The third manga based on Little Witch Academia. The manga was created to coincide with the 2017 TV series and is illustrated by Keisuke Sato
Based on the 2017 TV series, unlike the previous manga adaptations, which primarily told their own original stories, the manga is more of a traditional adaptation, largely following the same story as the TV series, with several episodes from the TV series getting directly adapted into manga form. However, several original stories are sprinkled into the mix in order to flesh out the world and characters a bit more.
The manga would begin serialization on Monthly Shōnen Ace on December 26, 2016, and would run until August 26th, 2018, making it the longest-running of the manga adaptations, with 17 chapters (plus two bonus chapters) in total.
Shortly after its completion, all 17 main chapters (though not the bonus chapters) would be compiled into three volumes, which would be released worldwide in 2018 and 2019 respectively in several countries in North America and Europe, making it the first and only Little Witch Academia manga to be officially released outside of Japan.
Not to be confused with the earlier manga by Teri Terio, which has its own page here.
Keisuke Sato's Little Witch Academia features the following tropes:
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Despite being an Alternate Continuity, watching the TV series (at least, the first half, as the manga doesn't adapt the events of the second half) is pretty much required if you want to properly understand several stories and how characters act in them since the manga frequently acknowledges events from and even has several sequel stories to past episodes that were not adapted in the manga.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed with Diana. While she still largely retains her TV series personality and background, some of her less pleasant and immature traits are more prominent here compared to the TV series (which toned them down from the films), with her antagonizing and belittling Akko more frequently compared to the TV series. It's still largely toned down from how she was in the films, however.
- Affectionate Nickname: Constanze is referred to as "Consey" by Amanda and later the other girls.
- Alternate Continuity: While it's based on the TV series continuity and follows the main beats of it for the most part (and even has a few chapters that serve as direct sequels to certain episodes in the series), the manga is primarily in its own continuity with several events heavily differing from how they occurred in the TV series.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The cockroach that chases Akko (and is in turn chased by two fairy workers) in Chapter 11 is technically a normal-sized cockroach, but it appears this way due to Akko being shrunken at the moment.
- The Big Race: The last three chapters revolve around one of these with the aforementioned race being a large relay race between two different schools, or more accurately, between Luna Nova and Woodward.
- Birthday Hater: Sucy. Given how many members of her family there are, she grew sick and tired of birthdays. That only makes Akko more determined to get her the perfect birthday present.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Mirage initially comes off as friendly and she and Akko hit it off immediately over their shared fondness for Shiny Chariot, however, her true colors begin to show once she demands the Shiny Rod in exchange for showing Akko how to fly, culminating in her pushing Akko off the ledge and stealing the rod. Luckily Diana was there to save her in time. Her behavior is later implied to be a Jerkass Façade, as Mirage was later revealed to be a Dryad who was testing Akko under Woodward.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official English translation of the manga refers to Mirage as "Miraj", the literal translation of the Japanese word for Mirage, instead of just simply using Mirage. Beyond it being clunky, this causes what was originally a Meaningful Name to become lost in translation.
- Broad Strokes: While the events of the TV series are shown to be canon to the manga, with a few episodes even getting adapted into the manga, a few events are shown to transpire pretty differently from how they went in the TV series.
- Canon Foreigner: Mirage and the witches who raced against Luna Nova in the last couple of chapters are characters made exclusively for the manga and don't appear anywhere else in the franchise.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Discussed in Chapter 11 and is the reason why Akko doesn't use the answer sheet Amanda gave her, as thanks to her experiences in "The Fountain" and especially in "Orange Submariner", she knows that cheating will get her nowhere and that she won't become a great witch by doing so.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Diana’s team quickly and utterly annihilated Akko’s team in the volleyball match as soon as magic got thrown into the mix, with the former scoring 25 points and the latter only scoring a measly 2. This was lampshaded by Sucy when Akko complains about this.Sucy: Like we could actually win. Are you stupid?
- A Day in the Limelight:
- Chapter 8 shifts the focus from Luna Nova entirely to the students of Appleton Academy, with the only appearance of the main trio being at the very end.
- Chapter 14 focuses primarily on Lotte, Annabel and Barbara.
- Chapter 12.5 focuses entirely on Finnelan and the Luna Nova staff, with Akko and co being absent entirely.
- Demoted to Extra: Croix, the Big Bad of the TV series, is largely reduced to a cameo at the end of chapter 12.5 and is mostly absent otherwise. It is justified in this case, as the manga chronologically takes place before her first proper appearance in the TV series.
- Does Not Like Magic: Amanda is revealed to not like magic in Chapter 11, finding it to be useless and feeling that people only use it for scummy stuff.
- Doomed by Canon: While the manga is not in the same continuity as the series, given that it is following the anime, the students who competed against Luna Nova in the last few chapters were pretty much doomed to this fate, since they don't appear in the actual series. Sure enough, while they don’t die, it is revealed that they are just dryads posing as humans, with them disappearing into leaves by the end.
- Elevator School: Downplayed. Chapter 16 reveals that Luna Nova has a middle school division on top of being a high school when Wangari encounters the disguised Annabel Creme, who she assumes is a student from it.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Akko's grades are so bad her stipend is cut off and has to work for the school. They make her clean rooms in a (chaste) French Maid Outfit. To her eternal embarrassment, one of those rooms belongs to Diana.
- Fictional Disability: In Chapter 15, Diana catches one in the form of immolation disease, a rare disease that according to Lukic, can only affect magic-users and can rise their temperatures to where it can feel like they're being burnt at the stake, luckily, the disease is easily cured with medicine and thanks to Sucy making an antidote, Diana is quickly cured of the disease.
- Foreign Queasine: While acting as Diana's maid, Akko makes her a cup of plum seaweed tea. Diana is thoroughly disgusted by the smell until she tries it—behind Akko's back, of course—and discovers she likes it.
- Foreshadowing: During the final stretch between Mirage, Akko and Diana, Mirage spawns leaves and trees to interfere with the duo's efforts, both of which foreshadow the fact that she's not actually human, but a dryad.
- Frame-Up: While Amanda is the one that stole the Shooting Star, it was Akko that got falsely blamed for it and had to face the punishment for doing so, despite being innocent. Luckily for her though, the punishment wasn't bad as the punishment for doing so was simply to bring it back to the magic cafe, in the case that it was displayed in.
- Graceful Loser: Mirage doesn't appear to take it too hard after losing to Akko as she smiles at the end after Akko celebrates her victory and the fact she finally used magic. Justified since the whole contest was a test for Akko.
- The Infiltration: Chapter 16 focuses on Annabel Creme sneaking into Luna Nova in order to do research for the newest Night Fall book.
- Jaw Drop: Headmistress Holbrooke and, of all people, Professor Finneran does this when finding out that Diana has fallen ill and thus cannot represent Luna Nova in the coming inter-school Broom Relay Race.
- Meaningful Name: Mirage is often used to refer to illusions, which subtly acts as Foreshadowing to Mirage's true nature. That being she is not actually a human, but a dryad posing as one.
- Mouse World: Akko stumbles into one of these while in mouse form in Chapter 7.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Diana has a subtle one when she realized in shock that the runaway rat the worker was referring to was actually Akko, realizing she forgot to turn her back. This leads her to go on a mission to save her.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Akko's attempt to return the cheat sheet that was given to her by Amanda results in her nearly getting expelled (again) due to Finnelan initially not trusting and believing her. Fortunately, she was able to avoid this fate (again) thanks to Amanda, who is able to successfully convince Finnelan that Akko was telling the truth. That said, she still punishes Akko (alongside her friends) anyway for being up and outside of her room at night during curfew.
- Not So Above It All:
- Even the normally unexpressive Professor Finneran suffers an Oh, Crap!-induced Jaw Drop when hearing that Diana cannot take part in the inter-school Broom Relay Race due to having fallen ill.
- Chapter 11.5 ends with the usually prim and proper Diana getting in trouble alongside Akko and friends by Finnelan after she partook in a race with them for a special dessert.
- Plant People: Mirage and the contestants who raced against Luna Nova in the last few chapters are revealed to be Dryads, who, true to the myth they're based off of, are this.
- Secret Test of Character: It's revealed the broom relay race is one of these by Woodward, as a way to see if Akko is worthy of being the wielder of the Shiny Rod.
- Shout-Out:
- Chapter 4 has Lotte read from a newspaper article that the owner of the Shooting Star will have her "Ultra Express Witch's Delivery Service" recorded in the Guinness World Records. Also, while the date is not exact, the newspaper article in question dates back to 1985, the same year that Eiko Kadano's original Kiki's Delivery Service book was published on.
- The mouses in chapter 7 look identical to the mouse characters in Gamba no Bōken, with Akko's main mouse companion wanting to see the ocean, referencing Gamba's love of sailing in that show. Diana’s weasel form is also a reference to the Big Bad from that show, Noroi, even briefly looking like him when she first appears.
- Sneeze Cut: Subverted. It looks like Diana sneezed because someone mentioned her, but it turns out to be a sign that she's about to fall ill.
- Take Me Instead: In Chapter 11, when Akko and the others are at risk of getting expelled from Luna Nova despite being innocent, Amanda steps forward and pleads their innocence and admits the whole situation was her fault, asking Finnelan to let the others go, which she does (but not without punishment of course). This, however, is precisely why Amanda didn't get expelled despite it, as Finnelan approves the act of maturity from her and decides to give her another chance.
- Truer to the Text: Teri Terio's manga and Little Witch Academia: The Midnight Crown, while not entirely unfaithful, had very little material to work off of (given there were only the two short films at the time), meaning plenty of creative liberties were taken and a lot of original material was created for both manga (resulting in some Early Adaptation Weirdness). Keisuke Sato's manga on the other hand, had the more refined and fleshed-out TV series to work off of, meaning it takes less creative liberties than the other two manga, making it more faithful to the source as a result. Keisuke Sato's manga is also the only LWA manga to adapt the stories of its source material to manga form (while sprinkling in original stories), whereas the other two manga stuck to only telling original stories.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- After Diana comes in to rescue Akko from the Mouse World in Chapter 7 after realizing what she had done, Akko promptly calls her out for being the one that kickstarted the events in the first place due to transforming her into a mouse and not changing her back.
- Lotte calls out Sucy for being mean and refusing to help a desperate Hannah and Barbara cure Diana unless she's being charged for it, this ends up making Sucy relent, albeit reluctantly.
