Lily the Witch is a Magical Girl edutainment animated series based on the German book series similarly named "Lilli the Witch". Although the series originated in Germany, the animated series first debuted in Canada in September 2004 with Germany receiving its first broadcasts on the following month.
According to the theme song from first 26 episodes, Lily (also called Lilly) stumbles upon an old book in her family's attic. A small sapient dragon named Hector has been sleeping on the book for countless years, but just as she settles down to read it, he awakes. Once they've got to know each other, Hector teaches Lily how to use magic by combining an amulet in a bracelet with the vague pictographic scripture in what turns out to be a spell-book.
The first two seasons, 13 episodes each, premiered between 2004 and 2007. The series was resurrected in 2014 with many technical upgrades; third season adds further 26 episodes, raising the count to 52.
This show provides examples of:
- All Myths Are True: Lily gets to see Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, a minotaur and Hercules.
- Art Shift: First two seasons are traditionally animated, while the third was done with 2D computer animation.
- Artistic License – History: Played with in episode 41, Pharaoh's Curse. While Ay still plots against Tutankhamun, the cause of young pharaoh's death is left ambiguous. However, Tutankhamun aids himself with a stick when walking, which points to his historical health problems.
- Been There, Shaped History: Sometimes Lily's actions will affect the evidence she originally encountered, albeit it can be that there was an enigma in the first place that she'll aim to solve, only to learn that she caused it in the first place.
- Cute Witch: Lily's a redheaded preteen.
- Eternal English: Everywhere, every time Lily goes to she has little to no trouble understanding the locals. It's a possibility of Translation Convention, though, in order to not cause trouble for young viewers.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Lily's been able to converse with dinosaurs, a spider and even Nessie.
- Spell Book: The main source of Lily's magic in seasons 1 and 2.
- Would Hurt a Child: The series follows the theory that Ay plotted to murder pharaoh Tutankhamun - even in his youth.
