Recap: With Abhmad forced to abdicate the throne, Alibaba proposes a radical solution to the succession crisis, but not everyone is willing to play along. Meanwhile, something strange is happening to Aladdin and Judal.

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts: It’s a real testament to the quality of Magi‘s writing and ongoing plot that this episode comprising almost entirely of talk and political negotiation manages to be just as engaging and heartfelt as the big flashy fight episode that happened last week. I want to applaud the show for not chickening out and just making the climax to this arc a massive scrap and turning Abhmad into some sort of evil demon boss. Instead, we get something that’s all too rare in anime – a measured, thoughtful conversation where the drama and character are eked out through thought rather than action.

There’s several powerful and interesting moments scattered through this protracted talk that I wanted to highlight. I appreciated Alibaba sticking up for Sabhmad and pointing out an obvious but important truth – in his own way, he’s just as much a hero as anybody else. He saw something wrong and did what he thought was right to fix it, at great personal risk to himself. Furthermore, he’s smart enough to accept he’s not suitable for king and decline the succession. Top marks to that man.  Same goes to Princess Ren, who fights her corner convincingly and doesn’t give up easily, but also knows when to fold’ em, and accepts that she’s outmatched in this situation. It’s neat that she also has a slight personal motivation which nudges her towards delaying the situation, and Ka Koubun’s goofy reactions make for a few moments of levity as well.

Alibaba himself is the real star here though, and it’s really gratifying to see how the character has grown over this arc.  When he stands outside giving his speech to the assembled masses, you can feel the charisma and passion of the man, and it’s almost a shame that he won’t agree to be the king, as he’s clearly eminently suited to role.  He clearly wants to devote himself to the establishment of this new government, which is interesting because we know he can’t – at some point our adventure has to resume. What’s going to tear him away?

Perhaps the most fascinating bit of this episode to me though, was the ongoing developments in the Magi side of the story. Both Judal and Aladdin remain out cold, but for some reason massive amounts of rukh are gathering around them, and the gigantic bird seen at the end of this episode seems to indicate Aladdin has left his body entirely.  Furthermore, there’s the appearance of the mysterious masked figure who we haven’t seen up to this point. He appears to be in collaboration with the Banker, which makes sense – there’s been the feeling from the start this is a conspiracy on a grand scale. What’s alarming though is that he appears to display the ability to control the rukh. Is he yet another Magi? It’s left unclear. We also see the dark rukh appear around the Banker at one point, although the implications of that are also ambiguous. It’s worth pointing out though that the Banker was both Morgiana’s master’s teacher, and the man who picked up Judal in episode 3. he’s clearly playing a long game here.

There’s one final sting in the tail, and that of course is the return of Kassim and his Fog Troupe. I’d honestly forgotten about them throughout the course of this episode, but it now seems clear they’re going to do their very best to shatter the delicate peace that’s been established. When they first showed up one major question was where they’d acquired their magical weapons from. The answer is obvious now – the Banker and the masked man have been pulling the strings behind this operation all along. We’ll have to see how successful they are next week, when I suspect there’s going to be one hell of a showdown between Alibaba and Kassim.

Random Observations

• Nice touch – the tower Morgiana collapsed and the two halves of Entai are still clearly visible in the courtyard as the people flood in.
• Ren’s insistence that Sinbad come to Kou purely as a pretext to see him again is pretty adorable.