Written by Daniel – Little Witch Academia is an anime series created by Yoh Yoshinari and first broadcast in 2017. The series follows Atsuko “Akko” Kagari an aspiring witch who is attending the prestigious magic school Luna Nova Academy. Here she meets with friends Lotte and Sucy, and the three of them frequently find themselves getting into numerous magical hi-jinks which often land the trio in trouble with their teachers. The series has had several adjoining manga, and the video game Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time (2018). In 2017, the series also had a tie in children’s book Little Witch Academia: The Nonsensical Witch and the Country of Fairies. The book was later translated to English in 2019. But is it any good? Should fans of the TV series spend a little money and read the book? Well, wait no longer. Let’s find out!
Little Witch Academia: The Nonsensical Witch and the Country of Fairies was devised by the series creator Yoh Yoshinari and written by Momo Tachibana (Translated by Yen Press) with original illustrations by Eku Uekura (I was very impressed by all the new art work in this book, it looked spectacular, and the illustrations of the new characters in particular really grounded the new cast into the Little Witch Academia universe). Whilst out on a school trip to the magical Doras Hill, which is said to be the gateway to the Land of the Fairies, Akko and her friends meet a young girl called Silfia, the protector of the hill. However, Silfia is in distress! She has lost her only friends Alan the dog, and Feoras the Cat. Akko enthusiastically offers to find Silfia’s friends, and Lotte and Sucy reluctantly agree. The three young witches venture to the land of the Fairies in an attempt to find and rescue Alan and Feoras, only to find that the two are rulers of a tribe of dogs and cats respectively. What is more, they are competing to be the king of the Faries! It is up to Akko and her friends to diffuse the competition between them, and unite them once again with Silfia.
The story is written in past tense from the perspective of Akko, and the voice of Akko is spot on. the narration is filled with the enthusiasm, curiosity, and all those frustrations with Diana that we remember form the series. Giving the narrative voice to Akko was a wise choice in my opinion, it’s engaging to read and hearing Akko enthusiastically recount the adventure adds a unique personal dimension. The prose medium allows Momo Tachibana to explore Akko’s thoughts about her teachers, about her friends, in a new way that we don’t often get in the series itself. Where the TV series shows rather than tells, the book permits Akko to tell the reader directly. Lines in italics are frequently used throughout to allow Akko to make wry remarks, remarks she would never voice directly and it was a nice injection of humor to the events unfolding, which the book otherwise would lack. Although there are illustrations in the book, the prose medium does not facilitate the high visual slapstick comedy which the animated series is known for. This is a slight shame, they could have written more slapstick moments, though I do ultimately admire the direction they took, focusing on Akko’s thoughts and readings of each given situation.
Each and every character feels true to their onscreen characters. Sucy continues to use Akko as her guinea pig for her experiments, Lotte is timmed but kind and uses her love of the book series Nightfall to connect with Silfia. We even get appearances from Amanda, Jasminka, and Constanze. The role the wider friendship group plays in the book is really enjoyable, importantly the appearance of the wider friendship group never feels as though they were a ham-fisted cameo, rather the novel form allows for much more of an exploration of their characters, and allows each of them a turn to contribute to the quest at hand. Much like a video game quest, Akko and her friends are tasked to revive 13 sacred trees in the Land of the Fairies, each tree coming with their own unique challenges which fit the characteristics of each character. Where a 20 minuet episode wouldn’t necessarily be able to give each character a moment to shine, and would instead spend an episode on each character, the novel allows the large group of friends to each contribute to a single task.
The book is a wonderful tale of teamwork, friendship, and resolving conflict which emerges primarily through the rival between the new characters of Silfia, Alan, and Feoras who are unique to the book and do not make an appearance at any point in the TV series. Their characters were a fun double act, and the anthropomorphic dog and cat people shaped a world I just did not predict. When they come from the Land of the Fairies, I expected fairies, not cats and dogs! The two rivals didn’t have all that much substance to them, one is a chivalrous cat and the other a sleepy dog, but then I don’t think there needed to be anything more to their characters. All the characters in the book and in the TV series are defined by a specific attribute. Each character is a one trick pony, they work well, because they each pull of their tricks extraordinarily well. Silfia, Alan, and Feroras were fun new additions to the cast, which successfully followed this format. If there is a criticism to be made it is only that Silfia is a little too like Annabel Crème the author of the in universe book series Night Fall from the episode of the same name (Series 1 Episode 4).
Whilst the friendship between Alan and Feoras is at the heart of the story, coming with the moral message of setting our differences aside, my favorite element of this book was it’s encouragement to appreciate a love of learning. Akko’s emotional plot line, starts with her being frustrated with school work to learning the value of trying her absolute hardest at school. Akko’s story goes from failing to see the importance of magical history to learning it’s real life application. It’s a lesson that is so easily forgotten, and frequently overlooked in school itself. Professor Ursula (much like in the TV series itself) plays a wonderfully subtle role in this development. Her pretense bubbles up over the duration of the book until the very end. Ursila’s presence and the moral of the story fall into place simultaneously in an approachable way, which never comes across as preaching.
If you’re not familiar with the TV series, I do think you’d have a hard time with Little Witch Academia: The Nonsensical Witch and the Country of Fairies. There is a lot of fan service and shout outs to familiar characters, events, and objects from the series which will go over your head, and probably come across a little tedious. But, speaking as a fan of the TV series, everything that Little Witch Academia: The Nonsensical Witch and the Country of Fairies had to offer was exactly what I wanted to see. The book offers a comfortable familiarity, whilst also providing us with a new high stakes story. Akko’s enthusiastic voice is joyful, it’s familiar, and it was easy to follow. This is good given the young audience the book is targeted at (ages 8 and up), and aslo good for me as a fan of the series. If you are a fan of the TV series Little Witch Academia, this book will not disappoint, the narrative perspective offers a unique voice to Akko which is both true to the voice from the series, whilst also being distinctive to the prose medium. A lot of love an attention has clearly gone into the creation of this book, it shines through, and made it such a relaxing and fun read.
FNORD 