Atsuko Kagari

"I'll work hard to become a witch who can make everyone smile. Because to me, magic is the most wonderful thing in the entire world!"

- Akko

Atsuko Kagari (アツコ・カガリ Atsuko Kagari), more commonly known by her nickname Akko (アッコ), is the titular main protagonist of Little Witch Academia. She is a first-generation witch from Japan and an admirer of Shiny Chariot. It is situated in the Purple Line of the Dan Ryan-Evanston System.

Appearance
Akko is a slightly pale-skinned girl of average height with long, straight, chestnut brown hair in color which reaches about just below her shoulder blades in length with matching blunt square side-bangs on the left side along with a section of it tied onto a half ponytail on the back of her head and large crimson eyes.

As with other Luna Nova students, Akko's standard Luna Nova Academy uniform consists of a white long-sleeved shirt, a navy blue vest, a tie of the same color, and a skirt. While outside the school, she wore a buttoned jacket covered with a cape over the said uniform set. During practical classes and school functions, on the other hand, she wears a uniform consisting of a long navy blue hooded tunic, a pointed hat, a body belt, stockings, and long boots. Like her friends Lotte and Sucy, she completes her uniform with a red sash.

On days off, Akko wears a white t-shirt and brown shorts, which also doubles as her pajamas. She has also been shown occasionally wearing an orange turtleneck over a t-shirt and brown sports shoes with white laces (on some occasions in Blue Moon). While on her way to Glastonbury for Luna Nova's opening ceremony, on the other hand, she wears an orange hooded jacket, blue turtleneck sweater, brown shorts, and red boots.

When she was still a 6-year old child, Akko's hairstyle looked almost the same as her current one, but shorter and lacked a ponytail, and with the same bang texture. She also has the same type of eyes.

Concept artwork and a promotional poster of the first short film reveal that Akko originally had teal eyes, along with slightly longer hair.

Personality
Akko is best described as an excitable, impulsive, reckless, optimistic, energetic, and short-tempered girl, which is consistent with her normally exaggerated expressions. Due to her great determination, she is always up for a challenge, even if it seems too difficult for her and everyone else. As Akko is very social, kind, and truly compassionate, people are often drawn to her happy disposition. She will do anything to pursue her dream to become a talented witch like Chariot, even if it means to put her life in danger.

Akko has an idealized view of witches inspired by her childhood idol Shiny Chariot, which clashes with her fellow students' perception. Being a fan of Shiny Chariot, she displays a poster of her in her room, and Shiny Chariot is often idealized in her fantasies. It is worth mentioning that she is also very immersed in her own fantasies and sometimes does not account for other witches' opinions. This trait is, however, less evident in the television series. This does not mean that she is a selfish and arrogant person: in the OVA, Akko realizes she almost jeopardizes her friendship with Sucy and Lotte, thus resulting in her sympathizing with what she had done.

Through her first visit to the Fountain of Polaris, Akko realized she has to work hard to achieve her dreams. This contributed to her later improved mastery over magic and helps her awaken the Second Word of the Seven Words of Arcturus. While she took this lesson to heart, Akko still retained her impulsive and reckless attitude.

Her impulsiveness and recklessness, coupled with her idealized view on witches, repeated rule-breaking, and inferior magical abilities, sets her off from the rest of the school and makes her an eyesore to Anne Finnelan. However, her determination to be like her idol, Shiny Chariot, and desire to spread joy with magic causes the Shiny Rod to appear before her in the Arcturus Forest.

As revealed in "What You Will," Akko is plagued by insecurities over her magical abilities and compares herself with the seemingly flawless Diana as a result. She initially believed that emulating Chariot and outperforming Diana was the best way to prove herself only to be rebuked by both Ursula and Woodward (the latter did so by changing her appearance into the likeness of Diana), with the former advising that she should prove herself with her own qualities instead. Akko eventually let's go of these insecurities through liberating Vajarois from her sadness with the help of Lotte and Sucy and unlocks the third Word in the process, ending the tradition of keeping Vajarois appeased via sacrifices once and for all.

Though she has a little discipline for studying and finds most classes boring, Akko is very clever. This is first seen in "A New Beginning" when she lures the Cockatrice so that it gets entangled in the vines of a Mandrake plant. In "Night Fall", she gets Lotte into the city by catching a ride in Luna Nova's food delivery truck. And in "Blytonbury's Undead Travelogue", she is able to quickly bring Mr. Holbrooke to Luna Nova by grabbing onto the Bell Tower bell and using a Mending Magic spell to reunite it with its clapper, knowing the clapper is on campus as Miranda Holbrooke's staff. Akko is very creative and eschews tradition for innovation. However, she does not have a great sense of her own capabilities and her overconfidence contributes to a tendency to look before she leaps, and her motivation to do her very best and inch closer to Chariot is often dismissed as naivety by others.

Despite her impulsiveness, ultimately Akko is a selfless witch who will risk her own self and her reputation to do what is right, such as during "Orange Submariner" when she used her last bit of magic in her wand to break open the fishing cage to save a fish's family rather than using it later when they find Pisces (although she coincidentally found Pisces in the cage), "Luna Nova and the White Dragon" when she convinced her friends to go with her and take back the Sorcerer's Stone from the dragons, and during "Sleeping Sucy" when she volunteered to be the "sacrifice" to go into Sucy's mind and wake her up. In "New Age Magic", her kind heart has allowed her to feel sympathy towards the spirits who went under the strike and joined their cause in getting more magical energy. Moreover, Akko's peerless compassion, coupled with her selflessness and determination, became the key factor of Shiny being Rod drawn to her in the first place. It also allowed her to gain so many friends and allies as well as earning respect from her rivals. The loyalty that was formed from her compassion was so strong that Akko's teacher and childhood idol, Chariot Du Nord, sacrificed her own magical abilities to protect her student and Diana willing to give up her childhood treasure if that meant Akko stays at Luna Nova. Diana admits to Akko that these traits of hers make her envious, but also appreciates and cares for and concludes that Akko's beliefs are the only true path that can save the magical world.

Magic
Due to her mundane background, Akko is very incompetent with magic, especially in the use of flying brooms despite having practiced this skill several times. However, her potential with magic is unmistakable (though only a certain few are able to see it), as she can use the Shiny Rod that once belonged to Shiny Chariot with impressive prowess, showcased through turning it into bow and arrow, ballista and ax forms. Even so, her prowess in magic improves over time as seen in the second short film where she is much better than in the first short film, albeit not very remarkable. While this remained consistent in the TV series, her development is obviously slow compared to other witches. Her inability is revealed to be due to the Dream Fuel Spirit used by Chariot in her magic show, which drained out her magic capabilities. However, after saving the world from the out of control Noir Rod, Akko's abilities have started to recover as Akko is able to fly for the first time since enrolling in Luna Nova. 'VR Broom Racing later confirmed that she has managed to further hone her skill in it, though her overall mastery in Flight Magic still leaves much to be desired.

Like most witches, Akko can project beams of energy by using her wand, (which became great explosions while using the Shiny Rod in its offensive forms), is able to levitate objects or people, and move them to a certain extent, and change the form of other animals. With Ursula's help, Akko was able to learn to repair objects with magic and later to repair larger objects.

Metamorphosis Magic
In the beginning, she was terrible at this spell, only giving her animal traits. However, over time, the Metamorphosis Magic become one of her strongest abilities after hours of training. At the Samhain Festival, she was able to transform herself at will and maintain it for extended periods of time. By becoming different animals, Akko is able to take advantage of their different qualities for certain situations.

Determination
"A few scratches won't stop me! If I say I'm gonna ride a broom, then I will ride it! Even if you don't like it, you're gonna help me win this race! Don’t even try to shake me off now. I'm going to hang on until the end of the world!"

- Akko demonstrates her insane determination Her greatest strength, however, comes from the strong determination that allowed her to overcome even the most challenging obstacles. The fact that she keeps moving forward on planning the Happy Time Project for the Witch Parade (where Sucy and Lotte left said project out of stress from Akko's impulsive control freak attitude), facing an enormous magic-eating dragon, riding the wild sentient Shooting Star broomstick, trying to overcome a magically enhanced polar bear to know if she could get the power of stars, trying her best to study for exams, trying to solve one of the most important magic rules after having broken one, as well as talking to the Blue Moon Abyss' omniscient spirit are testaments of her determination.

Shiny Rod
A powerful staff that may very well the embodiment of the power of seven stars that make up Big Dipper itself. Although Akko is initially unable to use it at will, she is able to use it in moments of great importance in response to her feelings, managing to revive the Seven Words of Arcturus. It can transform into a bow and create an arrow from thin air. She also managed to transform it into a great ax to launch a frontal attack and a grappling hook, a mixing machine and a flying broom. After breaking the seal of Grand Triskellion, the Shiny Rod merged with the Grand Triskellion, allowing it to access its powerful world reconstruction magic.

Akko eventually loses the Shiny Rod towards the end of the anime, after she used it to help spread the magic throughout the world, allowing it to disappear into the stars.

Shooting Star
A legendary, sentient flying broom filled with its own magical energy. Akko rode the broom twice; first during the Luna Nova Cup in "Don't Stop Me Now" and again during the battle against the Noir Rod missile in "Tree of Leaves".

Etymology

 * The name Atsuko means "honest" (敦) (atsu) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Depending on the writing, Akko's given name can have various meanings, such as "warm child" (温子?) or "passion/heat child" (熱子?).
 * Atsuko's surname Kagari means "campfire, fishing fire, beacon basket" (篝).
 * Akko's surname can mean both "bamboo basket/frame" (篝) and "light, shine" (火狩) in Japanese.

Trivia

 * Akko's English voice actress, Erica Mendez, also voices Ryūko Matoi from , another production. Similarly, Diana Cavendish and Lotte Jansson's voice actresses, Laura Post and Stephanie Sheh, also voice Ragyō Kiryūin and Nui Harime in the same series.
 * Akko also shares both her Japanese and English voice actresses with Gon Freecss from .
 * The way Akko obtains the Shiny Rod is different between the anime and the first short film. In the short film, she found it within Luna Nova during a treasure hunt. However, in the anime, she found it in the Arcturus Forest while trying to become a student at Luna Nova Magical Academy.
 * Akko was named after the main character Atsuko "Akko" Kagami from the first magical girl series created, Himitsu no Akko-chan.
 * One recurring event/running joke in Little Witch Academia series is that Akko has her face flat with bruises from mild harm:
 * The first short film has her face smacked against the desk by a small fairy summoned by a professor for dozing off.
 * Some episodes of TV Series also have Akko receiving this injury where the most notable one being the pilot episode, "Starting Over", in which Akko fell flat on the face after unintentionally crashed onto Sucy.
 * In the Chamber of Time game, she got crashed against the ground after failed to stop an animated skeleton model for a second time.
 * According Naoko Tsutsumi, Akko is supposedly not the sole first generation witch who attended Luna Nova, but nevertheless the latest known instance since others like her was not featured yet until this point.
 * As confirmed during Studio Trigger's Livestream at Anime Expo's channel in Twitch, Akko's residence is located at Chiba Prefecture.
 * According to an interview with Yoshinari, Naoko Tsutsumi, and Shūhei Handa, Akko and Andrew are supposedly ended up together with the latter confessed his feelings to the former. However, Yoshinari disliked such because it would have meant that Akko was working for Andrew's sake and not for herself so it was ultimately scrapped. Yoshinari instead sees their current relationship as a "sort of playful guy-guy relationship", which Handa agrees with.
 * Ironically, their English voice actors, (Andrew) and  (Akko) are together in a relationship in real life.
 * Judging from her energetic yet impulsive behavior and short-attention-span, it's implied that Akko suffered mild ADHD at best. She even stated arguably to be a problem child for the same reason at school according to her bio in Chronicle Book.
 * Akko can be equated with following characters through their similarities:
 * Naomi Yumeno: Both Akko and Naomi are clumsy yet determined and energetic female protagonists who got caught in a fierce rivalry between two powerful characters (Chariot and Croix for Akko and Gai Kurenai/Ultraman Orb and Jugglus Juggler for Naomi) in their respective show. Another similarities include them holding no grudge towards the one who unintentionally harm them in the same conflict (Gai/Ultraman Orb injured Naomi who trapped within Galatron he fight due to his Thunder Breastar form's rampage that continued until he ran out of power while Ursula/Chariot handicapped Akko's magic potential due to tricked by Croix to use Dream Fuel Spirit).
 * Luz Noceda: Both dream of becoming witches, both hailed from mundane family, and both have role-models whom inspired them to become witches (Though Luz's role-model is fictional, Chariot is a real person).
 * As revealed by Yoshinari's interview in Little Witch Academia Chronicles, Akko was originally planned to immediately fall in love with handsome guys early on in the TV series' development. The idea was scrapped entirely due to opposition from the producer, the staff and the VAs.

Other Appearances

 * Akko makes a cameo in the post-credits scene of the thirteenth and final episode of , another anime series produced by Studio Trigger. This announced the Little Witch Academia television series.
 * A character that looks similar to Akko made a cameo in Pokémon the Series: Sun &amp; Moon episode, Mounting an Electrifying Charge!.
 * Another similar looking character also featured as a recurring background character in SSSS.Gridman where she appears in Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 5, Episode 8, and Episode 13. Unlike in Little Witch Academia, however, Akko's SSSS.Gridman incarnation lacked her trademark ponytail and the color of her eyes somewhat inconsistent (either brown or crimson in different shots).
 * Akko's hat makes a cameo appearance in episode 4 of BNA: Brand New Animal among the hats Michiru tried shortly after regaining her human form.

Navigation
Atsuko Kagari