diana, i want to be less like you and more like you

When I was a 13-year-old boy, I was humiliated to have watched and enjoyed the then-new anime series Little Witch Academia. Now, I’m a 21-year-old woman, which barely makes it better.

Look, I don’t know. I’m just like this. When I introduce the subject of anime, you might think of something substantial like Attack on Titan or Neon Genesis: Evangelion, series I’m not familiar with but ones where I’m almost certain that a lot of things happen. Of the handful of anime I’ve watched since age 13, I promise you, absolutely, positively nothing has ever happened in any of them. I never viewed anime as anything more than a happy playground. I’ve collected enough slices-of-life to brandish a strawberry shortcake.

If anything, it’s a little ironic that I started with Little Witch Academia, because its plot does go somewhere. But it’s a G-rated, Netflix-fueled frolic. Akko, the overeager freshman protagonist, is not only the antithesis of the Halloweenian witch framework, but a constant vehicle for frivolous shenanigans. She ungracefully rejects her world’s own definition of a witch, too, and sometimes her school’s definition of success.

Unlike most definitions, this one is named Diana Cavendish. Diana is the antidote to Akkos everywhere. She is the face of your annoying classmate who gets every answer right. The show insists you not like her until you need to, and as a teenager, I wouldn't even go that far. She proved herself guilty to me and served a 25-episode sentence.

It wouldn't be too long after when I had my first Rich Friend's House experience. When I was in about 7th grade, I had a friend–let’s call him Joe for anonymity and all that–whose dad nobody really knew was the Vice President of something-something at the northeast branch of Pfizer. It just wasn’t something the kid ever brought up, despite being the third in a long line of Joes. But that’d be illuminated one way or another when he hosted a gathering. It was the untouchable ceilings in the foyer; it was the candlelit bathroom connected to his room; it was the sign in front of the neighborhood ending in “Heights”, “Run”, or “Grove”.

And it was here the teenage Kat was introduced to the dice she rolled at the hospital, perhaps three beds over from baby Joe. Or really, almost any other constituent of Holicong Middle School who experienced my nervous laughter. Anyone who wondered if maybe conversations about college had led them to someone who didn’t have tens of thousands of dollars in a grandparent’s bank account. They didn’t wait for the future - the future waited for them.

Even then, Joe was honestly very welcome compared to my mind’s first caricature of the upper class, which may very well have been Diana. Because Diana doesn't smile. When she must speak, she stands up straight, answers the question with her eyes closed, and sits back down. And when Akko must listen, Diana scolds her about wanting to win a broom race without knowing how to fly, or burning a hole through the floor of a classroom. Open-and-shut cases in the court of Kataryn. Akko could do no wrong.

Why, though? I had always viewed Diana as a fly buzzing around the room in the background, no matter how fundamental she’d become to the plot. On this recent rewatch, I started to ask myself if she was actually ever obnoxious. In fact, I became convinced that all the attitude fell on her self-appointed bodyguards, two girls so secondary to the story that I can’t even remember their names. I call them Orange Hair and Blue Hair. They perform all the bullying and belittling, all the parading of Diana’s nobility. They seem to appear on either side of her whenever it’s time to acknowledge her existence. The show has you assume as a convention that they’re her friends, but I started to wonder about that. Diana barely talks to them, doesn’t hang out with them, and sometimes walks away from them. Does she have friends?

You begin to wonder if anyone wants her more than they need her, which is constantly. In Episode 12, Akko is transformed into Diana’s doppelganger via a conveniently conniving mirror, and we learn for the first time how Diana’s daily life really looks. Akko must now pretend she knows how to answer the faculty’s questions about the schedule “she” (Diana) personally drafted for the Samhain Festival. She must appease the shapeshifting team’s requests to fix a statue’s position, and Orange and Blue Hair’s pleas to teach them summoning magic. Explicitly, this is just a device of predicament, because nobody in the institution can imitate Diana’s ability, let alone Akko. But also, damn! Nobody? Not even the professors? We already knew perfectly well of Akko’s elementary magicianship - it’s news that Diana’s under pressure everywhere she goes.

When the future tries to wait for Diana, it fails miserably. Episodes 19 and 20 chronicle her attempt to cut her education short and accept ownership of her disarrayed family estate. It is here we learn that for her, college is not the promised future we all imagine. No, indeed, she doesn’t need college, she wants it. The whole world seems to think that because she is the star student, she’s the inevitable student. She is caught between worlds in an uncomfortably familiar tension. The adult Kat falters. How can someone so rich experience something so poor?

Is it really work, then, that shapes her? Is it toil? Episode 11 is no different in displaying her independence, in which we see her explore the university’s dust-ridden tower of archives. Her infinite importance means the topic she’s researching is literally the crux of the show, which is wrapped up in obscure witchcraft history and forces of the universe. But the forces of the universe didn’t choose the child of knowledge. They chose Akko. In due time, Diana will realize she’s not the main character.

It's a revelation fitting of this dark, winding corridor, and not at all what it reminds me of, which is the Free Library of Philadelphia. It doesn't particularly evoke that eighth-grade field trip, or the peaceful doldrums of the bus ride there, but for some reason, that's where my mind wanders. I suddenly remember the oak table I slouched over, surveying my stack of six books that may have had even just one mention of my project topic (John Cage), or his profession (experimental music). Why, out of any notable figure, did I pick such a confusing one? One whose only publication I could find on Amazon was an anthology of cryptic mesostic poetry?

Across from me, my friend leafed through a book about the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps a bit more fitting for a history class.

No, you're not seeing things. The characteristic distance between me and Diana has dwindled. While there’s still time to perceive her as a monolith of correct decisions, she can be written off as a fictional ideal. But this shatters when we realize she has troubles, and she sets herself aside for everyone else. To admit she has flaws is to admit that maybe, just a little bit, I could want to be like a preppy royal. Maybe then, I could desire to be as mature as her, or as accomplished as her, or even just as pretty as her - things I look up to in plenty of actually important women in my life. Ridiculous, right?

For such a happy show, it carries on a tragic mutual jealousy, from Akko for Diana’s adulthood and Diana for Akko’s childhood. If that’s your only takeaway, growing up with Little Witch Academia might resemble the “Growing Up is Realizing” sensationalization of nostalgia. You know those tweets. “Growing up is realizing Candace from Phineas and Ferb was right”, “growing up is realizing Twenty One Pilots was always kinda bad”, blah blah. But we have illustrated something much more complex than an adult. This picture is of a girl who cares too much, whose professionalism hides an anger wrapped in seriousness, and who must concede vulnerability to find support in the world. I no longer know if I’m talking about Diana or myself.

About the Author

Kataryn Marchione is a junior transfer student at Arcadia. She's pursuing a major in Computer Science, but writing is an incredibly fun distraction from that. She aims to bring you her most honest thoughts.