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Little Witch Academia TV Anime's Promo Video Reveals Song Artists, January 8 Premiere

The official website of the Little Witch Academia television anime series began streaming a promotional video for the anime on Thursday. The video reveals and previews the show's opening and ending theme songs, as well as the January 8 premiere. Yuiko Ōhara, who previously performed the theme song for the Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade anime, returns to provide the ending theme song "Hoshi wo Tadoreba" (If You Follow the Stars), which appears first in the video. YURiKA will perform the opening theme song "Shiny Ray," which appears second in the video.

The anime will premiere on January 8 on Tokyo MX, BS11, and Kansai TV. Netflix will stream the series.

The show's story revolves around Akko, who as a child watched the witch Shiny Chariot perform a show, and from then on dreamed of becoming a witch. She enters the Luna Nova Academy, a school for witches that Shiny Chariot attended. In this new town she meets new friends and starts a new school life. At the school she has lessons on riding brooms and the wonder of magic, but Akko and her friends Lotte and Sucy keep getting wrapped up in tumultuous events.

The returning cast includes:

• Megumi Han as Atsuko "Akko" Kagari
• Fumiko Orikasa as Lotte Yanson
• Michiyo Murase as Sucy Manbavaran
• Yōko Hikasa as Diana Cavendish
• Arisa Shida as Amanda O'Neill
• Rie Murakawa as Constanze von Braunschbank Albrechtsberger
• Reina Ueda as Jasminka Antonenko
• Noriko Hidaka as Shiny Chariot

Yoh Yoshinari returns as director and original character designer at Studio Trigger. Michiru Shimada, who penned the script for the sequel film, is handling series composition. Shūhei Handa, a key animator in both the original short and sequel film, will handle main character design. Masanobu Nomura (Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Kiznaiver) is the art director, and Michiru Ōshima is returning from both previous Little Witch Academia anime to compose the music. The rest of the staff includes:

Color Setting: Yukiko Kakita
Director of Photography: Daisuke Okumura, Naoki Yorozu
Main Animator: Takafumi Hori
Design Works: Yusuke Yoshigaki
Editing: Kentarou Tsubone
Sound Director: Jun Watanabe
Sound Effects: Kiyotaka Kawada

The project began with a 2013 anime short that spawned the Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade sequel last year. Yoshinari created and directed the first short as part of the Anime Mirai 2013 initiative. Fans supported the second short via a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that raised US$150,000 in six hours, and eventually US$625,518 (four times its original goal) in one month. The Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade sequel had its world premiere at Anime Expo in July 2015.

Source: MoCa News