Little Witch Academia – 17

「アマンダ・オニール・アンド・ホーリー・グレイル」 (Amanda Oniiru ando Hoorii Gureiru)
“Amanda O’Neill and the Holy Grail”

It’s another episode with the ordinary people, so if you’re not a fan of Andrew and his crew, then this one definitely wouldn’t be a pleasure cruise to watch. The good thing though is that Amanda makes the medicine go down easily as she’s put in the passenger’s seat to Akko’s search for the missing Words in Appleton Academy. She’s not the most serious witches of the bunch, and is more interested in graduating with a bang above anything else, but it’s fun to see her constantly pulling the rug out from under Louis. There just wasn’t as much to work with as far as what Akko is learning from her friendship with Amanda. They’ve been relatively close throughout the second cour, so this would’ve been a good opportunity for Akko to reflect on what Amanda’s free spirit means for her. Sucy and Lotte help flesh out Akko’s compassion and teach her to be patient, but Amanda’s attitude could’ve helped Akko tap into the spark and bombast she has as she carries forward. It’s still a fun, action-packed episode, and more Amanda is always appreciated, but it lacked a bonding experience between Amanda and Akko that could’ve expanded on how Akko’s loose cannon approach to problems can be helpful when applied correctly.

It’s just a shame that the the Amanda-centric episodes tend to make her not as significant to Akko’s journey. The most significant developments came from the lack of transparency in Croix’s attempt to sabotage Akko’s quest by using her cubes to tamper with the grail, and Andrew’s slow acceptance of Akko’s eccentricities. A similar thing happened with Episode 5 in that she’s only able to follow and slightly tease Akko while Diana is treated as the academy’s MVP for knowing a language even the faculty doesn’t understand. Amanda fought the metal knight that Croix’s cubes created from the shattered grail, but she was only able to give Akko a break from having to learn one of the Words.

The episode does give us some food for thought about what the future episodes will focus on. The fruits of Croix’s experiments are honing in on Akko, enough so that she’s bound to be curious about why the technocubes are linked towards everything going to crap so quickly. Hopefully that’s something she can pick up on before Croix tries anything else on her. I’m also convinced that Appleton Academy will have some involvement with future disasters as the Chairman Blackwell is as conservative about witches as Andrew’s dad. Part of me thinks the Blackwell’s and Hambridge’s will try to work towards undermining magic against Andrew, Frank, and maybe Lois’ wills. It doesn’t help that the Cavendish’s have family disputes in the episode, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the big wealthy families of LWA end up playing a role in being adversarial towards Akko while she tries reviving magic through the Words.