My Comfort Trash atm: Winx Club

I have a lot of comfort shows I watch when I’m feeling down or while I’m working on something else - Friends, Red Letter Media’s Best of the Worst, Grace and Frankie, Timmy Time... just to name a few. Those examples, however, aren’t trash in my opinion. I’ve watched them all so many times that I don’t need to focus on them 100% because I know everything that’s happening with only listening. Just by listening and checking the screen every five minutes is enough to keep me entertained and focused on my work.

Some time ago I didn’t feel like going through all of those comfort shows, though. I needed something new but still something easy to digest that I don’t need to focus on it every second - so I started watching Winx Club. I’ve known its existence for a long time but it never was part of my childhood. I didn’t have high hopes for it either, and after a few episodes I was convinced that it’s trash. It’s outdated, the animation isn’t pleasing, the phasing and rhythm is weird, the only character I cared about even a little bit was an asshole (who lost their charm when he suddenly wasn’t an asshole anymore) and in my opinion gave some very weird and even bad examples for the target audience (I'd guess it's meant for like 6-13 yo girls, which I clearly am not -> makes it easy for me to talk about the things I don’t like about it).

However - I’ve watched Winx Club for nearly five seasons now. It has been funny with it’s badness at times. I wanna know what cliché trope they're gonna use next. It even made me draw one of the characters. I realized that it has become a comfort trash show. I doubt that I’ll ever watch it again, though, which differs from an actual comfort show. But still to some extent, I have enjoyed it, haven’t I?

Stuff can inspire you even if you think that the thing is trash.

I guess I can’t argue with the fact that Winx Club has clearly made something right; there’s eight seasons and three movies made of it, not to forget the new World of Winx Netflix original spin-off series. There’s clearly a market for it, though I could recommend way better magical girl series that have better character designs, character developments and overall message (okay I know only She-Ra but that’s all you need, really. Witch comics were good too but the TV series… not so much). Magical girl genre is huge in the anime field as well and they usually have better production value - the latest magical girl animes have turned out to be very graphic and dark, though, so they all cannot be recommended to children the same way as Winx Club or She-Ra.

Even though I’m not part of their target group, Winx Club still made some things right to keep me entertained and wanting me to watch the next episode after another. It’s trash, but at times enjoyable trash. Good-ish comfort trash for lazy days when you need some of that silly background noise and annoying transformation music that will be stuck in your head for weeks.

If I were a fairy, I'd be the fairy of Trash.