Anime: Little Witch Academia (2017) 464g2j

Review
Trigger studio, formed by ex-Gainax , took the industry by storm when they released Kill La Kill, an ecchi-inspired parody of your average shounen school show with over-the-top action and comedy. Sadly thought, Kill La Kill ended up being far more ecchi than parody, and Trigger's promise landed just a tiny hit on the industry. After that the studio released a bunch of poorly-inspired ecchi shows and cute comedies, a sad fate for a group of people that worked on the epic Evangelion back in the 90's. Well, that string of mediocrity came to an end it seems.

Little Witch Academia follows the style from the guys behind the Trigger studio, it mixes over-the-top comedy with some sort of magical parody, a show that cannot be easily classified as a shounen or a shoujo, which for me is a fuc*n great quality in these days of stupid shounen magical shows and standard magical girl shoujos we are all tired about. This is the tale of young Atsuko Kagari, also known as Akko, and her first months in the all-magical-girl-school of Luna Nova. She is far from a typical student though, as her magical skills are definitely far behind every other girl in that place.

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1. It's Stylish
   The cartoonish style of Little Witch Academia picks up from Kill La Kill and turn it up a notch, delivering a visual identity of superb quality and making it stand amongst the tides of generic japanese animation these days. Trigger also worked hard to make this show as decent as the movies that preceded them and succeed in doing so. Little Witch Academia has expressive characters, quality animation, and a colorful work that only lacks a bit of depth when it comes to shadows and background art. Those looking for a visual refresher may certainly find a lot of value here.
   
   And it's funny
   Akko is a stupid incompetent girl. She is basically a mixture of your average genki girl with a shounen "chosen one" template. She is the fuel for the show, the main component when it comes to keep things going, never ever letting boredom take over the plot. Sometimes she just do stupid things, at others she succeeds by sheer luck (or script goodness), and she can even do awesome things from time to time. She is ed by a duo of friends, Lotte and Sucy, the later a masterful use of the "creepy" girl, delivering quality comedy when ing the rest. Most other characters work on making the show a progress in of plot, which means they are considerably more serious than those three and also more boring, but they do their job.
   
   And... it's a shounen
   School, chosen one, secret power, mysterious villain. The ingredients are all there. The only thing fortunately lacking from your average magical shounen (a genre that is overflooding the industry) is the superpowerful-superboring-superannoying male lead. Akko is a gift from the gods when compared to those other poor guys (yeah, especially you Mahouka, damn you). Although the all-girl crew may lead to think this will be a shoujo about girl in love or simply cuteness overload, it turns out Little Witch Academia is more about friendship, fate, and other things tied to Japan's young male audience.
   
   It's follows a dated formula
   Yeah... the late 90's when shows were 75% about random events and only moved on with its main plot in the late 25% of the time? Well, Little Witch Academia does that. Perhaps it does on purpose in an attempt to be more pleasing to western audience (this is airing on Netflix), perhaps it was just what the script intended. The consequence, however, is a show that goes around and around for far too much time before digging into what really matters. Things get worse when very little of these random episodes turn out to make characters move on from their starting template values. Akko and her friends change very little for the time spent on them, both in of personality and in of magical power, which is simply sad due to its potential.
   
   It delivers when the time comes
   Fortunately, despite all the dragging it may incur, when it really matters the plot is an enjoyable tale of friendship and effort with enough small twists to make it stand. It can remind us of Harry Potter at many points in its mixture of daily school stuff and heroic save-the-world witchcraft, and that is a good thing. Akko, Lucy, and Lotte make for an amazing trio and lead a funny japanese animation made for striking the western audience.
   

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Comments
Little Witch Academia may not be a masterpiece of innovation, in fact it is far from that, looking more like a comedy spin-off of Hogwarts, yet, taking in consideration the japanese animation industry, it is one hell of a refresher. The stereotypes are nicely used, there is a superb amount of charm to the young witches and their behaviors, and it deviates from shounen magic school shows in a big way. If you are tired of the very same thing over and over coming from Japan, this can definitely be your choice of a show.

It may drag for too long in its middle arcs, it may keep itself drastically inside a safe territory, yet Little Witch Academia can lighten up your day and deliver consistency, never being lame or questioning your intelligence.