Recap:  Alibaba and Aladdin battle Dunya and Isaac, while Sinbad prepares for war against the forces of Al-Thamen.

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts:  Magi is definitely ramping up the action as we approach the finale and the Aladdin and Alibaba portion of this episode is almsot all fight, as they battle the evil Princess Dunya and her knight Isaac respectively. Despite the focus, I found I couldn’t really get into the battle here – it’s a little flat and the choreogrpahy is kind of dumb. Dunya’s transformation into a giant Black Djinn is pretty much what we saw with Kassim just a few episodes ago, a fact the show feels it needs to highlight rather egregiously, and Aladdin’s strategy of defeating her by…er, shooting her a lot is lacking in pizzazz to say the least. Alibaba vs. Isaac meanwhile continues to prove that this show cannot do swordfights, or at least swordfights where both parties move their blades.

It’d probably be a little more stimulating if we had any investment in either of these villains, but since they’ve just sprung out of nowhere, they come off as awfully generic. That’s not to say there’s nothing of interest here – their ‘fallen royalty’ backstory sounds very intriguing – but presented just as straight up opponents they’re uninspiring. Dunya has the soft spoken crazy yandere thing going that seems to be big these days, while Isaac is cold and stoic.  It’s consequently a fight that feels very by-the-numbers, and Dunya’s super mode being a transformation into a skimpier clothed version of herself is so textbook shonen it’s groanworthy, though her impressive spell barrage at the end looks cool and bodes well for the continuation next week.

If there’s redeeming value to be found here, it’s in the snippets of Sinbad we get.  Judal does take the opportunity to dump exposition on us a little, which is weird since the season has only two or three episodes left and it’s something you could easily throw in to begin the inevitable season two. But I do like the shots of Sinbad and his generals, showing a strong, confident leader who’s clearly and inspiration to all of those around him.  There’s some nice moments for Kougyoku too, despite the fairly transparent attempt by the writers to milk the maximum number of moe points out of her as possible. She resists Judal’s temptation and then gets a nice scene with Sinbad that reaffirms her shift towards the side of the angels.  I do hope her old, more abrasive personality re-emerges in the upcoming battle, and that she gets a chance to kick some arse.  At the very least, the show seems to be moving towards a massive scale finale, and I think we’ll see a good old fashioned race against time to cure everyone and then hoof it back to Sindria for a big finish.

Random Observations

• We learn the Masked Man’s name is ‘Ithnan’ and that he controls powerful lightning magic.
• The dialogue seems to imply the curse restricts Sinbad’s ability to use his magic or Millenium Items Metal vessels