Lotte Jansson

"I used to get laughed at by the other witches, you know? But when I sang a magical song, the faerie spirits would create a rainbow for me. It was always amazing and beautiful."

- Lotte

Lotte Jansson (ロッテ・ヤンソン) is one of the protagonists of Little Witch Academia. She is a witch from Finland and roommates of Akko and Sucy.

Appearance
Lotte is a Finnish girl with below-average height. She has short orange hair secured by a navy-blue headband and turquoise blue eyes. She has pale skin complexion, with freckles on her cheeks and nasal bridge. She wears semi-rimless eyeglasses with mauve frames and large, round lenses with a strong prescription that magnifies her eyes. Her standard Luna Nova Magical Academy uniform is personalized with a red belt and a red band on her hat. When not in her Luna Nova uniform, she wears a blue headband.

Personality
Lotte is shy, calm and timid, rarely ever getting angry. She is a kind-hearted girl who earnestly looks after Akko. Lotte is often concerned about Akko, given that her determination to become a witch like Shiny Chariot sometimes makes her go too far, and that she would forget the well-being of friends and people who wish to help her.

There are occasions when she does get angry. In The Enchanted Parade, her patience in aiding Akko was eventually tested when the latter accidentally rips up the sheet music to Lotte's ancestral song. Lotte became upset to the point of becoming sullen and even colder than she normally was, as Sucy pointed out. She stops talking with Akko for some time because of how she is upset at her. Nevertheless, she still considered Akko as her friend and supported her determination to become a witch like Shiny Chariot despite said witch's poor reputation, as seen when she forgave Akko by giving her a handmade replica of Shiny Chariot's hat. In anime series "Samhain Magic" on the other hand, she stands up for both herself and her roommates (Akko in particular) when Diana and her team belittle the three friends for Akko's sudden disappearance before the beginning of the festival. At such instance, Lotte fiercely defends her friend's absence and berates the group for continuously harassing them due to small situations like these, leaving those present shocked at the change of her once quiet persona.

Despite her usually timid and innocent demeanor, Lotte can take on extremely determined and focused attitude when the situation calls for it. In Teri Terio manga, when Akko was devoured by a Giant Fish at a lake near Luna Nova, she immediately takes action in saving her friend by calling forth faeries within a sunken pirate ship within and have them firing its cannon on the beast, saving Akko and killed the beast at the same time. Even Sucy was unable to help but surprised by this sudden bout of courage in her soft-spoken roommate.

Lotte has shown to be a big fan of Night Fall, a trait she shares with Barbara Parker and Samantha Badcock.

Abilities and Equipment
As a witch-in-training, Lotte possesses standard skills in magic including Flight Magic (flying with use of riding magic broom via Flying Spell) and Metamorphosis Magic, be it turning herself or others into animal forms or transmogrifying clothes that she wear as well as that of others into any other type of clothing she desired as well as enchanted them.

Lotte's most impressive talent, however, is her ability to invoke and contact spirits within old objects as well as understanding faeries. While most of the witches perform the said magic through traditional means, she mostly utilizes a song from her hometown which allow her to perform the same feat without the need for direct magic. The said song also potent enough to calm hundreds of angry faeries as shown in The Enchanted Parade. In addition of gaining information and having the faeries/spirits in question performing tasks on her behalf, Lotte also capable of synchronizing her magic with that of at least one participating faery/spirit in order to access more powerful spells such as manipulating plants within her vicinity, conjuring twin magic circles that emanate powerful healing field, and forming a purifying field in large radius that cleanse her surroundings of impurities and damage any hostile enemies who attempted to harm her with chance of inducing them in deep sleep with the participating faerie/spirit as the field's conduit.

Crystal Ball
Lotte owns a crystal ball that allows her to communicate with other people as well as accessing WitchNet, magic community's equivalent to Internet.

Etymology

 * "Lotte" is a short form "Charlotte", the French feminine diminutive of "Charles", from the Germanic name Karl, which was derived from a Germanic word meaning "man". However, an alternative theory states that it is derived from the common Germanic name element hari meaning "army, warrior". "Jansson" is medieval English in origin. The derivation is from the Middle English given name Jan, a variant of John, itself from the Hebrew 'Yochan' meaning, "The Lord is gracious"
 * "Lotte" can also be a short form of "Liselotte" (contraction of "Lise" and "Charlotte"), or Annelotte (meaning "Gracious, sweet and bitter, sad").
 * "Jansson" might be reference to the Finnish artist Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomin characters.
 * Both Lotte and Jansson are both Swedish/Scandinavian names. Finland has a fairly large Finnish-Swedish minority, so it's likely that Lotte's family belongs to this group.
 * However, among Finnish speaking people another variation of her name, Lotta, is quite common.

Trivia

 * In "A New Beginning", when Akko and Lotte crash into each other, Lotte drops a case of salmiakki flying from her belongings, a common Finnish candy of salty licorice. She also loses a blue bar of chocolate the same shape and size as Fazer's milk chocolate, a very popular and well-known Finnish chocolate brand. She also has a bag on her broom that bears the print "Unikko" from well-known Finnish design brand Marimekko.
 * Up until "Pohjola's Trial", Lotte's mother only appeared in the one-shot manga albeit in radically different design.
 * The sheet music for her Song of the Spirits has the lyrics to Björk's song "Crying" written on it.
 * In Studio Trigger's introduction video for their panel at Anime Expo 2017, Lotte appears dressed in the colors of the American flag and sings "America Daisuki".
 * The fourth chapter of the Teri Terio version of the Little Witch Academia manga shows Lotte's fear of fish, until she conquered it at the end of the chapter. However, in "Orange Submariner" of the anime series, there wasn't any signs of Lotte's fear of fish, as she, Akko and Sucy encountered Pisces and a family of fish.
 * Lotte and Jasminka are both voiced by the same voice actress, Stephanie Sheh, in the English dub.
 * Stephanie Sheh also voices Nui Harime from Kill la Kill, another Studio Trigger production. Additionally, Akko's and Diana's respective voice actresses, Erica Mendez and Laura Post, also voice Ryūko Matoi and Ragyō Kiryūin in the same series.
 * According to the official panel of Little Witch Academia at AnimeNEXT 2017, Lotte was originally intended to possess following abilities in addition of her signature ability to call forth faeries :
 * The ability to absorb and channel the power from spirits to bolster her strengths.
 * Spirits that Lotte summoned to her side can control different weapons to aid her in combat.
 * The ability to call forth soul of a fallen Celtic warrior with use of a magic sword (suggestively ceremonial one).
 * From the same panel, Yō Yoshinari showed concept images of a scrapped episode where Lotte receives the afromentioned sword which led to the said ghost possessing her, turning her into a powerful combatant.
 * The development of Lotte's background can be traced in 2013, specifically during the first short film's development. As stated by Yō Yoshinari, owing to her and her family's ability to call forth faeries in old objects, they make a good use in such skill by determining qualities of magical furniture that they sell. In fact, that is how they managed to run a successful merchant business before eventually forced to continue selling magical furniture in a convenience store with former method not as successful as it used to be nowadays.
 * In addition of this, Lotte also intended to have extensive analytical skills. This, along with aforementioned proposed family background, later re-instated into anime continuity.

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Lotte Jansson