Little Witch Academia / YMMV

Works in the franchise with their own YMMV pages.

Adorkable:
- Atsuko "Akko" Kagari. Akko may not be the sharpest tool in the shed; but her never-ending optimism and believing heart makes her so cute; along her huge obsession with Shiny Chariot.
- Lotte is an adorably timid, shy and mild-mannered Nice Girl who becomes very enthusiastic and nerdy whenever her favorite book series, Nightfall, pops up into the conversation.
Awesome Art: 2D-animated glory from Studio Gainax veterans with CG used mostly for background effects.
Awesome Music: Has its own page here.
Broken Base: Is Akko x Chariot a good Mentor Ship, or is it inappropriate given the age difference between the two? The series addition of Croix has also led to some Ship-to-Ship Combat which took attention away from Akko x Chariot in favor of Chariot x Croix.
Can't Un-Hear It: For many fans, Megumi Han is Akko and it's hard for them to hear anyone else doing the role because of how well she captures the character's energy and personality in the Japanese version. This also applies to her English voice actress, Erica Mendez, to a lesser extent.
Cliché Storm: If you're at all familiar with Cute Witch archetypes, magic schools, or high school comedies, it's not going to surprise you. However, the stunning visuals, lighthearted atmosphere, and entertaining script make it work.
Common Knowledge:
- Little Witch Academia (2013) and Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade are often referred to as OVAs by fans, due to both resembling a typical OVA in terms of style and length. However, neither of them are actually OVAs, as both films originally premiered in theatres in Japan first, making them theatrical films as opposed to OVAs (OVAs are generally released Direct to Video).
- In the short films, Diana is often described as being prejudiced toward Akko for being a muggle. However, while Diana is prejudiced towards Akko in the short films, it has nothing to do with her being from a non-witch family. Rather, she's prejudiced towards her for her idolization of Shiny Chariot (and that being the reason why she began attending Luna Nova) and her views on tradition and magic.
- Due to most magic users shown being female and most of the male characters being muggles, on top of the franchise taking place in an all-girls boarding school, there tends to be a frequent misassumption amongst fans that all magic users are female, which is not the case. Although they're nowhere near as prominent as the female magic users, male magic users do exist in the setting as at least one is shown arresting Croix at the end of the series and the Wild Hunters in episode 18 from the series are implied to be male. The Midnight Crown also features male magic users, as well as a Spear Counterpart to Luna Nova (though the manga is non-canon).
Creepy Awesome: Sucy. She is a dark, creepy and macabre Deadpan Snarker who frequently subjects her friends to her experiments and can melt an entire being with just a single potion and fans absolutely love her for it.
Crossover Ship:
- It's not uncommon to find people who ship Akko and Izuku Midoriya together given the similarities between them and their series. Likewise, it's common to see it as Ship Mates with Shiny Chariot/Ursula and All Might/Toshinori Yagi, having their mentors either romantically involved or as old friends.
- Akko and Luz would get along swimmingly as they both desire to become powerful witches while Amity and Diana would get along due to their shared role of being talented witches who come from powerful witch families and who start off as prideful jerks, only to become nicer over the course of their respective series' thanks to Akko and Luz's influence.
Draco in Leather Pants: While Diana isn't evil, she is still a snobbish, close-minded, haughty, condescending, and cold Academic Alpha Bitch who spends much of the franchise bullying or belittling Akko mostly just for idolizing Shiny Chariot and having different views on magic than her. While the TV series does tone down her more jerkish traits compared to the films, she is still mostly portrayed as a stuffy, condescending and frosty jerk toward Akko until she Took a Level in Kindness in the last five episodes (and even then, she still remains a bit of a Tsundere). Despite this, however, many fans tend to downplay, if not ignore, Diana's Alpha Bitch traits in favor of making her a far more affable and pleasant person in general, to the point of making her a downright saint in some fics. This is especially commonplace in Diana/Akko fanfics.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Amanda, whose first appearance to date was The Enchanted Parade short film, is one of the more popular side characters and was the most well-liked from the aforementioned film. It's likely the reason she gets several spotlight episodes in the series proper.
- Constanze quickly became well loved by the fandom as well due to her cute design and use of Magitek, which made her stand out tremendously amongst the other students, who used magic more traditionally.
- The team consisting of Avery, Mary and Blair are amongst the most popular background witches in the fandom and it's incredibly common for them to appear in fanworks.
- Sarah Bernhardt is another very popular background witch amongst the fandom and like with Avery/Mary/Blair, it's incredibly common to see her pop up in fanworks.
- Chloe has become yet another popular background witch amongst fans after Chamber of Time, due to her position as being a rival to Diana that is less significant than her (to where Diana doesn't notice her) despite supposedly sharing her social status and intellect. This has led to numerous fics that play off the supposed rivalry between them, with many of them upgrading Chloe from a random background witch to being Diana's arch-rival.
Fandom-Specific Plot:
- Thanks to the events of the anime, it is all but impossible for you to go through the full list of LWA fanworks on any site without running into at least one fanwork that has "Diana x Akko" in it.
- While fanfics of Andrew/Akko are very rare, fan art is another story entirely and the plot of a lot of them is Akko doing something to make Andrew sigh or facepalm, emphasizing the contrast between the two.
- Lotte/Barbara is an uncommon ship, but their shared fondness of the Night Fall books is the most common catalyst for the two having a relationship. Should they hook up before the finale, Barbara and Lotte will have to hide their love.
- It is common to see crossover fanworks between LWA and My Hero Academia due to the similar premise the two works have (a Muggle is inspired by an idol with special powers, and enrolls into a prestigious school for people with special powers; said Muggle is picked on by an elitist blonde rival who he eventually comes to terms with and befriends).
- More like Fandom Specific Vocabulary, but it is quite common for fanworks to depict the little witches swearing in the name of the Nine Olde Witches and sometimes the Great Witch Jennifer.
- For some reason, Diana is often depicted as swearing in the name of her ancestor, Beatrix, even in AUs where magic doesn't exist.
- Many Diana/Akko fics will often have Diana act as a tutor to Akko on magic, with the two often getting closer and falling in love throughout the classes.
- In most Time Skip fics, Diana will nearly always be portrayed as either a magical doctor or the head of a successful medical company due in no small part to her family's large medical history.
- There are some theories on what male magic users are like other than the fact that they exist. The only three appearances of magical males are Yuuto from The Midnight Crown which is in a separate universe from everything else, the Hunters who might not even be proper wizards, and the few that appear in the Series Finale. So far, the most common fan theory is that the Hunters are an all-male counterpart to the witches given that no female Hunter was seen.
- While Akko has parents in canon, thanks to their mother/daughter dynamic in canon, there are many Alternate Universe Fics that portray Chariot as either Akko's adoptive or even biological mother.
- A common and popular What If? idea in fanfics is what if Akko and Diana met at the Shiny Chariot show (or shortly after) when they were kids and become Childhood Friends.
- While the show's Queer and Yuri fandom aren't that interested in exploring the functionings of the all-male Appleton Academy, the vocal part of the fandom that ships Andrew/Akko, Frank/Lotte and the very rare Louis/Amanda fans likes to explore the dynamics of the school. Commonly, Frank is shown as an outlier for liking magic, Andrew is respected but is on the fence for just finding magic "boring", while Louis tends to lead the anti-magic faction before turning a new leaf thanks to Amanda. This practically became Ascended Fanon thanks to Keisuke Satō's manga showing what Andrew was doing in Appleton before visiting Luna Nova, revealing the dynamics of the boys to be akin to this fanon.
- Given that LWA characters have cameos in Trigger's SSSS.GRIDMAN and Brand New Animal, what these interpretations of the characters are up to is full of Fanfic Fuel. Notably, Akko is just thought to be a normal girl in Gridman or has ended up in the universe by accident with magic. As for Brand New Animal, Diana and Andrew are imagined by fans to be the parents of Alan Sylvasta given that his appearance combines the two's, and is Blue Blood like them. The Hero of BNA, Michiru, meanwhile is sometimes shown to be the daughter of Akko and Andrew due to combining their appearances or the daughter of Constanze given that her human form more directly looks like her. While Andrew and Akko have appearances in BNA as separate characters as mentioned, however, this doesn't stop the fan plots regardless.
- Switching up the main teams is a reasonably popular AU idea and has been the subject of a couple of AU fics. Most commonly, the idea of Akko, Diana and Amanda being on the same team.
- One very common plotline in Diana/Akko fanworks is the "Akko takes care of Diana" plot, in which Akko comes across an overworked and exhausted Diana and often attempts to get her to take a break and rest, on top of helping and/or taking care of her. Whether or not Hannah and Barbara and/or Akko's friends are involved tends to vary from fic to fic, but whatever the case, it is usually always Akko that does the heavy lifting, with Diana often portrayed as being reluctant but ultimately grateful for Akko's help.
Fanfic Fuel: What happened to Diana’s father? While her mother is revealed to have passed away when she was six, her father and what happened to him remains a mystery that has yet to be addressed by the franchise. Unsurprisingly, it is a popular topic for fanfics to touch upon.
Fan Nickname:
- The franchise is frequently called "Anime Harry Potter", due to sharing identical settings and character dynamics.
- Fans will often identify the trios that Luna Nova students are grouped into as "[Color] Team", based on the sashes and hat-ribbons present on their uniforms:
  - Akko, Lotte, and Sucy are "Red Team".
  - Diana, Hannah, and Barbara are "Blue Team".
  - Amanda, Constanze, and Jasminka are "Green Team".
  - Even the somewhat popular background trio of Avery, Blair, and Mary are identified as "Purple Team".
- Some fans will sometimes omit the "Academia" from the franchise's title and call the franchise "Little Witch" instead. Likely for the sake of ease.
- Due to her hair looking like strands of cabbage, Diana has been humorously nicknamed Diana "Cabbagedish" by some fans. Likewise, the hair itself is often given the nickname "cabbage hair". Some fans also like to call her "Diana Banana", due to jokes comparing her to Cavendish bananas.
- The numerous student extras in Luna Nova (officially dubbed "mob witches" by the staff) have been collectively referred to as "background witches" by the fandom.
Fanon: Has its own page here.
Friendly Fandoms:
- With Steven Universe ever since series creator Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Quartey had cameos in The Enchanted Parade and the Series Finale of the TV series. Trigger's staff also has fans of the show who have provided guest work in Steven Universe.
- With Harry Potter, because of the similar settings and character dynamics. The fandom is also on good terms with The Worst Witch fandom for the same reasons.
- With My Hero Academia, because of the similar sounding names and the fact that both are about scrappy initially-powerless individuals attending an Academy of Adventure and receiving guidance and mentorship from their idols.
- With My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, also in part because of similar-sounding names and due to the number of references. Also in part because the latter's spin-off series' two main characters — The Hero and her (former) Rival — happen to share a little more than a passing◊ resemblance◊ to Akko and Diana, them also having a few defining character traits and relationship dynamics in common, and on top of both duos being quite dominant Fan Preferred Couples within each series respective shipping circles.
- Fans of this anime tend to get along well with fans of Kiki's Delivery Service, due to both being lighthearted coming-of-age stories starring young witches that both use magic as a metaphor for art. Albeit in different ways. Unsurprisingly, there is a ton of crossover art featuring Akko and Kiki getting along.
- Fans of The Owl House likewise are pretty chummy with this series due to a lot of similarities between the two (A world full of magic, a muggle protagonist WOC who struggles to learn the ins and out of it, an eccentric mentor with a checkered past, a snooty rival who becomes a friend, there's a whole separate page worth to this comparison).
- RWBY fans are also fans of this series, due to both series sharing many similarities from one another. As a bonus, Weiss' Japanese voice actor just so happens to be the same as Diana's.
Foe Yay Shipping: There is a not insubstatial following for Hannah and Akko.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- The franchise is more popular in America than it is in its native Japan. In contrast to this article (which details an event in Tokyo that got cancelled due to lack of interest), the American Kickstarter for The Enchanted Parade reached its goal of $150,000 in less than five hours, completely confusing everyone involved, who thought they'd be lucky to achieve their goal in a month. The TV series did make the franchise more popular in Japan, but it remains much more popular in the west. Its popularity in America is most likely due to the franchise's massive western influence.
- The franchise also has a large following amongst Mexicans, with one analytical website suggesting the franchise's demand is higher than most animated titles in Mexico.
Harsher in Hindsight: There isn't much to go off on Shiny Chariot's Hot Witch outfit other than the fact it's the only notable form of eye candy in an otherwise tame series and has nothing on the usual anime fanservice tropes. The manga adaptation, later on, has some Appleton students discussing witches and one of the stereotypes they invoke is that witches were seductive and temptresses, with Shiny Chariot's outfit being cited as proof. Indeed, since Chariot was the only notable witch for a while, this may be part of the "false perception" of magic she ended up accidentally promoting according to the magical community.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Diana/Akko fans clearly do not get along with Andrew/Akko fans given that while Andrew is still a distant second for Akko's affections, his pairing with Akko makes it the biggest contender for the Fan-Preferred Couple and especially draws ire from the Queer and Yuri fans. When creator Yoh Yoshinari revealed his next project, Brand New Animal, many fans noted that the character of Alan looked like the child of Andrew and Diana, which is a very fringe Take a Third Option in the fandom, having Andrew's physique and Diana's color scheme. Even more hilarious is the fact that Alan is Blue Blood like the two of them, is set up to be a powerful pure human in a world of magic, only to be revealed to be a Beastman from a powerful magical family like Diana and is a villain unlike the two of them
- Ursula is French, had a theatrical life, and has a stage name of Chariot, much like a certain Stand user.
- The series ended up having strict No Hugging, No Kissing, despite Akko having a franchise's worth of Ship Tease with Diana and Andrew. A year later, she appeared as a background student in Trigger's SSSS.GRIDMAN, where she managed to hook up with a boy in four background shots.
I Knew It!: Trigger's panel at AX Expo Lite 2021 would confirm a popular fan theory regarding Akko's fluency in English, that being that it stems from her obsession with Shiny Chariot, on top of English being required for Luna Nova.
Jerkass Woobie: Diana is by no means the kindest character and can be a haughty, cold and stuck-up Jerkass at her worst. However, it’s understandable to see why to an extent, considering she lost her parents when she was young, grew up with an abusive Evil Aunt and pair of cousins who are squandering her family’s legacy, was bullied by others for her love of magic according to Andrew, and was all but forced to grow up to meet everyone’s high expectations of her. This is on top of losing her magic like Akko and having to spend years working it back up.
Just Here for Godzilla: Sucy, the monotone, Perky Goth poison-handling witch, became a large draw of the series, to the point that she was more popular than Akko or Lotte. Her popularity even led to an extended cameo in Space Patrol Luluco.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Akko has been shipped with Diana, Sucy, Lotte, Andrew, Amanda, Hannah, and Ursula. These are just the popular ones.
LGBT Fanbase: The large number of female characters, particularly ones with masculine traits such as Amanda or Croix, have made the series popular with gay women.
Memetic Loser:
- In canon, Akko is a very excitable if somewhat naive and inexperienced girl. But if you ask a good chunk of the fandom, she is a brain-damaged fangirl reject. It doesn't help that she's very impulsive, a bit of an idiot and often (but not always) has to be bailed out of her latest predicament by Diana. Pretty much her only saving grace is her sheer enthusiasm and determination (which genuinely does endear her to a large part of the fandom).
- Andrew and Frank for just being boys in a series about witches, but this is inverted when they're shipped with Akko and Lotte to exaggerate the Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl relationship they have, with them being exasperated but supportive of their girlfriend's Butt-Monkey status and misadventures.
- Anyone turns into this if Sucy gets an experiment on them.
Memetic Mutation:
- Don't lose your Yay.
- "It's anime Harry Potter!" ^Explanation
- Shoehorned characters and shoehorned romance.^Explanation
Memetic Personality Change:
- While Akko does have self-esteem issues in canon, they aren't a major facet of her character and she only gets down a few times across the franchise and is pretty much a Genki Girl otherwise. In fanworks though, Akko's self-esteem issues are often exaggerated to where she's sometimes a Stepford Smiler. Particularly in Dark Fics and/or Hurt/Comfort Fics.
- Akko often has a speech tic in fanworks where she occasionally slips into her native Japanese in certain situations, often without realizing it. Oddly enough, this often only applies to Akko and not to any of the other characters from non-native English-speaking countries (such as Lotte, Sucy, Constanze or Jasminka).
- While not implied in canon, Diana is often depicted as being bad and/or inexperienced with modern technology as a way to contrast with Akko's inexperience and struggles with magic.
- Canonically speaking, while they do have a few things that separate them, such as Barbara's love of Night Fall, Hannah and Barbara don't have much in the way of individual personalities and both share the same role of being Diana's Girl Posse and bullies to Akko and co. However, in fanon, they're generally depicted with more unique personalities, with Hannah being characterized as an aggressive and hot-headed Tsundere and the jerkass of the duo and Barbara being the nicer one of the duo and more submissive and softhearted by comparison.
- While Akko is an Inept Mage and a major klutz in canon, many fics like to portray her as being quite skilled in non-magical skills and/or subjects to make up for her lack of magic skill, such as archery, cooking, modern technology, etcetera. This, like and often alongside the aforementioned fanon of Diana struggling with modern technology, is often used to portray another form of contrast between Akko and Diana, with the latter being more skilled in the magical side of things and the former being more skilled in the non-magical side of things.
Memetic Psychopath: Sucy of course.
Moe: Pretty much every single student and teacher in Luna Nova Academy is this.
Narm:
- Despite the overall quality of the translation, the very Engrish "Shiny Rod" and its associated attacks is kept the same as the Japanese version.
- The Chilean Spanish dub, very big time: Listing what went wrong with this dubbed version would need a full page, and that includes the translation, out-of-place Japanese words in a series that takes place in the UK, the voice actresses' Chilean accents slipping at the worst of times, uneven acting, etc. This is especially egregious considering the studio who did the dub, DINT, did excellent dubs anywhere else, including stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel. Even more egregious with the dub of the TV series, since DINT had a fairly amount of time to fix the flaws from the dubs of the films, and not only they didn't bother to improve the quality of the dub in the TV series, the dub of the show was even worse, at least in the first half, through the dub improved in the second one, not that helped much at the end.
Older Than They Think:
- The anime, released in 2013, is the story of a human girl who loves magic so much she wants to become a witch. Her beliefs about magic and being a witch go heavily against what "real" sorcerers had held as a tradition for centuries, so naturally, she becomes the black sheep among the magic community. In her misadventures, she's always accompanied by two apprentice witches who befriended her despite even them barely sharing her enthusiasm. What many people may not know is that this exact premise had already been used back in 2004, in Studio 4°C's Tweeny Witches. Even earlier, it parallels The Worst Witch, written in the 1960s.
- Andrew wasn't the first main male character in a LWA work, as an earlier manga, The Midnight Crown, featured a wizard known as Yuuto that was a Childhood Friend of Akko and ironically ended up having better success in magic than her. The fact that it never got a Western release, despite the series being more popular there than in Japan and the fact that it appears to take place in its own universe, may have contributed to the surprise of Andrew's role.
One True Pairing: Despite Word of God stating that it won't become canon, Diana/Akko has become the most popular ship amongst the fandom thanks to their dynamic and their development in the TV series and it easily outranks every other LWA ship in terms of fan-works and fan support. In fact, shipping Akko and Diana with anyone but each other can be borderline Fandom Heresy in certain spaces of the fandom. Some of the animators and Akko's Japanese voice actress, Megumi Han, are also allegedly supportive of the ship.
Portmanteau Couple Name: Many, if not most of the ships tend to have this naming scheme. Examples include Diakko (Diana/Akko), Ankko (Akko/Andrew), Charoix (Chariot/Croix), Sulotte (Sucy/Lotte), Hamanda (Hannah/Amanda) and many more.
Ron the Death Eater: Finnelan is undeniably a traditionalist who is strict to a fault and can sometimes be prejudiced, but the way fans take her in fanon can be quite wild at times, with many fanworks spinning her into an irredeemable and bigoted Jerkass who dislikes Akko simply due to her background, often ignoring that she does have legitimate reasons to dislike Akko, given her consistently bad behavior in and out of class (even if she takes it too far). This is on top of being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who attempts to save Chariot from Croix in the TV series, which some fans also tend to gloss over in fanworks.
Spiritual Successor:
- Given the insanely similar premises, characters and dynamics between them, Little Witch Academia is practically an anime adaptation of The Worst Witch. Coincidentally enough, an adaptation of that series premiered on Netflix at almost the same time as Little Witch Academia. Yoshinari would later admit during Trigger Night Vol. 11/12 that Little Witch Academia was inspired by the 1998 series, explaining the similarities.
- Of Tweeny Witches, since the premise of both series is identical: a young Genki Girl human loving magic so much she wants to become a witch herself, to the point she ends up living with actual witches who at first distrust her because she goes against tradition.
Suspiciously Similar Song: Several fans have noted that the beginning part of Shiny Chariot's theme sounds a bit similar to the main theme of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Given the franchise's (and by extension, Trigger's) known tendency to reference existing western works, even making a direct reference to the film through the title of episode 15 of the series (as it's called "Amanda O'Neill and the Holy Grail"), the similarity could likely be intentional.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many fans were not pleased when Netflix changed the franchise's main catchphrase "A believing heart is your magic" into "Believe in yourself, that is your magic" in the English dub or "It's your belief in yourself that makes up your magic" in the English subs for the Japanese dub. It didn't help that "A believing heart is your magic" has been generally accepted as the official English translation of the phrase by Trigger as that's how it's been translated in both their own English subs and marketing material, as well as the TV series proper as the phrase is prominently displayed on Diana's premium Chariot card in episode 23.^note
The Woobie:
- Akko, who is usually humiliated, taunted by the snooty witches and beaten down by the series' Slapstick tendencies; whether or not she brings the chaos upon herself, she could use a hug. After the Wham Episode, this, Genki Girl finally breaks down, and it is heartwrenching.
- Lotte, namely when Akko accidentally ended up ripping her sheet in The Enchanted Parade or when she was almost gonna miss the Night Fall event in Episode 4.
- Diana lost her mother at a young age, but grew up hearing stories about the Grand Triskellion, as told by her mother. She even encouraged Diana to seek the Words, so she could restore the golden age of magic, but instead of Diana, that responsibility fell to Akko when she ended up being the one chosen by the Shiny Rod. She is then forced to depart Luna Nova prematurely to inherit her position as the head of the Cavendish family to prevent her aunt from squandering the family fortune and heirlooms.

YMMV / Little Witch Academia

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