Little Witch Academia (2017 series)
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My story is about to begin! —Atsuko "Akko" Kagari, Episode two "Papiliodia"
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Little Witch Academia is a 2017 anime series produced by Studio Trigger, and released on Netflix. It is part of the Little Witch Academia franchise, and perhaps the most prominent entry in it.
Let's face it. Magic is cool. Magic has so functions in life, from the mundane yet simple utilities like making plants grow faster, to the extraordinary like magical spectacles and combat magic. There's nothing that magic cannot do. Atsuko "Akko" Kagari knows this, witnessing a spectular performance her idol Shiny Chariot put on when she was a kid. This is precisely why she signed up to the prestigious Luna Nova academy, which Shiny Chariot formerly attended.
Problem: Akko kind of sucks at magic. Flying on a broomstick is supposed to be one of the simplest spells for a witch. Everyone around her effortlessly rose into the air and soared through the sky, while not even a Training Montage, The Power of Friendship, nor intense Calling Your Attacks sessions with No Indoor Voice could make Akko overcome gravity. No, Akko, transformation spells are not meant to give you rabbit ears. You're supposed to transform the animal sitting in front of you, not yourself.
Well, no fear! Her pluckiness and exceptional enthusiasm means she at least has a chance in the academy.
Note to self: The tropes need a BIG description pass before launching!
Tropes used in Little Witch Academia (2017 series) include:
- Accentuate the Negative: In universe in episode four, with Annabel Creme, the author of the Night Fall series. She quits writing, and hands her job over to Lotte, partially due to the negative reactions and comments she received regarding her volumes. Lotte eventually persuades her that she is a good author, and that Lotte has been a huge fan of her works for a long time, convincing her to keep writing.
- After-School Cleaning Duty: Dished out to Akko and the trio, almost every second episode, as punishment for them doing things they should not do.
- Anime Theme Song: The opening song "Shiny Ray".
- Art Shift: In the second episode, as Diana animates a statue the style looks much more like a painting.
- Happens quite often in "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld" in the Retraux film playing inside Sucy's mind. The most notable example is a callback to the scene where Akko first meets Sucy, where the art becomes much more detailed for two shots. There are no animated components, only objects moving around and parallax scrolling, contrasting the shots before and after them.
- Back from the Dead: In episode nine, Akko accidentally casts a resurrection spell. She was meant to mend a grave, but her mending potion was mixed with Sucy's mushrooms, resurrecting a corpse who desperately began looking for revenge on a man.
- Better as Friends: Lotte thinks that she and Frank are this.
- Bland-Name Product: In episode 18, we are introduced to "CBay", which Constanze searches to find a hand mixer. The site has Surprisingly Good English, although the animators messed up plural form and wrote "2 bid". You can pause to read what it says.
- Blank White Eyes: In episode eight, Akko gets them while being knocked by Lotte's wand to be sent into Sucy's mind.
- Book Ends: Episode five begins with Amanda and Akko fighting over who is the biggest try-hard in Luna Nova. Episode five ends with Amanda and Akko fighting over who is the biggest try-hard in Luna Nova.
- Cast of Snowflakes: The students at the Luna Nova academy. Every one of them are unique.
- Catch a Falling Star: In episode three, Akko, after falling of her broomstick, is caught by Diana.
- Chekhov's Gun: Akko initially finds her stuff lying on the ground, guarded by a human-eating mandrake. That flower is used later on in the episode to attack the gigantic cockarice attacking the cast.
- Children Are Innocent: Akko is depicted as innocent in her childhood flashbacks.
- Cosplay: In episode four, during a Night Fall release ceremony for the 365th entry, many people dress up as characters from the book series. Lotte was able to point and name at every single one of them and say which character they dress up as.
- Crash Into Hello: How Akko and Sucy meet.
- Dream Sequence: Opens the second episode.
- Drive-In Theater: Akko visits this, among many other places, in "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld". She watches a Retraux film which reveals how the inner Sucy thinks about her.
- Empathic Environment: At the beginning of episode eight, when Sucy is doing all sorts of creepy experiments and making potions, the weather is appropriately dark and stormy to reflect this mood.
- Equivalent Exchange: In episode eleven, if Akko wishes to gain a bright future where she is a talented witch, she must give up her past.
- Free Sample Plot Coupon: The Shiny Rod was just sitting on the floor in the forest in the Forest of Arcturus, which Akko easily picks up and keeps.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the first episode, when Akko holds out a guide to Luna Nova, you can pause the episode and read its content, which includes a history of Luna Nova, a map of the facility and how to access it, and pictures of the facility.
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Greetings from Luna Nova |
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- Good Angel, Bad Angel: In episode eight, the inner Sucys manifest themselves as angels to guide Akko through, well, Sucyworld. Played with, in that what the good angel is doing, forcing Akko to sign a contract to enlist the angel's help, cannot be considered "good".
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Downplayed. Akko at the start of episode twelve does this briefly. This is even lampshaded.
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Sucy: Wow. Akko's feeling down in the dumps. I guess there's a first time for everything. |
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- Homage: In episode eight "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld", the fangirl Sucy holds up a lightsaber.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The plot point of episode eight, "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld", where Akko tries to wake up a sleeping Sucy.
- Late for School: How the series starts out. Akko asks around for a bus stop to take her to Luna Nova, but turns out, there are no buses that go there. Instead, you have to ride on a broomstick. Oh, also if you're late, you're expelled. The stakes are just a little high.
- Loan Shark: In episode five, the dragon, who takes Luna Nova's own Philosopher's Stone as collateral, claiming that the school fell behind on interest repayments. Turns out, the initial agreement, written in the dragon language, mentioned that there were no interest to be repaid, rendering the dragon the world's worst loan shark.
- Long Runners: In universe with Night Fall, where the 365th novel was released in episode four. The series continued for 120 years.
- Look Ma, No Plane: In episode three, when Akko flies past an airplane after getting on a broomstick she can't control very well.
- Love Potion: A love bee in this case, appearing in episode ten. When it stings anyone, they instantly fall in love.
- Love Triangle: One is present in the Night Fall book series within the show.
- Magic Kiss: Parodied. In episode eight, Sucy is asleep. Akko performs a Journey to the Center of the Mind and locates the sleeping Sucy within the sleeping Sucy. She drinks all the antidotes Lotte gave her, and is about to feed them to Sucy via a magical kiss. Well, that was the plan until Sucy wakes up at the last minute and pushes Akko aside.
- Memento MacGuffin: Akko's rare card of Shiny Chariot.
- Mood Whiplash: Episode seven begins with the dangers of magic. To use magic to commit murder, they will be eaten life slowly by mice. Use magic to resurrect the dead? Enjoy your Fate Worse Than Death. Then...
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Akko: Are all of these going to be on our next exam? |
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- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Akko calls a cockatrice a "stupid bird" in the Forest of Arcturus, and now it wants to eat her. She meant to just cast a spell that Sucy gave her. Sucy uses Akko as bait to distract the cockarice while she harvests its poison.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Diana casts a family-secret revitalization spell in the second episode, to bring more life to the Memorial Tree which is special to Luna Nova. It led to the tree spreading its roots all over the campus. Then the trope occurs again as she tries to destroy what appear to be parasites on the tree's roots, but turns out to be Papiliodia -- rare butterflies who only hatch once in a hundred years.
- No Indoor Voice: Akko can only speak by yelling. Nothing else.
- No Ontological Inertia: In episode ten, when the love bee was killed, the love spell from everyone it stung wears off. Thus, Andrew is no longer in love with Akko, and Lotte no longer has an unwanted harem.
- Off-Model: If a character is small and far from the camera, it's difficult to tell exactly who they are. While it is expected that characters further away will be drawn with less detail, sometimes characters won't be drawn with basic features like eyes at all, making them difficult to tell apart.
- One Word Title: Episode two is titled "Papiliodia" and episode twenty-three is titled "Yesterday".
- Offscreen Teleportation: In the courtroom scene in episode eight, Akko is clearly seen sitting with the other Sucy characters in the chair. Two shots and three seconds later, she somehow got up to the judge, close enough to stop the hammer.
- Only Six Faces: In episode eight, Sucyworld is only made up of, you guessed it, Sucy. Every background character is Sucy. In fact, there are no characters other than Sucy other than Akko taking a Journey to the Center of the Mind.
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Judge Sucy: The case of Sucy by Sucy for Sucy is now in session. |
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- Or Was It a Dream?: "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld" ends with Akko waking up, with the world seemingly back to normal, and the events of the episode apparently a dream. That is, until Sucy brought up that Akko needs to carry her stuff for a month.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The dragon in episode five makes coffee and makes money trading stocks, apparently. He's also a Loan Shark and takes Philosopher's Stones as collateral, for some reason.
- Overly Long Name: In episode seven, we have "Constanze Braunschbank Albrechtsberger", who takes an exam right before Akko.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: In episode ten, while Akko is hunting down a flying bumblebee, we have Andrew playing Flight of the Bumblebee. Very clever, Studio Trigger. Very clever. Well done.
- Recursive Canon: In episode eight, there is a number plate with the letters "LWA". Does this mean the characters of Little Witch Academia know they're in Little Witch Academia?
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sucy as a character is less enthusiastic, and serves as the blue oni counterpart, to Lotte and Akko.
- Retraux: In "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld", the film that Akko and all other Sucys watch inside Sucy's mind are in black and white, and animated like older American cartoons than a Japanese series.
- The Reveal: Did you know that Professor Ursula is Shiny Chariot all along? It's true! Go watch episode 15 yourself!
- Ship Tease: The end of episode ten gives us one between Lotte and Frank, although Lotte immediately crushes any shipper's hope by stating that they're Better as Friends. The episode gives a more subtle one hinting at Akko and Andrew.
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Frank: What about you and Atsuko Kagari? |
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- In the same episode, when Akko is asked about whether she likes Andrew her response is suspiciously close to He Is Not My Boyfriend territory.
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Lotte:Wait, don't you like him? |
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- The Song Remains the Same: The ending and opening songs remain in Japanese even in the English dub.
- Speed Stripes: Used quite frequently throughout all episodes. It's there to save budget so Studio Trigger won't make the mistake their ancestors at Gainax made and run out of money. They do not want to pull a Gainax Ending.
- Talking in Your Sleep: Akko after freeing all the Sucys from being executed inside Sucy's mind, talks in her sleep about how she did something good.
- That Was Objectionable: In the courtroom scene in episode eight, Akko loudly objects to the different Sucys being terminated, even going as far to physically stop the judge's hammer with her hands. She does have a reason, thinking it's ridiculous
- Training Montage: Parodied in episode three, with Akko trying (remember, trying) to fly on a broomstick. Cue lots of intense yelling, book reading, and epic failing.
- Screen Shake: Used in conjunction with action and fight sequences, as well in sequences where someone is hit. An example would be in "Akko's Adventures in Sucyworld", where Lotte hits Akko with a wand to put her to sleep, and the screen shakes to reflect this action.
- Show Within a Show: In episode four, we are introduced to the Young Adult book series Night Fall.
- Sink-or-Swim Mentor: Sucy briefly turns into this while teaching Akko how to fly on a broomstick. She does this by tying Akko to her own broomstick and making her bungee jump off a tower, then shooting her out of a cannon. Don't worry, because Toon Physics is at play no one gets hurt.
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Sucy: In order to win, you actually have to be able to ride a broom. I think it's best if you jump into the pool, completely head first. |
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- Surprisingly Good English: Despite being made by a Japanese studio, the Freeze-Frame Bonus guide to Luna Nova Akko holds up in episode one features perfect English, with real, on topic information about Luna Nova that you can read.
- Taken for Granite: The cockatrice in the Forest of Arcturus, in episode one, has the power to turn things into stone with its breath.
- Talking Is a Free Action: When Akko accidentally insults the cockatrice in episode one, there is just enough time for Sucy to explain what she's really done before the bird starts attacking them.
- Transformation Sequence: Parodied. In the second episode, Akko has a brief sequence where she changes into formal clothes for the school. It turns out, those were not the clothes she was supposed to wear for class, and learns that before begrudgingly changing into the correct clothes.
- Unwanted Harem: In episode ten, Lotte has to deal with one of those, from people stung by a love bee.
- Valley Girl: In episode eight, one of the Sucys in Sucyworld is like this, complete with way too much makeup and trendy clothes.
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Valley Girl Sucy: I really want to be a Hollywood celebrity |
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- World Tree: Episode 15 reveals that, long ago, the world tree Yggdrasil thrived and spread magic everywhere. Over time, though, the tree grew weaker, and the power of magic diminished along with it.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: With characters such as Diana and Sucy.