After Lotte got her own episode I did think it was a matter of time before Sucy got the spotlight. However I did not expect her episode to be so…weird. Personally I consider this the weakest episode of the series so far as it didn’t really push the plot forward and was more focused on being wacky rather than charming. The end of the episode essentially pulls the “It was all a dream” twist and despite not really being so, this episode felt like filler. Enjoyable filler but well filler nonetheless. There are a considerable amount of references this week with shoutouts to Akira and Sleeping Beauty being a few of them. If there’s one thing to take out of this it’s that Sucy does genuinely care about Akko despite her pranks. The theater in her head does replay their first meeting often which does show that she cherishes that memory.
Animation got fairly creative and having the episode take place inside Sucy’s head allowed Trigger to get more silly that they usually does with Little Witch Academia. This is purely speculation on my part but I think that Hiroyuki Imaishi was more involved with the creation of this episode than You Yoshinari. Mainly because the tone was kinda similar to the likes of Hiroyuki’s Kill La Kill or Luluco. Now I am all for having fun but from what I seen of Trigger’s animation studio online, those people need some sleep and having this much effort go into an episode which is essentially fluff has me worried about burning the animators out. Passion is beautiful but for the love of god guys don’t kill yourselves with overwork. But what else can I say about this episode? I don’t really know as I don’t think I really learned anything new about Sucy despite being in her head for an entire episode. The most telling thing was the movie theater and a lot of that could be surmised by her normal behavior. She does have parts of herself like her mild interest in reading nightfall but really everyone has whims such as those.
Other than that I don’t have much to add here, this episode was madness from start to finish and while I liked it I felt it missed the distinct qualities that make Little Witch Academia so different from their other original works. There is a wackiness to the show but it’s the heart and charm that truly make it memorable. We saw a glimpse of that here with the movie theater but the rest was more or less comedy chaos with little rhyme or reason. Seeing as we have a two cour season I don’t see any real harm in spending an episode in manic oddness and cultural references. As long as Little Witch Academia doesn’t forget whats important it will remain high on my watchlist.
