“Don’t worry children, Sinbad papa is here to the rescue! Take This!”

Now that’s more like it.

Second season of Magi has larger epic warfare, larger casts, and progressive character development. The end game plot is now visible. Much are explained, and everyone seem to have a goal in mind. It’s just what you want from the later stage of shonen fight. Great stuff.

The story continues from where it left off. Aladdin, Alibaba, Morgiana, and Hkuryuu set off their individual journey to train. But before that, they travel together, fighting bandits, and eventually breaking up the group on an emotional note. After they separated, the anime show us episodical what each character is doing. Aladdin got into a magic school while masking his Magi’s power. Alibaba went to Reim to train, but got rob along the way. Morgiana finally reach her home land and encounter Yunan, the wanderer. The show then focus on Magi and Magnostadt Magic School where there is mysterious 5^th district and its connection with the evil organization Al-Thamen.

This season main arc is Magnostadt, a magic school. The main villain is Matal Mogamett. He’s pretty much like Kassim from last arc. His hatred came from his past tragedy when his daughter dies in the war while serving under gois(non-magician). Since then, he swore to make a country only for magicians. While his ideal is extremely bias, his conscious is still intact.

The plot sparks a great debate about whether magicians has ambition to rule like normal human or not. It also discussing the problem between different classes of social and different races in the world. Nice plot that utilize the stereo type of fantasy characters.

The main group is here and alive. I like when they travel together with Hakuryuu. Now that I finish the show, I know for a fact that this character bonding trip will come handy in the future arcs. After they’ve finished the trip, each character is progressed with their own training regime. I love these eps. New people, new places, and watching everyone transforming is great. It’s too bad the show cut off Alibaba and Morg’s training stories. I want to see more of Alibaba.  He’s now has Kassim’s personlity and made a girl, Toto blush.

New characters from this arc are not interesting. And the one that are didn’t get enough show time. Titus, a loli bishonen magician is whining and crying all the time. I think we all wish he’s a whiny girl instead lol. Sphintus, a guy with snake around his neck is only good for his medic power. His joke isn’t even funny.  Marga, a loli from slum is cute but only served as a plot device. Toto, Yunan, Ren Kouha, Myers, Myuron, and other characters didn’t have enough show time to reveal themselves.

That’s the problem with this show. Not enough time for an explanation or enough ep for side characters. It feels like it’s missing something, or the timing is a bit off with certain key situation. Like when they fuck up Magnostadt’s climax twice! No kidding. The guy would just suddenly see the light and turn himself in. Totally blow. The show needs more drama that make sense.

However, the real villain has finally shown up. GIVE IT UP FOR Ren Gyokuen! THE MILF BOSS! Oh man, she’s real loose. Loose, as in, she will fuck anyone to gain power. OHH YEAAA!! She’s also manipulative, calculated, and has that hysterical evil laugh, Uhuhahaha! She’s the real ultimate boss. Can’t wait for her to fight.

As you can see from the GIF, fighting power has increase to the next level. They called it “Extreme Magic”. It doesn’t sound cool at all imo, but the explosiveness is epic. I don’t know when they upgraded their magic, but everyone on the show is capable to use them now.

The battle is now more epic, waging war between nations. There are army of foot soldiers marching down enemy’s territory and sieging magic barriers. Sound cool right? They also introduce a band of Fanaris. These guys are just brutes who enjoy battling. It’s much more epic than last series for sure. The final boss with spaghetti head monster is also pretty good. It has a different stage of transformation. People use different tactics and strategy to battle the overwhelming power. The monster also made his comeback by stopping the unlimited lava power source. Nice sequences of battles.

The comedy still amuses me.  Whether the jokes that happened during filler or in serious epic fights, they are making me laugh and smile.  And these comedy always came at an unexpected time making them even better. These humors also shows a fun side to many mature characters. It’s a fun way to add great depth. For example, who knew Ren Kouen have a curiosity for knowledge of universe. It was very funny when he picked Aladdin over the war.

I feel like I should love this anime more. It uses the tales from 1001 nights which I loved, and it’s a traveling adventure anime where character wandering around the vast epic world exploring countless kingdoms and encounter many kind of people.  There’s a good humor and combat has both magical powers as well as showdown with various martial arts.  The story is not episodic and has intellectual fights that is not black and white.  The cast are developing rapidly.  Morgiana, the main girl is kicking asses. So while all things point in the right direction, I don’t particular excite talking about it.

If I had to point it out, I’d say that Magi lacks impact. The plot and stories were not intriguing. Aladdin’s mysterious past is cliché. The fightings were not dramatic nor it leaves any lasting impression. And is it me or the directing totally suck ass. I think it leaves out some important key explanation. It’s not a big deal, but it certainly takes away what would have been an epic story.

Let’s me explain more about this directing issue. First off, they totally botch the intro dungeon. They open one door and then OPEN SALAMI! Hello boss room! Whaaa? They didn’t explain anything about that dungeon. I also feel like they didn’t do a good job on introducing Morgina’s master. He’s very important character, yet his quick death made him look like a worthless bum. Same with Goltus. I wish they’d spend more time on the opening arc.

Another bad directing is that the anime shows their cards way too early making it’s very predictable to guess what will happen next. For example, in the scene where Baba-sama got assassinated. She was standing there reminiscing for almost a min. She was a sitting duck waiting for something bad to happen, you can feel it. The cliché has lessen as anime progresses. But it was pretty cheesy early on.

What I like the most about Magi is the comedy. Especially early on where the mood is light-heart and characters are not so serious. Aladin’s has this great ecchi comedy where he would grope any big breast that came his way. The comedy scenes use chibi animation which make it even funnier. Chibi Aladin is hilarious and cute at the same time.

The main cast is pretty decent. Right now they’re trying to find themselves so I can’t really judge them much. Alibaba went through a lot, but his character is still pretty wimpy and lacking charisma. I’m pretty sure they leave room for his development. That guy probably need more than five arcs to become a decent character lol. Right now, Sinbad is the man of the show, other characters don’t even came close.  He’s playing both hero and villain at the same time while doing it on a high level of awesomeness.  And I think his group of generals is even better than the main group.

Fighting combat is decent. It uses both magic and martial art combat that has different styles that are based on their home countries.  There are also different types of magic tools which are handy plot device for making interesting fights.  However, I think the overall action lacks the ‘it’ factor. These combats didn’t generate excitement or that eye-popping effect. Maybe it was still in early stage, and they’re saving the big gun for later. But right now, the fighting is nothing to write home about.

I think the story is moving well, and it’s getting better by the minutes. There is more countries to explore, more people to be met, and hopefully there will be an bad-ass villain at the end of the road. Right now, it’s just your usual ‘evil organization’ which is cliché and boring as you can get.  Also, it will be interesting if they will remember those old characters who died.  For an epic show like this, it’s important not to cheaply thrown characters away.

Animation is also decent.  Epic town looks epic, and large-scale magic looks awesome.   The quality in fight scenes is sometime degraded when there are too much movements. It’s like one of those Naruto’s eps. It can’t handle the maximum awesomeness.

The ed song sounds kinda like an idol song? It kind of fits… or maybe not. Other op/ed are average.

On to the next season. OPEN SESAME!