Review for Magi The Kingdom of Magic - Season 2 Part 2

Introduction

The things that attracted me most to the Magi anime were the Arabian Nights aspects to the show, not just in the characters of Aladdin, Alibaba and Sinbad, but also the setting, evoking just the right amount of nostalgia for the view of the Middle East that Golden Age Hollywood once had. That was certainly evident in The Labyrinth of Magic, but with the second season, The Kingdom of Magic, that sense of nostalgia fades, as the scope of the story widens, to the Far Eastern aesthetic of the Kou Empire, and particularly the European style of Magnoshutatt. That might have been disappointing, but Magi still manages to tell its story with pace and verve. Things are about to get epic again in this final instalment (for now) of the series.

Magi is set in an alternate history of sorcery and magic, where kings are chosen, not just born to power. The ones who do the choosing are the rare embodiments of magic in this world, the Magi, and those chosen must battle through mysterious towering dungeons to gain artefacts of magic and power to earn the right to rule. Aladdin is a young boy who knows he’s a Magi, but knows precious little else about himself, other than an instinctive appreciation for all things bosom-y in life. In a desert-bound town that hosts a dungeon, he encounters Alibaba, a hard working ambitious young man who dreams of conquering a dungeon, but who has trained himself to choose expediency over doing the right thing, despite his natural instincts. They also meet a young slave girl named Morgiana, who is shackled more by the chains in her mind than those on her legs. Circumstances lead them into the dungeon, and set them forth on an adventure that will change all of their lives.


The end of the first season of Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic saw our heroes encounter the hero king Sinbad, and travel to his nation of Sindria, where they hoped to undo a curse that Alibaba had picked up. That curse would see them travel to another dungeon with a wayward prince of Kou, but at the same time, the threat to the world in the form of the Al Tharmen group revealed its designs on Sindria and launched an attack. That attack was repulsed, but Al Tharmen’s threat didn’t go away, while the adventure in the dungeon revealed that the magical kingdom of Magnoshutatt was in some way implicated. At the start of this second season of Magi: The Kingdom of Magic, our three heroes come to the decision to go their separate ways. After all, Magnoshutatt discriminates against non-magic users. Aladdin decides to go there alone, to further refine his abilities and learn more about himself, and also find out just how Magnoshutatt is involved with Al Tharmen. Alibaba has to go to the Leam Empire, as while he managed to break the curse, he can no longer do a full Djinn Equip, and he needs the help of the Yambala nomads (some of whom work as gladiators in Leam) to relearn that ability. Meanwhile Morgiana has decided to find out the truth about her past once and for all by heading south to the Dark Continent, and learn what really happened to her people, the Fanalis.

12 episodes of Magi: The Kingdom of Magic are presented across two Blu-rays from Kazé Entertainment thus.

Disc 1
14. The Hidden Citizens
15. The Magician’s Country
16. Remaining Life
17. Declaration of War
18. Leam’s Threat
19. A True Magi
20. Reunion
21. The King’s Candidate

Disc 2
22. What You Want to Protect
23. The Djinn Warriors
24. Time of Destruction
25. Welcome Home

Picture

Magi: The Kingdom of Magic gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on these Blu-ray discs. With 8 episodes on one dual layer disc, and 4 on another single layer platter, and not much in the way of extra features, there’s little issue with compression and the like to contend with, and the anime comes across with detail, clarity and rich colour. There isn’t even much evidence of digital banding, which makes this one of the better HD anime releases. That’s all for the good, as Magi is a show which really excels in the world design, basking in the Middle East setting, rich in architecture, ambience and style, and you can bet that there’s a lot of faux Arabic calligraphy, plenty of Persian rugs, and lots of rich detail to make you glad that you’re watching this in High Definition and not pesky DVD.


The same can’t be said for the character designs though, which underneath their Arab robes, fezzes and turbans wind up as pretty generic for anime characters, although the impressive djinns are yet to make an appearance in this second series. When I first watched the show online my initial concern was for these characters’ teeth. There’s something weird about how their mouths are animated, which makes me think that their dentures are coming loose. The same was true for this home video viewing.

The images used in this review are kindly supplied by the PR and aren’t necessarily representative of the final retail release.

Sound

You have the choice between PCM 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese (but if you select the other menu when you insert the disc, there’s no French audio this time around, merely French subtitles), all encoded at 2.3 Mb per second. I went with the Japanese audio and was pretty happy with the experience, the actors seemed well suited to their roles, the show’s action sequences came across well, and the music was a key part in selling the Middle Eastern atmosphere and the setting, and since the second half of Labyrinth of Magic, the music has regained its vitality and variety in echoing the feel of this fantasy world. The subtitles flow well and are easy to read, free of typos and accurately timed. A couple of issues might be that the theme songs aren’t translated, while single word or short sentence translations might flash by a little too quickly to read. They really need to linger on screen for longer than it takes the character to speak in those instances. There is a signs only track, but for this series, that amounts to translating the episode title and not much else. Note that if you watch the Japanese version and someone happens to be speaking during the episode title screen, then the episode title will also just flash by, and you might need the pause button to read it. As per usual for Kazé discs, the subtitles and audio permutations are locked away from user access, although thankfully for Blu-ray, you do have the pop-up menu to let you change the audio during playback.

I avoided the English dub this time around, but I still feel it’s a missed opportunity.

Extras

Insert the discs and you have the choice of English and French menus. Choose French and disc 1 will autoplay a trailer for Dragon Ball Z Kai, while disc 2 will play a trailer for the Anime Digital Network. Choose English and disc 1 will play a trailer for Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan and Black Lagoon on disc 2, but other than for the language options, the menus are pretty much identical.

The only extras are on disc 1, and amount to the second set of textless credits, and this time they truly are textless; no karaoke subs here.

Conclusion

I am so torn over the conclusion of Magi the Kingdom of Magic, that the grade that I give it, a 7 out of 10 is hardly representative. It’s more of an average of my feelings about the conclusion of the series. For what it does well, it does brilliantly, spectacularly, in a defiantly impressive way. But where it falls flat, it falls miserably, disappointingly, infuriatingly.


The high point of The Kingdom of Magic is the whole Magnoshutatt arc, which for a shonen anime show offers a surprisingly nuanced and sympathetic antagonist. The story takes the time to really develop and build its characters, succeeding in engaging the viewer emotions and sympathies. Magnoshutatt is a kingdom where the usual rule has been upturned, where the magicians and the wizards are the highest aristocracy, and where the people lacking magical ability are second class citizens. It’s seems a benign enough reign, but Aladdin’s purpose is to uncover the truth, and at the start of this collection, that truth is chillingly revealed. Magnoshutatt’s power comes directly from the lowest class citizens, made to live in a ghetto, fed, watered, and housed, all so that their scant, innate magic can be drained to fuel the nation’s magical tools. They live lives of decadence, and indolence, but they are short grubby lives.

It’s a set-up that makes you hate and despise the ruler of this nation, Matal Mogamett, until the show takes the time to go into his character, what incidents and forces shaped him, and why he came to believe in what he does. And it makes sense in a twisted way. The same is true for Aladdin’s personal bugbear Titus, introduced in the previous collection. He was the rival student that challenged Aladdin to a duel that got rapidly out of hand. The episodes in this collection reveal the secrets behind his character, and his past is just as tragic, if not substantially stranger than Mogamett’s, and his arc as it unfolds lies at the heart of this story.


This half of the series is all about war. Magnoshutatt is a ripe peach that lies between the Leam Empire and the Kou Empire, and both sides want the strategic advantage by any means. Only given Mogamett’s prejudices, it seems that diplomacy isn’t an option. Mogamett will do whatever it takes to protect his kingdom of magic, even if it means signing away his soul. But that could bring about the world-ending catastrophe that has been haunting Aladdin’s nightmares. Aladdin wants to protect the people of Magnoshutatt, but he also wants to prevent the war from claiming lives on either side, so he’s in a particular moral quandary during these episodes. And as you might expect from an anime, there comes a point where Aladdin’s nightmares do come to pass.

That’s the good about the show. But the bad is pretty much everything else. Magi was never just about Aladdin, it was about Alibaba and Morgiana, and Sinbad as well. It turns out that we miss out on a ton of story in these episodes. The battle with Leam looks at one point as if it has been averted, only then the Princes and Princesses of Kou show up with their armies to have a go at Magnoshutatt. When last we ventured into the Kou Empire, the Emperor had just died, and one of his widows, Gyokuen has usurped the rule of Kou. Only when the Kou armies appear in this story, it seems they are acting in opposition to her will. That’s a whole lot of story that we’ve missed out on that would explain that. Alibaba shows up again, wielding amazing powers and abilities, apparently having recovered and further developed his Djinn Equip ability in Leam, another massive chunk of story we’ve missed out. Morgiana returns too, and yes, she’s levelled up as well, and yes, we have no idea how. And at the end, we get a glimpse of Hakuryu, new power, new alliance with the Magi Judar, and no explanation. Sinbad, same deal!


The climax isn’t all that satisfying either, going the traditional route of an all out good versus evil battle for the fate of the world, which the story threatens to lose control of at one point, forgetting that character focus of the story for a chunk before pulling it all back for the final episode. It also looks as if it rips off Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood’s ending wholesale, at least in terms of visuals. It’s also easy to lose track of the exposition info-dump at times, as the revelations come flying thick and fast, with not enough context to make them emotionally meaningful.

Comparatively speaking, the end of season 2 isn’t as satisfying as the end of season 1. While you still got the feeling that there was more to this story at the end of The Labyrinth of Magic, it still felt more like a full-stop than a comma. You can stop watching at that point and be satisfied, entertained. But the end of Kingdom of Magic leaves so many loose ends, so many plot threads dangling, that you really do want to see a continuation, a continuation that isn’t happening at this point (although there is a prequel anime next spring). This conclusion isn’t even a comma, it’s an ellipsis. So if anyone asks how an anime can be simultaneously brilliant and terrible, just point them in the direction of Magi: The Kingdom of Magic Part 2.