Magi is a rare manga that managed to grab me less due the writing and art, but more due to gaining admiration for the author and my desire to see good parts of it through while looking what went wrong and why. Sadly I don’t have the answer to that, but I’d still like to talk about what makes Magi great/bad while looking forward to her new manga, Orient, being an improvement.

The beginning of Magi might give people a wrong idea of what’s to come. It seemed plain and in some ways, generic. You got yet another fantasy world, though this time with a huge focus on Asian and Arabic regions instead of the usual Europe which is somewhat refreshing. You got a power system not too different from the others, with magic and magic items and weapons with special abilities. Initially there’s even a pretty straightforward seeming plot progression of traveling across the world and capturing dungeons and beating up bad guys.

However, Magi quickly deviates from its peers towards political conflict and moral dilemmas. This is at the same time its biggest strength and downfall. When it works, the manga presents you with some genuinely fair arguments and intrigue. Characters get to have real debates, instead of right side and wrong side it’s more often about people doing morally reprehensible things for a good cause, or retaliating after they were wronged themselves. One such example are the ruling dynasty of Kou empire. Even though their unrelenting conquest of other territories seems aggressive, and their homogenization of culture disrespectful, behind it is an effort to prevent future strife under the premise that much conflict is born through disagreement and under one ideology they’d be able to instill peace. This is not the most realistic solution but this is not the most realistic world so I think it’s interesting regardless that even villains seem to have real reasons behind their actions.

Same way when it comes to politics it feels like Magi takes a note from real world history. This makes countries almost feel like characters in and of themselves cause there’s an organic relationship between citizens and government. Some of the best examples of that is Balbadd, one of the first cities we see. Incapable leadership by a corrupt monarch leads to bad relationship between rich and poor classes of society, eventually it all leads up to a revolt, bloodshed, and a new ruler. Yet, troubles don’t end there. Since last monarch managed to get country in a huge debt it falls under control of Kou empire who forces Balbadd to accept their culture, way of life and government yet since this doesn’t sit well with some of its older citizens and political figures, it promotes yet more conflicts down the line. There’s a whole lot of stuff like this, especially during the later parts of the manga where for the longest time, conflicts tend to center around politics and economics rather than actual fights.
On top of that, while this is not much more than reference, I really like how seemingly every country in the world of Magi has a real life alternative. It’s obvious that plenty research went into this and I wonder how much more a history buff would get out it.

Unfortunately there are always exceptions. Being fair an argument can lead to some interesting dialogue but when that fairness is unwarranted it just leads to some stupidity. For the first time this really annoyed me during the part where our main character Aladdin opposes mages who keep normal humans under their city in terrible conditions as they sap their magic energy (which is also what everything is made out of in this world so if you get drained you die) top mage man explains to him the story behind this all and why he thinks it’s justified. That’s nice and all but then time comes around the argument of “well they don’t mind it/like it so why would you free them” when talking about people who were forced into conditions they live in and beaten into submission until they convinced themselves to enjoy it. Aladdin just accepts this as fair and doesn’t reply and we just ignore that from then on. This example was bad to me but worst one is right near the end of the manga. It’s slight spoilers but basically there’s a point in the story where everyone in the world is convinced that dying and blending together in the great flow of life as pure energy (rukh, the stuff mentioned above that mages siphon). Main characters for a while wonder if it’s really okay to save people since they’re all so happy about it and it’s just wild. You’re not being fair to anyone, you know they don’t want this, why are you doubting this? It’s like watching someone get hypnotized and being told to jump off the roof and you watch as they walk towards the edge thinking “well they’re seem really into the idea of jumping off the roof, who am I to judge?”. I try to be fair too and this is obviously an issue of personal view more than anything but I think most people will agree with me on the point mentioned above.

Overall Magi’s message becomes loud and clear as you follow the story. It’s narrative about what’s right and wrong. It is right to control people for peace? Is it fine to kill if it makes the world better? The questions it asks are vague but answer is generally the same. Magi consistently rejects any kind of moral system by pointing their flaws or hypocrisies, instead going for a much more idealistic answer of doing what you feel is right and dealing with consequences. It celebrates personal will and diversity of thought instead of any sort of constrictions for the sake of pragmatic results. This might seem a bit too basic cause “just bee yourself” is such a cliche and generalized thing to say but I think Magi’s way of getting to it through difficult moral problems is interesting and engaging cause for once instead of the usual “I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG, BY BEATING YOU WITH MY FISTS I WILL PROVE THIS TO BE TRUE” followed with “YOU BEAT ME WITH YOUR FISTS OF JUSTICE, NOW I KNOW THAT YOUR WAY IS THE WAY OF TRUTH” we get something more human to chew on.

Buuuut, there’s a caveat to that too and it’s one of the biggest I have with Magi. This caveat is plot focusing on the moral message so much, that they forget to do anything else. Moral dilemmas are interesting for some time but that has a limited appeal. I need to relate to characters or at least care about them to engage with what happens to them and wish to follow it but in Magi there’s no time for that. Even when it comes to some of the most important characters you get to know fuck all about them! For example Alibaba’s entire character is that he’s upbeat, fair and nice but also wants to date a girl and be loved. Doesn’t sound too interesting does it? And two lasts points only pop up during gag segments if I recall. Even less could be said about Aladdin, a person with no eyebrows is more interesting and the only thing a person with no eyebrows has going for them is minor lack of hair on their face. Aladdin is just a nice kid who likes meeting friends, learning stuff and other shit. That’s it. This is who you follow for the majority of the manga. All because there’s so much focus on repeating the same basic structure and same type of argument instead of doing something new and expanding on your universe and characters.

What makes this such a travesty is that there’s short bonus chapters at the end of each volume and they bring more life to characters than the actual main chapters! They all revolve around quirkier aspects of these characters that aren’t seen or used enough otherwise. When I finally finished reading this manga I kinda wanted to see more of these characters but then realized I just want more of those bonus chapters. Ohtaka’s got a sense of humor too and you don’t need to see bonus chapters for that but maybe if she was daring to put more lighthearted and SoL segments in this manga we’d be able to get better feel for the characters and maybe care just a bit more when they face real danger.

Don’t have a good segue for it but the universe had a lot of potential too. Since they’re all vaguely based on different countries, you already got the complex culture for future reference and since the manga takes place in roughly medieval times, yet with heavy presence of magic, there’s SO much ground for exploring different possibilities. What would occur if certain cultures got their hands on certain type of technology or magic ahead of others? How would they use it, how would the others respond? There’s a moment like that in the manga that I enjoyed a whole lot. It happens in the later parts of it and concerns a militaristic country reforming into one focused on business in accordance with the new world order set by one of the characters. To reform their country they take many steps but they face a big problem. Their country is so big and their business partners are so far apart that transportation is difficult and costly. They get screwed out of access to technology more sophisticated than a wagon and resort to magic. In the end they come up with mobile magic circles that teleport goods and people to points setup across the map. This revolutionizes trading but doesn’t go as smoothly when countries they want to trade with start raising rather realistic concerns. If only there more of that. Instead the world is only able to come out ahead of characters thanks to the story focusing on politics so damn much.

I avoided talking about what Magi is actually about for so long and that’s not because I forgot or don’t want to spoil it but because at the end of this negative section I only have a little mention for it. The plot of magi is fucked up, unfocused mess with no weight or intrigue. It’s hard to even talk about it because there’s no proper structure to it. It’s just a series of things happening over and over for some reason until big bad escalates it to the max and we get a final conflict with a final resolution and a flaccid “everything was fine” happy ending.

At last I’d like to talk about art and end this on a positive note. I think the art of Magi is great. On a purely technical level it’s not the most impressive thing you’ll see in WSJ but Ohtaka’s sense of style more than compensates for it. More than once throughout the manga you’ll see pages dominated by a single panel with some intricate designs that depict magical formulas or symbolic and religious imagery. Spreads with a lot of detail that don’t fail to convey sheer scale of combat between large armies or simply beautiful scenery. Even on smaller scale it’s an enjoyable manga to read cause of how lovely and energetic everything is. The multitudes of expression on faces of characters helps dramatic scenes and sometimes serves as a punchline for comedy. When it comes to combat Ohtaka usually puts emphasis on powerful and expressive forms. I think it’s somewhat weak at the beginning but at some point she’s gets really good at this so even plain, uninspired action scenes become a pleasant sight thanks to the amount of impact, momentum and general power that comes through the art. It helps that a lot of the manga seems to be drawn using a brush pen that always leads to some delicious nuance in line art. Overall this was a good chunk of why enjoyed the manga.

That’s about all I have to say. This turned out rather ranty but there’s a lot of things I wanted to say. I hope what came across is that Magi is a manga with both great highlights and weaknesses but in the end, I feel like the strong points of it are good enough to warrant some appreciation. Orient, please be good.