リトルウィッチアカデミア

LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
ORIGINAL
RELEASE
March 2, 2013
LENGTH
26 min

DESCRIPTION

For young witches everywhere, the world-renowned witch Shiny Chariot reigns as the most revered and celebrated role model. But as the girls age, so do their opinions of her—now just the mention of Chariot would get a witch labeled a child. However, undeterred in her blind admiration for Chariot, ordinary girl Atsuko Kagari enrolls into Luna Nova Magical Academy, hoping to someday become just as mesmerizing as her idol.

However, the witch academy isn't all the fun and games Atsuko thought it would be: boring lectures, strict teachers, and students who mock Chariot plague the campus. Coupled with her own ineptness in magic, she's seen as little more than a rebel student. But when a chance finally presents itself to prove herself to her peers and teachers, she takes it, and now it's up to her to stop a rampaging dragon before it flattens the entire academy.

Little Witch Academia is one of the four anime works that each received 38 million yen (about US$480,000) from the "2012 Young Animator Training Project." Just like in 2010 and 2011, the animation labor group received 214.5 million yen (US$2.65 million) from the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributed most of those funds to studios who train young animators on-the-job.

Positive response to the movie led Studio Trigger to run a Kickstarter funding a sequel, which surpassed its funding goal.

CAST

Atsuko Kagari
Megumi Han
Sucy Manbavaran
Michiyo Murase
Diana Cavendish
Youko Hikasa
Lotte Jansson
Fumiko Orikasa
Chariot du Nord
Noriko Hidaka
Barbara Parker
Chinatsu Akasaki
Hannah England
Eri Nakao
Nelson Kyoukan
Minami Takayama
Minotaur
Kenji Nomura
Rou Kyoushi
Hisako Kyouda
Seito
Reina Ueda

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REVIEWS

ThyMrMan
80/100
Very enjoyable short movie, looking forward to watching the sequel now.
Full Movie Score : 8

Well I am a fair bit late on watching this, but after hearing a ton of good things about it. And wanting to watch the 2015 sequel during this season. It is time to sit down and watch what I guess became a modern Trigger standout series. And after the short 26min runtime, 23ish if you take out the credits. I can fully say that I am very impressed. And I can easily see why this got a sequel movie and a full TV show. Everything about this was a ton of fun, incredibly well animated, and a very good story in the short time they had to present it.

I will also say I'm surprised that this actually does classify as a movie and not an ONA since it did release in a limited theater run in Japan. I can honestly say I'm not sure if I can think of many, if any, other shows or movies that are this short and managed to get released in theaters. Sure it was only 14 theaters, but that exceeded by expectations for such a short film.

Characters right off the bat are just the amazing with a surprising amount of development for the runtime. I really love the overwhelming enthusiasm from Atsuko despite her not being very good at anything, but she has a ton of drive and won’t admit defeat it seems. Sucy and Lotte provided a great contrast to Atusko, both seemingly willing to go along with her hi-jinks but honestly not fully enthusiastic about any of it. And Diana, the obvious honor student who obviously cares far more than her initial appearance. Even Diana's followers manage to get some pretty good background reactions. Honestly I am kinda shocked at how much personality and character they managed to fit into 24min, somehow they did more in that time than most full seasons.

And for sure the animation helped a ton. I really love when animation is playful and a bit loose with what would be normal expectations. Body shapes that are more fluid because it leads to a more enjoyable scene. Or reactions from characters, or the dragon, that don’t really make any sense logically but boost the scene immensely by just being fun to watch. It is stuff I feel like I don’t see a ton of anymore, and I’ll be interested to see if they keep the same fun style into the second movie and the TV show. Is it something that they could only do by being able to dedicate a ton of time and money in a short movie, and they will have to revert to more stiff and less fun animation when they need to do more episodes. But it is Trigger, so will be interesting to see how it goes.

Have to say at the end that this was a very good short movie that far exceeded any of my expectations. And I am far more interested in following it up with the 2015 movie shortly, and that full tv-series in 2 years.
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