istormaster

[istormaster]

You can’t really compare the situations because, as far as the manga is concerned, the animal transformation was Akko’s single use of magic in the entire story. I think you’re trying to approach a completely different and totally incomplete story from a wrong perspective in a weird attempt to put down the TV series’ climax. For starters, you’re implying that Imaishi didn’t want Diana to explicitly share Akko’s moment, which seems like a fairly large assumption. The lead-up to both scenes couldn’t be more dissimilar: in the manga, Akko had done nothing. Quite literally, in fact! "Antagonist” Mirage even mentions that Diana would probably be doing better if she wasn’t riding with someone else. In the anime, Akko had just finished putting up a big show on her own by using transformation magic, in various ways, against the missile. The manga was leading up to the big moment of her finally being able to use magic in the very climax because she had not been using magic at all. Anyway, I don’t think the manga really topped anything. It’s a very truncated and obvious “secondary” story that can only be read once you have familiarity with the TV show yet doesn’t follow the same continuity and randomly picks which TV show events happened off-screen without much explanation.

How do you top Akko and Diana firing a Shiny Arc together in space as a climax? How about Diana helping Akko shoot across the sky USING THE BOW FROM THE SHINY ARC THAT’S HOW

WHILE THROWING IN A METAMORPHIE FACIESSE AT THE SAME TIME

[istormaster]

The only cool Ankko fans are the ones that are willing to accept that Andrew will always be a distant 8th place in Akko’s heart, and someone who didn’t shape her life or development in any significant way. Romance doesn’t have to be the core of a girl’s life, regardless of her sexuality.

[istormaster]

“You’re mad that a rewrite of episodes 19 and 20 of LWA, which are centered on Diana, is being posted in the “Diana Cavendish” tag? You do know that other people’s interpretations of a characters are “allowed” in the character tag, right?”

Sure, but if you’re going to call something shitty you should be open to defend your opinion or at least to disagreements. If I wrote “Andrew is a shitty character”, I wouldn’t block people from replying to me, I would read what they wrote and either ignore if they’re just flaming me (without slurs or calling me names, because if they’re doing that I would report them) or reply to them if I see that they put some effort into their disagreement.

“And nice calling Ankko “disgusting and pointless” and “an irrelevant relationship the show doesn’t care about” right after you got mad that OP doesn’t like Diakko.“

She called “Diana’s arc” shitty first, so it’s not like your friend was being particularly nice to begin with. Still, I apologize if it came across that way, my wording was incorrect. There is nothing “disgusting or pointless” about Ankko as a ship. But rewriting an arc to downgrade Akko’s relationship with Diana in order to enhance Akko’s relationship with a THE BIG MAN BECAUSE GOD FORBID RELATIONSHIPS WITH FELLOW FEMALE CHARACTERS SHAPE A FEMALE CHARACTER is disgusting. And it’s pointless to add any more to it at the expense of Akko’s relationship with Diana, even if you were merely treating it as a friendship. Akko and Diana is at the heart of the second cour and the story being told, and it represents the core theme of LWA like nothing else.

“I think you’re the one that needs to rewatch the show if you think that Andrew and Akko’s relationship is disgusting, pointless, or that the creators don’t care about it. If they didn’t care, then why would they even include Andrew as a character?”

I already explained it above, I worded it wrong. Downgrading Diana in any way in order to enhance Andrew is something that the creators were 100% against, confirmed by Han Megumi Herself.

“Not to mention that you’re flat out wrong about why Diana left Luna Nova. She left because her family was in crisis, her aunt was selling priceless Cavendish family heirlooms because she wanted the money. She left because this was her one opportunity to formally become the head of the Cavendish House, and she wouldn’t get the opportunity again in years. It had literally nothing to do with Akko or anyone else at Luna Nova. Diana had already accepted the fact that Akko possessed the Shiny Rod. Diana may have been running away from Luna Nova and her dreams, but she was doing so out of a sense of duty and obligation to her family, not because she couldn’t deal with Akko inheriting the Shiny Rod. Diana isn’t that immature.“

Diana explicitly says that the reason she left Luna Nova was to run away from Akko and her dreams. It’s an actual dialogue in episode 23. Diana does care about her family, but ultimately the trigger for her actions was that she couldn’t stand not being the chosen one. It’s downright stated by her, with zero room for interpretation, that she couldn’t stand Akko, that she was dreaming of eventually being the one to unleash the Great Triskelion and save magic. The future of the Cavendish was, in a way, directly tied to Akko’s actions. Yes, Diana has an strong sense of responsibility; that doesn’t change the fact that she is a 16 year old girl that was already feeling jealous from episode 13.

“ Look, buddy. It’s obvious you dislike Andrew. That’s fine, everyone has their preferences. But consider this: Some people actually like him as a character, and wanted to have seen more of him in the show. There’s no need to get your panties in a twist just because someone else posts an example of how they would have liked the show to go, which happens to contain more screentime for a character you dislike. “

No, I called the post out because it called the canon version shitty before providing an even worse version while calling it an improvement. It’s mere criticism. She is perfectly free to make a post that reads: “here is my Ankko-driven rewrite of the story” without saying that the original that people enjoyed is “shit”. If you’re doing that, the least you can expect is disagreement.

“Personally I think that Diana was a bit hamfisted into the late plot of the show. Everybody has their opinions, and there’s no need to harass someone who has different opinions than you.”

Replying to 3 of her hundreds of Ankko posts, that were all posted to the Diana tag, isn’t harassment. It’s disagreement. I browse the Diana tag, saw a long wall of text that I disagree with and then replied to it. That’s it. I never used a single slur or even called her a single insult. I didn’t spam replies or did anything of the sort. So please, do tell me how I harassed anyone.

“She doesn’t want to deal with the bullshit hate that spews out of so many rabid LWA fans that hate andrew and/or ankko. There’s a difference between “I feel like parts of your rewrite don’t make much sense, like [X]. What’s your reasoning on that?” and “your rewrite is disgusting and pointless.” You are the latter. Literally. I took the “disgusting and pointless” straight from your second paragraph.“

“Disgusting and pointless” is considerably less harsh than “shitty” so don’t bring me that. I was just replying to her own language. You said it yourself, there is a difference between “I would have preferred if the show had gone this way” and “the original version is SHITTY”. Can you preach what your friend doesn’t practice?

“Reread this post and imagine it as if it’s about your own Diakko AU (or whatever ship or AU is your fancy), and maybe you’ll see why OP has you blocked.”

I wouldn’t care? Like I said, there are no personal insults or anything of the sort in what I wrote. If anyone sent me anything genuinely offensive I would report them immediately, but i don’t think my post includes anything of the sort. Any rudeness, beyond what I already said might have been poorly worded, was in reply to the OP’s rudeness. I really don’t understand why you think you smugly believe you refuted anything of what I wrote, to be honest.

Misguided and poorly worded rewrites.

So, someone said that episodes 19 and 20 of LWA were “shitty” yet and made a rewrite. Every time someone tries to critique her or try to talk about it, she blocks them. Yet she keeps posting it to the mainstream tags like “Diana Cavendish” for some reason. I really wouldn’t mind if she called it “this is my Ankko-focused rewrite fanfiction (of a very popular and well-loved part of the show)” or at least stuck to the Annko tag or at least didn’t immediately prevent anyone from replying to her. Anyway, this is the rewrite and I’ll explain how it doesn’t work at all:

https://pwanch.tumblr.com/post/168274575177/lwa-cavendish-arc-re-write-version-2

As it would be evident at first glance, the whole thing is terrible. It completely misses the point of the characters, the show or the Word. Beyond trying to turn episodes about Akko and Diana’s relationship into disgusting and pointless build up for an irrelevant relationship the show doesn’t care about (Andrew and Akko’s), you’re suggesting something that is considerably more pointless (because it fails at actually moving the story or themes forward) and contrived than the original.

Let’s start from the beginning: your scenario hinges on Akko not caring enough about Diana while ignoring that Amanda cares even less. There is no reason for Amanda to even know that Diana is leaving Luna Nova, and there is no way for her to convince, or even try to do it, Diana to stay because, ultimately, the Cavendish family issues were an excuse. Diana was leaving because she didn’t want to face the fact that Akko was chosen by the Shiny Rod. If you can’t see why this is so incredibly important to Little Witch Academia as a whole, you clearly didn’t watch it. This is one of the main narrative beats since it shapes Akko and Diana’s relationship and is actually directly tied to the climax of the story. I don’t get why you’re trying to develop Diana independently of Akko when the idea is that they’re literally linked by Chariot and Croix due to their presence in the Japanese show 10 years ago; it’s a fated bond in which their dreams and motivations are interconnected. And that’s without getting into the parallels business, Chariot’s Premium Rare card or the true meaning of the Shiny Rod even selecting a wielder in the first place. Now, your version of the story is diluted and ultimately accomplishes nothing. Amanda and Hannah and Barbara being included would decrease the amount of time that could be given to Diana and ultimately downgrade any kind of emotional impact episode 20 could accomplish. It would be unnecessarily adding plot points that provide nothing to the story yet actively detract from it. Hannah, Barbara or the radom Amanda weren’t necessary because, to begin with, the point was to make Diana confront Akko face to face. Because, as I said above, Diana was trying to run away from facing Akko; yes, exactly like how Croix separated from Chariot after the Shiny Rod chose her. Of course, I don’t think you give one single shit about Diana. Or the themes. Or the narrative. No, it’s quite clear that the whole point of your rewrite was getting Akko and Andrew to interact more in the most forced possible ways. There is a reason why the anime staff kept Andrew outside of the Cavendish ritual area, because he would be an extra. Because a personal and intimate moment was necessary; Akko understood the value of tradition not through the Cavendish accomplishments, she did it through Diana. Because Akko could tell just how much Diana cared about it. By inserting more and more characters into the scene, the closeness is lost. But of course, it’s clear that you couldn’t give less of a shit about the emotional impact of the episode. You only want to come up with more and more ridiculous ways to hamfist your favorite character into places he wasn’t meant to fit. Why would Andrew explore the Cavendish castle with Akko? Why wouldn’t Akko simply ride with Diana back to school? Why wouldn’t Diana and Akko ride the Shiny Voley when the whole thing was supposed to signify that she was starting to accept Chariot, the very thing that links Akko and Diana together, back in her heart? What is the point of giving more relevance to Andrew when he had nothing to do with the emotional core of the story? And the worst part is that you can’t even take criticism when even fanfiction writers do. I’ll repeat myself, I wouldn’t even care if you were simply writing fanfiction or wording everything as “this is my Ankko rewrite of the show” instead of somehow pretending you’re improving anything.

[istormaster]

Misguided and poorly worded rewrites.

So, someone said that episodes 19 and 20 of LWA were “shitty” yet and made a rewrite. Every time someone tries to critique her or try to talk about it, she blocks them. Yet she keeps posting it to the mainstream tags like “Diana Cavendish” for some reason. I really wouldn’t mind if she called it “this is my Ankko-focused rewrite fanfiction (of a very popular and well-loved part of the show)” or at least stuck to the Annko tag or at least didn’t immediately prevent anyone from replying to her. Anyway, this is the rewrite and I’ll explain how it doesn’t work at all:

https://pwanch.tumblr.com/post/168274575177/lwa-cavendish-arc-re-write-version-2

As it would be evident at first glance, the whole thing is terrible. It completely misses the point of the characters, the show or the Word. Beyond trying to turn episodes about Akko and Diana's relationship into disgusting and pointless build up for an irrelevant relationship the show doesn't care about (Andrew and Akko's), you're suggesting something that is considerably more pointless (because it fails at actually moving the story or themes forward) and contrived than the original.

Let's start from the beginning: your scenario hinges on Akko not caring enough about Diana while ignoring that Amanda cares even less. There is no reason for Amanda to even know that Diana is leaving Luna Nova, and there is no way for her to convince, or even try to do it, Diana to stay because, ultimately, the Cavendish family issues were an excuse. Diana was leaving because she didn't want to face the fact that Akko was chosen by the Shiny Rod. If you can't see why this is so incredibly important to Little Witch Academia as a whole, you clearly didn't watch it. This is one of the main narrative beats since it shapes Akko and Diana's relationship and is actually directly tied to the climax of the story. I don't get why you're trying to develop Diana independently of Akko when the idea is that they're literally linked by Chariot and Croix due to their presence in the Japanese show 10 years ago; it's a fated bond in which their dreams and motivations are interconnected. And that's without getting into the parallels business, Chariot’s Premium Rare card or the true meaning of the Shiny Rod even selecting a wielder in the first place. Now, your version of the story is diluted and ultimately accomplishes nothing. Amanda and Hannah and Barbara being included would decrease the amount of time that could be given to Diana and ultimately downgrade any kind of emotional impact episode 20 could accomplish. It would be unnecessarily adding plot points that provide nothing to the story yet actively detract from it. Hannah, Barbara or the radom Amanda weren't necessary because, to begin with, the point was to make Diana confront Akko face to face. Because, as I said above, Diana was trying to run away from facing Akko; yes, exactly like how Croix separated from Chariot after the Shiny Rod chose her. Of course, I don't think you give one single shit about Diana. Or the themes. Or the narrative. No, it's quite clear that the whole point of your rewrite was getting Akko and Andrew to interact more in the most forced possible ways. There is a reason why the anime staff kept Andrew outside of the Cavendish ritual area, because he would be an extra. Because a personal and intimate moment was necessary; Akko understood the value of tradition not through the Cavendish accomplishments, she did it through Diana. Because Akko could tell just how much Diana cared about it. By inserting more and more characters into the scene, the closeness is lost. But of course, it's clear that you couldn't give less of a shit about the emotional impact of the episode. You only want to come up with more and more ridiculous ways to hamfist your favorite character into places he wasn't meant to fit. Why would Andrew explore the Cavendish castle with Akko? Why wouldn't Akko simply ride with Diana back to school? Why wouldn't Diana and Akko ride the Shiny Voley when the whole thing was supposed to signify that she was starting to accept Chariot, the very thing that links Akko and Diana together, back in her heart? What is the point of giving more relevance to Andrew when he had nothing to do with the emotional core of the story? And the worst part is that you can't even take criticism when even fanfiction writers do. I’ll repeat myself, I wouldn't even care if you were simply writing fanfiction or wording everything as "this is my Ankko rewrite of the show" instead of somehow pretending you're improving anything.

[istormaster]

Atsuko Kagari considers Diana and an infinitely cooler person than Andrew.

when andrew hanbridge considers akko a cooler witch than diana cavendish 🤭

[istormaster]

Sorry, but no. 99% of the Ankko ship consists on shitting on Diana or on pretending Akko’s relationship with Andrew is more important than her relationship with Diana.

I’m depressed so have some Ankko being inclusive of Diana and frick, I love it.

Akko: pssst! Andrew, on the way back can we pick up a stuffed animal for Diana? Her birthday is coming up and I think going against her wishes for anything “kiddy” is the best way to swoon her.

Andrew: Swoon? Understood, we must act accordingly. We need to maximize the platonic relationship points with treachery and flatter my dear friend in embarrassment. 

Yeah, so Ankko basically makes Diana feel like she has the best bros in the world who are also trolls. Diana is not overshadowed in anyway. Moreover, she’s never felt so close with Andrew ever since they drifted apart from young. She worries Andrew goes along with Akko too much, but really she can’t help but feel at ease that Akko is being taken care of. 

[istormaster]

You clearly misunderstood me; all the ships are non-canon. Not even Chariox is meant to be taken romantically; even if there is nothing wrong if you do it. Ankko isn’t special in any significant way; not negatively or positively. It’s just another of Akko’s relationships, and romatic development between them is just not going to happen. And neither will for any other ship. That’s not what Trigger cares about. Producer Tsusumi explicitly said that they aren’t interested in telling a love story with LWA; not now and not in the future. Taking the show for what it is simply means accepting this. Nobody is wrong for shipping, but they’re wrong when they pretend there was a “love confession” being removed from the final episode, or when they demand Trigger give them more pandering.

Clarifying Andrew and Akko's relationship

An awkward translation of some comments from the staff have made people completely misunderstand the removed romance between Akko and Andrew. Well, the translation was indeed correct: there was a love confession that got cut from the story; however, the context was completely butchered. Let’s get something clear first: the relationship you saw in episodes 6, 10, 17 and 23 wasn’t ever meant to be romantic. They decided against the romance from the planning stages. The original scenario, not script, that Yoshinari and series composition writer Michiru Shimada came up with was this: Akko was instantly going to be head-over-heels in love with Andrew, and she was going to declare her love for him right at this introduction episode. Their relationship was going to be developed from that and Andrew would have played a larger role in the narrative. However, producer Naoko Tsusumi and a lot of other people in the production, such as Han Megumi or Trigger’s Ootsuka, firmly opposed the idea. Megumi didn’t really like the idea of making Andrew the relevant figure in Akko’s development while ignoring Chariot and Diana, for example. In the end, Akko was decided to be “a girl who doesn’t care for boys” and Andrew’s role was reworked. The relationship Akko and Andrew have in the TV show, from the very beginning, was a result of these reworks: you can most certainly interpret it as romantic if that’s what you want to do, but that wasn’t the staff’s intention. So, some of you might wonder about episode 10. Well, according to Yoshinari, it was kind of a concession for Michiru Shimada; an script in which she was allowed to do whatever she wanted. Mostly, since Producer Tsusumi still made sure to keep out as many “implications” as possible. Akko isn’t supposed to hold romantic feelings for Andrew, after all; and any development that could have come out of the episode was ignored as the show progressed. Anyway, I believe that the current fandom for AndrewXAkko exists ONLY due to the changes that were made. What I’ve read is that people like it because it’s “friendly and wholesome” or that they like how it was “slowly developed”. But that only happened because Trigger didn’t mean for it to be a love story: they’re simply friends. Of course, that shouldn’t stop anyone that wants to ship them from shipping them (everyone is free to ship whatever they want to ship); I’m kinda just saying to take the show for what it is.

[istormaster]

Clarifying Andrew and Akko's relationship

An awkward translation of some comments from the staff have made people completely misunderstand the removed romance between Akko and Andrew. Well, the translation was indeed correct: there was a love confession that got cut from the story; however, the context was completely butchered. Let's get something clear first: the relationship you saw in episodes 6, 10, 17 and 23 wasn't ever meant to be romantic. They decided against the romance from the planning stages. The original scenario, not script, that Yoshinari and series composition writer Michiru Shimada came up with was this: Akko was instantly going to be head-over-heels in love with Andrew, and she was going to declare her love for him right at this introduction episode. Their relationship was going to be developed from that and Andrew would have played a larger role in the narrative. However, producer Naoko Tsusumi and a lot of other people in the production, such as Han Megumi or Trigger's Ootsuka, firmly opposed the idea. Megumi didn't really like the idea of making Andrew the relevant figure in Akko's development while ignoring Chariot and Diana, for example. In the end, Akko was decided to be "a girl who doesn't care for boys" and Andrew's role was reworked. The relationship Akko and Andrew have in the TV show, from the very beginning, was a result of these reworks: you can most certainly interpret it as romantic if that’s what you want to do, but that wasn't the staff's intention. So, some of you might wonder about episode 10. Well, according to Yoshinari, it was kind of a concession for Michiru Shimada; an script in which she was allowed to do whatever she wanted. Mostly, since Producer Tsusumi still made sure to keep out as many “implications” as possible. Akko isn't supposed to hold romantic feelings for Andrew, after all; and any development that could have come out of the episode was ignored as the show progressed. Anyway, I believe that the current fandom for AndrewXAkko exists ONLY due to the changes that were made. What I've read is that people like it because it's "friendly and wholesome" or that they like how it was "slowly developed". But that only happened because Trigger didn't mean for it to be a love story: they're simply friends. Of course, that shouldn't stop anyone that wants to ship them from shipping them (everyone is free to ship whatever they want to ship); I’m kinda just saying to take the show for what it is.

[istormaster]

Friendly reminder that the staff literally forgot about Akko’s forgotten hat; yeah, the one Andrew had. It wasn’t even in the script for episode 25. Animators ad-libbed it in the final scene. The whole “there was meant to be a confession” thing has been completely misread; it referred to Akko and Andrew’s relationship as it was originally conceived by series composition writer Michiru Shimada, before it was fiercely opposed by the rest of the staff and ultimately discarded. But that’s history for another post.