「シンドリア王国」 (Shindoria Oukoku)
“The Kingdom of Sindria”

Things were looking well for Alibaba…until the Fir–Kou Empire threatened to attack. With the confidence to openly help out his fellow countrymen to a shining future, Alibaba had a promising future in hand with the new republic. The armada of the Kou Empire would disagree though, especially after all the economic and political pressure they exerted to capture Balbadd at all costs. While the dangers of standing up to the Kou Empire, a much more fearsome opponent than anything in Balbadd, made clear that Alibaba could not stay, it is understandable that he desired to stand ground for his people. However, experience is needed in fine situations such as this, so Sinbad…took matters into his own hands. While Sinbad may have not had the authority or permission to basically abduct Alibaba, even Alibaba himself realizes the wisdom of Sinbad’s decision. In the end, Balbadd may not have earned its full autonomy, yet its fate definitely is far from terrible. Things went for the better, except for the lingering worry of Alibaba’s bite from who we can guess was from Isnan’s snake form…

Though the recent course of action takes us away from witnessing the rebuilding of Balbadd (which I would think would be politically intriguing to watch), in exchange we get to see an even more spectacular entity…the Nation of Sindria. With blossoming trade, a happy populace, security, diversity and above all else the most badass arrangement of generals the show has seen, Sinbad has done quite a bit with the place in such a short time. For Al-Sarmen to take down and corrupt Sindria would be a massive effort, for one can feel the light rukh brimming within this country. It is only natural that Aladdin and Alibaba cheer up after being gone from Balbadd for so long, with even Morgiana getting back into her training mood with Masrur. With Sinbad’s return, Aladdin and Alibaba get into training themselves into formidable fighters as well under the guidance of master magician Yamraiha (Horie Yui) whose body brings Aladdin much joy, and the master swordsman Sharrkan (Morikubo Showtaro), whose mastery in fish gutting and swordplay make him a perfect mentor for our exiled prince.

Overall, the show did an alright job introducing a new region of the world, at least in isolation. Upon checking the manga (which I rarely do), many details and jokes were breezed over, and the amount of detail that the manga put in setting up Sindria puts the episode to shame. For those of you who want a deeper experience of Sindria, I highly recommend checking out chapter 77 and onwards for a more detailed explanation of the situation and Alibaba and Aladdin’s eating problems (plus more explanation of what the Kou Empire’s true plans for Balbadd were).

Despite the alright job with introducing Sindria, the drawing quality for this episode was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Those of you who were looking forward to Morgiana’s dance…will be sorely disappointed. Indeed Alibaba spoke the truth when he said, “What kind of dance is that?” Granted, the two mini-action scenes this episode were done fairly well, but the failures in even simplistic secondary drawings and some of the primary facial drawings definitely detracted from the episode. The scripting also suffered some hits as well with some awkward transitions and unneeded pauses during conversation drawing away from what’s supposed to be a lovely recuperation from the previous episodes. This is a saddening trend within the series…showing a significant lack in the animation budget. Hopefully such scenes get fixed in the DVD/BD releases, especially to do justice to poor Morgiana…

At this rate, according to how the manga is laid out, this may be the last arc to be fully realized, if not without some introduction into the next longer arc. Next week, it looks like some ambitious Kou royal members are coming to say hello to Sinbad, though for entirely different reasons. Oh Sinbad…you must have a reason for refusing to hit on this otherwise lovely princess…

63 Comments

      1. Which in the manga, he then comment EVERY dancer there that they are bueatiful and make his comment absolutely hold no meaning and make Morgiana jealous and stomp the ground which turn this back into generic idiot protagonist + ship tease.

        Yes, it overshadow everything not to mention we miss another funny moment with Morg creating earthquake.

        Vermillion
  1. I will have to agree that the animation for the episode was kind of terrible, and scattered. The moray eel filet display was okay, but some of the comedic bits from the manga were stripped off from the anime(like how Alibaba was suppose to “do” something while Sinbad was gone). I also noticed how some of the transitions to their conversations were kind of blocky, though I did like that the Kou emissaries were portrayed.

    Its kind of understandable that there could be a number of reasons the episode turned out the way it did, but at least the main message of the episode was still there. Show Spoiler ▼

    Dualash
  2. For the one who read the manga.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Vermillion
  3. I was so looking forward to Morgiana’s dance after seeing it in the opening and then hearing about it from the manga readers, only for my heart to be broken by the worst animation I’ve seen all season. I’ve seen amature flash animations better than that. I nearly cried, especially after seeing how great she looked, and she was So cute. So frustrating!

    I could talk about everything else but I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been said, and I’m not ashamed to admit the main reason I was looking forward to this episode.

    Still I’m also looking forward to the next, it’s been to long since I’ve heard HanaKana’s angry voice

    Roguespirit
      1. Maybe, tbh I don’t remember where I heard her “seriously pissed off” voice before but I fell in love with her darker voice, and indeed her voice in general from her role as Kuroneko It’s the role I most associate with her cause it was the first anime where I heard her voice.

        Roguespirit
  4. They skipped so much comedy from the manga, I’m curious if they even realised they were there to help ease the pain of the events prior…

    For instance, these scenes:
    http://t.co/1aAF1Zo8
    http://t.co/nzOWPVI4
    http://t.co/LexwGMWo

    The Morgiana one in particular would’ve saved how bad her dancing was… maybe. Either way, I’m not entirely sure about this adaptation anymore after the freefall in animation and characterizations. These omissions plus the addition of random original stuff (Alibaba getting bitten by a snake, Alibaba waking up on a boat en route to Sindria) had me scratching my head.

    R
    1. Woops, forgot to add:
      Honestly cannot wait for this next arc, regardless of my reservations with this adaptation. I prefer Hakuryuu to Alibaba, particularly in the anime because I am not a huge fan of Kaji Yuuki. Bring on the glorious NTR!

      R
    1. Even without the manga as a comparison, the drawing quality this episode was definitely subpar, especially the awaited Morgiana dance (since it seems to be drawn better in the OP).

      Manga readers are pretty put off by the fact that they left out some pretty funny stuff. They tried some of the jokes in the original source material, but the punchlines were often omitted.

      In summary, it could’ve been better either way 🙁

      Zanibas
      1. Am I the only one who had been consistently disappointed by how A-1 Pictures had been handling this show? I don’t know about this particular episode but there were numerous key moments before this that had been ruined either by terrible animation, shoddy directing, or a combination of both. It’s sad because Magi is really good and it’s frustrating to see such good source material get butchered by a studio that shouldn’t be anywhere near a series of this caliber. The subpar animation is seriously confounding since Magi’s art is NOT dificult to animate – it’s in the same vein as FMA whete the art still looked good despite being rather simplistic and very nontraditional. Some of the directing is just plain awkward too… Safe to say, A-1 is barely phoning it in :/

        BakaMochi
  5. I was kind of dissapointed with this episode as well. Even as a non-manga reader I felt like things were just missing or glossed over; the introduction of this new nation could’ve been so much more epic.

    And the animation was just…ugh. I haven’t seen animation this bad since the episodes of Muv-Luv where they ran out of money. Mor’s dance looked really awkward because of it, and the fights weren’t impressive either. Dammit, Magi. Don’t suddenly start sucking.

    Think I’ll start reading the manga alongside this, really, because I feel like I’m missing out.

    Dvalinn
  6. Im glad im not the only one who noticed the huge drop in animation quality in this episode – and im not usually the kind of person who looks for that kind of thing. The past few episodes have been really good to see it like this quite was jarring. The episode seemed to lack a “flow” if you would, it was quite off putting. Especially seeing Morgs dance, it was beautifully animated in the OP, but in the episode I was like wtf.

    Still liked where they went with the episode, and hurray for Horie Yui, but still they need to step this up, shame to ruin a good series with the animation budget.

    Thundershock81
  7. WHO DID THE ANIMATION!?! I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU! IS IT A-1 PICTURES?! THEY SCREWED UP FAIRY TAIL TOO!!!

    My hilarious moment has been skipped, no “Boys are back in Town” between Aladdin and Alibaba because it was skipped, they did no justice to Mor’s dance, this is an outrage!!

    I will never forgive you A-1, never! T-T

    Magoiichi
  8. Ahhh… There’s no use in adding to the long complaint list as is.

    It’s okay Mor… We know it’s not your fault they messed up probably *the* most awaited scene with you in it.

    Arakan7
  9. Time to never ask people to watch this series and take back my recommendations to others. Sigh. I really thought after a good episode last week, they’d do the scene most fans were looking forward to right.

    D
  10. I was so sad when they cut the jokes from this episode!! I was seriously looking forward to how they would animate that part… and also, the awkward transitions! I thought there was something with video (lagging, uploaded wrong, etc.) But ugh. Hope next episode gets better!

    After all Kenshou Ono will appear!
    Show Spoiler ▼

    rochichan
    1. Show Spoiler ▼

      Vermillion
  11. Yeah, I somewhat expected a dip in quality after all the battles lately, but wished they could have done better here. Was hoping more from Morgiana’s dance. All we have in terms of quality remains the short part in the OP. At least we still have that.

  12. I liked this episode but not this review. You mentioned “isnan” on your post but he’s not yet even talked about with that name in the anime. This makes me refrain from reading for the first time, there’s so much manga info that – really consider as spoilers. Thanks though.

    depressing, but
  13. Morgiana’s dance was underwhelming, to say the least, but otherwise I don’t have that much complains about this episode.Not being a manga reader I can’t comment on the things they changed or left out, but I don’t get all the fuss about a fat Alibaba and Aladdin.For me the most anticipated event this episode wasn’t Morgiana’s dance, but the introduction of the Eight Generals and the Kingdom of Sindria, and that didn’t disappoint, while we don’t have a detailed view on either(yet), as far as introductions go it was fine.Like I said Morgiana’s dance wasn’t very well done but overall I didn’t find the animation to be that bad, I’m no expert on the subject though.
    Looking forward to future repercussions in Alibaba due to being bitten by the Weapons Dealer’s snake(?).

    Oh Sinbad…you must have a reason for refusing to hit on this otherwise lovely princess…

    possible reason
    https://randomc.net/image/Magi/Magi%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2023.jpg

    shadowalker
    1. The fat Alibaba and Aladdin were there as a sort of cushion between the serious event. I’m just mad because of all the good character development they left out and the odd decisions they’ve made.

      miss1madness

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