Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade

Name(s): Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade / Little Witch Academia: Mahoujikake no Parade / LWA 2 / Little Witch Academia 2 / リトルウィッチアカデミア 魔法仕掛けのパレード
Format: Movie (53 minutes)
Release Date(s): October 9, 2015
Studio(s): Trigger
Related: Little Witch Academia (2013)

Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade Review

I was pretty damn happy when I heard Little Witch Academia was getting a sequel. Not only that, but the success of The Enchanted Parade was apparently going to be used to determine the production of an actual TV series. It almost seemed too good to be true, as I loved the first movie but was depressed at the thought there’d never be anything more.

And yet, not only did we get a Kickstarter sequel, which shows great potential for future ambitious anime projects, but a TV series has now officially been confirmed. I’m just now seeing The Enchanted Parade for the first time, so clearly I’m a bit behind. My hesitation wasn’t entirely coincidental: I had heard many lukewarm to negative opinions about this follow-up. After watching, I feel comfortable in saying that those misgivings seem oddly hyperbolic.

What People Got Wrong

Mainly, everything that made the original movie a stunning success returns. The primary complaint seems to be leveraged at the fact that the original movie didn’t deserve to be anything more than a one-off and its main draw was the storyline. Something I couldn’t disagree with more, as the plot of Little Witch Academia is the most downright ordinary thing about it. The coming of age witch girl story where a down on her luck schoolgirl manages to save the day and assert herself in the end. It’s the classic kids’ movie formula, and it was never the draw.

What made a typical story so enrapturing are the usual qualities, such as everything that encompasses the framework of the story. In Little Witch Academia’s case, it’s story is magnified by many strong attributes. The first is the magical academy setting, which while has been copied many times after the popularity of Harry Potter, has yet to perfectly refine itself. It’s then still a ripe avenue to explore while not completely original, and Little Witch Academia gives us an animated installment that in a rare occasion isn’t about sexualizing girls.

Art Style

The choice to make it animated is a particularly beneficial one, and the staff at Trigger studios bring a highly stylized and fictional world to life with a skill that transcends any subject matter and makes it worth seeing for the sake of itself. The scene choreography is marvelously dynamic, and the generally wavy shapes of the character designs gel smoothly with the fluid animating. Facial expressions move so quickly I frequently rewind in order to catch them all, because the art style is such a joy to look at.

The pastel colors demonstrate a very bright and childlike world without going too far in alienating a general audience were they to go with more juvenile character designs instead. The excessive amount of detail in the painted backgrounds and movements of characters are not only stunning in their own right, but this combination of meticulous focus in drawing and freeform movement are important when it comes to background world building and selling the unique non-human characters and magic that fill up Little Witch Academia.

Simply put, as long as Little Witch Academia has these fantastical qualities amplifying its base premise it will always be worth watching – for exactly the same reasons as the first one was. There’s no logical reason to turn on it here. Little Witch Academia has a distinct identity among anime that should be cherished so long as it still has something of it to give.

The Story

With the surroundings out of the way, let’s look at the core of Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade. Or rather, its story. Atsuko, Lotte, and Sucy are punished for constantly causing trouble around the academy and are given the responsibility of putting together the upcoming annual parade. Failure means flunking the year, but fortunately they’re not alone. They’re joined by three new troublemakers to help: a deft attempted thief, a mute mechanical wiz kid, and a chronic junk food eater.

These side characters add charm and visual gag diversity to many scenes, but mainly this story focuses on the friendship between the three leads, something which the original didn’t really have time to do. Lotte in particular is given more attention with a bit of background info, but for Sucy we mostly just get more definition on her mischievous personality. A shame, since she’s my favorite character, but now there’s the series coming up.

Anyway, Atsuko wants to show the non-magical denizens a different kind of parade that demonstrates how spectacular magic is, similar to how the performer Shiny Chariot did to her as a child. But despite her successes in the last movie, her immaturity and inexperience strain the relationships between her friends and keep her from her goals. When push comes to shove, Atsuko is forced to attempt her best and grow up a little along the way.

It’s the same deal as the first story, admittedly with a little less punch this time around because it’s less distinctly personal than the victory of the first movie, but the little that’s lost emotionally is made up for the increasing attachment to Little Witch Academia’s world and characters.

Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade Verdict

This time the victory is shared among those other than Atsuko, and the journey there is filled with remarkable visual flash, humor, and fun characters. The folks at Trigger do a great job conveying character personality in exaggerated movements that make this kind of light animation so appealing, and overall another extremely impressive romp to a world that completely deserved being revisited.

With the TV series announced, I feel both excited and hesitant. I would always love more Little Witch Academia just like how I wanted this sequel, but where The Enchanted Parade did a fine job living up to its predecessor, I wonder if the TV series will be able to do so. Not because of the strength of story, but because of the things far more important to Little Witch Academia. I wonder if the direction and astounding detail and character in the art and animation will be lost with a stricter production schedule and budget plotting.

With Trigger at the helm my worries are assuaged, as ultimately it’s the talent behind a series that mainly determines its success and they’ve delivered both in Gainax and on their own. But nonetheless my optimism for more Little Witch Academia is only matched by my realization of how high Trigger has set the bar for themselves and the strength of their magic.