What do you think of when the Fantasy genre is mentioned? I suppose it probably depends on the context, but most people probably have a picture of something at least vaguely reminiscent of period Europe. Knights, wizards, elves, dwarves – all that stuff made popular by JRR Tolkien and E. Gary Gygax. Even today, huge swaths of the fantasy genre evoke that very general setting and its themes.
And yet, there’s another extremely famous and resonant pillar of the genre that doesn’t fit, and more likely gets sort of regarded as its own thing: The Arabian Nights, a collection of stories with their own themes and conventions that are very much fantasy (depicting a world of magic, monsters, and the like) in a sort of timeless setting, but not one that’s really like the typical European fare. There are a few excellent examples of films, shows, or other retellings centered around the Arabian Nights, but they’re certainly less common.
And, given that the Arabian Nights setting doesn’t really get its due in the West, its particularly fascinating to seen it done justice in anime, here in the Magi series. You may recognize the names, but the story is something new or at least newer.
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