W.I.T.C.H. (Animated Series)

Premiered in December 18,2004 W.I.T.C.H. is an animated series based on a comic series with the same name. Just like in the comics, W.I.T.C.H. series follows the five ordinary girls namely: Will,Irma,Taranee,Cornelia and Hay Lin. The girls were chosen by the elders from Kandrakar to gain magical powers and become guardians. This animated series was premiered in Disney's Jetix on US and other Europe countries like in Italy and U.K..W.I.T.C.H. consist of 2 whole seasons and have 26 episodes each.

Last month, I found out in a W.I.T.C.H. forum that this animated series will air in the Philippines this year on Disney Channel. Before I found out this news, I already watch some W.I.T.C.H. animated series in Youtube about 2 years ago during the time the season 2 was active. I kinda found out that the animated series has a lot on difference on comics. In season 1, the guardians had a first mission- they must protect the Meridian from Phobos' forces and save Elyon who's Phobos' young sister. Then in season 2, Nerissa was seeking revenge to Kandrakar because of what they did to her. The guardians must defeat her but only they found out that she was a past guardian of Keeper of the Heart. The W.I.T.C.H. guardians also encounters Nerissa's allies called "The Four Knights of Vengeance" and "The Knights of Destruction". Both of those seasons really suprised me as I watched the episodes. First of all, some of the character designs didn't follow from the original comics and new characters appeared as well like Blunk and the Mage. At least until I found out that the new characters weren't used as background characters or else the animated series will never be good like a limbo. Then when it comes to story, the animated series were pretty much independent but they still follow from the original. The animation seems to be good at least as if they were jumped out from the comics. The music is pretty good too but I'm figuring out who is the singer of the opening of the series. Speaking of the opening credits, the US and UK version opening credits were different for just any various production reasons.

According to the fans of this series especially from the US, there should be a third season of W.I.T.C.H. animated series but Disney didn't continue this project. In the unplanned third season, another character from the original comics named Orube will appear and Ari will be the villain. You'll have to search W.I.T.C.H. in Wikipedia in order to get full understanding of these mentioned characters.

I do have some the original comics of W.I.T.C.H. and I observe some (or a lot) differences from the animated series. You can really distinguish the difference of the series if you have the original comics. I think the reason why animated series didn't follow the original character designs is that in the US, they got "graphic novels" of W.I.T.C.H. only. Plus, every issues in each season of the comics are short depending on the stories. In the end, although the series was'nt complete W.I.T.C.H. cartoon series did run very well as a part of Jetix block.