Anime ATM 78 Little Witch Academia {Second Cour}

When I started this anime I thought I was in for your regular ol' slice of life/fantasy anime. I wasn't expecting such a heart-warming, chilling, absolutely enrapturing, purely enchanting show. I certainly wasn't expecting to find such a masterpiece in an anime that I hadn't given much thought to before. From the end of the first cour all the way up until now at the very end I was hooked. Honestly I almost abandoned sleep for this show, but I thought for the sake of the quality of the post I left the last 4 or so episodes for today (2/27) and oh boy am I glad I did.

{LOL you can skip the next paragraph if you hate when I give lectures}

One thing I have to side note and apologize for is the fact that I don't have any screenshots. I was watching it on Netflix. You might scoff and say "what kind of trash anime watcher watches things on Netflix?" or even say "wow, how lazy" and while I do understand your sentiment and I do harbor some guilt about the lack of visual stimulation in this post, I also believe that not having to stop three or four times every episode at least to get some screenshots greatly increased the amount I enjoyed this anime. I wasn't thinking about which scenes would look especially great as screenshots. I wasn't thinking about which subbed scenes would be great to add in for comedic effect. I could just watch in the moment and laugh and cry and just feel whenever I wanted to. I think that's what I've been lacking for a while now. I've just been thinking about the screenshots and not living right there and then and just letting myself be fully immersed in the show. I recommend you watch like that. I think the best way to enjoy anything is to just let yourself be swept away by it which sounds like something so simple, but it's also one of the most moving experiences you can have. My ballet teacher used to tell us that while we were in the studio that we shouldn't stress about things going on outside of the studio, that we should cast away all of our worries in order to dance the best that we could. Watching anime should be the same way.

{Spoilers}

By the first cour, almost everyone's character has become fleshed out. You learn who's who and all about their different quirks. So with the beginning of the second cour you get a sense of who people are, and while for some of them they stay the same like Lotte, Sucy, and Amanda, for characters like Diana, Professor Ursula, and for Akko they change and grow in some fundamental way. Seeing the complexities of each character and how Studio Trigger is able to characterize each one of them so subtly with wordless scenes and hidden motivations and pasts make them all the more convicting and fascinating. It's almost like watching real people with all of their different facets and flaws.

Take Diana for example. For a while now she's been the privileged ojou-sama. She's been the aristocratic know-it-all that no one really likes because of how perfect she is. However, we're able to learn a lot more about her through other people and how she interacts with them. In the episode 19 when it's revealed what Diana's home life is and then later on in the cour when it's revealed that she's just as big of a Shiny Chariot fan as Akko is, your heart melts. At the end of episode 19 when she expresses how grateful she is to Akko, her humanity is revealed and you can't help but feel sympathy for this girl that was held up to all of these Herculean expectations and how she was crushed and molded into this perfect person that the Cavendish family was supposed to be. And we as people that are all held up to expectations, of perfection like Diana, of familial obligations, of anything that life tosses at us really, resonate so strongly with her. She is first and foremost portrayed as a perfect person, but underneath she has her own convictions and desires the same as anyone else. I think the glimpses we get of Diana as a hard-working and driven individual is something beautiful. She's not perfect naturally, she's had to work for what she has and against extremely unfavorable circumstances to get where she is. The way that her character is portrayed is just wonderful, and if you didn't like her in the first cour, don't worry, I didn't really like her either. But now, now she's just amazing.

Honestly the second cour was where it was at with the deep and complex characters. Like Croix who showed up in the second cour as the new and super high tech professor that was here to revive magic with the help of science. Side note, for the first couple of episodes I kept thinking about the carbonated, overpriced bubble water brand Le Croix every time I heard her name. But that's besides the point. I think what struck me the most in a very subtle way was the fact that she eats instant noodles. Don't take this the wrong way. I don't just fixate on random things. Like her eating instant cup noodles seems like such a menial thing, but why would Studio Trigger put that in if it wasn't significant in some way? Like she's doing all of this high tech magic and she's dressed super cool, but underneath all of that she's just a normal girl. When there's flashbacks of when Croix and Chariot were students at Luna Nova, Croix is always depicted in casual clothes, wearing a hoodie and sneakers and similarly in flashbacks Chariot is depicted wearing her performing clothes. At some subconscious level you compare Chariot and Croix to one another and while one impresses you physically, the other leaves something to be desired. Croix is what I imagine in our world to be like a CS major or an engineering major, late nights in a sweatshirt working on a project and eating cup noodle. She seems so relatable and her lifestyle relates so much to a lot of college students I know that prioritize their academics and their projects over their health, that it's easy to find similarities between her and real life people. Also the disparity that occurs when she's working on her energy absorbing cubes versus her eating cup noodle is insane. Like I can't get over it. I don't think I'll ever be over it. Maybe it's a subliminal message about the evils of cup noodle. And beyond her value as a relatable character on a mannerisms level, I think everyone can relate to her when the Shiny Rod picks Chariot over her.  I think we can all relate to the thoughts that we have when things don't go your way and someone else seems to be put on a pedestal. You feel kind of betrayed by the world and you might even feel like the other person didn't work as hard or wasn't as deserving of whatever you had desired. And that might bring you to do something extreme. Perhaps not as extreme as Croix, but still.

The most plot twist-ish, I mean obviously this is subjective, character was Professor Ursula, or should I say Chariot du Nord. She was such a good mentor to Akko this whole time, helping her find the words, waking up early to help her with her magic. On the surface without thinking about it, it just looks like she's helping Akko out of the goodness of her heart, when in fact she's doing it out of guilt. She unknowingly stole some of Akko's magic back when she didn't even know Akko, didn't know the consequences of harnessing people's magic. It's heartbreaking really to think about her initial motivations, however they're also so real and so human. Sometimes you love and care about someone not because you're a selfless person, but instead you do it out of guilt or duty. And while that isn't a love born out of purity, it can become a strong and stable sort of love that can be beautiful in its own way. When you think about how Chariot was put under so much pressure and her smile was smothered out by the expectations held by other people, not unlike Diana, all because she wanted to make the world happy, it makes your heart hurt thinking about how she caved under the pressure. But I think out of the mistakes that she made when she was young, she was able to grow into a dependable teacher that never gives up on her pupil. Shiny Chariot was Akko's hero, but Professor Ursula was her mentor. And while for some people their hero and mentor are the same, I think sometimes the mentor is the unsung hero of people's stories.

And the star of the show Akko. She's a piece of work. But it was certainly a pleasure following along with her bildungsroman, how she worked her way through the difficulties of becoming a witch and succeeded for the most part. Put bluntly she plowed her way through and through perseverance was able to make her dream of meeting Chariot come true. Along the way she was able to overcome some of her shortcomings like her inability to be patient or her bull-headed nature. But I think it was her shortcomings and clumsiness which made her so endearing. Without Akko certainly the show wouldn't have been as entertaining and it wouldn't have been quite so uplifting. Because of her, LWA was a star. There were so many ups and downs and even times where Akko's spark almost flickered out, but her happy-go-lucky attitude and iron horse work ethic pulled her through. Why does this sound like I'm signing her yearbook? I can't quite put into words how determined and beautiful Akko is. Maybe it's because I can't relate to how driven and brightly she shines. I guess you'll just have to watch yourself to really see. I was talking to V about when she found out that her childhood hero Chariot was actually Professor Ursula and how she had stolen her ability to fly. We were talking about her reaction to that unpleasant reality bomb and how I couldn't relate to that and how V thought she should've been angrier. I was thinking about that and I thought it was interesting. Like we both had watched the same episode, but his opinion as to how Akko should've acted was different to mine which shows how people see Akko differently and react differently to her. It's fascinating really how characters can impact people in a multitude of variations. Just food for thought haha...I don't really know where I was going with that.

But in any case thanks for sticking through to the end of this blog post. It probably wasn't that engaging or exciting, but I enjoy giving my two cents. If you haven't watched it already I highly recommend you watch LWA. The music and art style have a very light hearted and cute feeling. And it's overall a very inspirational watch. I feel like this kind of story is repeated over and over again, but you can't really get tired of it because we all need a reminder of how we should keep reaching higher and higher to achieve our dreams. Because the real magic is inside of you.

Anime ATM 77 Little Witch Academia {First Cour}

So as I was buckling down to write the review for LWA, V informed me that the first "season" as denoted on Netflix was actually just the first cour. Then I proceeded to google said "cour" and learned that the first twelve episodes are in fact just the first half of the season. But since I had already mentally prepared to write the review, I will just give my thoughts on the first half first. Although it does make sense that the first 12 were just the first half of one season because honestly the last episode didn't seem like an end, it seemed like just a continuation. Why does Netflix have to be so complicated? In all seriousness I picked up this series in the beginning because of V. He said it replaced his current faves, or something like that I forgot the exact wording verbatim hehe, and I was shook. If V says its good enough to rewatch and he had such strong feelings about the cast I knew I had to watch it!

{Spoilers}

I think what makes this series so great is the amazing set of characters. They're all a little bit quirky, but at the same time you've seen those kinds of characters time and time again which makes them seem familiar. For example I see a lot of Yui from K-On in Akko. They're both a bit ditzy and not that into studying the traditional way, but when they've got their mind set on something they don't let anything get in their way. I think this familiar character gives a lot of people someone to connect to. Not everyone can be perfectly selfless and intelligent like Diana, but I think many people can resonate with Akko and her awkward but lovable self. Additionally I love how hardworking and unconventional Akko is. She's not from a witch family and while that's already a big disadvantage, all she can think about is how she wants to become like her idol Shiny Chariot. Personally I can't relate to wanting to be exactly like another person, but the idea of aspiring to become something greater than yourself is a beautiful thing. She's not afraid to break or bend the rules a little bit either. She doesn't let the fear of failure get in the way of her trying things. Episode 12 is a good example of this. Even though she was stuck with the grossest job for the festival, she wanted to do something to help the cursed spirit. It was a desire born of the unselfish desire to cheer up the spirit. And what's even more phenomenal about her character is that she still wants to go ahead with her plan when everyone else thinks she should just stick with the traditional way. Her radical mindset is both an inspiration to the characters in the show, but radical and world-shaking, rule-bending people should be embraced and nurtured in this world. I think that they should be the example we follow in order to change the world to be better. I think I see many parallels between myself and Lotte. She's definitely a fangirl and someone that blends into the background more than anything, but she has firm beliefs and always wants to support her friends. Another interesting character is Sucy. Her obsession with mushrooms is definitely creepy and you get that sort of occult, creepy witch vibe from her, but the episode of Akko in Sucyland really solidified how great of a character Sucy is. In the episode Akko walks through Sucyland and sees all the aspects of Sucy that she didn't normally see. I think that's some great insight into how a lot of these characters and the people around you seem kind of plain or one dimensional, but that's just on the surface. Beneath that is really interesting and surprising aspects of people. I think my personal favorite Sucy was the spit on the world Sucy. It was such an interesting Sucy. I'd definitely recommend that you watch even just for the characters. They seem really familiar, but at the same time it's these types of characters that I find are often extremely relatable and easy to connect to.

Another enjoyable aspect of this show is the different arcs. I briefly touched upon the Sucy episode which was already a masterpiece in and of itself. I like how each episode is kind of its own entity. It's got its own standalone quality that makes it a joy to watch. Another episode I really like is episode 7. It's the episode where midterms are coming around and Akko realizes that the fish that everyone is looking at in class is actually the teacher. Honestly V told me about this episode before I even started the show and without even seeing it I was so hyped. It was super ridiculous, but that was actually the best episode in terms of comedy. It was just a series of mildly unfortunate events that all together accumulated into this great episode. I can't even put into words how truly entertained I was by that episode so I'll just have to highly highly recommend that you watch at least that episode. Another episode that satisfied my hankering for shoujo was episode 10. It was super cute with more slightly unfortunate events consisting of a cupid bee and the Akko x Andrew ship sailing. But honestly the part that had me super ecstatic was when all the guys that were stung by the cupid bee and fell in love with Lotte brushed her off and she was super sad and then Frank came by and swooped in like the amazing and underrated secondary character he is. Honestly I'm so passionate about Lotte x Frank you don't even understand. The ships in this show are real and I'm very moved by them actually. You know when the characters are so cute and so precious that you just want the absolute best for them? My favorite pastime is to root for imaginary characters :').

One thing that almost slipped my mind about the universe of LWA is the role that witches play in this world. They're not revered anymore and magic is starting to fall out of favor in lieu of technology. The school is starting to run out of money which is the whole reason why they decided to accept Akko in the first place. But in fact Akko could be the second coming of the golden magical era. Perhaps she and Diana will band together in an effort to revive magic. One thing I'm worried about though is that if they do end up doing that, what if magic just becomes a parlor trick or something for entertainment? Why can't witches do magic without the sorcerer's stone anymore? It's definitely food for thought and I don't really know what to think. It could be due to the fact that I'm running on not that much sleep because I have zero self control, or because my analytical brain is being drowned out by my animal instinct to just feel distressed and drown in the stress that I brought upon myself. Who knows?

OMG and the episode with Lotte and Night Fall. The Twilight ripoff. LOOOL. Honestly I think if I was more observant then I would be able to see more references heh

And so that was my short little blurb on LWA first cour. I will be back with the full review probably in the next week, possibly two weeks. Overall I'm sure you can tell how absolutely precious this show was. I've got a lot more to say on characters like Diana and Chariot and the whole universe they're in, but I think I'll save that for when I've finished the whole thing. V says the Diana arc is really interesting and will give me a 180 on my opinion about her character and I can't wait. So instead of closing with my final remarks, I'll just say that this was a great start and it'll be bittersweet to finish. I'm not like V, I don't usually rewatch because there's so many things I've yet to watch. What can I say? I'm a novelty hunter.

Disclaimer: The screenshots you're about to see are from V and they seem lowkey blurry but I appreciate that he let me use them. TY V :)))))))))))))

Wow it's me!

From the funniest episode in the series. The face of regret.

Haruhi Suzumiya is that you?

And this was the best shoujo episode. TY again V