Monday, 19 June 2017

Little Witch Academia Episode 24 Review

The feels are for reals
(This review contains spoilers!)

          We’ve finally arrived at the grand finale. Now that all the main characters are in one place, it’s finally time to confront Croix and stop her master plan once and for all.

          The first showdown between Chariot and Croix was one of the best animated pieces we’ve seen in this entire show, and while this second battle was significantly shorter, it had the advantage of us getting to see Chariot using a lightsaber. While some might say it’s a little out of place, I have a counter argument:

          It’s awesome, shut up.

          But things don’t go well, as Croix uses the giant evil Shiny Rod to teleport back to where it all began: Arcturus Forest. Our heroes follow (and literally all of them are there), and it’s not long before they all square off against Croix.

          Despite the large cast, this is Chariot’s episode through and through. Her relationships with Croix and Akko both have an extremely satisfying ending here, with her deciding to save Croix instead of letting her die by her own machine gone amok, and her final talk with Akko about who she is and what they mean to each other.

          When this series started I felt that Akko learning Ursula’s true identity was kind of an inevitability. The question was how they were going to do it. Knowing Akko’s character I figured it could go either two ways: either really, really over-the-top, involving a lot of screaming and wacky faces, or have something go wrong and have the two need to talk it out later. The writers (perhaps thankfully) went with the latter, and the scene where Akko finally forgives Chariot was near perfect. I do think the animation on them looked a little weird during the whole thing, but the dialogue about how Akko, despite everything, still loves Chariot was pitch perfect.

          This led to the discovery of the seventh and final word, as Akko gained the power of the Grand Triskelion, which she used to create lots of flowers and rainbows and butterflies and all that good stuff. Everyone looks happy…until, of course, we cut to some ominous beeping and what looks like a nuke made by Croix hurtling into space. That’s probably not good.

          So the big question is how this is going to wrap up. Considering the tone of this anime (and since the director has said that he wants to do more with these characters) I think there’s extremely little chance we’ll be getting anything other than a happy ending. One thing I really hope doesn’t happen that I’ve seen people suggesting is that it ends with a Space Patrol Luluco crossover. As much as I love that anime, having a random character from another show be the one to finish the story here would just kick the legs out from underneath the finale, and sort of screw up Little Witch’s intent to be an anime for people who don’t watch anime.

          I really would like to see all of the characters get a moment in the spotlight for the last episode, especially Lotte and Sucy who’ve barely done anything this cour. Having all the major players in one place and a massive end-game villain to fight seems like the perfect place to give everyone some time to shine. It’d also be awesome to finally see the return of the Shooting Star broom from Episode 3, something they’ve been hinting at literally over the course of the entire series.

          But before we can get to the big end, we have to talk about this week, and yes, it was yet another extremely stellar episode. The fight scene was just plain awesome, even if it didn’t quite match up with the setting of the series, and Akko reconciling with Chariot was everything I’d hoped it’d be. I will say that the animation wasn’t quite as amazing as it’s been over the course of the show (I really hope their budget isn’t running out), and that kind of made a few scenes look a little strange. Other than that, this penultimate episode of the season was well worth the wait.

FINAL SCORE
8/10

Great

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