BAD REVIEW: Little Witch Academia – The Enchanted Parade

If the original Little Witch Academia was about finding inspiration within yourself, then The Enchanted Parade is about finding inspiration with your friends. While this is a pretty simple story, there is a lot of craft that went into it. So I am going to go through the film and comment on all the elements that make me love the series.

The movie begins with a cold opening of Akko, Lotte, and Sucy trying to perform fusion magic. However, Sucy and Akko can’t agree on what to put into the spell, which results in a giant mushroom terrorizing the classroom.

This cold opening communicates what the central conflict will be for the rest of the film, that there is discord between the main three characters. This cold opening establishes where the main characters are in their relationship at the begging of the film so it lets us observe how they grow as friends through the movie.

We then cut to Akko and her friends in the teacher’s office getting scolded for their various misdeeds. As punishment, they are told to put on a parade, something that Akko is excited until she finds out that the parade is meant to embarrass witches.

After which we are introduced to the new characters Amanda O’Neill, Jasminka Antonenko, and Constanze Braunschbank Albrechtsberger who from here on will be referred to as the trouble gang.

While meeting with the trouble gang, Akko is taking out her frustration on lotte’s pillow a small detail, but it signifies an important thing which is that Akko is not giving thought to how her actions affect her friends, which creates the discord between the group.

Akko gets the idea to remake the parade to one that celebrates magic.  Akko is excited about her idea but doesn’t really consult with her friends about what they want to do.  We then see Amanda instructing Akko and the others how to dance, it doesn’t go well.

Which cements the idea that Akko’s plans for the group is detached what is feasible for the group. Diana then arrives to lampoon Akko where there is some clever manipulation of the sizes of the characters to show the changing power dynamics in the conversation. 

Later Lotte begins to worry that Akko’s plan won’t be able to work so takes out a scroll that’s been past down in her family for generations. Akko barges into the room to see what the manuscript is an accidently tares it, with prompts Lotte to give the best-animated reaction I’ve seen, where we see the initial shock a moment of silence and then hot red anger.

Lotte is upset at Akko and Akko is frustrated that Lotte won’t speak her mind. When Sucy tries to clear things Akko lashes out at Sucy and soon finds her self without her closest friends. What Little Witch is trying to communicate with this plot point when our passion becomes too detached from reality, it can lead to problems with others. We then cut to Lotte describing how whenever she would feel down that the spirits would always put on a performance for her to cheer her up. This might seem like a throw-away line, but it actually clues us into the whole theme of Litte Witch Academia, which is that great art is important to motivate and cheer people up. Grate pieces of art like Little Witch, are important to help people through tough times or inspire them to work harder.

 

Akko comes to this realization when she remembers why she decided to become a witch in the first place. She wanted to inspire people the way Chariot inspired her, and she finds new inspiration to continue with her vision for the parade. And Akko gets to work she puts in serious effort by herself, researching, practicing with fireworks and dance moves. I really appreciate this part of the movie because it tells you that it is not enough to be inspired to do something great, you have to work hard. She also scales down the project into a parade float which reinforces the premise that your dreams and ideas need to have some grounding in reality for them to work. But even with all of her hard work, she still needs help as exemplified when the trouble gang helps her finish building the float.

Transition to the night of the parade and Lotte and Sucy are still not there despite Akko inviting them to be a part of the show. The parade has to start, and it goes great until a magical anomaly causes an ancient giant to reawaken. Panic almost brakes out, but Akko’s teacher manages to calm the crowd down by stating its all part of the show. We are treated to more of Trigger’s kinetic animation style. With the Witches flying to avoid various monsters.

And then at the moment where almost everything seems lost, Lotte and Sucy sweep in to save Akko. Then in this weird meta moment is when Akko’s teacher announces that this is the climax. With Lotte, Sucy, and Akko can fire and even more powerful version of the shiny arc which puts the giant to sleep.

Afterward, they share a laugh as all discord between them is gone.

Some concluding thoughts. First is that I wonder if there is a deeper meaning to tricking the audience in the film that the final confrontation is all part of the witches’ show. Is the audience on screen suppose to represent what the director wants the audience of Little Witch to be, cheering on the witches in the show as they fight the giant? I think what the director wanted was to inspire the same feeling with the audience of Little Witch Academia as Akko and her friends instilled in the audience of the enchanted parade. Second the I think the theme inspiration expertly done. In the original Little Witch Academia, we saw how someone can find inspiration within themselves, in the enchanted parade, we saw how inspired dreams need to have reality checks, and that is where friends come in. Friends also can allow you to achieve greater goals that you could have done by yourself, which is represented by the upgraded version of the shiny arc that Akko was only able to do because of her friends.

 

So those are all my thoughts on the enchanted parade now it is onto the tv series.

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