Recap: Madaura is defeated but tension over the way it was done splits Hakuryu away from the others

Zigg’s Thoughts: A strong, confident and often shocking episode of Magi, this felt like a good step on the road back to relevance and being interesting. Part of that is of course the fact we seem to b escaping from the doldrums of this side plot and moving back towards what this arc was meant to be about all along – splitting up our team to send them on their separate stories. The manner in which they kicked that off this episode was extremely striking though, as Hakuryu lays the smackdown on the core trio with an impressively serious motive rant.

Really this episode marks the first time I’ve been interested in Hakuryu as a character. Granted, his  turn against the team skirts the upper echelons of melodrama, but he’s finally got some gristle to his character and it’s a pretty effective way to throw the team into discord. Both of this episode’s most powerful moments are centred around him – his beheading of Madaura is deliciously brutal and a timely reminder that Magi isn’t above using shocking violence to give a scene extra power and impact.

On the other hand, his confession to Morgiana is equally powerful but in an entirely different way. It’s a delicious play on the audience’s emotions – we’re already unsure of how we feel about Hakuryu at this point, so his desire to ‘steal’ one of the best characters away from our leads is satisfyingly conflicting, and the presentation is good enough that we do feel Morgiana is tempted to go for it for a bit. It’s actually a confession which makes a lot of sense too – Hakuryu admires her strength and single mindedness (as opposed to the other major woman in his life up to this point, his sneaky, deceitful mother) and feels she understands his pain, having lost her own family. One thing though – can we put an end to this trend of heroes ‘surprise kissing’ girls? That’s called sexual harassment son, and it’s not cool.

The look into Hakuryu’s past is a little less clear, and I think a bit more could have been done to explain exactly who is screwing over who and for what reason. As it stands though, at least we have a firm motive for his anti-Kou sentiment, and the delicious prospect of an inter-familial civil war at some point that could divide the Kou-aligned characters right down the middle. Turning a son against his own mother is an intriguing and dark angle for the story to take and I’m very excited to see where this will go, with the prospect of lots of delicious angst forthcoming.

In less delicious angst though, this episode marks the umpteenth occasion Alibaba has been reduced to a sobbing wreck. Granted, this time it’s in the middle of a pretty decent speech, but I do wish just for once he could stand up and be strong and angry and authoritative rather than having to collapse into tears to make his point. I like him less and less as each episode goes by and he looks weaker and weaker as each episode goes by also. Contrastingly, Aladdin actually gets some pretty great material, his showdown with Hakuryu being a highlight. Sometimes it’s great just to see two characters with mutual respect talk out their differences. Too much talking has been an issue in this early part of the run, but the difference is this time the words had meaning and consequence, and that makes me interested again.

Random Observations

• I haven’t really said anything about the fight that opens this episode because it’s kind of eh. Djinn-equip Hakuryu looks badass though.
• The visual presentation leading up to and of the beheading is top notch. Excellent directing.
• Another great moment is where Morgiana begs Alibaba not to confront Hakuryu, showing that even though she rejected his advances she still cares a lot for him.

Iro’s Thoughts: And thus we (finally) come to the end of the pirate arc. The main point of all of this was mostly to drop Hakuryu’s backstory on us in as short a timespan as possible, and Magi more or less succeeded in doing so. In fact, around half of the fight with Madaura was cut out of the anime, making for a much tighter couple of episodes as we intersperse flashbacks with the present day. To sum up, Hakuryu’s family (with the exception of his older sister we met waaaay back) was killed in a plot orchestrated by his mother, who summarily married the new emperor and was a huge bitch about the whole affair. Those with a careful eye will note that there are Kou royalty with red hair (this group including Kougyoku) and black hair – those with red are the children of the current emperor.

The scene with Madaura on the docks was executed rather well with a striking silhouette shot, instead of cutting away to avoid showing the deed. Magi is one of the few shonen shows that doesn’t always shy away from violence; these people are using swords, so there’s going to be some cutting involved. Blood dripping out of Olba’s hand stump falls under this as well. It’s just gross enough to be off-putting and give a proper sense of his desperation.

The main other bit of note is Hakuryu’s desperate love confession to Morgiana, which fueled shipping wars when it happened in the manga and will continue to do so now. While it’s a bit refreshing to see him avoid beating around the bush and just stating his intentions, he also clearly pushes too hard. Hakuryu is not the most socially adept dude, Freudian issues aside. Of course, I imagine any regular watcher views Morgiana as the chief badass among the cast, so who can blame the guy?

Manga Differences I Only Vaguely Remember

• As mentioned above, a significant portion of the fight was cut out. Madaura gets into a fish-shaped submarine thing and they fight underwater. I don’t remember how the heroes won, so it must have been rather boring.
• It was probably too gory for TV, but in the flashback Hakuryu’s older brother disembowels himself and drenches the kid in blood to protect him from the flames.
• Aladdin was not kidnapped by the pirates, instead just arriving with the rest of the crew by flying them in on his turban.
• After Morgiana refuses Hakuryu’s confession, he dwells on her relationship with Alibaba for a moment. The anime conveys this somewhat more gracefully by placing her bracelets in the center of the shot.