As far as the Raggedy Ann cartoons go, The Enchanted Square has to be somewhere towards the top. As a child it was enchanting and had a lot of emotional staying power, and it still holds up today as very magical and touching.
Where The Enchanted Square really appeals is in the animation, the music and the way the story is told. The drawing in the animation is very smooth and elegant, and with no signs of roughness or jerky movements. The backgrounds are imaginative in look, are incredibly detailed with every one looking like hours went into making just that one. The colours and shades are well and truly lavish, with the darker colours giving off real atmosphere and the livelier colours being really sumptuous.
Famous Studios regular composer Winston Sharples provides the music score here. Not only does it compliment the whimsy and poignancy of the story and visuals brilliantly, but it's just a wonderful score on its own as well. Rhythmically it has so much character, and once again Sharples shows the remarkable knack of not just matching what's going on screen but actually adding even more to it. The orchestration is lush-sounding and very rich in texture and tone colour, the lusher moments not being too syrupy at all. Sharples' scores often are one of the pleasures of the cartoons they feature in, and often were the best thing about the Popeye and in particular Herman and Katnip cartoons, so the music in The Enchanted Square doesn't disappoint in any way.
The story is just beautifully done and told here. The Enchanted Square could easily have had a story caked in over-sentimentality and corniness, but neither is the case here. Sure the story is sentimental, but never overly so. The emotion here is actually incredibly touching and often tear-jerking, and the whole story is told in a deeply heart-warming way. There is also just the right amount of whimsical charm without being coy or cloying and enchanting surrealism without being too weird or tonally unsettling. The characters are sweet and engaging, with Raggedy Ann being a quite endearing title character, while everything here is written with genuine warmth and charm.
In summary, touching and enchanting. 10/10 Bethany Cox