(Good) Little Witch Academia

Movie in one sentence:
ADHD Harry Potter with girls.

Movie in more sentences:
A young girl decides to attend a school for witchcraft after she witnessed a magic show performed by a (in)famous witch. While she can't keep up, she is undiscouragable and determined to become just like her childhood idol.

Honestly, I made the description sound more whole than the movie actually was. It's hardly a movie and more of an animated short, so you can imagine that the events go by very quickly. Nevertheless, the characters are very established, you immediately know what kind of person they are and what their relationship with each other is. That's some talent.

But the short still feels like an episode of a larger anime series. I actually thought I was watching a series when I clicked the thumbnail, but I should've known better. After all, the first thing I said to myself a few seconds in was "Wow, holy shit, that animation is amazing".

The plot itself is basic, but none of that matters when you're being completely hypnotized by the smoothness of the animation. You just cannot stop watching, I have never seen this kind of animation in an anime before. It was like old Disney, with a hint of old Looney Tunes, I did not expect to see quality this flawless when I first saw the main character's cartoony face in the thumbnail. It's so insanely beautiful, and to think this movie came out in 2013, a period where people stopped giving shit about 2D animation years before that, not to mention 2D animation of this quality. The studio took a risk. Then again, it's an animated short, so I guess they knew it would be best not to add too many minutes to an art form long abandoned.

Every still image you see of this movie isn't doing it justice, you have to see these characters move. Go watch it, I think it's maybe 20 minutes long.