Little Witch Academia

Am I gonna have to whip out the Thermian Argument on y'all? Fiction - especially animated fiction - is an entirely constructed medium. That means everything in it is there on purpose. You literally do not need to show everyday activities like eating and drinking unless they advance the plot or characterisation. Consider the only other meal in this episode - it introduces Lotte's family, provides light comedy, and sets up the main conflict. We don't see the snacks our lead trio ate on the train - hell, we don't see the train journey at all.

That means that someone on the team thought it was important to show Croix eating ramen, because it told us something important about her. Think about it. We've got a shot of her alone and dwarfed by her huge, cave-like laboratory (and by her latest, nightmarish creation), tucking into the most stereotypically cheap and simple junk food with an expressionless face. That undercuts the image she's maintained until now of a capable, composed, and incredibly powerful villain with a machine for everything in some really interesting ways.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it undercuts that. It could just as easy be the implication that she's so intent on whatever she's working on that she'd rather grab some instant ramen than go to the trouble of cooking or going out to eat.

Sometimes the purpose is just to fill something out, or for it to be mildly amusing, or just because they could. Just because you don't need to show something doesn't mean you can't show it without it having a deeper meaning.

I'm pretty sure the ramen was just an Actor Allusion or Shout-Out to Naruto

What's this about?

@Teeth:The thing is, there are lots of ways to signify intense focus without sacrificing cool. For instance, you could have her snap her fingers and have an army of robots instantly create a elaborate three-course meal, which she eats while never taking her eyes from the screen. Cheap cup ramen is pretty much the exact opposite of cool, and they framed her eating it in a way that emphasised how small, fragile, and alone she was.

@Duck: Are you seriously saying that Trigger, of all studios, doesn't get visual storytelling and conservation of detail? Besides, you don't put in a couple of detailed, animated shots lasting two seconds to fill time. Even 'it was just a joke' is a meaningless statement - jokes say things too. In this case, it's inviting us to laugh at a cool, threatening character for secretly being kind of lame. That is, if you accept it's a joke. The LWA team usually make it very obvious when they're joking, and this scene was just surprising and a little sad.

I mean, that scene was pretty straightforward. She does sinister experiments and eats ramen, like regular scientist might while working on not so sinister projects. That's funny.

I don't even remember where this apparently very important two-second ramen-eating scene was, but I will suggest that maybe not everything is a deep and insightful metaphor.

I mean, it could be meaningful, but to insist that it must be is a little silly. And it sounds like it was only intended as a Naruto reference. Which would make sense, because the Shout-Out section for this anime is already long enough that it probably needs its own page.

I'm surprised this is getting so much pushback. Framing, the art of arranging an image to create a particular mood and/or emphasis, is pretty much the most basic element of conveying meaning in visual art, like really 101 stuff, and this is doubly true in animation, where every image is drawn from scratch. Meanwhile, Trigger is staffed by some of the industry's top visual experts, with a house-style that's all about conveying emotion at the expense of naturalism (translation - it's cartoony and wildly exaggerated as all hell, but that exaggeration always serves a purpose). Look at any frame in, say, Kill-la-Kill or Kiznaiver, and you will immediately know what you're supposed to be focusing on and how you're supposed to feel about it.

I'm not disputing that they made a deliberate choice to have her eating ramen in that scene; I'm disputing the particular interpretation of that visual as being an indication of loneliness or uncoolness or whatever. Because I'm not sure exactly why ramen would indicate that. To me, it says cheapness and convenience more than anything else. I read it as "she probably could've gotten something more elaborate, but it's such a low priority for her that she just didn't bother." I see it as an indication of her priorities and her desire to focus so much on her plan that she defaulted to the easiest, cheapest food available.

Or they could just be making a joke on the fact that ramen is a stereotypical nerd food. Or a reference to her voice actor. Or all of the above. It gets into Death of the Author territory if you stare at it too long.

In other words, yeah, they deliberately chose to have her eating ramen when they could've had her eating any number of other things, but there are quite a few plausible reasons of varying significance for why they made that decision.

edited 27th Apr '17 8:23:41 PM by JapaneseTeeth

She might be lonely.

Her only friend kinda hates her now.

Ramen is not a very common topic on symbolism studies, so the confusion is understandable.

@Iaculus: If it's one thing that triggers me, it's people taking something I said, makes some bullshit interpretation by adding stuff I never said, and then try to argue with that as a basis for what I said. That's what you did. Don't do that. If you find yourself saying, "Are you seriously saying that..." the answer is in 48.52% of the time, "No," and in 50.6% of the time, "Fuck no." Reconsider and try again.

Yes, in this specific case, it obviously has a meaning. That doesn't mean it has to have the meaning you think it has. It also doesn't mean you can use The Law of Conservation of Detail by itself as some kind of proof for your interpretation being the right one.

edited 27th Apr '17 10:56:51 PM by AnotherDuck

@Teeth: Like I said, framing. Just as a close-in shot from below (what we call the Hitler Cam) can emphasise strength and power, as the character looms over the audience, a long-distance shot of a character sitting alone while dwarfed by objects around them will convey powerlessness and loneliness. Consider this famous image from Batman: The Animated Series. Sid is small and off-centre from the camera, drawing our attention to the text that looms over him. It's not just his build and expression that make him look weak and scared. Now compare to the LWA shot◊. Croix is alone in her great big high-tech lab, doing something very mundane, with the gigantic rage-monster she just created looming over her. Compare it to the other meal we saw this episode, which was all friendship, family, and laughter over home-made food (which turned out to be poisonous, but only enough to trigger another fun, silly adventure), and it does look kind of sad and pathetic.

You know Iaculus, not everything has to be some deep visual metaphor. Sometimes the curtains are just blue.

That's actually a pretty bad example, given how much attention artists and animators pay to colour. At the bare minimum, you want a colour palette for your backgrounds that your characters won't blend into (unless you want them to blend in).

Trigger's all about the clever colour-work, too - consider the first episode of Kill-la-Kill, where Ryuko is a literal splash of colour amidst the drab greys, whites, and blues of Honnouji, and where the slums around Mako's house are drawn in warm, earthy colours to make them seem a little more human and welcoming.

You can bring this back to Croix, too - her use of black and bright, neon colours makes her and her equipment look very modern and artificial next to the rest of the cast and setting's earthy, old-world charm. Even magic tends to use pastels rather than the sort of bright, solid colours you see on her equipment. Just look at that shot of her lab I posted - you would not see that arrangement of colours around any other character.

Professional artists don't pick this shit at random, yo.

edited 28th Apr '17 5:09:50 AM by Iaculus

That's true, but on the flipside, they also don't make every single decision based on heavy symbolism either. Sometimes the decision is as simple as "Hmmm what would the best color be for the curtains? Blue would work." and then moving on.

As for the specific comparison you made with the shot from Batman, I don't think it's really quite an apt comparison. There are some similar elements of composition, but in this case, I still don't see the shot of Croix as being particularly pathetic, because there are other ways to interpret it.

Here's a different way of looking at it: Croix created the giant skull thing she's sitting in front of. This is her handwork. The size composition emphasizes the scale of whatever it is she's working on. It dwarfs her. It's a skull, and it's glowing red, so it's obviously something dangerous and powerful. And what's her reaction? Complete nonchalance. She doesn't do an evil laugh, doesn't get out a glass of wine and toast herself, or bask in her achievement. She grabs a cup of ramen, something incredibly mundane and normal. She doesn't consider this a big deal, or something that she needs to celebrate; it doesn't even faze her. Even though she's so much smaller than her creation, it doesn't scare her, annoy her, or even bump her out of her routine. It shows that her attitude is one of complete self-assurance. She may be dwarfed by the objects around her, but she created them, and the fact that it doesn't bother her illustrates that she's in control of it all (or at least thinks she is).

Now, I'm certainly not saying that that's the only way of interpreting it, or even that your interpretation is wrong. But I do think it's an equally valid way of looking at it.

edited 28th Apr '17 7:27:35 AM by JapaneseTeeth

And not everyone thinks working alone is sad and pathetic. Some people actually prefer that, if you can imagine it. Especially ones working on secret projects to take over the world.

I'm not working on a secret project to take over the world, and I still generally prefer to work alone.

That's exactly what a person working on a secret project to take over the world would say.

Again, this is a work of fiction where every aspect of the presentation is controlled by the anime team. There are ways to make someone look cool for working alone, and there are ways to make them look uncool. Eating cup ramen in a dark room while the camera makes you look small and isolated definitely falls into the latter.

Episode 17 preview.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I'll just say is that I disagree, and leave it at that, because this isn't going anywhere.

Oh my God.

Amanda is the focus of an episode with Akko, and the two go to a BOY'S SCHOOL, where she disguises HERSELF AS A BOY, and Akko is disguised as a mouse.

.... this is fulfilling more of what I wanted to see in a LWA series!!!

Well this is going to be interesting.