapter 2: The Schools Of Magix and other characters

Alfea was a medieval castle with many towers and a big gate that looked straight out of a Disney Princess movie and one version was a way larger building and there was also anither version that can be seen in Rainbow's 2003 website and it was way thinner and longer and there was water around it and a wooden bridge and a gate leading to the school. One of the footage from the pilot show The Winx having a pillow fight and it shows their dorm,it has a beige walls and floors and a drawing made of a few stripes in muddy blue colors and the other footage of Alfea has a potion blowing up with smoke coming from it and everyone has a pink fluid on them and according to a storyboard and according to Stella's cartoonishly shcoked face Stella was trying to understand what was going on and then it blew up,this might be the inspiration for Stella blowing up the potion lab and getting expelled in Season 1. And there was a screen shot of the halls of Alfea and the floors and walls are beige with Faragonda seemingly doing an announcement and the Winx were in their Season 1 Ballgowns except for Bloom. so it pretty much lacked color which was not the case with Cloud Tower and speaking of Cloud Tower...

Cloud Tower was heavily inspired by Maleficent's Castle from the 1959 Disney movie "The Sleeping Bauty" as it was a thin and very long building with dark clouds and it was also located on top of a mountain. All screenshots an footage we have of it is in a room with a green-blue walls but since The Trix was the focus,we didn't get to see the floor and the walls also had dark blue pillars and there was also a footage of Sasha,Lisa and Bloom in a Library in casual form and then weird monster/ghost appear and the other part of the fottage show Bloom opening a book and light and a burst of wind coming through it. This maybe the restricted section of the Alfea Library or Cloud Tower but looking st the colors this might be Alfea. Sadly,there have not been pictures of Red Fountain but since footage and concept art of The Specialists exist,Red Fountain does too!

The Other Characters And Designs: Like I said before there was a scene of the girls having a pillow fight and one designs were kept the same,one was not. This scene only showed Sasha,Tina and Bloom Tina had one change from her Season 1 pajama counterpart and it was the colors,the purples were not there instead there was a really light blue.

The Trix: There is only one known diffrence and it was thst Icy had an Ice collarbone and there was also a screenshot of them in black robes which Led to people speculating that they were The Ancestral Witches in disguise in Magical Bloom.

The Specialists were here too! Only two scenes and concept art had been revealed for now,in one of these we see The Specialists in Red Fountain uniform taking out their swords and none of them were changed from the final version,this might be later footage considering concept art shows diffrent looks for The Specialists and also only Sky and Brandon were going to be love intrests. Sky went unchanged except he had two stripes on his shirt,yes that is actually it for Sky. Brandon had new glasses,yes that is it. Timmy was really diffrent,he had round and huge glasses,his hair pretty much broke the rules of gravity and he looked like Jimmy Neutron and he was wearing a shirt with cargo shorts and sneakers and sadly we didn't see him in colors. Riven had extremely wavy and long hair and he had a shirt with puffy long sleeves and pants.

So this was Chapter 2,it is more of a continuation than an sequel but there not too much information not surrounding The Winx,don't worry I will make Chpater 3 soon!

[WinxClub4Life]

Chapter 3: Magical Bloom's Plot And Why we didn't get Magical Bloom...

We don't know about too much the plot diffrences but we can make some theories for example we never saw Earth so maybe Bloom wasn't on Earth or The Magical Dimension straight up did not exist! Now these are just theories remember that,Iginio Straffi did not talk about any plot diffrences or the plot at all so the only OFFICIALLY mentioned one is Tecna being a cyborg so here are a few theories. Knut The Ogre did not speak or not need glasses and was green is proved in a footage and since he accidently jumped to fire/lava so there might have been an monster of the week type of formula. According to some sources The Winx were 13-15 in this version but this is unconfirmed. Bloom's Season 1 Mattel Doll's bio says she is The Fairy Of The Wind so people theorized that in Magical Bloom she was The Fairy Of The Wind. In one scene of the 4K!ds opening they showed an unused footage possibly from Magical Bloom with Daphne alive and seemingly concerned and scared with a flame in her hands running away from something and not to mention Daphne passed The Dragon Fire to Bloom at the last minute and they were not sisters in The 4k!ds version,I personally believe that they got his from Magical Bloom because otherwise it is impossible to explain the scene especially since it is in the artstyle of Magical Bloom,not Winx Club or Winx Just Fairies. So these were my theories,I would love to hear yours! And since we name dropped Winx Just Fairies in the last one let's talk about why this show was turned into Winx Club.

The Cancelattion: The project was worked on for 4 years and finally the pilot was finished and according to some sources about 300.000 Euro was used and these were the results from the test audience who saw it: The story was deemed "too dark",the fashion was not up to date. So these were the reasons,Rainbow took notes and then created the pilot Winx:Just Fairies!

Chapter 4 will come soon!

[WinxClub4Life]

Chapter 4: Winx: Just Fairies VS W. I. T. C. H

From Magical Bloom to Winx Just Fairies: There were a ton of changes from Magical Bloom to Winx:Just Fairies,it was nearly the same with Winx Club but now we are going to compare Winx Club to Magical Bloom! The lines of the drawings of the character were WAY softer. Musa's name was Melody,there was a fight between The Winx and The Trix to get back Stella's ring after they had to give it up to save Stella. The transformations were shorter and there were little diffrences and then they changed these and we got Winx Club!

W.i.t.c.h: In Summer of 1997,The Italian dub of the Japanese Anime adaptation of the Japanese Manga of the same name which started The Magical Girl Genre and inspired shows like Winx inspired 3 peop.e who worked at Disney Elisabetta Gnone,Allesandro Barbucci,Barbara Cannepa realized that Disney was desparate for a franchise for a tween/preteen audience Gnone was a writer and Barbucci was an artist amd they worked with Cannepa who pitched the idea to upper-up's, At first the pitch for the comic was seen as "Too Asian" and they kept claiming that but then Cannepa pitched this to an American employee and he loved the idea but that still didn't convince Disney Italy so these 3 who were SICK of it drew a few anime/manga eyes and the eyes of some Disney characters and said if you pick the Anime eyes,you win but of you get it wrong you WILL publish the comic and they agreed but then they picked ARIEL The Little Mermaid of all Disney characters as Anime eyes so they got to publish it at April of 2001 and it was MASSIVE! but when it came to other countries..well they got W.i.t.c.h WAY later. The story was the story of 5 girls Will Wandom a red headed insecure girl whose parents divlrced and moved tl the town of Heatherfield for a new start who has quite a bit of emotion but is very insecure and introverted at the same time,Irma a hyperfeminine,confident yet snarky girl with a weird connection to water who has a step brother Chris and a stepmother Anna who she has a suprisingly good relationship with for a Disney property! Taranee a brown girl who I think is Indian because she has an Indian name but her nationality was never specified and she is a nerd amd is a little shy and someone who has quite a few fears but has a connection to fire (this has something big to dk in the 7th story arc of the comics but it is an spoiler so naur I won't tell you),Cornelia is a blondie whose parents are really rich and she is the group mom,the mature one and a nurturer and is an Ice skater and she has a really bratty little sister and she a connection with Earth and Hay Lin is an artsy dork who is also practicly embodying innocence who is Chinese and she has a connection with air. At Will's first day in her new school she befriends 5 girls Irma,Taranee,Cornelia,Hay Lin and Elyon the best friend of Cornelia and the 6th whewl and even though she is important to the story she is not a part of the main cast and after a cup of tea at Hay Lin's family's restaurant they find out they are The Guardians Of something called The Veil long story short,The Prince took over the QUEENdom and is an evil tyrant and now everyone is suffering and he is trying to take over everywhere but a council in a place in the middle of infinity,where a necklace called The Heart Of Kandrakar has came from : Kandrakar,The Veil is basicly a wall and portals are like tiny holes and the girls are magical janitors and there are only 12 portals and their job is close the portals and protect the veil at 12-14 why that age you ask? Budget cuts,probably (just kidding) so this is basicly a recap of the 1st issue,highly recommend this comic and it got a TV Adaptation in 2004 the 1st Season was not great but Season 2 is a masterpiece but now you might ask,how is this connected to Winx Club? Copyright,so basicly the show was announced in late 2003 and Winx started in early 2004,both protagonist are gingers,there is a blondie,a brown girl so on the outside there are similarities oh and also both name start with W so Disney sued Rainbow for it,yes I am very much serious,they sued them and the thing got dismissed in like 2 months or something ever since then the toxicity and fandoms wars have seemingly slowed down since 2000's and early 2010's and misinformation has been cleared but my god was there drama! Shortly after The Winx reboot was announced,W.i.t.c.h got a reboot,now the OG versions are clearly not copying each other but the crew behind Winx must have talked about how to seperate themsleves from W.i.t.c.h at least once,some parents would probably think and probably did thought that W.i.t.c.h was a Satanist show or comic or something which I find HILARIOUS,the girls aren't even witches they are guardians,it is just an acronym so..this was Chapter 4!

This was a really fun one,I highly recommend both of these but W.i.t.c.h is a little bit edgy and more preteen compared to the dark yet still very sparkly and beatiful world of Winx Club,stay tuned for Chapter 5!

[WinxClub4Life]

Chapter 5: The Success Of The Club!

This Chapter will be about the general success of Winx Club and the reasosn why,and since I am Turkish and in here Winx was GIGANTIC to make an understatement!

The start of the success: In 2003 Rainbow was pretty confident about Winx so they made 25 brand deals,and this way they were ready to make a lot of commercials and promote these so that they can get attention and this succeeded,Winx was so unique,a magical girl that was European which was for 3-12 year olds that was way more colorful then any other before and it also blended Sci-fi with Fantasy and it was HUGE expecially here,one of my relatives who is about 25 grew up watching it and even in 2018 it was making BANKS but then...the channel who aired Winx closed and then we had to wait 2 years,twice as much than usual and there was no merchandise in store shelves,and then the brands hype died but let's go back to why it did and how genius this was

Why so many loved it: The reasons why these 6 were so loved was because of their characters,powers and fashions. Remember those times where kids were playing pretend? Well let me tell you when the words play pretend and girls pop off even people who bately know Winx think about girls playing "pretend to be Winx" it is just THAT popular and it is very easy getting into role because their bases are stereotypes but they added so much depth into these characters that they turn these flat characteristics into many dimensional personalities we all love! As little kids we loved the characters and now we love the characters AND the depth! And you can relate to them,tomboys? Musa. The really feminine or the popular one? Stella. The popular one who wants to be the main character or the group leader? Bloom. The kind,shy and soft spoken one? Flora. The most energetic? Aisha/Layla. The one with short hair or the one that is good with technology? Tecna,you can easily relats to them as kids because they are really diverse and if you ignore Winx the only thing that comes to mind when someone says fairy is Tinkerbell movies but those movies started in 2008 and Winx was way more feminine and fun even tomboys would enjoy it! And having backpacks,pens and more of strong and beatiful and really original fairies is so cool for a kid and the people behind these crews KNEW what they were doing! Which is why how it kept quite a lot of it even at 2018 in here because they kept the voices the same and so it felt like the same thing and since Wimx came a few months late,the next season was starting when we just started Season 1 and when Season 2 started Season 3's production started and then it was way easier and faster so the hype was always building up but then in the 2010's Ipad kids started rising,in here Winx was always pretty much for the youngin's but the older ones loved it too,so Seasons 5-8 weren't too drastic in here but in other countries...it was dramatic but it somewhat survived.

So long story short? If you want to make a hyperfeminine franchise that appeals to kids,have your characters be mature but based off of stereotypes which kids can relate to and appreaciate for their depth as adults and remember,if you have a unique idea then go for it and remember to make merch and you should put yourselves in a kids' shoes and understand what they want and give it, quality AND quantity!