Don't Stop Me Now

Don't Stop Me Now is the 3rd episode of the Little Witch Academia anime series.
==Overview==
Akko starts flying lessons using a broom that Professor Ursula gives her, but she struggles -- and the Academy's broom relay race is coming up.
==Summary==
The episode begins with Akko attempting to use Shiny Rod again to no avail where this time, to magically tidy her room as Ursula brought her a new flying room. Entering Akko's dorm room, Ursula introduced herself to the young witch and informed her that the academy had appointed her to be her mentor before giving Akko her Magic Broom. Happily accepting her new broom, Akko asked Ursula her opinion about Shiny Chariot and expressed her desire to return the Shiny Rod to its original owner. Ursula, aware that the person Akko referred to was her true self Chariot, not-so-subtle turned over the staff's ownership to Akko only to see her too excited to listen and even exclaimed a familiar catchphrase, "Believing yourself is your magic!". With that, Ursula makes her leave, all while cynically repeating said catchphrase.
Later at the courtyard, Akko is excited about what will be her first time flying with a broom for real, even proudly revealing scars she received from poor attempts to fly back during her youth to her roommates Lotte and Sucy; one on her right foot resulted from falling out of a tree, another on the lower left thigh from rolled all the way down a hill, and the last on the right elbow from falling off a roof. Sucy explained that broom flight is only made possible thanks to magic emanated by the Sorcerer's Stone, though the Japanese is too excited to listen. However, during the broom flight lesson later, despite her following the instructions right, Akko couldn't take off into the air for some reason, much to Nelson's confusion. Just then, Amanda performed amazing yet reckless flight stunts, which prompted the flight instructor to berate her for it. On the other hand, Diana displayed more proper broom flight while breaking the record of finishing a single lap in 8.02 seconds. Envious of the latter's demonstration, Akko decided to make another attempt only to be interrupted by Hannah and Barbara, who bullied her and even had the latter magically turn her broom into a badly made toy car, much to the Japanese's dismay.
While disheartened by her unexpected shortcoming, Akko notices other students practicing baton passes for the oncoming annual broom relay. Bringing the brunette to Luna Nova Cup's trophy case, Lotte explained the history of said race in which Akko learned that Chariot was among the winners, much to her delight that she wanted to join despite her inability to fly with a broom. Seeing no point in arguing with the overly-excited brunette, Lotte decided to retrieve her broom currently being repaired at a magic item café in Blytonbury with the former tags along out of curiosity over said place.
Upon arriving at the magic item café, Last Wednesday Society, on foot (as Sorcerer's Stone's area of effect doesn't reach the town), however, the Japanese is disappointed to see it being more of an occult shop with a small drinking area. Everything in the shop seemed dull before her eyes until she caught the attention of a chained red broom locked within a metal cage. Both girls then learned that the broom was none other than the legendary Shooting Star, known for its insane speed to the point of enabling its user to fly across the entire Atlantic Ocean in a short amount of time. The broom also has its own magic power, terminating the need for an external power source to recharge its energy reserves. Knowing that the broom can help her win the oncoming broom race, Akko begs the proprietor to lend her the Shooting Star just for the race, but he refuses due to the broom's violent behavior, and the manager will be mad at him if something happens. Just then, Lotte learned that Diana's astonishing broom flight skill had been in the news, that many believed that she would win the race this year, which only dismayed Akko further. Unknown to them, their conversation was eavesdropped on by the sly Amanda, who has her own plans with the Shooting Star.
Returning to Luna Nova empty-handed, Akko meets Ursula, who gives her an elementary school-level textbook called "My First Flight Magic" to help her understand the basics of broom flight. Excitedly accepting the book, Akko followed every single instruction written in it to no avail, going so far as bribing, arguing with, and begging for her broom, specifically in that order as Lotte and Sucy watched nearby. Sucy remarked that Akko was a moron for such a humorous attempt only for the Japanese to reveal that she had signed their team to join the race. Lotte and Sucy are initially pessimistic about their chance to win until the latter changes her mind upon learning that the winner is also rewarded with a prize from Lukić herself. With that, we are presented with quick montages of Lotte and Sucy's attempts to help Akko quickly learn how to fly:
*Bungee jumping while being tied with a broom,
*Getting launched with Luna Nova's cannon while being tied with a broom (again), and...
*Pulling both Akko and her broom at high speed to help her take off.
Despite their best effort, it all failed, and Sucy concluded that they had to improvise.
The day of the annual broom relay has finally arrived. As the Headmistress completed her speech, Wangari and her fellow Luna Nova News Network members began interviewing the participants starting from the green team. Amanda managed to keep Luna Nova News Network in the dark about her mysterious cargo long enough for them to move on for Diana's team (much to Akko's dismay). Nelson then gives the participants instructions on the race, where they must ensure their broom is fully charged. Each participant must properly pass the baton to the next and ensure it is not lost or damaged if they want to avoid disqualification. She then directed everyone to prepare at their respective position with them (except Akko) did so while flying. Sucy confidently reassured her teammates that she had ensured their victory.
True to this, the first flyers, except Lotte, are unable to take off as soon as the race begins — to Hannah's horror, their brooms have partially turned into a small tree, courtesy of Sucy's nutrients, anchoring them at the starting point. Only Constanze's broom that not affected, thanks to its gas-powered engine, which allows it to fly without the need for magic energy, subsequently not triggering the Manbavaran's concoction on it and allowing the young mechanic to pass her baton to Jasminka. Yet the Manbavaran still has other tricks in her sleeve: She carefully placed a trail of donuts among the trees sometime before the race to distract Jasminka upon her turn to pass her baton to her next teammate (Amanda), leaving Sucy without more competitors for the time being.
As the third flyers awaited their turn, Amanda sneaked out of her position to unveil her secret cargo, Shooting Star, newly stolen from Last Wednesday Society. Telling the broom that they share a similar rebellious spirit, the Irish-American wrestled with the sentient broom to tame it, only for it to comically overpower her and knock her off before flying away. As this happens, Sucy passes her baton to Akko, and Akko uses a frog's leg juice from the magic item café to give her broom a large frog leg, helping her to hop through the course, much to others' surprise. Even Diana and Wangari can't help but be incredulous by the brunette's improvisation, with the latter wondering whether such a method is still a fair game. Eventually, the first flyers managed to pull their broom free to catch up with the rest at this point.
While happily hopping through the race course, the out-of-control Shooting Star unceremoniously knocked Akko to the ground from behind before changing course back toward her direction. Acting fast, Akko grabbed its dangling chains to hop on the broom as soon as she got on her feet upon recognizing it. The sentient broom then knocked her off once again. However, the brunette won't take any chances and attempts to subdue it into her will, leading to a literal trip to different corners of the world. They flew through someone's house, knocking a random Yeti at Himalayan mountains, diving into the ocean while circling past a submarine, and briefly flew on the side of an airplane, attracting its passengers' attention before eventually getting back to the race course. Eventually, the Shooting Star knocked Akko off it, sending her plummeting to the ground below by flying past a flock of birds. Fortunately, Diana saved Akko from the fall and urged the latter to have a rescue squad tending to injuries she sustained from the struggle afterward, adding that with it, her debt to Akko has been paid off.
Although, giving up is not in Akko's dictionary as, with the Shooting Star still within reach, she launched herself with the academy's cannon towards the sentient broom and wrestled with it once again. The Japanese made it clear to the sentient broom that she wouldn't let go of it, no matter what, before subduing it into her will, all while underlining her statements by chaining herself to it. Her success in taming the broom and even catching up with Diana at the same time soon reaches Lotte and Sucy's ears, much to the former's joy, who then cheer on her friend. At the same time, Amanda showed up and demanded Akko the Shooting Star only to be halted by Nelson, who disqualified her from the race — it's revealed that the distraction Sucy put on Jasminka resulted in the chubby witch passing one of her donuts instead of their baton by mistake. In the heat of the race, Shooting Star's restrains begin to loosen along with Akko's grip over it starting from its chains, resulting in Akko falling and ending up in second place, but not without seeing the glimpse of the broom's true, bird-like appearance as it flew away.
Despite being this year's victor, Diana's satisfaction came from Akko's genuine passion instead. She acknowledged this to Ursula after seeing the photo of herself and her roommates that has been placed into the academy's trophy case. Agreeing with the Cavendish's statement as the latter makes her leave, Ursula rightfully noted that Akko still has much to learn as she looked upon her own photo in the trophy case.
==Order of appearances==
==Trivia==
* The Repair Café clerk is modeled after from , whereas Last Wednesday Society being based on The Last Tuesday Society, a London coffee shop and museum of curiosities.Little Witch Academia Chronicles, Chapter 2, page 24
**Their resemblance was intentional because the producer intended to honor his Japanese dub actor Akihiro Matsushima.
* The title is a reference to the Queen song of the same name.
** The 15th episode of Kill la Kill, another Studio Trigger production, shares the same title.
*On the back page of the newspaper in the Magic Item Cafe, which Lotte is holding and reads aloud, mentions the sighting of Pappiliodya from the previous episode.
*The episode features the cameo of Inferno Cop, another Studio Trigger production, as an in-universe entertainment program watched by a family whose house Akko and Shooting Star fly through as they travel across different corners of the planet.
*This episode takes place at the end of May, as stated in the Chronicles book.Little Witch Academia Chronicles, Chapter 4, page 116
*There's thumb|right|335 pxa deleted scene of the episode which meant to depict its original ending; in that scene, Hannah and Barbara bring Diana their additional prize, an ornate jar with white skull-like ornaments which, upon opened, revealed to contain poisonous snakes for poison experiments much to Hannah's horror (explaining why Sucy tag along in the annual broom relay in the first place). The scene then shifts to Akko's dorm room where, despite losing the race, the excited Akko states that the race is nevertheless a worthwhile one (not to mention she got another scar as proof of it) and believes that she'll be able to fly with her own power and subsequently, able to join another broom relay with it someday. Part of it, however, reinstated into ending theme sequences, though unlike in the original, the snake only attacked Hannah and Barbara just as Diana made her leave.https://twitter.com/TRIGGER_support/status/1535749725407924225
*The passenger aircraft Akko is seen flying next to is an Airbus A380, which is the largest passenger airliner in the world.
**The scene in question, including the part where the passengers noticed her, alludes the sighting of gremlin in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
*Though likely a coincidence, the witch who rides the Shooting Star, as seen in the flashback scene curiously drawn in a style evoking that of Gosho Aoyama, famed for the Detective Conan/Case Closed series.
*The scene where Barbara utilized a stopwatch with a tied-up small fairy operating it instead of a clockwork mechanism to estimate the amount of time Diana spent to finish the lap seemed to be a nod to the library scene in The Enchanted Parade which featured a fairy operating the library's clock.
*While easy to overlook, one of past victors of Luna Nova Cup in addition of Chariot was Croix. She would make a proper appearance in "New Age Magic".
==Errors/Goofs==
*At the scene when Akko revealed to Lotte and Sucy that she had signed their group to the upcoming 1333rd Luna Nova Cup, the sign-up paper for their participation in such event stated it being 1133th, and closer inspection showed the date of 27 September 2016, all of which contradicted Chronicles book's aforementioned statement of the events of the episode being around the end of May. To further drive the point of this error, Constanze's Wild Hunt permit, later shown in "Sky War Stanship" clarified that the series took place in 2017-2018.
**In the flavor text pertaining Diana in one of loading screens in Little Witch Academia: VR Broom Racing, it's indeed confirmed that the broom race in this episode being 1333th.
*During the scene when Wangari showcases the contestant of the broom race, an eagle-eyed watcher would notice one of Aira and Rashmi's hands being colored differently.
== External links ==
===Reviews===
*The Con Artists
**Rolling Review – Little Witch Academia (03) by CONARTISTBRENDAN January 30, 2017
===Essays===
*ATELIER EMILY
**Leylines, and More on Magic in Little Witch Academia by ajthefourth January 25, 2017
==Gallery==
==References==
==Navigation==
es:Don't Stop Me Now
Category:TV Series
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 1A