Sleeping Sucy

## Images

**Sleeping Sucy** (眠れる夢のスーシィ *Nemureru Yume no Sūshi*?) is the 8th episode of the *Little Witch Academia* anime series.

On Netflix, the episode is titled "**Akko's Adventure in Sucyworld**".

## Overview

*After drinking an experimental brew, Sucy falls into a deep sleep and won't wake up. To save her, Lotte sends Akko into Sucy's mushroom-filled dream.*

## Summary

The episode begins on a dark and stormy night as Sucy finally completes her ominous ultimate potion brewed out of the rarest strains of mushrooms (arguably the same rare magical mushroom species she had Akko collected on her behalf in events of *Chamber of Time*). After boasting how she would awaken all her magical potential and, importantly, gain control over every mushroom all over the world with it, Sucy is about to drink the ultimate potion before reconsidering testing it on the sleeping Akko. However, at the very last moments, she changed her mind and drank the potion herself, remarking how things would be boring if it indeed improved the bubbly witch's magic as intended.

Hilariously, it turned out that the next morning, Sucy forgot to remove the funnel she put on Akko's mouth, and the bubbly Japanese still has it as she hastily changes her clothes before finally spitting it up as soon as she awakens from her sleep. Simultaneously, Lotte tries to wake Sucy up to no avail. Still, since they are now about to enter Finnelan's class and do not wanted to start another trouble with the strict professor, the two eventually leave the room without their friend, oblivious to the latest oddities (the funnel in Akko's mouth and later, a red mushroom popping out near the Manbavaran's pillow).

By the time Akko and Lotte return to their dorm room, they are horrified to see it has been overrun with mushrooms, and Sucy is still sleeping in the middle of it all. The panicked Akko then tried to wake her friend while crying out over their situation, but oddly enough, Sucy didn't immediately respond to the mention of mushrooms. Akko then tries to go for the teachers but is stopped by Lotte, who deduces that the chaos was likely caused by Sucy's experiments judging from her strewn equipment, and they cannot add other troubles to their list. As Akko becomes desperate to wake Sucy up, Lotte realizes their roommate might be afflicted with Sleeping Witch Sickness that can only be cured by having someone wake her up from within her inner spiritual realm. Consulting with her magical medicine book, she found the spell to solve the disease but was unsure whether she could pull it off until more mushrooms grew out of control and bumped their head against the ceiling. After getting rid of the offending mushrooms, Lotte checks on Sucy's collection of potions for Akko to bring along to wake their roommate as soon as the latter finds her and commences the spell. Hilariously, the said spell involves forming a baseball-like magic construct around her wand before smacking it against the volunteer(Akko)'s head, causing her to fall unconscious beside Sucy's unconscious body.

Awakening at a strange wonderland of mushrooms, which is unmistakably Sucy's inner spiritual world, the awestruck Akko stumbles upon small humanoid mushrooms carrying a sword and a shield before getting ambushed by a small Sucy-like imp who proclaimed that she would take her soul and attacks. As this happens, another small Sucy, this time an angelic one, stops her devil counterpart and suggests killing Akko more peacefully. Realizing that the two are representations of temptation and conscience of real Sucy, respectively, Akko enlisted their help to find the original Sucy, which they realized that the original hasn't been around for quite some time and agreed to lend her a hand under the condition to treat Sucy fairly and carry her books to class for a whole month, which Akko reluctantly accepted.

As Akko tells both Angel Sucy and Devil Sucy about the latest developments in the real world as they are on their way to Mushroom Hills (a giant mushroom-like facility where the original Sucy resides), they encounter several other aspects of Sucy's personality, such as:

* **Lazy Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's lazy side, wearing a sleeping bag and crawling around like a worm.
* **Impatient Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's impatient side that assumes the form of a group of clones of Sucy with a grayish body and moving and talking so fast that it's hard to fully perceive how they looked like, let alone what they say.
* **Mushroom-loving Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's love for mushrooms.
* **Angry Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's angry side, which resembles Mushroom-loving Sucy but constantly angry and spending all of her time repeatedly punching a stone slab.
* **Sucy Who Wanted To Get Plastic Surgery**: Representation of Sucy's desire for plastic surgery. She resembles her usual self dressed in Luna Nova practice uniform but with the ability to assume a robotic form.
* **Greedy Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's greedy side, dressing like a stereotypical thief who obsessively collects mushrooms within her grasp into her oversized sack that can barely to hold its contents.
* **Easily-Influenced Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's easily-influenced side dressing like a Jedi, complete with a cloak and a neon blue lightsaber.
* **Monster Sucy/Quick-to-Imitate Sucy**: Representation of either the monstrous side or imitating side of Sucy, who looked like a Godzilla knock-off.
* **Instant-copycat Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's unknown side, only that she writes あほ (idiot) in her face.
* **Sucy's Entertainer Side**: Representation of Sucy's idea of entertainment, which dresses like a stage magician whose hat produces snakes instead of bunnies.
* **Alpaca Sucy**: Representation of Sucy's desire to spit everything around her and love for alpacas.

Recovering from the jumpscare of Sucy's Entertainer Side and a thick spit of Alpaca Sucy on her face, Akko, Devil Sucy, and Angel Sucy encounter a small Sucy with a black dress and lily on her hands who two Sucy-like policewomen abruptly arrest. To Akko's shock, the little Sucy is brought to the court of emotions and feelings that newly appear in Sucy's heart, which will be judged accordingly, as stated by Devil Sucy. Entering the court, Akko is disturbed by its seemingly harsh system as each of the said feelings is given a death sentence somewhat indiscriminately. Upon seeing the little Sucy's turn, Akko stepped in for her defense only to be given a death sentence along with the rest. As Akko is in a very long line for execution, Devil Sucy mocks her for interfering with the court, angering the Japanese that she comically bites her and forces her to picklock her wooden shackle with her trident. Finally freed, Akko is surprised to see two Executioner Sucys (Sucys who represent her desire to dispose of her unneeded feelings, each clad in a gray robe and a giant, rusty triangular helmet with a large eye socket) taking their time testing their guillotine by cutting some large radishes with it before starting the execution for real. To Akko's horror, the little Sucy turned out to be the first to be executed, promoting her to save the said Sucy before proceeding to do the same on the rest of the convicted emotions despite Executioner Sucys' protest. Whereas Akko is relieved that she might've performed a good deed, Devil Sucy is less than impressed.

Meanwhile, the uneasy Lotte is still waiting for her roommates to awaken in the real world. To her horror, mushrooms have grown around her hands she cried out for both Sucy and Akko to wake up immediately.

Back in Sucy's inner spiritual world, Akko, the little Sucy, Angel Sucy, and Devil Sucy hitchhike a ride with Sucy in a red dress which happened to be on her way for a drive-in theatre due to their journey's lack of progress. The group then joined the said Sucy watching the movie despite Angel Sucy's protests, with Devil Sucy reassuring that they need some meta references once in a while. To Akko's surprise, the film consists of Sucy's memories which are played based on the Manbavaran's perspective and stylized into that of the old-school animations. At first, Akko finds herself amused upon seeing how Diana in that memory movie is depicted with a long, triangular nose and comically long limbs (which represents Sucy's view of the Cavendish as an arrogant person) until her cartoon counterpart is revealed to have an *even* more comical design (complete with a bucktooth that sticks out like a sore thumb) followed by the humorous take of her difficulties in flying with a broom. Predictably, this angers Akko, who decries the memory movie and declares that it doesn't look anything like her, unaware that her film counterpart mimics her gestures simultaneously (which doesn't help her situation). The movie soon plays re-enactments of the pranks Sucy pulled on Akko daily. Despite initially being appalled, Akko nevertheless found the prank scenes amusing until the memory movie shows the moment where both she and Sucy first met, in which the scene briefly takes a much more realistic style that Sucy with red dress commented it to be "The Best Film of the Year". Realizing the memory's significance, Akko can't help but be deeply moved by it as the movie continues to the broom race scene. However, the scene ends with Akko's team winning, which culminates with Sucy testing the poison from their prize, and things go downhill from that point: As Lotte screams in horror upon having her fingertips become much more mushroom-like, mushrooms in her surroundings spread out of control with each of them grow to titanic size, demolishing the entire Luna Nova from inside out. As the fire spreads to the infestation, the mushrooms continue to grow, with Lotte seemingly crushed to her death among them as the film burns away. As if that wasn't scary enough, a similar event seemingly occurred in the real world, ...or so it seemed.

However, this is all simply the beginning of the true nightmare; whereas Akko and the rest of the audience are left horror-struck, the little Sucy lets out disturbing, maniacal laughter. The incredulous Akko berates little Sucy for laughing upon the aforementioned scene, only for her to splits into five before recombining into a deformed, humanoid kaiju with a mockery of Sucy's visage. The drive-in theater explodes afterwards, and the fully-formed Abomination Sucy devours the entire audience and starts its rampage. As this happens, Akko, Angel Sucy, Devil Sucy, and a small humanoid mushroom manage to escape the carnage with Sucy in a red dress' car at top speed. It is then Angel Sucy, and Devil Sucy explained the true purpose of Sucy's court of emotions earlier: Everyone, particularly humans including Sucy herself, cast aside their stray thoughts and impulses to maintain the balance in their psyche, which in turn, averting the chaos caused by the mental imbalance among themselves — the very chaos Akko inadvertently started by saving the little Sucy. As Abomination Sucy rushed after them, Devil Sucy further stated that waking the original Sucy up was the only way to restore order and undoing before she and Angel Sucy got devoured by the beast, leaving Akko, who made haste for the Mushroom Hills on her own.

Crashing into Mushroom Hill, the desperate Akko becomes understandably frustrated upon seeing hundreds of rooms within the building with Abomination Sucy hot on her tracks. After checking Room 493 and Room 494 (each inhabited by Punk-Rock Sucy and Alpaca Sucy, respectively), Akko meets an elderly Sucy from Room 495 who claims to know the whereabouts of the original Sucy. Much to her dismay, this Sucy blabbers seemingly for hours (possibly longer than Akko ever did) rather than immediately telling the original's room, which doesn't help as Abomination Sucy has already entered the building as she speaks. In fact, it took being yelled at by Akko and immediately devoured by the abomination afterward that the said Sucy revealed the original Sucy's whereabouts: Room 666. With no time to lose, Akko barges into said room and finds the original Sucy sleeping on a stone bed surrounded by thorns. As Akko cuts her way for the original, Abomination Sucy turns into a giant drake-like creature while continuing the chase, giving the Japanese a hard time until it gets stuck among the surrounding thorns. Now finally having the original Sucy in her grasp, Akko tearfully begged her to awaken before recalled that she brought her medicines with her earlier. However, with Dragon Sucy in tow, Akko resorts to mixing them all into her mouth and feeding the mixed medicine mouth-to-mouth, knowing that she'll steal Sucy's first kiss in the process. Hilariously, Dragon Sucy stops its advance in that instance and enjoys the sight of Akko about to "kiss" Sucy. As if that wasn't hilarious enough, Akko's advance proved too slow that the latter eventually awakened in annoyance, leading Akko to crash face-in onto the stone bed. Nevertheless, the happy Akko happily hugs Sucy with dismayed Dragon Sucy about to cry, as its head explodes like a balloon, followed by Lotte's cries for them to awaken out of nowhere.

Finding herself awakened back in her room seemingly return to the moment when she woke up with a funnel in her mouth earlier (though she doesn't have one in her mouth this time), Akko, with memories of her adventures in Sucy's inner spiritual world still fresh in her mind, rushed to awake the Manbavaran. Mirroring the near-kissing experience earlier, she ended up bumping her head against the latter's bed with the annoyed Sucy awakens and hugged by the Japanese afterward. Sucy, unaware of what Akko had gone through, remarked that Akko is more annoying than usual as the three friends prepare themselves for Finnelan's class. Akko initially believes that the latest events were a dream until Sucy reminds her of the promise to carry her stuff for a month, much to her confusion. Nevertheless, Akko shrugs it off before catching up with her friends as the episode ends, oblivious that a red mushroom popping out near Sucy's pillow...

## Order of appearances

* Sucy Manbavaran
* Atsuko Kagari
* Lotte Jansson
* Anne Finnelan (mentioned)
* Diana Cavendish (mentioned)
* Magic Wand
* Ultra Super Energy Drink Potion
* Spirit Realm Transportation Spell
* Mushrooms

## Errors and Goofs

* When one looks closely at Sucy's personality which desires plastic surgery transformed, one can see that her normal left eye is missing, yet her post-transformed face does have two eye sockets.
* When Akko found the sleeping original Sucy in her room at the climax, she was seen carrying a sword along with a shield that she previously found carried by small humanoid mushrooms upon entering Sucy's dream. Oddly enough, Akko was never seen grabbing those, only being seen with them after she was inside the room.

## Trivia

* The episode has some allusions to popular cultures, such as:
	+ **Sleeping Beauty:** The title of the episode, and the climax were allusions to *Sleeping Beauty*. When Akko tries to wake up the original Sucy, she tries to give her the medicine via mouth-to-mouth, even commenting that she is stealing her first kiss. Interestingly, during this point, the gigantic Sucy monster who chased Akko morphed into a kaiju that greatly resembles Maleficent's dragon form from the Disney movie.
	+ **Dexter's Lab:** The beginning sequence where she creates the potion is an homage to the introduction of Dexter's Laboratory.
	+ **Gravity Falls**: The scene in which Lotte reads how to cure Sucy's illness is similar to that in *Gravity Falls* in which Dipper Pines reads how to enter someone's mind out of Journal 3.
	+ **Inception**: Akko goes inside Sucy's dream to wake her up.
	+ **Wizard of Oz:** Sucy's dream is set in a location quite similar to the golden road of the Wizard of Oz.
	+ **Your Name:** One of several Sucies encountered writes あほ (idiot) in her face, referencing a famous scene from the movie.
	+ **Star Wars:** One of several Sucies encountered dressed like Obi-Wan Kenobi and even had a lightsaber, a Jedi's weapon of choice.
	+ **Transformers:** One of several Sucies encountered transforms her face, causing it to resemble the Transformers from the Michael Bay movies.
	+ **Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:** The Sucy who wants to cuddle baby animals has the same animation as April May in the *Turnabout Sisters* case.
	+ **Shin Godzilla:** One of the Sucies encountered by Akko in her dream behaves and looks like Godzilla's incarnation of *Shin Godzilla*, with some of her hair protruding on her back like titular kaiju's dorsal fins and had one of her legs rose like the latter's tail. Even this Sucy breathes a fiery atomic beam whilst releasing energy beams from both "dorsal fins" and the tip of her "tail" leg (the beams and breath attack look like white laser and streams of fire, arguably to avoid copyright issues).
	+ **Silent Hill:** Two Sucy Executioners dressed like Pyramid Heads, iconic monsters from *Silent Hill* franchise.
	+ **Rubber hose animations:** The movie scene is a reference to the old-school rubber hose animations such as ones created by Disney in its early days. This allusion was deliberately added by Yō Yoshinari because of his love for classic animations.
	+ **AKIRA:** The movie scene where Lotte gets squashed by masses of growing mushrooms is eerily reminiscent of Kaori's death when she was squashed by the uncontrollably growing biomass of Tetsuo's in the climatic scene of *AKIRA*.
	+ **Annie** & **Dreaming Machine**: The Sucy who picks Akko up along with Angel!Sucy and Devil!Sucy to the theatre of memories dressed like the titular character from the 1982 musical film of the same name. While subtle, she may also alludes Ririco from the canceled film *Dreaming Machine* as their outfits share same color scheme and that this Sucy's car is seemingly 21st Century version of the latter's own.
	+ **Attack on Titan** & **Spirited Away**: The little Sucy's monster form alludes to that of the enormous, titular giant/zombie from the former series, while her interactions with Akko up until her transformation mirrors No-Face's to Chihiro in the latter film (from offering Akko/Chihiro lily/gold, being spared from execution/allowed into the bathhouse during the rain, and their behavior during their rampage).
* The car's plates read LWA 008 = Little Witch Academia episode 8.
* The room number 666 is an allusion to the Mark of the Beast, also known as the symbol of Satan.
* The statement by the Policewomen Sucy to the Nice Sucy ("You do not have the right to remain silent. You also do not have the right to consult an attorney.") when she arrests her is an inversion of the rights law enforcement in the United States must inform suspects in their custody of before they are interrogated, the most famous of which is the right to remain silent. Together these rights and the warning that anything the suspects say can be used against them in a court of law composes the Miranda warnings.
* This episode features the fewest characters in the series, with only Akko, Lotte, and Sucy appearing.
* The Netflix title "Akko's Adventure in Sucyworld" is likely a reference to the famous book *Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*.
* This episode takes place at the beginning of September after the summer vacation ends, as stated in the chronicles book.
* If the presence of the movie theater and the embodiment of Sucy who picks picks Akko up along with Angel!Sucy and Devil!Sucy to be believed, Sucy may loves watching movies.
* This is Yō Yoshinari's favorite episode.
* According to Hiroyuki Imaishi, he enlisted Akira Amemiya and Yō Yoshinari's assistance in working on both first half of the episode and its cartoon movie scenes respectively as well as cleanup in finalizing it because he wasn't confident to be able to finish it in time on his own despite having plenty of time prior to the deadline.

## References

1. ↑ Little Witch Academia's Netflix Release Date Announced - IGN
2. ↑ https://www.netflix.com/title/80156387
3. ↑ https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2022/anime-expo/studio-trigger-live-drawing-and-q-a-panel/.187173
4. ↑ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/265265778230689793/354307531914608650/IMG\_20170904\_124940318.jpg
5. ↑ Little Witch Academia Chronicles, Chapter 2, page 34
8. ↑ Little Witch Academia Chronicles, Chapter 2, page 35

## External links

Impressions
* *Random Curiosity* - Little Witch Academia – 08 by Passerby February 27, 2017 at 5:46 am

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