New Age Magic

## Images

**New Age Magic** is the 14th episode of the *Little Witch Academia* anime series.

## Overview

*The school's fairies go on strike and cut off Luna Nova's source of magic. A new teacher arrives and proposes a non-traditional mechanical solution.*

## Summary

The episode begins with Ursula in her room staring at the Seven Words of Arcturus before she reminisces on the words that Akko has unlocked. Feeling that Akko is ready to learn about the true purpose of the Shiny Rod, Ursula decides to reveal Akko the truth.

The next day, Akko joins her friends outside. While they lounge about, Lotte informs everyone about the new teacher which Akko easily dismisses. After that, Akko's friends praise her for her spectacular stunt at the festival and want to see it once more. Akko declines as she now realized that the Shiny Rod won't respond to selfish desires. Amanda inquires where did Akko gets the rod and Lotte responds that she got it from the Arcturus Forest much to the former's surprise as it is rumored to be a very dangerous forest with a hidden secret. Nonetheless, Akko is determined to find Shiny Chariot as she is linked to the rod and the forest and might shed some light on what is happening. Meanwhile, Diana eavesdrops on their conversation.

Sometime later, Akko heads to Ursula's room when she was informed to come to her. Akko eagerly awaits what her teacher has to say but is cut short when Samantha Badcock contacts Ursula regarding a serious situation. As Ursula and Akko rush outside, they discover a faerie strike. The teachers and students are at loss to see the said strike. While Anne Finnelan disapproves of this, the workers remain deaf and reveal their demands - they want more of the magical energy from the Sorcerer's Stone. However, the witches are at their limit when it comes to the usage of their magic, leading to Holbrooke to request help from other witches nearby. Since most of them are old and unwilling, they decided to place the responsibility onto Ursula, much to her dismay.

Back at Luna Nova, the faeries decide to place isolators around the stone to show how serious they are. Suddenly one of the isolators get blown out of the faeries' hands and almost crash on top of several students, including Akko, before several flying roombas stop the isolator from hurting the students. The roombas belong to the new teacher, Croix Meridies. Despite what has happened, Finnelan remains loyal to her conviction in tradition and forbids Croix of the use of the technology.

The situation gets worse as the students are getting cold due to lack of heating and warm showers, and are forced to use books which are substantially large. Akko has had it and marches towards the strike to put an end to it only to be touched by why they are doing this, which compels her to change sides. While Diana attempts to convince them to stop the strike continue their work, Akko points out that the former looks down on them and that she is an aristocrat, leading to the faeries to get more furious. An offended Diana attempts to change her thoughts about Akko until the latter goes up to her face and reprimands her for her lack of regard towards those of the lower class.

As nighttime approaches, Akko remains by the faeries' side, while Lotte wonders if she's alright with this. Akko answers that she couldn't just stand by and watched as others suffered for someone else's actions, a lesson she learned to heart. Sucy states that Akko thinks too much but Lotte, on the other hand, smiles, proud that Akko took the time to think about that. As they converse, the faeries showed their appreciation by handing them soup made out of ingredients that disgust Akko, and she spits it out on Sucy.

A meeting takes place to discuss the strike. While Holbrooke and Akko starting off with a nice beginning, the meeting doesn't go anywhere as the faeries keep demanding another ten percent increase of allotment but the witches aren't budging with the demand. This leads to Croix to offer a solution with her Magitech devices, which Finnelan continues to refuse. Akko is saddened that the meeting didn't go as expected but Croix comforts her, although hiding her true, darker intentions.

To get a nice and warm shower, Hannah and Barbara bribe a young fire faerie. As they shower, an unknown assailant injures the fire faerie causing the now cold students to exit and find said faerie. To make matters worse, several members of the strike enter the room to find their doused friend and the two students. Extremely enraged about what happened to their faerie friend, the other faeries rampage across the school and attack the students, leaving the teachers unable to do a thing to handle the situation.

Realizing how bad the situation is, Akko, Lotte and Sucy head to the New Moon Tower to remove the isolators and allow magic to be used for both sides. Then, one of the faeries (a mechanical looking one and probably the one that attacked the fire spirit) makes its presence known. Akko requests it to ask the others to stop, only to get distorted replies from the mechanical faerie. Lotte tries to translate but is unable to as the worker feels like a machine. Suddenly, the worker transforms into a monster and pushes Akko out of the building. Fortunately, Akko is saved once again by Croix, who puts an end to the commotion by absorbing the anger out of the workers and converts it to magical energy which can be used to revive the fire spirit. The students and the teachers, excluding Finnelan, praise Croix for her ingenuity and Croix becomes a hero in Akko's eyes.

While the faeries remove the isolators, the witches wonder where they got such advanced instruments in the first place. Croix, in a lower level of the New Moon Tower, reveals that she was the one who had a part in the strike as the mechanical faerie was a Magitronic device created by her and states that the Magitronic device succeeded.

As Croix's technology is getting implemented in Luna Nova, Ursula returns, only to hear that the energy wasn't needed anymore. With that done, Ursula has the time to explain to Akko. But to her horror, she finds Akko with Croix, whom Ursula knows.

## Order of appearances

* Ursula Callistis
* Atsuko Kagari
* Lotte Jansson
* Sucy Manbavaran
* Amanda O'Neill
* Jasminka Antonenko
* Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank Albrechtsberger
* Diana Cavendish
* Samantha Badcock
* Anne Finnelan
* Miranda Holbrooke
* Lukić
* Nelson
* Wangari
* Croix Meridies
* Hannah England
* Barbara Parker
* Shiny Rod
* Sorcery Units
* Sorcery Solution System
* Magitronic Tablet
* Sorcerer's Stone
* Magic Wand
* Pixels
* Minotaur
* Cyclops
* Troll
* Goblin
* Flame Fairy

## Trivia

* Shiny Ray is replaced by Mind Conductor as the opening theme, while Toumei na Tsubasa replaces Hoshi Wo Tadoreba as the ending theme.
* This is Croix's first appearance in full person. She appeared as a cameo in "Don't Stop Me Now", indirectly in a flashback in "The Fountain of Polaris" and only her cape and arm were shown in "Samhain Magic".
* This episode takes place in November, along with "Chariot of Fire", as stated in the chronicles book.
* This episode, alongside "Samhain Magic", shed a light on shades of gray in Luna Nova where in the case of this episode, majorities of Luna Nova teachers revealed to be overtly-conservative to changes and as Akko pointed out during the strike, seemingly indifferent towards the fairies' plight in their role as the academy's laborers which culminated them demanding more magic energy and susceptible of Croix's manipulations.
	+ Chapter 12.5 of Keisuke Satō manga however, though not necessarily follows the anime TV Series' continuity, clarified the relationship between Luna Nova teachers and the academy's faery laborers being not as strained as the episode suggested prior to the aforementioned strike. Although their relationship is relatively amicable, certain standards between them still left much to be desired and it took the ongoing decay of magic at that time for such matter to eventually become a major problem that Croix ultimately exploited to further convince the staff to accept her as the academy's new teacher.

## Errors/Goofs

* When Akko is talking with Lotte and Sucy during nighttime. Lotte and Sucy are wearing different shoes while Akko is wearing her normal school shoes.
* Minotaur    laborer in the episode is erroneously depicted with three-toed legs instead of hooves as well as simpler horn shape compared to those of his hostile brethren in the first short. This was repeated again in his depiction in Little Witch Academia Chronicles.
	+ This goof apparently rectified in Chamber of Time game, which gives him hooves and horn similar to those of hostile minotaurs encountered in either first short or any of seven regions accessible through the use of Magic Keys on the Sealed Door of Horologium Chamber. Not surprisingly, this was attributed to the fact that the minotaur laborer shared the same model as their violent brethren.

* During Croix's lecture about benefits of her magitronics in the meeting between Luna Nova Faculty staffs and faery laborers and states what SSS shortened of, it was written "Sorcery Solutoin System" despite of her pronounced it right. This has been revised as of Blu-ray release and subsequent Netflix run.

## References

1. ↑  https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/265265778230689793/354307531914608650/IMG\_20170904\_124940318.jpg
2. ↑ https://little-witch-academia.fandom.com/wiki/File:Magical\_Creature\_Luna\_Nova\_Chronicle\_LWA.jpg
3. ↑ https://little-witch-academia.fandom.com/wiki/File:Accurate\_Minotaur\_LWA\_CoT.png

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