Little Witch Academia TV – Wis[s]e Words

(05) A green and pleasant land

Published on December 21, 2017Leave a comment

So yeah, anime has a lot of bad fantasy series that use western mythology or religion in about the same reverent way a certain Washington based football team uses Native American iconography, and usually it all takes place in Japan or some generic fantasyland setting anyway, but occasionally you do get a series set in a recognisable western country. This year we got two fantasy series set in Britain

LWA: straight outta Harry Potter

And what could be more British than Little Witch Academia: Harry Potter but with witches instead of magicians? As I argued before, it’s this familiarity that makes it so accessible for non-anime watching audiences. The boarding school setting is comfy and familiar while Akko’s goal of wanting to be the greatest witch in the world despite being manifestly unsuited for it is relatable. LWA‘s Britain is a bit of a cartoon whenever the series moves beyond Luna Nova and its grasp of British politics is especially suspect, but it all fits the mood of such a light hearted series.

Mahoutsukai no Yome: I want this cottage

Mahoutsukai no Yome is more ambitious, both in portraying England properly as a setting and in establishing its magical world, steeped in Celtic and British mythology. Early on in the first prequel OVA that came out last year, there was an establishing shot of London, complete with the London Eye, which worked very well in establishing that yes, this was London and present day London at that. Then, in the first episode of the regular series, there was the shot of the cottage, which was just a perfect cozy little home that could be anywhere in the West Country and I’d love to live in.

Mahoutsukai no Yome: Silkie is protective

Especially if it came with its own Silkie, the fairy landlady who feeds and protects Chise whenever a nasty priest comes to visit. She’s adorable, just bimbling along in the background, never speaking but a good friend to Chise. Silkie is revealed to be an ex-banshee in the original manga, so though she looks like a mute housekeeper, she’s actually a fairly powerful sort of magical creature. I like the matter of factness with which she’s presented.

Mahoutsukai no Yome: Titania arrives

On the mystical side of things, episode six brought a visit from Titania and Oberon, straight out of Celtic myth by way of Shakespeare, bringing the sublime in magic, a reminder that fairies and elves can be magical, wonderful creatures, but not ones you would want to anger. Titania is one example of how Mahoutsukai no Yome borrows and uses elements and characters from English & Celtic myth and legend and does so in a way that makes up a coherent world. What we see is only one part of a deeper cosmology, with its own rules and laws, that we’re only dipping a toe in.

This is the eight post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: let’s look at why Net-juu no Susume is rape culture.

(07) Phosphophyllite is a dark side Akko

Published on December 20, 2017Leave a comment

A protagonist who doesn’t let their innate weakness and lack of talent stand in the way of their greatest wish, who doesn’t give up when everybody tells them their dream is foolish: Hoseki no Kuni‘s Phosphophyllite really is a lot like Little Witch Academia‘s Akko, even if they are a genderless gem person. But Phos is Akko seen through a dark mirror, with the latter’s strengths becoming liabilities in Phos’ world.

LWA: Akko flies with a little help from her friends

With Akko, the greatest criticism of her character was always that her headstrong and impulsive nature, remaining mostly unchanged throughout Little Witch Academia, should’ve gotten her in bigger problems than it did. LWA‘s world was forgiving enough that she could usually get herself out of the trouble she got herself into — if with a little help from her friends — and usually without lasting consequences. Akko’s best strength is that same headstrongness and boundless enthusiasm, keeping going through failure after failure until she reaches her goal.

Hoseki no Kuni: the fragility of Phos

Phos shares that same impulsiveness with Akko and that same longing to become something they really aren’t suited for, but where Phos differs from Akko is that they have already mostly given up on it. Phos wants to be a warrior like her fellow gems, fighting off the Lunerians who want to kidnap the gem people to make them into jewelry or something. But as events in the very first episode make clear, they are wholly unsuitable for it, shattering just from hearing Kongo sensei’s battle cry. Phos is idle and drifting through life, with little desire to do anything if they can’t fight.

Hoseki no Kuni: the loneliness of Cinnabar

That changes when Phos meets Cinnabar, who is in a self imposed exile because their very presence can poison the other gems: any part of a gem that comes into contact with it loses its ability to transmit light and has to be chipped off. And because a gem’s memories are stored in their bodies, they loses any memories stored in those parts as well. That’s why Cinnabar patrols alone at night, but when they save Phos, the latter decides to rescue them from this exile, finding a job for them to do safely with the other gems.

Hoseki no Kuni: phos is self repairing

This sets Phos up on the same sort of self improvement journey that Akko goes on in Little Witch Academia, but for Phos there are much greater costs to pay. Phos gets stronger, faster legs, but at the cost of their original ones and the memories they held. Then, as they stays awake during winter with their new friend Antarcticite, Phoa loses their arms, which were too weak to hold a sword. Getting new arms takes an infusion of platinum and gold alloy, but getting them leads to Antarcticite being kidnapped by the Lunerians. As the other gems awake from their winter sleep, what they encounter is a new Phos, one with Antarcticite’s haircut and powers resembling that of Cinnabar, but without much of their memories or personality.

Incidently, the way that gold/platinum alloy fills the cracks in Phos’ original body is reminiscint of how broken pottery is repaired in Japanese Buddhist tradition. TBuddhist influences are everywhere in Hoseki no Kuni, as explained here: in this context you could argue that Phos’ attempt to grow stronger at all cost is foolhardy or even wrong as it leads to more suffering. It would’ve been better had they remained the same person they were at the start of the series, rather than live up to an unattainable ideal.

Comparing Phos to Akko, the latter never had to deal with this sort of side effects to her quest to grow stronger until very late, and even then it was active interference by the Big Bad of the series that caused it. Being Phos on the other hand is suffering, both for Phos themselves and their fellow gems. Each attempt by Phos to grow stronger leads to some loss on their part and that loss is not limited to just Phos themselves, as Antarcticite found out. Perhaps that’s the difference between a western oriented series like LWA and one with such a Buddhist influence where perhaps the desire to grow strong in itself is wrongheaded.

This is the Sixth post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. ~~Tomorrow~~ Today: how the ugliest, lowest budget series of the year turned out to be one of the best and how corporate interests fucked it over.

(09) Little Witch Academia fanfic kept me sane this year

Published on December 17, 2017Leave a comment

Let’s face it, 2017 wasn’t the best of years for most of us. Even if you personally did well, the state of the world, post-Trump, post-Brexit, did nobody any favours. No wonder we all need some form of escapism. For me, that wasn’t just anime, but fanfiction. Little Witch Academia fanfiction to be precise.

Little Witch Academia is the perfect sort of series for fanfiction: an inventive, fully realised world where there’s still plenty of room for new stories, populated by likeable characters. What’s more, it’s an upbeat, positive series where ultimately friendship and love triumph over cynicism.

Also: Diakko.

Akko, the likeable, klutzy, emotional novice witch who doesn’t let her inexperience and lack of talent stand in the way of her quest to become the greatest witch in the world and Diana, heir to one of the oldest witches families in the world, immensely talented, graceful and composed: a natural couple if there ever was one. The series itself may have only shown Akko’s one sided rivalry with Diana morphing into a real friendship, but there are enough hints of something more between them that it’s not hard to turn it in a full fledged romance.

Both being dense when it comes to romance, there’s a lot of potential for cute little romance stories, as a cursory glance at the AO3 LWA archive shows. I especially like SilverSupa’s stories, as they get the characters and have a good sense of humour to them. Fanart wise, Ticcy is my favourite, again combining a sense of humour with a sense of romance.

Especially the last couple of weeks, as I’ve sat at home having had an glandular infection surgically removed from my right shoulder, reading LWA fanfiction has been a life saver.

This is the fourth post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: a look at young love in Tsuki ga Kirei and Just Because.

(11) Little Witch Academia is the most important anime of the year

Published on December 15, 2017Leave a comment

My five year old niece watches Little Witch Academia on Netflix, which makes it the most important anime series of the year.

LWA: surprise

No, seriously. Not because it’s my niece of course, but rather because having a series like Little Witch Academia available for and accessible to young children like her will build a new anime audience five-ten years down the road. Netflix made that possible, by sponsoring the series in the first place but especially by making it available alongside all their other (children’s) programming and by making it all available at the same time. Because that’s how kids watch television: through Netflix or Youtube or whatever, watching whatever is available of their favourite show all at once if they get the chance, be it Thomas the Tank Engine or LWA. So while it was frustrating not to be able to watch Little Witch Academia week by week like a “normal” anime series, I don’t mind too much knowing that having it on Netflix rather than a dedicated anime streamer like Crunchyroll meant it was available to all those little kids whose parents already had Netflix anyway.

LWA: Akko flies

But that wouldn’t matter if Little Witch Academia had been just another anime series like e.g. Seven Deadly Sins, also on Netflix. Instead Trigger took pains to make it as universal as possible, free from the usual anime cliches & tropes. There’s the setting, not just that of a witches school straight out of Harry Potter, but Akko herself: the impulsive, brash, hard working underdog from a mundane family who has to watch all the other witches being so far ahead of her just for having been born in a witches’ family, without it getting her down.

There’s a bit of the Disnesy princess in Akko too, of humble non-magical origin but with a believing heart that ultimately makes her stronger than those who never had to struggle with magic. Diana too of course is a total Disney princess: aristocratic, talented, a sense of duty that sometimes crosses over into arrogance, but with her heart in the right place. As Ticcy’s wonderful cartoon shows, she’s such a Disney princess that she can free Akko from a spell with a kiss. Both Akko and Diana than are very familiar archetypes for regular viewers of Disney and its imitators.

Akko’s story is equally universal, of struggling to become the wonderful witch you always knew you were, of having a rival who seems to effortlessly accomplish what you cannot do, but who in the end has had to go through the same hard struggle as you, as you find out you have more in common than what separates you. Combine that with how it’s told, in that most episodes are standalone stories that have her getting involved in some magical problem through her impulsiveness or recklessness, but where she usually can get herself out of as well, with a little (well, a Lotte) help from her friends. That makes it so much more easy to follow the series than if it had a more tight plot, as some fans complained it should have.

Of course, ultimately it’s the sheer quality, of animation, of character and character design, of storytelling that makes Little Witch Academia so accessible and so fun. Even if they don’t realise that Little Witch Academia is anime, kids like my niece who are growing up watching it and similar series like the latest Pokemon series will remember it when they grow up and hopefully seek out other anime series then. And that’s what makes LWA so important, as it could make anime fans out of thousands of children watching it.

This is the second post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: PriPara season 2 as a metaphor for the commercialisation of fandom.

First impr^wrant: Little Witch Academia TV

Published on January 12, 2017Leave a comment

It’s pointless to talk about Little Witch Academia too much because it’s awesome as expected and everybody reading this will watch it anyway, so let me rant about the horrible way the academy treats its non-witch new students. Leaving aside the fact that Akko has clearly not been prepared for what the school is like, making the school reachable only by broom seems a bit hard on new students not coming from a witching background. You’d expect a slightly more accommodating attitude at Luna Nova if it’s really serious about attracting new students from non-traditional backgrounds, especially if it really is hard up for cash. Of course it may just be an impopular policy that the people actually running the school are actively sabotaging, that’s not uncommon in real life either. in any case, it makes Hogwards seem positively progressive.