Little Witch Academia (TV)

"A believing heart is your magic!"—these were the words that Atsuko "Akko" Kagari's idol, the renowned witch Shiny Chariot, said to her during a magic performance years ago. Since then, Akko has lived by these words and aspired to be a witch just like Shiny Chariot, one that can make people smile. Hence, even her non-magical background does not stop her from enrolling in Luna Nova Magical Academy.

However, when an excited Akko finally sets off to her new school, the trip there is anything but smooth. After her perilous journey, she befriends the shy Lotte Yansson and the sarcastic Sucy Manbavaran. To her utmost delight, she also discovers Chariot's wand, the Shiny Rod, which she takes as her own. Unfortunately, her time at Luna Nova will prove to be more challenging than Akko could ever believe. She absolutely refuses to stay inferior to the rest of her peers, especially to her self-proclaimed rival, the beautiful and gifted Diana Cavendish, so she relies on her determination to compensate for her reckless behavior and ineptitude in magic.

In a time when wizardry is on the decline, Little Witch Academia follows the magical escapades of Akko and her friends as they learn the true meaning of being a witch.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kagari, Atsuko Main

Han, Megumi Japanese

Manbavaran, Sucy Main

Murase, Michiyo Japanese

Cavendish, Diana Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Jansson, Lotte Main

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

O'Neill, Amanda Supporting

Shida, Arisa Japanese

Callistis, Ursula Supporting

Hidaka, Noriko Japanese

von Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger, Constanze Amalie Supporting

Murakawa, Rie Japanese

du Nord, Chariot Supporting

Hidaka, Noriko Japanese

Hanbridge, Andrew Supporting

Kanemoto, Ryousuke Japanese

Meridies, Croix Supporting

Takeuchi, Junko Japanese

Takei, Katsuhiro Producer

Tsutsumi, Naoko Producer

Usa, Yoshiki Producer

Yoshinari, You Director, Storyboard, Original Creator, Character Design

Reviews

Jun 17, 2024

FateFury

Recommended

Definitely recommended if you are looking for a light hearted, fun little anime to fill your time with.
This anime feels so nostalgic, like the kind of anime I would have adored as a kid. There are silly characters, a decent enough plot line and some great humour here. It has a really nice mix of humour, fantasy and a touch of nostalgia.

This is one of those animes where you can sort of switch of your brain and enjoy the ride. Not every anime needs to have a genius plotline and flawless writing. This is just one of those animes you can just relax and ... enjoy without thinking too hard, but entertaining enough that you will want to continue watching.

The MC is a little annoying at first (typical sort of shounen protagonist) but her wild antics and lack of braincells certainly grows on you. The supporting cast is so enjoyable to watch though. There are certainly a few episodes which aren't as great as the others (the weird pirate one and mushroom dream one certainly seemed too random) but overall I loved it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Feb 29, 2024

Drakestalker

Mixed Feelings

And then there's the TV show. Just in the interest of sorting out some housekeeping, if you're wondering in what order to watch the Little Witch Academia franchise, you can easily watch it all in the order of release. In fact, that is recommended. The OVA and movie are direct sequels and part of the same continuity. The TV show, however, reboots the story and changes some details of the premise and some of the characters' personalities get subtly altered. As such, fear not, the OVA and movie are not canon to the series and consequently don't spoil anything. They do, however, introduce some characters ... you will encounter in the TV incarnation that the studio will assume you're already familiar with. That is why watching the OVA and movie in beforehand is advisable.

After witnessing people's disappointment with the TV show, I figured the fault must lie with the animation. After all, I've already seen Trigger's other work and I know it's not all gold medal material. Provided you set aside meme shows like Inferno Cop and Ninja Slayer, even a big fish like Kill la Kill could look really dodgy in its more insignificant moments. I expected the TV series to not be able to keep up the standard of visual presentation set by the OVA. If you've seen Gi(a)rlish Number, then do you remember the difference in animation between the PV they made versus the actual anime they put out? Yeah, something like that was going around in my head. To my surprise, the animation didn't suffer much at all. Sure enough, it wasn't the absolute marvel of the OVA, but it was still 90% there. After finishing watching the show, I went back to watch the OVA again, to see if the animation there seemed dramatically better. It didn't. It was better, but only by a hair. Far from being merely a shadow of the OVA, the 2017 anime absolutely holds up visually as an extremely appealing production.

The disappointing aspect of the Little Witch Academia TV series is the narrative. You see, an anime Harry Potter clone where Cute Girl Harry gets inspired by Cute Girl Aladdin to go to Cute Girl Hogwarts, encounters Cute Girl Draco and has some magical cute girl misadventure with a dragon is fantastic content... for a 26-minute OVA. Alas, when you try to stretch that into an 8-hour TV show, the limits of the premise are laid bare. Indeed, it didn't seem like Trigger had much planned in the way of a story for the anime. What resulted is a mostly slice-of-life school show with some magical trappings.

I don't like watching anime, or series in general, on a weekly basis. I've tried doing it. I don't enjoy it. It ruins my experience even with shows I really like. It's just not me. I binge. That's what I do. I like to wait until the whole thing is released and binge it all at once. For someone like me, episodic shows like this one are a nightmare. It's what bothered me about Cowboy Bebop, as well. Much like Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo, the stories of the individual episodes are not bad at all. They're all enjoyable in their own right. The problem is that at the end of every episode, whatever I got invested in during the episode is over. The momentum doesn't carry over. It's just gone. As soon as the new episode starts, I have to get into it all over again and find it in me to invest in a new thing, only for that to be over, too, 20 minutes later, and then rinse and repeat.

To be fair, in the show's defense, there is some vague overarching story, but it doesn't really come into play until the literal last 5 or 6 episodes and only really grips you for the last 4. So, what you're dealing with, in essence, are about 14 episodes of pointless slice-of-life frolicking, 6 or so episodes of discreet foreshadowing, and then really only 4 or 5 episodes of actual plot.

Regrettably, even from the overarching narrative, such as it is, I find myself put in the position of detracting points. Why? Quite simply put, because the central conceit behind the premise is ridiculous. Unlike Harry Potter, magic is not a secret in the world of Little Witch Academia. People know about it. It is, however, get this... going out of fashion. Wait, hold on, excuse me? It's what now? Going out of fashion? How can magic, like, actual supernatural sorcery conceivably go out of fashion? The conceit is that with the advent of modern science, magic is rendered progressively more, again, get this... obsolete. I'm sorry? One character goes as far as to say: "What necessity is there for magic anymore in the modern world? What can magic do that science can't?" Bro, you have to be joking. You are asking what benefit there is to a supernatural force that can bend the laws of physics? Are you high? The magic of telekinesis alone (yes, they can magically move objects with their wands without touching them in this universe) would be of incalculable value. Do you have any idea how much heavy machinery costs to move stuff around? Giant cranes and the like? Do you realize how much manpower this kind of magic would save? As I said, the whole shpiel about how magic is going out of fashion and how it's a pointless relic of the past mostly propped up by traditionalists obsessed with the old an obsolete just didn't hold up for me... because it made no sense whatsoever.

Incidentally, this is where most male characters come in. I know I mentioned earlier that Little Witch Academia features exclusively cute girls, but that was hyperbole - in fact, it's true for the original OVA. There are a handful of male characters in the movie and TV series, but they're mostly assholes who hate witchcraft and who, by and large, given their way, would probably not be entirely opposed to the return of the days of the Salem witch burnings.

To speak once more in the show's defense, I mentioned before that it ever so subtly changes some of the characters' personalities. Akko is significantly more mellow and tolerable as opposed to the movie. It still wasn't enough to make her likable to me personally. Whether because she was still fundamentally a pain in the ass, or because I'm just a bitter old geezer who couldn't get over how much I loathed her in the movie, that I couldn't tell you, but what I can tell you is that it made her tolerable enough that I found myself rooting for her before long.

As characters go, though, to the show's discredit, Shining Chariot and her whole character arc made for probably one of the most underwhelming aspirational hero characters I've seen. I mean, I'm not saying I expected an example to follow on the level of Gol D. Roger, or even someone like All Might. I just expected something more... well, more.

What I'm trying to say is that the show isn't bad. It really isn't. Its only problem is that... man, it's just way too fucking long. Holy shit, it felt so God damn long. There were episodes where so much was going on and so much happened, I was shocked to realize at the end of the episode that only 20 minutes had passed. Yes, as you may have guessed, I'm thinking of a very specific episode here, but in principle, this applies to most of the show. I'm still in disbelief that they managed to fit all of that shit in 20 minutes without it feeling rushed or anything. Au contraire, it felt like the pacing was quite slow. How!? How is it possible to pack an impossible amount of narrative in 20 minutes and still end up feeling slow??? I'm almost coming full circle to being impressed. I just cannot overstate how long it felt.

If anyone were to ask me, and I know no one has, I'd say the anime was just about 1 cour too long. Honestly, Little Witch Academia would have most likely been just fine had it only had 12 episodes.

Regardless, it's a style of storytelling and content that isn't typically found in anime. Magical girl shows are a dime a dozen, just like isekai shows, but just like isekai shows, they all look and feel pretty much the same. Having said that, every genre has its outliers. Just like Drifters has its own aesthetic identity and stands out from other isekais, Little Witch Academia is very unique in its visual presentation and fingerprint. It's even the rare breed of cute girl show without any kind of fanservice. Take it from me, I've seen literally hundreds of anime and I can tell you I've seen very few things that compare to this. Funnily enough, pretty much the only other anime that I can think of that compare to this are other Trigger shows, which brings me to my final point...

Remember how I said that I believe Trigger didn't have much in the way of story planned? My theory is substantiated by the fact that once the slice-of-life frolicking is over, Little Witch Academia turns into a typical Trigger show indistinguishable from Gurren Lagann (uhm, ackshually, Gurren Lagann was produced by studio Gain- SHUT THE FUCK UP, GREG), Kill la Kill, Darling in the FranXX, that one episode of Star Wars: Visions they made, SSSS.Gridman, and so on, and so forth. It's like, I'm just sitting here enjoying this magical girl show sporting the aesthetic of Harry Potter and then, out of bleeding nowhere, this giant fucking robot appears! Huh??? Why am I even surprised? It's a Trigger show. Of course there's a giant robot in this show about magical girls. Why wouldn't there be a giant mech there? Wouldn't be a Trigger show without a giant mech. And then, you have to be kidding me, no way, the mech busts out a giant fucking drill on its arm. Yes, you read that right, a fucking drill. It even goes through the evil monster and poses in that classic samurai stance behind it and you get to see the pierced monster explode in the background, EXACTLY LIKE IN GURREN LAGANN.

I can't. I literally can't. No. You're not being clever and self-referential. It's not called being self-referential when you do it for the 50th time. Stop. Get help. All I could think was, OH, MY GOD, GET OVER GURREN LAGANN. That show was over 15 years ago. Make another show. Read another book. I swear, you're so hung up on the fact that you made one of the greatest anime in history that you try to make every anime you produce be TTGL. Stop. Get over it. Make another anime. The accident was over 15 years ago. You have to let me go.

Do I even need to say that the final villain ends up being some non-descript cybernetic organism that looks like black metal with glowing neon red lines and features everywhere? Just like the Anti-Spirals from TTGL? Or the Klaxxosaurs and the aliens from FranXX? Or the clothes from Kill la Kill? Is it even a surprise that the climax of the final battle takes place in space? And ends with the protagonists yelling the name of a ludicrous overdramatic supermove powered by the power of friendship? No, it's not called Giga Drill Breaker. Shut up. Leave me alone.

All in all, if a magical girl show that breaks the mold seems like something you would be interested, give it a go. If you liked HP, you're likely to have a decent time with this. Particularly, if the slice-of-life genre is your bread and butter, then you're guaranteed to like this. More than anything, if you're a Trigger fanboy, you'll love Little Witch Academia.

By that same token, if any of these things turn you off, especially if you're suffering from Trigger Exhaustion Syndrome, then it's perhaps best to spend your time more wisely.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 18, 2024

ChathuDamba

Not Recommended

Do people watch this and choose to like it?

The main character Atsuko is super annoying, completely useless, and downright disrespectful to everyone. She manages to ruin everyone's day and still be mad at them when they get angry at her. I have no idea why someone would make the MC this unlikable. in the end, I just ended up rooting for Diana. The story is very predictable but sometimes manages to go above and beyond to make the story even more pointless and annoying. Characters are badly written, and most of them have no soul. Don't waste your time on this. But if you ... decide to watch it then do a drinking game and take shots every time when the MC says "Just like Chariot”.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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