Magi - The Labyrinth of Magic

Title:Magi - The Labyrinth of Magic
マギ (Japanese)
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: ISHIHARA Kaori
KAJI Yuuki
R1 License - Aniplex of America
TOMATSU Haruka
In a fantastic middle-age world where slavery is very common, there are mysterious tall towers named "Dungeons" which mysteriously appeared out of nowhere fourteen years before the story line. Someone who conquers a Dungeon becomes very powerful and wealthy. Our hero Ali Baba is a teenager who works for merchants to support himself. He dreams for conquering a lot of Dungeons and becoming a very rich person. One day, he comes across with a strange young boy named Aladdin who carries a mystical flute with supernatural powers in it. Ali Baba and Aladdin agree to travel their first Dungeon together.
(Synopsis courtesy of ANN)
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 7 6 7 6 6 6 Ggultra2764 [series:2630#1552]
Magi is a shounen adventure series that takes on an Arabian theme in its focus on the adventures of magician Aladdin, former prince Alibaba and former slave Morgiana. There is a good amount of world building and character focus in exploring the suffering of commoners and those whose countries are fallen, with the root cause for said atrocities being revealed as the series presses on. There is a decent amount of development with major characters like Alibaba and Morgiana, with many others either being rather limited (and likely will be fleshed out in later parts of the manga series it is based on) or get little fleshing out (the majority of villains in the series getting this). The Arabian theme is also implemented rather decently here as elements to the mythical lore such as magic carpets and djinns get implemented as part of battle abilities, world building and story elements. Elements of the show's shounen roots do rear their head with a mysterious evil organization desiring evil things for the world, characters desiring more power to get stronger, moments of plot convenience and moments of juvenile humor such as Aladdin's obsession with ogling women's boobs. The series does lack a proper ending as its source material is still presently ongoing and Magi is followed-up with a second anime season. As it is, Magi is a decent entry in the shounen adventure genre with what it offers up for its Arabian theme, though it doesn't necessarily break the mold in any way with the number of cliches it milks like other titles of its type.

Last updated Saturday, August 02 2014. Created Saturday, August 02 2014.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:2630#628]
(One episode watched):

This seems to be loosely based on the Arabian Nights. The strange things like the Genie that Aladdin can summon were kind of interesting, but the tale as a whole sort of dragged along and didn't intrigue me all that much. Perhaps this was because the characters' personalities remained pretty blank and therefore I didn't really care what happened to them as much as I wanted to get an idea of whether the story as a whole would be of any interest. But the plot seemed kind of simplistic, with no really original elements to grab my attention. Based on the image above, it looks like a large cast will assemble, but with character development apparently getting a low priority, that would probably be bad news. The jokes were pretty lame, with too much boob fetish stuff. I suspect that once my initial curiousity wears off, I'll find this show to be not worth watching. I've found that the general 'aura' of a show--a concept which is hard to put into words, but generally could be described as the 'feel', or first impression, which it leaves me with--is a pretty good indicator of whether I will like it or not, and seldom serves me wrong. This show's aura didn't thrill me, and whereas at one time I probably would have watched it anyway, nowadays my standards are higher.

Last updated Wednesday, October 17 2012. Created Wednesday, October 17 2012.

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