Year: 2017

Length: 25 Episodes

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Magic, School

Studio: Trigger

Determined to become a witch that enchants peoples hearts and makes them happy with her magic, Atsuko Kagari, enters Luna Nova, the magic academy her big idol Shiny Chariot once attended as well. Impatient to learn more about her idol and how to use magic like Chariot did, she first has to learn the very basics that unfortunately don’t seem to come too easy for her…

I know people will disagree with me, but Little Witch Academia sure feels like the anime version of Harry Potter with a much lighter atmosphere and a full female cast instead. Now, given the fact that I loved Harry Potter, enjoy more easy-going shows, and just grave for this type of all-female casts, I couldn’t help but fall head over heals in love with this anime.

Starting with the characters, I have to admit that I found Atsuko, or Akko, quite annoying in the beginning. She is always all over the place, screaming and yelling, running around, and never sitting still. She’s clearly eager to learn about her idol, how she learned to work magic like that, and especially where she disappeared to, but she’s too impatient to think things through, and thus always ends up causing a mess. As I got more into the show, however, I learned to love exactly that about her. All the different faces she always makes, all the things she gets wrong on her way, and all the trouble she causes. In the end, she just wants what’s best for everyone and doesn’t stop even if it seriously gets her in trouble every single time.

Lotte and Sucy also slowly worked their way up to become outstandingly nice and deep characters, even if they were mostly totally overshadowed by Akko. The two characters I loved most, however, were Diana and Ursula. Starting with Diana, I think I’m simply a sucker for these types of “starting out as rivals, but then becoming best friends (and possibly more)”-kind of relationships. She always seemed cold and aloof, but really, she was simply so fixated on her goal that she just couldn’t be distracted by other things. When she finally warmed up to Akko, though, I totally understand why everyone started shipping the two of them, but more about that later. The big star for me, however, was probably more the clumsy and oh so plain teach Ursula. Well, it was very obvious from the beginning what her true identity was, but other than that, I loved what outfit she chose to hide it. Big glasses, that ridiculously nice ponytail to the side, plus that weirdly irresistible voice of hers…. HGHNNNN. I just can’t get enough!

Other than the fact that it was a little too obvious for me that she was Chariot, I really enjoyed how the show built up the pressure, making us hope that she would finally reveal the big secret to probably her biggest fan, Akko. I found the little twist about her magic show that stole Akko’s magic so damn interesting and well implemented that I almost forgot about the fact that the first half of the show was pretty much all just fillers.

The real storyline only became apparent in the later episodes, while in the first half, we mostly got to know the characters in what felt to me like filler episodes. At first, I was a little worried that the whole show would simply end up being this “one episode for an adventure of each character” kind of show. But I was truly pleased to find out that the few factors that gave me hope for a true plot in the first episode, actually came into play and set the stage for something truly amazing.

Even the early episodes set the focus on the problem that the magic fuel that gave the witches their power was slowly running low, meaning that magic would soon die out completely. So when the plot was finally revealed, it just felt natural that they would try to change it all. Witches would soon perish, and all people without magical powers already seemed to see magic as a thing from the past, something that’s just not in fashion anymore. It was a damn great setting, but in my eyes, I think they didn’t make it very clear why exactly magic was in fact still useful to the world. We saw some magic shops every here and there where they sell old artifacts or magical devices, but nothing seemed to be practical or anything other people might need in their lives. The only way we saw magic being used was solely to entertain people. I think they could have developed that aspect a little more.

Furthermore, thanks to adding our antagonist that admittedly had similar goals but other, let’s just say very unconventional ways of going about it, I think the world should have been even more against or even afraid of what magic can actually do. Instead, in the last episode, they were all just rooting for the witches to destroy the deadly missile that no one even seemed to understand was a problem caused by magic itself.

Anyway, despite the fact that I think they could have found a better way of having people find their love for magic again, everything else was simply perfect. I love how they connected Akko’s inability to fly to her idol, who was sneakily disguised as her teacher. I loved how they added technology into this world of magic and actually made it seem like something that just made sense to use. And I freaking love how, from a yuri fangirl’s perspective, there was so much going on that you could basically ship everyone and still be able so find some kind of justification for it.

Well, my favorites are surely Akko x Diana, and, of course, Croix x Urusula. I just really wish we had more doujinshi of them…

Story: 8/10

Characters: 9/10

Animation: 9/10

Sound: 8/10

Yuri: 5/10

Total Enjoyment: 9/10