The beginning of the end
(This review contains
spoilers!)
As we creep ever closer to the season
finale of Little Witch Academia (I
refuse to believe it’s going to be the series finale), it looks like we’re
heading straight into our final arc, as Diana finally gets some long deserved
screentime.
Following some undisclosed disaster,
Diana decides the time has come to return home and become the leader of the
Cavendish family. Akko, of course, isn’t having any of it, and decides to not
rest until she stays in school, following her to her family’s estate. Along the
way she meets up with Andrew, who serves his usual purpose of getting Akko into
the situation she needs to be in for the plot to progress.
This episode is mostly concerned with
more worldbuilding, which is always welcome as far as I’m concerned with this
show. The world and magic of Little Witch
is so fascinating to me, so I love digging a little deeper into the lore of
the world. We learned that the Cavendish family is tied to one of the original
Nine Olde Witches, and Diana is a direct descendant of her. I also loved that
Diana’s childhood was brought back in several ways, including her being a fan
of Chariot just like Akko. It even looks like she has the ultra-rare card Akko
said she didn’t have way back at the start of the series.
The only problem is that Diana’s
sinister aunt (who is always flanked by two girls who always do what she says,
kinda like a certain someone else we know) has taken control of the family, and
is selling off their priceless artifacts in order to keep herself rich. Diana
believes that the family should sustain its heritage over improving its
finances, and has arrived on the one night a year specified in ancient
tradition that the next in line can take over the Cavendish throne.
Akko helps keep the mood light with
plenty of her always-great physical humour. The entire scene where she tries hitchhiking
to get to Diana’s house is hilarious. Plus, this episode gave a much stronger
insight to Akko and Diana’s relationship than we’ve had in a very long time.
While it’s been made clear they appreciate each other from a distance, they’ve
rarely had time to interact when they aren’t fighting.
And this leads me to the one big problem
with this episode. It’s kind of hard to believe that Akko would go chasing
Diana like she does. Replace Diana with Amanda or Sucy and her reaction is way
more understandable. The two of them haven’t had enough of a positive
relationship for me to really believe that Akko would go out of her way to get
Diana back. I kind of have to forgive this because without her reacting like
this there’s no way we would’ve gotten this storyline (considering this series
is so tied to Akko’s story and basically everything is told from her perspective),
but it’s still a little annoying.
The episode ends with a cliffhanger of
Diana challenging her aunt for power, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t
looking forward to seeing where this goes. This episode was fantastic in deepening
the world of Little Witch even
further, as well as developing Diana’s character more, considering she’s felt
more like a foil to Akko than her own character for a long period of time. I
kind of wish we had a stronger reason why Akko went on this crazy mission other
than “she likes having Diana around”, because we honestly haven’t seen enough
development between the two to believe that. Despite this, this is an excellent
episode that looks to serve as the beginning of the grand finale.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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