Finding Akko
(This review contains
spoilers!)
Little
Witch Academia has been pretty episodic thus far, with only a few themes
stretching over the course of the series, such as Akko’s magical disability and
Luna Nova losing funds. Although I haven’t minded that there hasn’t been an
overarching plot thus far, it’s nice to see a direct continuation of last week,
as Akko uses what she learned about Chariot at the Polaris Fountain to give her
a drive to succeed at her first exams.
One thing I really like about the
series that hasn’t been touched on much yet is the budding relationship between
Akko and Professor Ursula. As we all know, Ursula is none other than Chariot
herself (and you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that’s the case), and I
love that she took on Akko as a remedial student because she sees herself in
her. It’s inevitable that Akko will discover Ursula’s secret at some point
towards the end of the series, and I feel that the bond the two of them have
formed will make it a happy revelation instead of one that breaks the trust
between them.
But anyways, onto the episode. Akko is
failing all of her exams because the teachers are comparing her to the other
students, Diana in particular. It doesn’t help that she still struggles with
basic magic, resulting in several funny moments of spells gone horribly wrong
and having various disastrous effects on the teachers.
Under threat of expulsion if she fails
her final exam, Akko attempts to sweet talk Professor Pisces into giving her an
A. Hilariously, Professor Pisces is a fish in a bowl, and the students need to
learn fish language to understand her classes. This show keeps finding more and
more ways to put a creative spin on the tried and true “magical school”
storyline, and a fish professor fits in perfectly with this world of goofy
magic.
Through some confusion, Professor
Pisces is flushed down a drain, leading Akko, Lotte and Sucy to turn themselves
into fish to go find her. Well, sort of. In Akko’s case she’s turned into a
frog-like mermaid, but close enough. They come across a fish who’s lost his
extended family, and in rescuing them they are able to stop an illegal fish
poacher and save Professor Pisces in the process. Pisces gives Akko an A for
apparently putting into practice everything she learned in her class, and an
environmental agency even congratulates her for stopping the poacher. It’s a
fantastic and earned happy ending to a great episode.
If I did have one gripe this week, I
do think that we spent a little too much time focusing on Akko failing her
exams. Half the episode was spent watching her screw up repeatedly in several
admittedly hilarious ways. I would’ve liked if we kept those moments, but they
were more condensed into a montage or something. This would leave more time in
the underwater scenes, maybe to give more worldbuilding. It looked like the
girls passed by a sunken shipwreck at one point, and I wanted to see more of
that! Again, though, this is more of a minor problem in a solid episode.
As I said before, Little Witch Academia continues to demonstrate new and creative
ways to make itself stand out from the rest of the “magical school” fantasy
genre. There really is nothing else like it out there, and that just makes it
all the more exciting for the new episode every Monday morning. I wake up
excited to see what the showrunners have come up with this week, and the added
bonus of the always charming characters and animation leave me in a good mood
every week.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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