A Witch and a Crow: a heartwarming autumn tale

 

Just the other day, YouTube randomly offered me a short anime-style cartoon named “A Witch and a Crow”, by a certain MaepleTea. It’s under four minutes long (three and a half if you don’t count the credits), so if you want to see it yourself before reading my comments, you can watch it here. It’s atmospheric and cute, with a gentle story of friendship and mild romance: technically child-appropriate (nothing scary or explicit), but it will appeal to older audiences more.

Assuming that you’ve watched it, or that you don’t mind spoilers, let’s move on! So, why did I decide to blog about a short indie cartoon rather than just link it on social media? Here are several things that resonated really well with me and that I think recommend it.

 

Animal shapeshifting into a human

Popular culture nowadays is full of werebeasts, animaguses, polymorphers and other creatures who are essentially human or humanoid, but can shapeshift into a real or mythological animal. Here, however, it seems that the young man doesn’t shapeshift into a crow, but is an actual crow who shapeshifts into a human, bringing into mind various shapeshifting animals of legend, from the Raven in Native American myths, to Asian Kitsune and Kumiho.

In fact, it is implied that the crow becomes stuck in human form without his magic hat, which is physical and visible while he is in his human form, but intrinsically a part of him while he is a crow, as an outline of it only shines above his head. Perhaps that is a sign of the witch’s magical perception, showing us how she sees her magical friend apart from other, ordinary crows? This, again, resonates with many myths in which a supernatural creature removes a part of themselves to become human or humanoid, like a selkie taking off their skin to walk on land, or a Slavic fae (vila) leaving her wings on the shore when she decides to bathe. It may seem bizarre to a human – but somehow, that makes it appear even more credible and natural.

 

A touch of magical realism

Which brings me to the second point: the magic in the cartoon is subtle, and not overly flashy, because, of course, the point is an emotional story, and not a display of power. Beyond the crow’s own shapeshifting, the only time we see the witch actually use magic is when she takes out her wand to reach the hat blown away by the wind – and, potentially, when she attaches her bow to the hat in the end. (It might be just implicit normal fastening shown quickly – but it seems to me that the bow becomes completely attached to the hat as a part of it, not just tied to it.) Beyond that, we see the witch engaging in a variety of mundane activities, such as walking through the woods (maybe to gather herbs, maybe just for enjoyment), or cleaning her front porch with a (likely ordinary) broom. Which is just as it should be: shiny magic would just distract from the point.

 

Subtle humour

An atmospheric cartoon without spoken words is unlikely to make you laugh out loud, though if there is one scene that can make you do that, it is definitely the one where the crow thinks of giving the witch a ring he found – and then blushes in both versions of his identity, obviously thinking how it could be interpreted from a human perspective, while the music stops for a second for dramatic effect.

Still, there are also many other little details that might make you smile, such as various cute scenes with the crow finding and trying to take all sorts of little “treasures” as gifts for the witch, or costumed children coming trick-or-treating on Halloween to the house of an actual witch. I wonder, is it a setting where they know that she is a witch, or is she just implicitly the cute neighbourhood goth girl?

 

A lovely colour palette

Finally, while the animation itself is quite simple, the colouring is done masterfully. Almost everything, both the characters and the backgrounds, is in autumnal shades of orange and black – everything, that is, except the little gifts that the crow leaves for the witch. From the initial purplish gemstones, over bright red berries, to white pearls and seashells, most of the little gifts are coloured obviously differently from the rest of the scene, but not so drastically as for the effect to be jarring. Thus, our attention is clearly drawn to them and they are singled out as something important – both when we see them individually and when we observe the growing collection in the witch’s house – but they still gently fit into the overall atmosphere of the cartoon.

To sum things up – congratulations to MaepleTea for an amazing project. Should any sequel with these characters come up, I believe it will be met with open arms by the online audience – and I’ll certainly follow the channel either way!

Barbie Color Reveal – a failed attempt at ballerina magic?

 

Some thoughts on Color Reveal dolls in general

Personally, as an adult, I was never overly attracted to the line of Color Reveal Barbie dolls. (Yes, spell checker, I know you're set to UK English, but Barbie's from the other side of the Atlantic and that's part of the official name. Leave her “color” be. Ahem.) The idea of having something as big and as (comparatively) expensive as a Barbie doll drawn randomly doesn't really appeal to me. I know it's a trend – but not one I like. I reckoned, unless we really like all the dolls in a given Color Reveal series, better to buy opened ones second hand. Also Color Reveal dolls tend to have a lot of painted and moulded parts, which is the current trend overall, but particularly frequent in Color Reveals. I don't like plastic bodices and legs painted to be tights, because they limit the ways in which the doll can be redressed, and some of them even have moulded plastic hair, which I really, really dislike.

So we bought a few used Color Reveal mermaids, and they were quite pretty, though the fact that their semi-transparent tails couldn't bend for them to sit was annoying, so for the time being, we stopped even that. We did buy two Pop Reveal Barbies, but they have two major advantages over the Color Reveal series. Firstly, they have much better bodies: bendable elbows and even Made to Move legs, and I really like that amount of poseability. Secondly, despite everything being wrapped in bags on the inside, they're not really random: the packaging clearly shows which doll you're buying. And I think that's a lovely middle ground! (Of course, they had to mess it up with the Chelseas in the same line being random, but you can’t have it all. At least they’re cheaper.)

Because, of course, as much as an adult may find it annoying or too expensive to keep buying random reveal toys to get the one(s) they want – with many potential doubles in the process, if you're aiming for a whole collection – many children love that mystery part, and that's precisely what the toy companies are aiming for. My daughter loves opening all the little bits in the Pop Reveal Barbies, or, say, Playmobil EverDreamerz, even though it's not really a mystery what you'll get in there - but it feels like one. Not to mention Magic Mixies and their potion-brewing and special effects! But Mixies, like many brands, do have different codes on the bottoms that you can look up online to see what you're buying (and more obvious ways, like gem or eye colour on the packaging, for the bigger toys), thus letting you have the mystery if you want it, but skip it if you're looking to buy a particular toy. From what I understand, Mattel also used to have that for the Color Reveal Barbies, but then they deliberately removed it: now all packages of a single line have the same codes, and random is the only way to go. Not surprising, though annoying.

 

Here comes the ballerina

And, of course, then comes the part when my daughter really, really wanted us to buy a Color Reveal Barbie from this year's ballerina series in a store. I had previously looked at them and wasn't impressed, but at least they had real hair. (Polypropylene, no doubt, but just add them to the list “they'll be bald before I'm old” and move on.) I showed my daughter what they looked like online, she looked at the pictures and said she liked them all, so we bought one.

Image of all available dolls from youloveit.com

We got the blonde Barbie (with the Millie face) in the pink outfit. On the one hand, that was the most common face, so others may have been better – but on the other, she has the cutest head accessory in my opinion, a French beret. (More on accessories soon.) My daughter likes her, and now her name is Martha and she has joined the ranks of ballerinas in our Barbieville. My own impressions, however, are mixed.

 

Terrible (lack of) poseability

To be honest, I'm a little spoiled lately. More and more dolls come with at least regularly bendable elbows and knees, not to speak of the wonderfully poseable Made to Move bodies (and their equivalents in other brands). So, for me to buy a doll with just the good old shoulder and hip articulation, that doll needs to be special – and these just were not. They were cute, but I could think of so many better ones.

However, what came as a really unpleasant surprise in that respect was the fact that the doll has much less poseability than even the regular Barbie! First of all, she can't sit straight. She can only be reclining. Her back can't be lifted to a 90-degree angle, more like a 40-ish one.

Yes, this is her “sitting”. The best that she can.

Needless to say, then, she can't nearly do a split or lift one leg high up – the best she can do is a sort of broad stride. Her thighs are simply shaped so that they collide with her torso and can't move beyond a certain point.

So, a doll who is supposed to be a ballerina is now the least mobile doll of all the Barbies we own. (Well, not counting the utterly unbendable mermaids and the Barbie Starlight with Pupcorn, who is all in one piece because of the electronics inside.) That’s quite a disappointment.

 

Accessories, ballet and balletcore

By the way, is she really supposed to be a ballerina? The thing that initially left a bad impression on me was that the shoes of dolls in this line have the (plastic) ribbons you would associate with ballet shoes… but also high heels. Looking them up online, I saw that the dolls were “inspired by balletcore”, a relatively young fashion trend of wearing ballerina accessories such as tutus, leg warmers and so on – as a fashion statement. That explains the heels: she's not a ballerina, she just likes dressing up as one because she thinks it looks good. Apparently, I’m not the only person who didn’t get this at once, as there are confused questions regarding the heels on the internet.

Balletcore as such (unrelated to Barbie) has sparked some controversy: while some see it as a harmless trend showing admiration towards ballet, and maybe even beneficial for promoting the aesthetic of classical ballet in everyday life, others see the use of professional ballet accessories by people who aren’t dancers as insulting. But even if we view it in a fully positive light, I can’t help but wonder if it was the best choice for a Color Reveal Barbie. The random draw and reveal mechanics are both primarily aimed at smaller children. The average little girl doesn’t know what balletcore is: she looks at this doll and sees a ballerina. Hmm, okay, she has high heels on her ballet slippers – maybe some modern ballerinas do? That was approximately my daughter’s thinking, and I presume many little girls think that way. When I explained to her the balletcore idea and the heels, and suggested that Martha perhaps could be, well, just a girl dressed that way (because she definitely can’t do any advanced ballet moves), she adamantly refused to make her anything other than a ballerina. So… if little girls like ballerinas, why not give them a proper ballerina? And older girls and adult collectors could possibly be thrilled with a balletcore Barbie – but one done with more details and without the moulded plastic clothes.

But things are as they are. Let’s see what we get in the set. The dolls are all of different skin tones and hair colours, which is nice, and each has matching shades of pink (or, in the case of the pale vaguely Asian girl, light purple) for her outfit and accessories, as well as the coloured strands in her hair. They have plastic moulded leotards with simple straps, that can work as sleeveless shirts for various outfits, and could work as swimsuits, too, were it not for the decision for them to also have painted hard plastic legs to represent tights. Don’t know about you, but I usually don’t wear tights to the beach. ;) While this does tie the colour scheme in nicely with the rest of the outfit, I would have greatly preferred them to have bare legs, if actual, removable fabric tights weren’t an option.

As is frequent with Colour Reveal dolls, the ballerinas also have colour change features on their faces, triggered by heat or cold: removable makeup, including little designs painted under their eyes. (Martha has hearts, others have flowers and maybe butterflies, not sure from the pictures.) To be honest, I’m not too thrilled with their position – they sort of distract attention from the eyes, and I would have preferred, say, a discreet design on the forehead, like some mermaids have. But it’s alright. The eyes may be slightly pixelized, but only very slightly.

Let’s have a look at the removable accessories. The aforementioned shoes have heels and platforms, and criss-cross ribbons supposedly tied with a bow around the middle of the calf. There a small design in the front of the shoe – ours is just a thin little bow, not sure if the others are different. Overall, they are cute, and the ribbon of the bow falling more to one side is a nice detail.

Then, there are the skirts: each doll has a different design on her skirt; two are shaped more like tutus and two like more conventional short skirts. They are also fairly transparent, which would be quite fine for a ballet performance, but if this is supposed to be balletcore, maybe too transparent? I’m not sure most girls would go out into the city in a very short, very thin transparent skirt that doesn’t really cover much. On the other hand, they do somewhat resemble the glittery skirts often sold as costumes for little girls, so I guess they might appeal to them… though those usually have underskirts. :)

The head accessories differ most of all. Two dolls have hairbands (one with a bow and one with roses), one has headphones (or are those ear muffs?), and ours, as stated, has a beret, with a big bow on it. I really like the beret, so I am happy that we got that one. The only issue I have with it is that it slips from the doll’s head very easily when it is put on properly… but when it is put upside down, with the bow on it seemingly defying gravity, it fits much better. Generally, you have to push it forward a bit too much if you want it to stay on.

And the final accessory is…a brush. A cute brush with a plastic bow, but still… that feels sort of lazy. Days when all Barbies came with a brush are long gone and, to be fair, nobody needs a designated brush for every doll. Couldn’t they have had a piece of jewellery? (Not even going to mention removable tights, except that I just did.) In addition to that, the box prominently says that there are six surprises inside, which means either that the colour change mechanic counts as one of the surprises, or that each of the shoes counts as one. With that and the brush, I feel like we were cheated out of two potential accessories.

 

The bottom line

In the end, my impressions are mixed. The dolls are cute, but I dislike the general trend of plastic, moulded parts on Color Reveal (and some other) Barbies, and I think the accessories could have been a bit better. I also would have preferred a proper ballet outfit – I know there are many Barbie ballerinas, but you can never have too many! (We love ballet in the house – my daughter watches performances of the Nutcracker practically as frequently as Disney movies.) And a more carefully done balletcore doll, or a series of them, could have been done better outside the Color Reveal line. And the worst drop for me personally is her terrible inability to sit: I really can’t see an excuse for that.

Then again, my daughter likes her, so… I guess they hit the target for little children? But I still think she would have liked a proper ballerina more. This is somewhere in between: it doesn’t quite hit the target for either the ethereal magic of ballet or cool modern fashion. Maybe it would have been better to separate the two?

In the end, when you add a proper skirt and a jacket onto her, I can really imagine her going out into the city to meet some friends.

I just hope they find her a nice reclining armchair to sit in. :)