Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade

pinkarray Jun 4, 2016

3.9

I know that this anime came out a year ago, so it may not have had much problems back then but this anime is not going to be remembered for years due to its tiresome cliches, squeaky dub voice acting, and art that brings nothing new to the table. I did not expect this to be so poorly animated and filled with unlikeable and generic characters. Story:What seems like a normal day in the school gets ruined by a giant mushroom attacking the kids. All of a sudden, Akko and her friends get carried by the mushroom. This is just a sickening scene and it might be too scary for little kids. The kids go to the office to talk about the fights that they have caused. Whereas Akko starts chattering all of a sudden in an annoying way and after like 30 seconds of talking, the officer finally commands her to stop. At home, Akko bangs her friend's pillow and punches it in anger. Her friend doesn't like it, but Akko was so mad that she burst the pillow as if she were in a pillow fight, with feathers coming out of it. Blegh, just typical cartoonish acts. But jeez, she is so angry here! After she gets an idea, she gets so hyper that she pours feathers onto Sucy. I think that this is out-of-character here. Calling Akko a kindergarten? Not very nice of you kids! That fight that the woman had with Akko (the one that said she wasn't compatible) was harsh. Lotte's feelings are hurt and then Sucy peeks in, asking what's going on. Uh.... what? So, the girls go to the market dressed like Harry Potter and I noticed that Lotte seems to resemble Harry Potter but acts more like Ronald; I don't know, I haven't seen much of the films yet. Lotte proclaims herself as gloomy and depressing, which causes Akko to acknowledge otherwise and then she walks off. How has Lotte gotten self-critical all of a sudden? What is the point of this, first of all? Akko gets up off the floor, angry at Sucy for what she feels to be mocking her with her words. Sheesh, this girl needs to calm down. Akko breaks up with Sucy and runs off. As she does, she shouts more angry words, including "Stupid" I knew she was going to say that with that attitude. She sits on a rock in sadness. The other kids ask her what is wrong, to which Akko ignores, too angry to reply. Akko butts into their conversation and argues. She gets splat with a fruits and then reveals devilish eyes, ready to fight. As the kids throw more fruits, she is able to duck and use her magic wand to disappear them. Braunschback (wow, that's a long name) decides to fight back. Akko says combative words like "Eat this". When her magic wand runs out of power, the kids shout a curse words (they shouldn't be saying that) and fight back. The town has now turned into a mess of tomatoes? After that exhausting fight, the kids relax with Amanda being the most tired of all. Boy, Akko's had such a rough day. But I still can't empathize with that sad face she got.Akko sits, still depressed about what happened that day as Diana criticizes her, causing her to become even more upset. After she mentions Chariot, Akko recalls the magic that she makes and becomes serious, causing Chariot to call her a strange girl. Akko comes back, letting steam too big out of her nose. This has actually inspired her, as she goes to the library and works on books with much effort. She seems to be trying way too hard as she's screaming. She then practices her magic all night on things. So, she's tired by morning, shakes her head and struggles to put bricks together. Why can't she just sleep already? Her friends help her with putting the bricks together, Akko is very happy by this. Umm... I still can't empathize with the characters. Akko and her friends put on a show where Akko uses her magic well and she encounters the boys throwing tomatoes again. I hate those boys and their childish behaviors! Though, it did become a bit better with the showdown in the third act. It kept me on the edge of my seat. I know that I was bothered by the beginning where they had kids in mushrooms, kids watching a movie with this guilty person but this was actually pretty interesting. Akko is reunited with a tearful reconcilation with Sucy, who saves her from falling. I do not think that her redemption is something very captivating. I did like some of the action and the flying going on with this scene, but it's not that intriguing. Scenes such as the throwing and catching the wand let it down for me. When Lotte talks about how Akko knew Chariot when she was younger, Akko starts crying and hugs her. This makes other people feel upset and get into a hug, too. There's just a little too much drama in this. The giant reveals its true form. Akko wipes her tears wondering what is that loud sound. The three witches working together had me rooting for them for a while, not much... because I don't care much for them. Wait, Akko did apologize for being selfish, but she still is too overconfident. Now the action that they had when they fought the giant's true form doesn't make me feel the enjoyment I had when they fought in the first film. They finally beat the giant, in a pretty sickening way, too. So, the people in town praised them as they fly on by as Akko thanks them. Even the other witches celebrate with Akko for their victory. Why go for an encore, Akko? I don't know if that's really necessary. And then those bullying boys come back and throw more tomatoes at Akko. Enough with the cliches already! And then Akko and her friends start throwing things at the boys. I'm surprised that Akko didn't just talk the boys out of this instead of leading her friends into a fight. And why would the crowd cheer for this? This is so annoying. Akko uses her magic to splat the tomatoes all over the boys. They throw more tomatoes and Akko laughs it off while hugging with her friends. What a silly way to end this film. I thought that this was a predictable sequel to the mediocre film. 

Andy859 May 2, 2016

5

Remember the mystery of the first film about Shiny Chariot? Yeah, that's not what we're exploring in this film. Instead, let's talk about poorly handled metaphors for religious prejudice.It's basically the same as the first one, but with perhaps a larger budget and cast. And more guys. Because a film that is about women, women's relationships and fighting the old stereotype of "evil witch" of course needs more men - I mean bullies, cowards, thugs and probably corrupt government officials - in it. None of whom actually advance the plot. None of the relationships outside the trio from the previous film are explored in any meaningful way, like between previous film's protagonist and primary antagonist, and most of the characters outside the main trio are background characters. The new female characters serve little purpose and we learn little about them. Two of them have little to no speaking lines.The main problem I had with this was the bullying storyline. I don't know why this is popping up more and more, but we've seen it before: a group of, typically, male children are messing around and decide to pick on some of the main cast. The main cast typically does not retaliate through fighting, but instead tries to cure cruelty with kindness - a noble endeavor. The bullies seem to start to figure out that their victims are good/interesting. And ultimately the bullies just go back to bullying them in the same way. But now the main cast has accepted it with a smile. For no apparent reason other than the storyline has come to an end. The moral being, I suppose, that bullying is incurable, you should just accept it when people decide for one reason or another to assault you, and boys will be boys. You see this elsewhere in incurable street harassers: after going on some journey with the female cast member, they still catcall or harass her, but in a "loving" way, while the female victim chuckles or smiles or shakes her head. Ah, men... Even outside of the toxic lessons and trope-forming crap, this serves zero purpose in the storyline. The protagonists don't even attempt to deal with the problem in an intelligent manner. Sure, they eventually sort of show that witches are useful people, but they don't find the parents of the kids to explain "hey, your children attacked us without provocation for somewhat prejudicial reasons." They don't go to the authorities or try to see how widespread this prejudice is. They just create a light show and accidentally defeat a giant. And these kids are HORRIBLE. The scene where they steal the thing they steal made me feel SO uncomfortable. Especially because they face NO consequences for it. The ringleader almost gets crushed to death, I guess, but ultimately all they do is the same bullying they did when they were introduced. Which is supposed to be fine, apparently, given that they're primarily at fault for nearly destroying the town and killing countless people???Not much else to say about it. Akko was terrible. I know at least two people like her and I can't stand them. I was happy that she faced at least some consequences for her actions and did eventually apologize profusely. Although it would have been nice if someone had explained to her JUST WHAT SHE DID WRONG instead of assuming that she would figure it out by using psychic powers? Yes, it's obvious to us as the audience but it doesn't seem like she's aware. At all. As far as we know, she probably thinks she just ripped the equivalent of a piece of notebook paper in half.There's a TTGL reference because of COURSE Studio Trigger would put in a nonsensical TTGL reference. It really doesn't make any sense. Maybe it'll make sense for the next film or series or whatever if they got into the lore behind the special wand. I doubt it. But maybe.I wish I could be excited about this storyline that initially seemed focused entirely in a largely non-sexually-objectifying manner on women and women's friendships and magic done by and administrated by women and women's history. But it's just a giant disappointment recycling boring sexist and cliche tropes with some added bad writing

JohnnyVuArts Jul 10, 2015

7

           Having watched the first one I have to say that the sequel was lacking. While the animation generally stayed strong, I found the plot incredibly predictable. Not to mention that the main character was amped up a bit too much in order to fit into certain character types. Mostly she came off as just plain idiotic and selfish compared to the first time where she was a much more of a loveable goofy character that had at least a little awareness of her surroundings. Of course she does redeem herself towards the end when she gets to tackling her goals. What I disliked most is how it lacked the mysteriousness and wonder of the first one that made you want to invest yourself into this world. I would've been fine with the plot if it had kept that element but instead it felt restrictive to this singular plot and didn't expand to much on what it meant to be a witch or how various things worked. Essentially nothing really new was added to the story that you couldn't already get from the first one. Its saving grace for me however was the introduction of the three new witches who were delightfully unique and fun each in thier own way. The characters of Little Witch Academia are what really bring the show together and while I didn't like the performance that was the main character this time around, I loved the many other characters that presented themselves.  Also the big battle towards the end is worth some mention as well I suppose. Other than the cliche of the "now or never its time we used this skill that we were just taught and failed to do before" scenario, it was well done in how it pulls the various characters into working together and taking down the big boss. Anyways those are just my opinions. I'm sure that despite the reasons I listed, if you enjoyed the first one you'll probably like this one anyways if not for the story then definitely for the characters and animation which make up for most of the story anyways.