allene47 - 2017-01-30 12:50:50

HOLY MOLY THATS SOME NICE STUFF, HOT AND FRESH, GET IT NOW!

cordelia.pollich - 2016-12-20 13:58:42

come fast season 3 T_T

nathaniel.keeling - 2016-09-30 21:29:15

I have a decent amount to say about Magi. Outside of the section in which I'll be criticizing the politics of the show, this review will remain spoiler free. (this will be covering both season 1 and 2)

Story (8/10):

Generally pretty cohesive. While not the most gripping or intricate, Magi gave me a story I gave a shit about (with characters to back it up, which I'll talk about later). The world was very interestingly put together, with multiple warring kingdoms, alliances, and powers to keep it dynamic. It had a clear history which was frequently alluded to that added to the current events, and general themes and narratives that kept everything moving. Although it was at times pretty predictable, it still surprised me often enough that I'm not left with much to complain about (aside from not covering certain plotlines that are only really concluded in the manga).

Animation (8/10):

Magi isn't really boundary-pushing in this department, but still more than serviceable. It's generally a fairly good looking show, and the movement is mostly fluid, especially in battle sequences. Although the dialogue scenes still suffer from a low frame rate in comparison, it's still not bad enough that it'd particularly bother the viewer, or at least it didn't really bother me. There was a noticeable difference once battles started though, as animation would be very fluid and kinetic thereafter. The battles were one of my favorite aspects of the show, serving to simultaneously drive the plot and show off some flashy visuals.

Sound (8/10):

The soundtrack, although solid sonically, wasn't very prominent; this left many more emotionally charged scenes with the burden of hyping up the viewer with mostly visuals, and while it worked, I lament the fact that there wasn't a Gurren Lagann level of battle music to accompany it. Regardless the songs were fairly good when present, and all of the opening and ending themes ranged between alright and amazing. The first opening, in particular, really left a solid impression (linked above).

Of course when talking about sound one can't leave out voice acting, and in Magi (at least the sub) the voice acting was fantastic. I can't think of a single character with an ill-fitting voice aside from young Mogamett, which was still passable. In my opinion the characters carried the show, and the voice acting more than effectively supplemented that.

Character (9/10):

Almost every character was likable, in some way or another. The character designs for the primary cast were all very distinct, which helped flesh out their personalities. For example, Kassim had a very unique hairstyle and manner of carrying himself, which did well to reflect his kind but arrogant personality. Aladdin was smaller and had softer features, with an interesting braid of blue hair, which helped supplement his selfless nature. For a show to be successful it usually has to have a memorable and endearing cast of characters in my opinion, and Magi executed that nearly flawlessly, as far as this sort of narrative goes. They aren't all necessarily the deepest characters in the history of fiction, but almost all of them serve a purpose and struggle with their own inner conflicts. The show also had plenty of cute little interactions between them, with running gags and goofy joke scenes aplenty. I often think back to certain dynamics in Magi when I watch other shows, as in many ways certain duos similar to Alibaba and Kassim reappear in other shows, and often not as strongly. This, I think, is a testament to the quality of the characterization in Magi.

Enjoyment (8/10:

Magi was a lot of fun. Although a lot of plot points were brought up that aren't actually explained by the time the anime ends (they're continued in the manga), I still had a good time with it. I rarely if ever found myself bored while watching it, however I often had my suspension of disbelief tested with certain questionable lines of dialogue, actions taken by the characters, and general direction of story. As I said before Magi was somewhat predictable at times, and while I can forgive that for the most part, it definitely had me rolling my eyes occasionally. It also seemed that certain actions went against common sense for the sake of driving the plot, which irritated me. I'll give an example below which is a SPOILER. You have been warned.

So, here's the example. In the battle between the Leam empire and Magnostadt, the Leam army are attempting to break through the barrier when the magicians of Magnostadt come out start brutally fucking them up. This is when Scheherazade smiles smugly and has her men come in on little air balloon things and start pummeling the barrier with their own hand-made magical explosives, which was meant to show that "gois" could hold their own in battle, and they weren't to be underestimated. While that concept is strong for this particular moral dilemma involving Mogamett hating non-magicians, the execution was ridiculous. Earlier the show said there are 500 1st-level magicians in Magnostadt, and you're telling me none of them could have shot down those balloons before they reached they barrier? They saw them arriving long before they started dropping their bombs, and we know that these magicians can use crazy spells, including fucking acidic rain and gigantic fireballs. If this was the only time something so stupid had happened in Magi I'd be fine with it, but it happens pretty often, even multiple times within that one battle. It wasn't experience-ruining, but it definitely annoyed me.

Overall (8-9/10):

I'm not sure exactly what score to give Magi, it really depends on how I feel about it after I've taken a bit more time to digest it, seeing as I've just finished it. I had a lot of fun with it, but it was also reasonably flawed and not enjoyable 100% of the time necessarily. Regardless I'd definitely recommend it, and I think it'll stick with me for a long time.

ken76 - 2015-10-16 06:18:26

Funny, action packed and over all a great anime 
I would recommend this anime to anyone
plus Ren Kouha is bae

garry99 - 2014-04-02 19:49:09

I'm back to writing a review after a long time. I'm doing this, cause it is needed... by the amount of overrated opinions about this show.

I will be concise.

Let start with the world. Probably one of the most "potentially" interesting topic, with a good amount of details thrown in, and some cool twist. Sadly, politics, geography, dungeons, and otherworldly stuff stop mattering the second after they are introduced. Rules, logic, distances, more rules, more logic, everything is bent at will as soon as the story demands it.

A story which is completely driven by the power of friendship, which is known to allow the bearers to accomplish incredible feats like: fast learning, energy restoration, power leveling, clairvoyance, god like eloquence and charm, unbreakable will... you know the usual stuff. Furthermore, forced sequences of exposition are the main plot life source, which means that stuff is introduced to the viewer just for the power of the sudden-revelation-of-incredible-facts.

So there is no tension, there is no point in caring. The struggling of the characters is totally unbelievable, any hardship or plot twist ALWAYS calls for some kind of DEUS EX MACHINA to appears and completely flip over the situation. this is the revelation-shock fest.

And of course, the comical relief is behind each turn. Do not try to feel engaged anywhere during this show, cause there is no episode devoid of gags with slapstick animation and chibi character doing stuff. Not the last, not even the first, never and ever.

Animation is good sometimes, inconsistent at best. There are few cool shots here and there, but really this is as average as you can get. Well... looking at similar shows, it could even be considered below average, with all those identical faces, and lack of details... and look, they even failed at delivering overwhelming animations for the ultimate moves of the characters. Boring and uninspired.

Sound is nothing remarkable. The Uber moves are not that interesting to hear (even to watch sometimes) and the characters are what they are: generic voices. I really do not know what to say here.

Characters are plain. So plain it hurts your brain. They do not think!!! they do stuff for REASONS!!!!!! They... they... they just are puppetsm puppets for the author to play. Do I need a good guy to be secretly a bad guy? so be it. Do I need for a good guy to appear here even if he is a world away? so be it. Do I need for random power up happening? so be it. Dumb, plain, devoid of any kind of logic. And do not let me start about the script... the dialogues are at beast bearable, at worst deserving of skipping. To the hell with that.

The enjoyment was fueled by hope of cool stuff happening, and world breaking events unfolding. Sadly I was deluded. Each time I expected something I was disappointed.

kendall99 - 2014-04-02 16:00:03

So after A-1 pretty much re-wrote the entire Zagan Dungeon arc, they decided "Hey, you know what would be cool? Not messing with the source material for once!" and so they made a second season that manages to re-route itself back onto the manga.

Since this is a sequel, the review will be short and sweet. I won't go into detail explaining the plot or anything because I'm assuming you've watched season one already.

This season feels a little uneven because it had to adapt a weird section of the manga. The first quarter is follow-up from the first season, then the protagonists split up and we follow them individually for awhile before focusing on Aladdin for the rest of the season.

Which leads me to one of my complaints, is that it would've been cool if we could've kept switching between the viewpoints of the characters instead of largely focusing on Aladdin. Now, I like Aladdin, he's a fun little dood, but I'm just saying they missed an opportunity here. And by the time the others come back into the picture at the last minute, it feels like they just went off to power-level off-screen.

But hey, the manga was like that too so no biggie.

There's an interesting and well-developed antagonist and main conflict and some nicely fleshed-out side characters introduced as well. A-1's background artwork is as beautiful as always, but it seems like the animation has taken a small budget hit since the first season. Nothing major, but it is definitely noticeable.

If I must admit something, it's that I kind of feel saddened that Magi is moving away from the Arabian Nights theme in favor of a more traditional Magic setting (one that happens to take place largely in deserts but still).

This is a great follow-up to the first season, and I cannot wait for more. Unfortunately I'm going to have to because this season caught up pretty close to the manga.

Rewatch Value: Yes (Based on a Yes/Maybe/No scale)

lconn - 2014-03-28 14:56:17

This definitely deserve a 9/10 (at least in my opinion) because of it's story and humor. I really like how they balances humor but yet at the same time still keep the story meaningful. The character development are good, and this sequel is not disappointing (unlike how some animes are).

alize78 - 2014-01-30 00:14:00

This is a spoiler free as possible review solely based on the anime and has no relations to the manga up to episode 17 out of 26.

A unique and humerus story with a few cliches but flawless animation and beautiful sound. The show´s biggest strength is the characters that actually progressively develop thought the season. It will make you think, laugh, cry and maybe even a noes bleed.

Magi: The Kingdom of Magic is an anime true to its title. There are magi, magicians, kingdoms and the turmoil that comes with it. Each of these kingdoms have their own power and way of Living but peaceful resolutions have come to an end.

We follow Aladdin a magi, Morgiana a fanalist and Alibaba a goi across their separate journeys between these empires on a quest for power, knowledge and experiences. Every one of them meets new people, new challenges and discovers new land. In these new lands they discover the darkness that formed them. This doesn't necessarily make them "bad". There is no clear cut right or wrong answer, its what the population believes.

This is season 2, so i recommend you watch the less amazing but good season to understand this one.

If you like magic, story, character devolpment, i would recommend this too you.