Winx Club has three English dubs. The Nick one, the Rai/Cinelume one, and the 4kids one! Everyone has their personal preferences, and here are my thoughts on them.
The Nick Dub
This is the only dub of Season 5 we'll ever see. That's kinda depressing. It's not that Nick dub is bad, it's just that you know, variety!
Nick dub is extremely neutral in my opinion. I think part of it is just the fact that Season 5 isn't as interesting as the others, but some of the voices just... really irk me.
Bloom strikes me as really normal. I wish she had a bit more feeling to her voice. She sounds super, super cute sometimes, like when she was talking to Sky in the (second?) episode of Season 5, and she asked if something was wrong, but her battle cries make me cringe sometimes. Her lines don't help either. A lot of them are just "Believe in yourself!" and "We can do it!". I know she's the motivational one Nick, but... really? Can't she show some other character traits besides that? If I had just started watching now that's all I would think of her.
Stella is... nice, I guess. I mainly just have a lot of personal gripes on Stella's voice, that really I doubt apply to anyone else. I grew up with the 4kids naggy, harsh, imperfect voice... now she just sounds like the preppy, popular, perfect girl. I know that now that's basically what she is, but still. I miss all the little quirks of her old voice.
Flora's voice I actually, really, really like. I think it may be my favorite Flora voice up to date. It sounds really mature and natural. It really fits her character. I don't really have any complaints about her voice at all. It's super cool.
Musa's IS my favorite Musa voice! I actually really like Romi Dames as her. When I first heard it was going to be Romi Dames I was kinda like, "...that girl from Hannah Montana? But she's so nasal!!" but this is absolutely perfect.
Tecna's voice is... fine. I just feel like she's always yelling. She needs to relax, sound more natural. I know Tecna isn't really a natural character, but I think you guys get my point. Right?
Aisha's voice is fine too. She's really good at talking, and yelling. She could speak a little clearer but that's about it. I'm more into the deeper voice for her, but hey, this works too.
Overall Nick dub is fine to me. It's not my favorite, but it's not that bad. I don't particularly like the kidded-down script, but I'm not even sure if that's Nick's fault or Rainbow's. I haven't watched the Italian dub subbed so I can't really judge on that.
Their advertising is a little... odd. They advertised really well for the specials, but the Seasons they're absolutely failing at. It says something when we've had about three rumored dates for it to return, since it ended not long ago. I hear we're doing really bad on ratings too... I think that's a mixture of the fact that Season 5 just isn't as good so far, and Nick's poor advertising. I mean, half the time I didn't even know if Winx was airing or not.
The Rai Dub
I actually haven't seen all that much of the Rai dub. I've seen one episode out of Season 3, one episode out of Season 1, and the Magical Adventure movie. The funny thing? I've had different feelings on each of them.
The episode of Season 1 that I watched was "Spelled". Or at least that's what 4kids calls it, not sure what Rai does. It's the one where Musa gets cornered downtown by some witches and Bloom unleashes her full power in a battle with the Trix.
I actually didn't like what I heard from it. Everyone sounded... the same. I'm sure it's just because I hadn't watched much of it, and I thought that of Nick too when I first heard it, but seriously. Bloom, Flora, Layla, and Tecna all sounded really similar from what I remember.
I guess that their voices weren't that bad, but it kinda sounded like a fandub. No one sounded very professional, and there was this weird... thing in the background, I don't remember what it was, there was an echo or something. Like they were talking in a long hallway. I don't really remember. But it didn't sound good.
The Season 3 episode I watched seemed like Season 3 must've been Rai's best work, maybe competing with Season 4 which I still haven't seen their dub of. Everyone did sound a bit more different. I was disappointed though with the fact that Musa sounded so girly. I guess she did early on too, but I was expecting some change. She just sounds so girly. Stella I have mixed feelings on. I did like the girl's voice, but I wasn't big on the tone she was using. Needed to be more obnoxious. Layla sounded extremely regular. I was kinda unimpressed with her and Flora. Bloom's voice I didn't mind. It was cute!
But then the villains appeared. And I cringed, hearing their voices. I'm sorry, but Valtor sounded weirdly gruff and like a 60 something year old man. Yeah yeah, I know, he's even older then that, but he obviously doesn't age. He looks like he's in his thirties. But he obviously didn't sound like it.
The Trix sounded weird. I don't even remember it well. From what I can remember they sounded like generic mean girls. Extremely generic. I think I was too distracted by old man Valtor to think about them.
Sky sounded weirdly dorky. Like he was Timmy, but he wasn't. I thought he was supposed to be the princely guy?
My thoughts on Magical Adventure were... wow. Okay, I was just starting to like Rai Bloom! Then they replaced her voice with this girl that sounded like she came out of a Shojo anime! What the heck, Rai?! She sounded so weak and parthetic, like she was going to trip and fall on Sky any second!
I can't even remember how the other girls sounded. It's like we went back to our former state of everyone sounding exactly the same.
Bloom's dad sounded sassy. And I don't mean slightly sassy, I mean fullout sassy. It was weird, man. I wa s so confused.
The 4kids Dub
Probably the most hated dub among fans, though my personal favorite.
I guess it's probably just because I grew up with it, but I do think it was the nicest of the dubs. I know that sure, Rai had less annoying voices and didn't cut things out, and Nick did more Seasons, but 4kids does have it's good things.
It sounds professional. They got real voice actors to do it, not actors that they thought would work well, and not random people. Sure they cut out things, but like, does that even matter? The stuff they cut out didn't contribute to the story anyway. Who cares if we don't get to see fifteen extra seconds of the Winx walking around.
I also always see complaints about "they changed Aisha's name to Layla!!!!!" "they changed Domino to Sparks!!!!!" "they changed Andros to Tides!!!!"... okay, fine, you can complain about that, they're valid. But the main thing that really kills me about these complaints... is that for at least two of these, Rai did it too. I KNOW 4kids wasn't the only one to call her Layla, they did in Rai too. And when I watched Magical Adventure Rai dub they called Domino Sparks... so come on, stop blaming 4kids for everything. I know they ruin anime and stuff, but Winx Club wasn't a show they really ruined.
But I'll stop ranting on that. Let's talk about the voices.
I love the 4kids voice cast, SO much. I know a lot of people hate it because everyone sounds kinda weird, but it's a fun weird! I mean, do you really want all cartoon characters to sound normal? That'd be so generic and boring!
Anyway. I kinda already described Stella's voice earlier. Woops. I'll skip her. Bloom's voice was really nice! It's the same as Raf from Angel's Friends which is a little silly, but it sounded really cute. She always seemed kinda lively and cheery. But not in an annoying way.
Flora's voice was okay. I prefer Nick's oddly enough. I actually really loved her voice in Season 1, but after that it kinda changed... in S1, it was more mature, but after that it got turned into the cutesy shy girl voice.
Musa's voice was cute too! I liked how scratchy and rough it sounded, it was unique and adorable. Tecna's voice... despite the completely out of the blue British accent, I think it worked. It was deeper then most the girls', and it sounded serious while still managing to be playful when needed. I liked hers.
Layla's 4kids voice is probably my second favorite of the cast, minus Stella. I LOVE it. It's perfect! It's really deep which is a nice change of pace, and it just sounded really pretty. I wish Nick had gone with a more deeper voice.
