Recap: Morgiana crosses the Great Rift that separates the known world and the Fanalis homeland.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Seeing as how it’s the holidays, good ol’ Zigg is busy this week, leaving me to cover Magi. Don’t worry, we’ll find his pieces soon so we can begin the arcane ritual to restore his body.

After focusing on Aladdin and Alibaba for the past month or so, we finally spend some time on the best member of the power trio: Morgiana. Alas, she doesn’t really get any action; the episode is mostly a worldbuilding one, expanding on the setting slightly and eventually leading into the coming conflicts (some of which won’t even be covered in this anime season). Morgiana arrives at a Tran village on the edge of the Great Rift, and meets the other princes of Balbadd, who were assigned to an archeological expedition by Sinbad (presumably because the mangaka couldn’t be assed to come up with new minor characters).

Of course, side characters nobody liked aren’t enough of a questionably-necessary callback to season 1. The main reason the Tran/Toran/Whatever are being researched is because of their strange language, which can be found around and inside dungeons. Remember WAYYYY back in Episode 2 (of Season 1!) when Alibaba was reading the heirogylph stuff in the dungeon to avoid the trap? This is that stuff. I believe the Tran also had a village just outside of Zagan’s dungeon, in the back end of Season 1.

We meet the final Magi this week as well: Yunan, who traipses around with his shirt open and has a license to act all cryptic and shit. He’s basically around to fulfill the role of “That Guy who knows the whole plot but refuses to tell anybody” that shonen manga tends to have. He’s known to have raised the first Dungeon, and we already know that Sinbad is the one who conquered the first Dungeon. At any rate, he needed to be introduced sometime, and he inconveniently chats with Morgiana and causes the camera to shift over to the Kou Empire. Lame.

On the bright side, we get to meet Ren Hakuei again, from the early arc in Season 1, along with an entire cavalry unit comprised of the nomadic Kouga from the same arc. Thought they wouldn’t be relevant again? You’d probably be right, but it’s nice to see previous events acknowledged. Less bright is that Hakuryu’s episode is coming up next, and he’s more emo than ever after the six month time skip.

Manga Differences That I Only Vaguely Remember

• This is probably just a translation quirk, but the manga scanlations just said Hakuei’s Paimon was a “fertile” djinn, whereas the TV subs say something along the lines of “She’s female, and therefore prolific”. This seems dangerously close to “haha what a slut”.
• The anime cut seems to imply that Morgiana came across Yunan’s cabin fairly quickly once she started running. The manga clearly shows her bloody and broken feet instead, letting us infer she was running for a while.
• I believe we met the Balbadd princes right before the Zagan dungeon in the manga, and that they didn’t show up here. Maybe? It doesn’t really matter, especially since they dropped the line about how they’re moving around and studying the Tran.