Barbara Parker

**Barbara Parker** (バーバラ・パーカー, *Bābara Pākā*?) is a character in *Little Witch Academia*, who is a student of the Luna Nova Magical Academy. She often accompanies Diana Cavendish and acts as her loyal friend and assistant, along with Hannah.

## Appearance

Barbara is a girl of average stature. She has completely straight and waist-length black hair, teal eyes. Her eyelashes are highlighted in the lower part of her eyes and her eyebrows are a bit as thick as Hannah's.

Her Luna Nova Academy standard uniform consists of a dark blue skirt and vest with two buttons in the center of the same color but darker, a white long-sleeved shirt with dark blue cufflinks and a dark blue tie underneath, along with a normal blue belt. She wears long socks of the same color as the vest and dark brown loafers with darker soles.

In her prototype design, Barbara had dark brown hair instead of black.

## Personality

As with Hannah, Barbara is shown to be a bully who takes delight in picking on non-magical and weaker witches, but fortunately not sadistic enough to violently abuse them. Both of them equally antagonistic to Akko and her friends, due to her incompetence with magic and her academic level in Luna Nova, in addition to being a friend of Diana, who also does not have a good relationship with her. As a result of their attitude, in "Don't Stop Me Now", she and Hannah help Akko negatively in the broom race by transforming theirs into shoddy carts to participate, since Akko could not fly with hers.

Not surprisingly, as with other bullies in general, she and Hannah have a fearful side beneath aforementioned bad qualities. In the first short film, the two show too much fear to the monsters or dangerous places to which Diana takes them, who thinks that they should give fear and not the other way around. Similarly, in "What You Will", they reduced into cowering messes upon being informed by Akko (who involuntarily assumed Diana's likeness because of Woodward's machinations at the time) that they were afflicted with ageing curse.

Despite this, while she and Hannah started off as sycophants towards Diana, the two gradually view the Cavendish as a genuine friend. This becomes evident in "Cavendish" as they left devastated when Diana finally left the academy. After the events of "Intelligence and Sensibility", Hannah and Barbara thank Akko for helping Diana return to Luna Nova Academy, something they admit that not even they could accomplish.

Also, like Lotte, she is a fan of the Night Fall novels, although she's afraid of admitting it, as Hannah dislikes them. However, during the epilogue of Tree of Leaves, Barbara is seen openly reading and talking with Lotte about *Night Fall*, showing she's no longer afraid of admitting she's a fan of the novels.

## Abilities and Equipment

Barbara, like all witches in the academy, has her own magic wand and magic broom.

In the first short film, Barbara creates fireballs using flame magic to defeat the Ancient Dragon, though that only makes the dragon stronger due to its consumption of magic, and Akko mentions in *The Enchanted Parade* that Barbara is skilled in the art. In the TV series episode "Don't Stop Me Now", Barbara uses a spell that transforms Akko's broom into a scooter, mocking her inability to fly.

In the manga series, Hannah and Barbara use magic to manipulate the trajectory of the ball in a volleyball game.

## Etymology

* "Barbara" is derived from Greek βαρβαρος (Barbaros) meaning "foreign".
* "Parker" is a surname of English origin, derived from Old French with the meaning "keeper of the park". "Parker" was also a nickname given to gamekeepers in medieval England. It is the 48th-most common surname in England. Within the United States, it is ranked as the 47th-most common surname.

## Trivia

* Barbara's name, along with Hannah, is most likely a reference to  *William Hanna* and  *Joseph Barbera* of  *Hanna-Barbera* fame (a very well-known American animation studio).
	+ Their surnames likely come from real-life people  *Hannah England* and  *Barbara Parker*.
* Barbara's Latin American Spanish voice actress has the same given name as her character. Similarly, both Hannah and her Brazilian Portuguese voice actress have the same given name.
* Barbara, Hannah, and Jasminka share their voice actresses with one of the guests in the Samhain Festival: Hannah and Dorlin are voiced by Eri Nakao, both Barbara and Ural are voiced by Chinatsu Akasaki, and both Jasminka and Marjolaine are voiced by Reina Ueda.
	+ Barbara also shares her voice actress with Ursula in the English dub, Alexis Nichols.
* Alongside Hannah, Barbara was originally intended to be more sycophantic towards Diana early on and didn't bat an eye upon Diana's departure from Luna Nova only to find herself and Hannah competing over the position of new top student of Luna Nova as the sub-plot of the first part of two-parter episodes "Cavendish" and "Intelligence and Sensibility".
	+ The decision to paint Hannah and Barbara in more likeable light through their loyalty toward Diana was well-received by Shiori Miyazaki as expressed through comments they made in some of their artworks.
* Judging by her name, she might be from Greece (see etymology section above for more info).
* According to Tatsuru Tatemoto in one of his conversation with fans at 4chan in 2017, Hannah and Barbara would likely have an episode centered around them or two in the possible new season/sequel which uncertain at this point.

## See Also

*For more images related to Barbara Parker, see the file category:* Category:Images of Barbara Parker*.*
## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/\_AlexisNichols\_/status/880883502538825728
2. ↑ [https://twitter.com/LWA\_jp/status/878499315894767617 昨日の上映会でも発表しましたが、Twitter上でも改めまして。ハンナ、バーバラのフルネームはこちら！
「ハンナ・イングランド」
「バーバラ・パーカー」] by @LWA\_jp on Twitter
3. ↑ »Little Witch Academia« erscheint auf Deutsch
4. ↑ »Little Witch Academia«: Deutsche Sprecherin von Lotte Jansson bekannt
5. ↑  *Parker (surname)*
6. ↑ Little Witch Academia Chronicles, Chapter 2, page 61
8. ↑ Little Witch Academia Blu-Ray Vol. 7 Booklet, page unknown
9. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20220108110331/https://twitter.com/poriyama\_san/status/888741616759865344
10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210514214354/https://twitter.com/gomi\_dame332/status/863903606860152832
11. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210527132126/https://twitter.com/gomi\_dame332/status/867033174404087810