Regal Academy, or Ever After High, Winx Club style Options

[SpiderBraids]

(Blows dust off the TV section)

After an Italian language preview of the first 6 episodes back in May, Rainbow's newest show Regal Academy started airing in English on Nick US last month. Initial impressions in the spoiler box...

Spoiler!

- This show's central conceit of "fairytale children at school" will inevitably draw comparisons to the Ever After High doll franchise (and Descendants to a lesser degree), though there's one major difference: EAH is mostly focused on simple standalone plots told in 3 minute webisodes, whereas RA has a full 22 minutes to tell more encompassing stories in the episodes, and there's also an overarching season plot
- Another difference: The fact that the fairytale characters the main characters are descended from also play significant roles in the stories, whereas the recent EAH special seemed to go out of its way not to include them...
- Of course we need villains, and Vicky, Ruby, and Cyrus will obviously be compared to you-know-who Except that while Vicky = Icy and Ruby = Stormy... Cyrus is apparently more a Brafilius than a Darcy
- Interesting choice in having one of the main male characters, Hawk Snowwhite, be a descendant of a female lead... You don't see much of that in the more girl-centric EAH... (I'm perfectly aware that there's this guy)
- Mmm, dragon-riding You'd think that girl dragons would be more prevalent and prominent in fantasy, but outside EAH and RA, all I can think of are Eragon and Shrek
- Plant-powered Astoria Rapunzel as the studious character... I'm reminded when Bloom mentioned that Flora and Musa got the best marks in exams, way back in Winx season 1 And speaking of Astoria and Flora, both are also great at saving falling boys with their plant magic
- Rose seems extremely excitable at meeting fairytale characters and creatures, and I get that she's new to this fairytale business, but I think getting excited rather than terrified at meeting the monster frog in the swamp was stretching credibility a bit...
- It's only been 4 episodes, but between falling off the chandelier in ep 1 and the airbag mishap in ep 4, is it too soon to wish that Rose would stop sucking at everything?
- Nice twist on Jack and the Beanstalk in episode 4