Little Witch Academia

WARNING! Spoilers ahead! This article may reveal major plot points, especially considering the episode, season, or series had either been released recently or not in specific countries yet.‎

Little Witch Academia Never forget, believing in your heart is your magic. Genre: Coming-of-age Magical fantasy Running Time: 22 minutes Country: Japan Release Date: January 9 - June 26, 2017 Network(s): Tokyo MX BS11 KTV Created by: Yoh Yoshinari Distributed by: Trigger Starring: Megumi Han Michiyo Murase Yōko Hikasa Noriko Hidaka Seasons: 1 Episodes: 25

Little Witch Academia is a coming of age magical girl fantasy anime series made in January 2017 that's based off a duo-logy of short films from 2013-2015.

Plot

Little Witch Academia is about a girl named Atsuko Kagari (Akko for short). When she was young, she saw Shiny Chariot perform and it made her want to be a witch. Years later, she moves to a new town where he enrolls at Luna Nova where she later then discovers the Shiny Rod in a forest while trying to get to Luna Nova, and meets and shares a room at Lotte and Sucy which she instantly becomes best friends with. Akko doesn't have the best grades at her school. Later on, she found that she had to unlock 7 words on her wand, The Shiny Rod.

Why This Academy Rocks

1. It has amazing animation. The movements for both the characters and the objects are smooth and fluid and the character designs themselves are very detailed and pleasant to simply look at.
2. Great opening and ending song.
3. It once made a parody of Twilight with a book called Night Fall.
4. Great art style, especially for the character designs (as previously mentioned in WIR# 1).
5. It has some funny moments like Sucy turning Akko's hair into a plant in episode 2 and Constanze locking Akko in a giant cage when all of the latter's attempts to help out end in unmitigated disasters in episode 18.
6. The characters are all likable and have distinct and colorful personalities.
   • Atsuko "Akko" Kagari is an energetic, optimistic, but very impulsive girl who struggles using magic much of the time, and is disappointed by the mundanity of her classes as opposed to Chariot's more spectacular performances.
   • Lotte Jansson is a kind and soft-spoken witch who worries about Akko's well-being and has a shy and reserved personality.
   • Sucy Manbaravan a cynical, mischievous witch who often uses Akko as her test subject for her potions, or to help her in gathering the poisonous or hazardous ingredients (mushrooms in particular) she needs for them.
   • Ursula Callistis is an astrology teacher at Luna Nova whose real identity is Chariot du Nord, a famous witch and alumni of Luna Nova who performed under the alias Shiny Chariot and inspired Akko to become a witch.
   • Diana Cavendish is the top student of Luna Nova who is greatly admired by her classmates and teachers alike. As daughter of a declining noble family of witches, she has a serious and arrogant nature and oftentimes clashes with Akko, whom she holds in disdain for her impulsive nature and admiration of Shiny Chariot (despite later being revealed to be a childhood fan of the witch herself).
   • Amanda O'Neill is a delinquent girl who has a penchant for stealing priceless artifacts and magical objects that catch her fancy.
   • Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank Albrechtsberger a silent girl with a perpetually grumpy-looking expression. She's been known for her ability to combine magic with machinery such as robots and laser guns, which are typically forbidden on the school premises.
   • Jasminka Antonenko is a friendly and laid-back girl who has a passion for food and is always seen snacking on something. Even during class.
7. On top of the characters being complex and lovable, they're also well developed and thought out. A notable example is the main protagonist Akko, as she goes from an amateur to a professional. As she started off as short tempered, lazy, rude, childish, entitled and selfish at times and is frequently seen as a childish and irresponsible troublemaker by several characters early on. But by "The Fountain", she's realized that there are no magical shortcuts to accomplish her goals and she has to put the work in and earn it. The following episode shows that she's taken it to heart and starts dedicating herself to her studies, though she continues to struggle to catch up to her classmates. By "Bee Affection", she's able to perform the Metamorphosis spell well enough to make a kaiju squirrel, as well as not screw up her part in the Cinderella-kit ritual. And by the end of the series, Akko can not only perform the Metamorphosis spell near flawlessly and shapeshift into various animals on a dime, but she can also fly.
   • Diana also undergoes a very strong character arc. She wasn't the nicest to Akko at first where she had an arrogant and prideful demeanor, but ends up being very good friends by "Intellect and Sensibility". Their friendship gets quite a bit bigger throughout "Yesterday" and "Changing at the Edge of the World" to the point where in "Changing at the Edge of the World", Diana cries at the thought of Akko dying.
8. The show doesn't rely on any fan-service or filler episodes, a recurring problem with many modern anime shows. Even some of the good ones still suffer from this issue. But here, every episode is dedicated to developing the characters further and building the lore of the show. Even the slice-of-life episodes adhere to this formula.
9. It has a diverse main cast of characters from different countries.
   • Atsuko "Akko" Kagari, the main protagonist, is from Japan.
   • Lotte Jansson is from Finland.
   • Sucy Manbavaran is from Southeast Asia.
   • Diana Cavendish is from Great Britain.
   • Amanda O'Neill is Irish-American.
   • Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank-Albrechtsburger is German.
   • Jasminka Antonenko is from Russia.

Bad Qualities

1. It's somewhat short-lived. (2 seasons of 25 episodes)
2. If there's an episode dedicated to Lotte, Sucy, Amanda, Constanze, and Diana, (2 episodes for her) then how come there's no episode dedicated to Jasminka?
3. Akko constantly getting into trouble can get annoying, until she improved as the series progress.
4. Diana Cavendish is yet another clichéd "Mean Popular Girl" character, and a perfect example.
5. Akko and Andrew unfortunately didn't become a couple.
6. It got quite inappropriate for its TV-Y7 rating at times. Like in the episode Chariot and Croix (renamed to The Things We Said Today on Netflix), the word sh** was heard, not joking (altrough Japan has different standards for age ratings).

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