Anime Review: [First Impression] Magi - 1

Alibaba has it all figured out: raid a dungeon, collect some jewels, and live rich. His life to Easy Street seemed all figured out. That is, until he stumbles on Aladdin.

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Okay. I’m about to ask a couple questions that may or may not be “triggering” for some people:

If this is based on 1001 Arabian Nights, why is everyone so white? Ignoring the racial aspect of it, how do you possibly justify this at all? They’re either using SPF 1,000,000 sunblock or they’re going to appear super sunburnt next episode.
Even I know Arabic does not work like that. It doesn’t even look right. Come on, Japan-type people. Step up your linguistic game.
Is everyone in this show an idiot or a jerk, or is that just me?

Not the most PC anime out there, but since when has Japanese anime been known for their political correctness?

But this show is on my radar for entirely different reasons that make me happy. For one, the manga has been running for a while and I’ve been hearing pretty good things about it. So if anything, I know going into this that it’ll be solid story-wise. Well, not solid, but it won’t be nothing. This episode was a great introduction, at any rate. Secondly, the animation is pretty dang gorgeous. I’m surprised at the quality of some of the character animations. Like the opening scene with Aladdin speaking to the genie, Ugo, and when the slave girl flicked those lemons into her basket. I have to say, I’m impressed by that attention to detail. The caricature is pretty well done too. The timing in this show is near perfect, so far as I can tell. And while pretty much every character is insufferable, they’re all good characters in that they’re entertaining and have motive and such. I’m actually most looking forward to seeing the slave girl have more than two lines of dialogue. She’ll be cool to watch, I’m sure.

So while the discussion of this show may become really heated really quick, it might be worth keeping tabs on this one. It’ll be, at the very least, interesting what comes out of Magi.

GO Rating: 3.5/5