Little Witch Academia takes place at Luna Nova Magical Academy, a prestigious school for young girls training to become witches. Having been inspired by a witch named Shiny Chariot, a girl named Atsuko “Akko” Kagari enrolls at Luna Nova Magical Academy to become a witch, but struggles due to her non-magical background. This all changes when she discovers the Shiny Rod, a powerful magic relic left behind by Chariot.

Little Witch Academia started as a 2013 Trigger short film produced as part of the Young Animator Training Project, funded by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs. The production of its 2015 sequel film was a victory for crowdfunded animation. From 2017 onwards, it was adapted into a two-cour tv anime and made available on Netflix. Shueisha has also published two single-volume manga adaptations. A game for the PS4 called Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time was published by Bandai Namco in 2017 to mixed reviews.

Little Witch Academia takes place in a very cartoony, stylized hyperreality, but there are certain locations based on real life. Many of those spots can be found around the parish of Glastonbury in Somerset, England, which is also home to a famous music festival. Other key spots from our world include Stonehenge, Akihabara UDX, and the location of Shiny Chariot’s stage show, Hibiya Open Air Concert Hall, which is in a park two blocks away form the National Diet Building. Luna Nova’s architecture is a novel invention with no exact inspiration.