It probably goes without saying that as you grow older, your tastes change, and even perhaps mature. I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds myself increasingly cynical of modern media, be it film, anime, video games, or one of the many other forms of entertainment available today. Believe it or not, when I was in high school, I recall myself boastfully telling a friend that there wasn’t a single anime I’d seen that I didn’t like. Let me assure you, I’ve watched some anime that I wouldn’t think twice about going back to now! These days, however, I find myself in the complete opposite position – while I still like anime, it’s much more difficult to find titles I enjoy, and there are only a handful of series that I would wholeheartedly recommend to friends without hesitation.

I’m not really interested in talking about why it gets harder to enjoy certain things as you age, because that’s a whole other topic in and of itself. Instead, I’d like to highlight a title that instantly brought me back to that feeling I had when I first saw Sailor Moon transform on Cartoon Network many years ago: Little Witch Academia.

The first thing you should know about Little Witch Academia is that it’s available for free, subtitled, legally on YouTube direct from the studio that created it, so I highly suggest for anyone reading this to go check it out! It’s only one episode and clocks in at a little under 30 minutes, so it’s not a big time investment, either.

The short was created by Studio TRIGGER, a fairly new studio formed by former Gainax animators known for their work on titles such as FLCL, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. As a huge fan of Gurren Lagann, the studio automatically hit “must-watch” status in my book, though before Little Witch Academia, the only works they had produced were the web series Inferno Cop and the opening animation to the 3DS game Project X Zone.

Little Witch Academia is fairly unique in that it was produced through the Young Animator Training Project in which four studios are selected to receive government funding to produce short films as part of an effort to train young Japanese animators. While it originally aired in Japanese cinemas in March alongside three other shorts as part of Anime Mirai 2013, TRIGGER later decided to release a subtitled English version on YouTube and Crunchyroll to gauge how well it would be received internationally.

Well, those efforts must have proved fruitful for the studio, as not only did they announce a second episode of Little Witch Academia, but they launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to increase the total time of the episode from 20 to 35 minutes that was fully funded within five hours of going up! The Kickstarter finished today at a whopping $625,518, and the studio has stated that if the sequel does well, they may even consider turning it into a full series or feature length film.

Not only that, but TRIGGER will also be opening preorders for Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray of the first episode of Little Witch Academia on August 13th that contains an additional making-of video and a whopping 112 page artbook of sketches, character art, and illustrations from the gorgeous short. Considering all of this has become possible due to one animated short being available for anyone to watch for free online, it’s truly an amazing feat and definitely reflects both the quality of the work and the gap it fills in the anime industry.

But what is it that makes Little Witch Academia so special? For me, the first few minutes of the episode where a young girl, who we later find out is the protagonist, Akko, attends the magic show of her idol, the witch Shiny Chariot, sums it up perfectly. Shiny Chariot dazzles Akko and the rest of her audience with her magical prowess, ending with the advice, “never forget, a believing heart is your magic!” The complete awe and adoration on Akko’s face during this sequence is, admittedly, exactly how I felt as a child watching Sailor Moon, and aside from the occasional Studio Ghibli production, I haven’t had an animated Japanese feature evoke the same sense of wonder in me since.

Time then skips forward to the present day, where Akko is a student at an academy for witch girls. Though she falls asleep in class and shows no real magical talent, she continues to look up to Shiny Chariot as a source of inspiration, even though the other witches condemn her for giving people the wrong impression of what it means to be a witch. Again, Akko’s clumsy nature, paired with her passion to succeed, is reminiscent of many other magical girl series.

At a time when fetishization of high school girls (and younger) saturates much of the anime (and manga) scene, it’s great to see a show that embraces the magical girl genre to create a world for both children and adults to enjoy with an abundance of non-sexualized female characters. While it I find myself less drawn to coming-of-age stories as I grow older, Little Witch Academia manages to capture the magic of Japanese animation and the “girl power” tone that first got me hooked on the medium over 15 years ago.

But you don’t have to be a fan of magical girls or a woman looking for a strong cast of female characters to relate to to enjoy Little Witch Academia, as it is one of the most well-animated and genuinely fun shows to come out in a long time. If you’re like me and are finding yourself bogged down by your own cynicism for current art and entertainment, give Little Witch Academia a shot. You’ve got nothing to lose!

If you watched Little Witch Academia and didn’t get a chance to support the episode 2 Kickstarter, be sure to keep your eye open for preorders for the Collector’s Edition when they open on the 13th!

Animation Do, a subsidiary of Kyoto Animation, released a very interesting 30 second video (hereafter referred to by the Japanese abbreviation for commercial, “CM”) the other day focusing on four young male swimmers that has gained an astounding amount of popularity worldwide. While I wasn’t planning on writing a whole post about it, as I didn’t think there was any discussion to be had, the huge outcry for the CM to be turned into a full-fledged series as well as the backlash by some fans against Kyoto Animation producing animation for a female audience has proven that it’s definitely not “just a CM.” In addition, there’s so much misinformation regarding this “anime” floating around that I thought it would be a good idea to clear up exactly what it is and why it’s got everyone so excited/angry.

In April 2012, Animation Do released two teaser images for a new project, one which included the phrase “Ore to omae no sa o oshiete yaru yo!” or “”I’ll show you what makes us different!” (pictured above). Fans immediately assumed Kyoto Animation was finally doing a series aimed at a female audience, contrary to their massively-popular K-On and Lucky Star, which contain much male-oriented fanservice and moe elements (though they remain relatively popular with female viewers, as well). People on English forums began dubbing the series “the swimming anime,” but there wasn’t a single word on the production until March 6th, 2013, when Animation Do released a 30 second CM featuring the characters from the original teaser.

Kyoto Animation has been known to release CMs with completely original assets, so it’s safe to assume that the project they were teasing was in fact a promotional CM for the company and not actually a new series. Further supporting this is the fact that the CM credits are listed with their other commercials on the company’s website, indicating that it is not a promotional CM for a new series (note: the title of the CM can be translated to “swimming club,” indicating it might be more appropriate to refer to it as that instead of “the swimming anime”). Even so, many fans continue to speculate that a series may arise out of this CM, and there are has been a huge interest in the swimming anime, including both extremely positive and negative reactions, since its release nearly a week ago.

On one hand, there are many (likely female) fans who have fallen head-over-heels for characters they know next to nothing about, fantasizing potential plotlines and pairing them off with one another in homosexual relationships. I’d like to think the vast majority of the reaction to the CM has been positive, as we can see petitions to make the CM into a full series popping up on major websites such as Crunchyroll and fanart from Tumblr to Pixiv. There’s even a cosplay contest!

The character designs as seen in the original 2012 teaser.

On the other hand, it’s recently come to my attention that there are a number of fans of Kyoto Animation that are not at all happy with the company targeting any form of media at a female audience. Actually, I can’t tell if these people are necessarily fans of Kyoto Animation, but there has definitely been a negative backlash from people saying it’s too obviously catering toward women, that it’s likely to be BL and is thus disgusting/should not exist (honestly, I’m surprised how many people have made anti-fujoshi comments…), or that Kyoto Animation is wasting their talent by drawing an all-male cast. They may be a minority, but they’re certainly a vocal one.

Finally, to top all this off, there have been rumblings over the past day or so that Kyoto Animation has seen how popular the video is and is considering making the CM into a full-fledged anime as a result, but I have not been able to find any sources that confirm/deny this.

Now, anyone who knows me probably already has a good idea how much I like the CM, but I have to say I’m honestly surprised at how many people are hoping/expecting this theoretical swimming anime to be BL. I will happily admit that I consider myself a fujoshi – not only am I doing a PhD on BL manga, but I love a good homosexual romance and am not beyond “slashing” male characters if the mood strikes. But, that definitely doesn’t mean that all the media I consume must be BL-related in some way. In fact, as I grow older, I’ve found I enjoy stories about ambiguous/queer sexualities more than straightforward BL, and would take a story with complex and interesting characters over a bland, cliché BL romance any day of the week. So, while I’m happy fans are interpreting the swimming anime as they like, I find it a little bizarre that everyone just assumes it will focus on homosexual romance, as if that’s the only way Kyoto Animation could possibly appeal to a female audience.

A fan-created relationship chart (source)

Indeed, many are awestruck by the fact that such a successful, well-known animation studio would dare to make a 30 second CM chock-full of female-oriented fanservice. I think anyone who watches the CM (and if you’re reading this post, I hope you have!) will agree that the animation is lovely, whether or not the content appeals to you personally, and in an industry that largely caters to men, I’m glad to see Kyoto Animation trying new styles and attempting to appeal to new demographics. The fact that the mere idea of a swimming anime full of attractive men is so popular shows that we still have a long way to go until anime aimed at audiences that aren’t stereotypical heterosexual men are on equal footing with the hundreds and thousands of series produced for and consumed by “mainstream” otaku. It would be wonderful if Kyoto Animation decided to make this into a series, but I won’t be getting my hopes up.

Update: The Daily Dot and The Mary Sue have both wrote very informative pieces that cover some things I haven’t, so you may want to check them out if you’d like to learn more. The Daily Dot provides particularly useful background on Kyoto Animation (both, however, put a particular spotlight on the Tumblr fandom). I’ve also changed my translation of “Ore to omae no sa oshiete yaru yo!” from “I’ll show you the difference between you and I!” to “I’ll show you what makes us different!” –– my initial translation was much too cumbersome.