An Arabain themed anime seems to come alone once in a thousand years, so it’s worth taking the time to visit this world.
What They Say:
Legend has it that magical items wielding mysterious powers and treasures are buried inside the Dungeons of ancient dynasties. Alibaba is one of many who dream of capturing a dungeon. One day, he meets a young boy named Aladdin, and together they set off!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Magi is the latest series to arrive from Aniplex and A-1 Pictures. The series is based off of the manga of the same name by Shinobu Ohtaka that runs in Weekly Shonen Sunday and has amassed fourteen volumes since it began in the summer of 2009. The series features something we don’t see too often in anime with an Arabian Nights theme, something that definitely helps to set it apart a little bit. While A-1 Pictures doesn’t always hit it out of the park, I’m generally interested in seeing what projects they end up working on since there’ll at least be some visual cues that draw me in. And with this being Arabian themed, that just enhances the appeal.
The show certainly works with its quirky visual design in some fun ways, though I’m sure there may be some that place a racial context to the portrayal of the people at this time. The series introduces us to young Aladdin as he’s gained the ability to get what he wishes for as it sets the really atmospheric view of things. That’s just prologue though as we’re thrown into the city itself after that where we meet with Alibaba, nearly twice the age of Aladdin and much more serious with his worldly desires as he searches for a dungeon where he can find the treasures of his dreams. Aladdin is quite unaware of all these kinds of things and really comes across as very simple at best and kind of naive in general. Which makes him hanging out with Alibaba kind of dangerous since Alibaba looks out for himself and uses whatever he can to achieve his goals.
Aladdin’s time in the world is certainly one where he doesn’t quite understand, such as when they see a slave girl getting into trouble and he uses his flute to call out his djinn that grants his wishes. It’s kind of comical but just in a weird sort of way since the blue arms and body parts coming out only go so far, but they get the job done. That reveal gets Alibaba all the more interested in using Aladdin until he can get the flute from him outright. The manipulations are kind of cute and certainly don’t work in Alibaba’s favor in the end, but it helps to show how the two come into a sort of working agreement about things as they spend more time with the merchant that has provided a different point of view in the episode. For Aladdin, he just can’t wrap his head around how these people operate and even calls out Alibaba over it in the way the only someone that age and younger can.
In Summary:
The opening episode is light on action until near the end of the third act, but that’s just done to cement Aladdin’s ability and how he wants to try and put Alibaba on the right path. You can appreciate the way some aren’t in favor of slavery, you find it in every modern telling, but often it just feels forced and fake to some degree. The opening of this series isn’t a strong one in terms of story since it has a fair bit of ground to cover and a few ways to do it, but mostly because we don’t really get a good sense of who Aladdin is and that feels like it’s a bad thing to happen. Alibaba gets more of the real screen time and character driven material, giving us a mildly complex character in terms of what he wants out of life and how to achieve it, making him more faceted than the usual good/bad types. I’m cautiously optimistic about the series though if only because it has the potential to be a real visual treat with some non-standard areas. I like this pairing of characters and want to see more of the djinn as well to see what’s going on there since it’s such a potentially fun character with its design.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
