Winx Club TRIX COLLECTION!

Icy, Darcy, & Stormy - Winx Club: Trix Collection - Jakks Pacific 2013

Man it took me forever to find these three ladies.  I first found Darcy at a Toys R Us Express in early February, and I finally picked up Icy and Stormy at Wal-Mart this past weekend.  Considering they're new figures that retail from $4.95-$7.99, I'm amazed that I haven't seen an online price below $30 per figure yet.  The Trix are three Witches who are the main antagonists for the Winx fairies.  The toys actually have them looking pretty angelic, but in the cartoon they're wicked, power hungry, and petulant (ie: fantastic cartoon villains).  When I first started collecting these 3.75" Winx action figures last year, I thought these three characters would be an amazing addition.  I honestly didn't expect them to come out so soon, but I couldn't be happier with the results.  Jakks Pacific has been doing an amazing job with this line.  Including this set, they've put out 23 different figures in less than a year.  Plus I know of at least 2 more coming out this fall.  Hopefully there will be many more to come.  Let's check them out below!

The Harmonix Collection from WINX CLUB!

The Second Wave of 3.75" Winx Club Figures from Jakks Pacific 2013

The Winx Club is an Italian Magical Girl series about a group of young girls at a school for fairies.  The series incorporates a lot of themes popular in young adult genres.  The various competing schools (Fairies, Witchcrafts, Heroics) is very Harry Potter;  The transformation sequences are classic Magical Girl;  And the way the main characters graduate to different levels of power each season is very Power Rangers.  I first discovered Winx Club when I saw a small advertisement for the first series of 3.75" action figures online.  I picked one up at Target on my lunch break that day and pretty much got hooked.  I guess it's natural that I would be drawn to a series like this, but my dislike of rooted hair and cloth outfits has always kept me at bay from similar properties.  I eventually started watching the cartoons online and now I must face the fact that I'm a fullblown fan.  This second series of action figures from Jakks has the girls in their underwater Harmonix forms from Season 5.  Check them out below!

Winx Club Magic Gardenia FLORA!

Winx Club Gardenia Magic Garden Playset - Jakks Pacific 2013
 
Winx Club is an Italian Magical Girl animated series that is quickly starting to take over the toy aisles in the United States.  Reviewing these toys kind of goes against my mission statement of focusing on female characters with "boy" brands, but I give Winx Club a pass because at it's core, it's an adventure series, with cool villains, magical powers, and great characters (think modern-day She-Ra).  This playset is a little disappointing to me because it doesn't highlight any of the action/adventure themes.  Flora is the fairy of plants in the group and I really wish this set would have included some snared ivy or a snatching venus fly trap for combating the evil witches.  Instead, we get a tea party.  Oh well.  The figure is a great addition to my little collection and it is my first in-person look at the new tooling incorporated in all the 2013 figures hitting the shelves right now.  There are seven additional new figures showing up (although none have been officially announced): 4 Fairies in Harmonix form and 3 Witches.  I found one of them at TRU almost a month ago and am eagerly awaiting (ie hunting) the rest.  On to the review!

The Girls of WINX CLUB!

Believix and Concert Collections from Jakks Pacific 2012

This one is likely to spark up some "action figure vs doll" debate.  Winx Club is an Italian Magical Girl series (a'la Sailor Moon) featuring a group of girls who attend a special school for fairies.  There are neighboring witch and hero schools that create a very Harry Potter-like environment.  The main characters are six girls, each with a different "theme"  (i.e. Plants, Water, Music, etc).  The girls mostly appear as normal humans (albeit from a variety of different worlds), and only turn into fairies when called upon.  The change sequence is a staple in the Magical Girl genre, and here I thought He-Man and She-Ra were being original.  In 2012, the Winx Club were the 3rd most popular dolls in the world.  These dolls are usually large barbie-sized things with rooted hair and cloth.  The toys in this review however, are small, super-articulated, 3.75" scale, completely-sculpted little beauties.  There's something really fun about these toys.  I feel like I'm getting in on the ground floor with a new She-Ra-ish property.  You may love them or hate them, just check out the review and decide for yourself.