(you can watch it here ^^)
Little Witch Academia
Airing Season: Spring 2013
Length: One 25 minute OVA (Original Video Animation)
Genre, as perceived by Dogy: Action, Comedy, Adventure (sorta)
Overall Score: 93/100
Would I recommend it? YES!
Who would I recommend it to? Anybody
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Why I watched
I stumbled on this anime, literally. I was lollin' through one of my anime news sites and I saw a headline for Little Witch Academia. Didn't even bother to read the article, I just saw witch, academia, and it was being talked about, so it instantly peaked my interest. After a small investigation, I found it was a 25 minute OVA... all I have to do is literally watch ONE episode of anime to get the point!? I mean, it sounds crazy to me; I've never watched a 1-shot OVA before.. there's no way they could actually get a meaningful plot with any relevance in twenty-five minutes. No matter how I looked at it I wasn't really losing anything to try it, whether I actually bought into the idea or not.
But aside from all that... IT'S WITCHES!! \( ^_^ )/ I dunno when, where, or why it happened, but recently ( in the past few months) I've come to realized that I like witches. Not so much the Old English "boil boil, toil and trouble" cauldron witches, but moreso the modern "bam, boom, zing! ~~ brightlight~~MAGIC!" witches. Some of it comes from interacting with a lot of Japanese mediums with witches (games and anime), a lot of it comes from my random loving of large hats (I love witch hats), but simply by saying "Yo, we got witches" was enough to really get me interested.
(maybe it's because witches are like... kool mahou shoujo, as I absolutely despise mahou shoujo..... pre-majou shoujo with big hats!)
(mahou shoujo is a genre of anime if you don't know. "Magical girl". You've probably heard of Sailor Moon and possibly Card Captor Sakura)
Either way, we in there.
What is it?
In short, and without spoiling anything, Little Witch Academia is about a girl who's going to a Witch Academy.... SURPRISE!! That's 75% of the plot right there; she's inspired, she wants to become a witch, so goes and learns.
Um... o_o ... so why is this so important?
From what I'm understanding (and I could be horribly wrong), this was a large hit from a project/contest thingy. In Japan, there is an annual project that translates to the "Young Animation Trainer Project". They select four up-and-coming animation studios to make short films (OVAs). This is one of the four that won this year (and I can see why).
Knowing that, and doing some research behind the scenes, I see where all the buzz comes from. The company itself is Trigger; an offshoot animation studio of another company. (I typically know absolutely nothing about companies and all the other production stuff). Trigger has made FOUR things so far that I've found; Little Witch Academia, Inferno Cop (a short net anime series), the intro to Project X Zone ( a 3DS cross-company tactical RPG featuring Capcom, Namco, and Sega characters), and some short one of the Idolmaster series.... those are 4 fairly large "small" projects.
In short, I'm looking at this as "another impressive entry by a fresh, new company".
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Well, what did you think?
(note: I watched Little Witch Academia BEFORE I looked anything up about why it's important, who made it, and so forth. I then went and researched what the big deal was BEFORE I wrote this post)
I was amazed. There was nothing glaringly wrong with the OVA. It's one of few animes I've watched and thought "I would recommend this to anybody, fan of any genre, whether they like anime or not. It's the kind of anime you cannot hate. On top of that, it'd take a specific personality to NOT like it."
It's simple and effective, you can't really argue against that.
I'm the kind of person who, by default, likes action. But not just any action, the kind where stuff actually happens (read: not the stereotypical stills + flashing lights + loud screaming that anime is normally pegged for). ~~We got that. I'm not one to really be amazed by visuals unless they're absolutely atrocious. ~~We actually went into some great detail to make some smooth animations for faces, lighting, effects, all that stuff. I'm actually not horribly big on music; I'm ok with fairly shake'n'bakish soundtracks so long as the series doesn't intentionally try to be annoying with it. ~~How 'bout an original, orchestral score, no recycled music (I think, I didn't pay THAT close attention).
It's hard to say anything beyond "everything was well done." You're given a simple plot with some meat to it; solid visual effects that flow smoothly and don't rely on gimmicks; a score that does wonders to add to the atmosphere but never distracts you or takes you away from everything as a whole. All in the perfect length. Everything you need fits wonderfully in the time frame. No need for two more episodes for the 3 ep OVA standard, no need to drag this out into a 12 or even 25 episode series.In short, everything was done right.
The only thing that I could even BEGIN to question is the plot. But again, it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination. The only call one could make on it is it's not original. However, if you consider the focus of this (which is supposed to be the animation), it makes sense why the plot isn't some unheard-of, creative genius.
I actually didn't read much into the overall plot as I was too distracted by the fact that pretty much every style of witch is included in this. You got your haughty "I wanna be a badass/scary" witch, your "I wanna be the kool/best witch", your "I make concoctions" witch, and a few more. I chuckled to myself as I thought about the characters since they all fit into some "subgenre" of witch. It helped to add uniqueness to the OVA by adding some depth to characters that otherwise would have no real way to stand out in such a short time.
All in all, I could have just said "it is awesome" and been done with it, but that wouldn't have done justice to the 25 minutes I just spent watching it. I actually "ooh" 'd and "aah" 'd at the visuals like I was supposed to, but I was genuinely interested in what the Academia had to offer as a whole.
Just scroll back up and watch it already if you haven't!! It only takes 'bout half an hour!
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