So, the first season of Magi had its own sort of charm. We followed characters on a grand adventure, with both harrowing journeys and deadly dungeons to be had. The second season is… a little different. We’ve got the same characters and even some very similar and familiar Arabian Nights style scenarios, but the focus has shifted, putting more emphasis on both social drama and personal struggles than on high-flying action.
And, you might be thinking that sounds somewhat like the Balbadd arc in the first season, the long and draggy arc in the middle of the show that left an overall bad taste. And in the most generic sense, you’d be right, so the question is how they try to make it work this time around.
We start with everyone meeting up back in Sindria after the events of the previous season. Dunya is there too, and she provides us our next plot hook before dying: the dark metal vessel that she used was made in a kingdom called Magnostadt, where one of Sinbad’s retainers studied magic herself. However, the decision is ultimately made to split the party: Aladdin will go to Magnostadt, both to investigate the Black Rukh and to learn how to better use his great power, with a limiter put in his arm by that retainer of Sinbad’s in order to let him act and pass as a normal magician rather than a magi. However, Alibaba, Morgiana, and Hakuryuu won’t be joining him: Hakuryuu is, with Kougyoku, called back to the Kou empire. Morgiana, though clearly somewhat doubting, is taking this opportunity to visit the ancestral homeland of her scattered people. And Alibaba, still afflicted with a mixture of white and black Rukh in his body and an inability to control it, is set to travel to the Leam empire (fantasy Rome) in order to learn from the gladiators who once helped Sinbad overcome a similar issue in the past.
They don’t split up right away, though, first sharing a boat to the mainland. Along that passage they get into a fight with child pirates (whose ship-taking abilities are also propped up by Magnostadt-made magic weapons, albeit nothing quite so awful as the Dark Metal Vessel). It’s a fine sequence, but doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know about the plot, and only really gets us a little character development for Hakuryuu. For him, it seems his mother is the insane evil one in the family. And, to make matters more awkward, he proposes to Morgiana (who refuses) before shuffling out of most of the rest of the show. Everybody else gets a chance to say goodbye to him, and then they go their own separate ways as well. We do check back in with Alibaba fairly often and Morgiana and Hakuryuu occassionally, but for the most of the rest of this season, we’re going to be focused on Aladdin.
By chance, Aladdin hitches a ride with another Kou royal (Kougyoku’s terrifyingly in-love-with-violence brother Kouha) and arrives in Magnostadt. Aside from guests of state like Kouha, only magicians are allowed to enter, requiring Aladdin to pass a test of power both to enter the nation and, since he’s there to learn, to be sorted into his class as we detour into a school anime. With the limiter in place, it turns out that Aladdin is at least starting horribly weak, and gets legitimately sorted into the lowest class. There, he undergoes grueling physical training that causes most of his less-dedicated classmates to wash out, before they actually tell the misfit students that physical fitness improves available magic (which makes sense, as we’ve seen weak or weakened mages pass out from overusing their power), meaning that those who stayed with boot camp rather than quitting have a rather rosy outcome. For Aladdin, it seems that the PE push was exactly what he needed to catapult all the way to the top class.
We then take some time to deal with the other lines as time passes. Alibaba arrives in Leam and, after an unfortunate introduction, does make contact with the gladiators. They put him, weakened as he is, into a brutal first battle against a crowd favorite – a King Kong esque giant ape. Pushed to the brink , denied escape, and with the prospect of being devoured staring him in the face, Alibaba manages to turn things around and, with that epiphany, be put on the right track to dealing with his shattered soul problem. He also buys the defeated giant killer monkey for a laugh, getting us a couple of fun shots of the thing lounging around as his new pet.
Morgiana, on her journey, runs into Ahbmad and Sahbmad who despite having been an unfathomably terrible king and a kind of lame statesman when we last saw them are now a surprisingly skilled pair of archaeologists and ethnographers. It’s a small moment, but I like that we actually got a redemption for a wormy guy like Ahbmad (his brother having been a good guy, just kind of weak in terms of presence), seeing that when not in a position of power, he’s actually capable of rising to the occasion. It’s one of the few times Magi, which normally likes to hammer its meanings in, does something fairly understated that supports its overall optimism.
In any case, she ends up at a place called the Great Rift, and there meets one of the other Magi, who tells her that she can cross to where other Fanalis still live, but that if she does it’s a one-way trip. And that’s enough out of her for pretty much the rest of the season. In some ways it’s a lame fakeout since we know they’re not going to write one of the lead trio as well as both Alibaba and Hakuryuu’s main love interest out of the show so easily, but the hang time is long so I hope you weren’t too attached to Morgiana in any case.
In the Kou empire, the king is dead and it’s time for a succession crisis between the massive number of children he’s left behind. All of the younger generation (including eldest and heir presumptive Kouen) seem like decent sorts… more or less… and aren’t inclined to make a fight out of the potential outcomes. But, wouldn’t you know it, the late emperor’s will leaves the throne to Hakuryuu’s evil mom (a leader in Al Thamen), who takes control of the Kou empire fully. Hakuryuu tries to fight her and gets utterly owned, but Judar, now seemingly a rogue agent rather than Al Thamen minion, recruits Hakuryuu to his side while simultaneously pushing him towards cursing the world and falling.
And, like Morgiana, they pretty much fall out of the show from here. There are some interesting hints that they’re kind of a third, Free Will faction opposed to both Al Thamen’s cruddy apocalypse cult and Aladdin’s order of the world, but we don’t spend any time with them, so that will have to wait for the third season that at least so far doesn’t exist, or reading the manga, to resolve where that actually goes.
Back in Magnostadt, Aladdin starts to get to know two very important people. One is mysterious transfer student Titus Alexius, who seems able to match even Aladdin’s formidable post-training power. The other is the headmaster of the academy and sovereign of Magnostadt, Matal Mogamett.
Mogamett is the best darn character in this season. Technically he’s more of a secondary antagonist than anything else, but the study he gets is a powerful dive into misfortune, pain, and the limits of human empathy. Pretty much every scenario Mogamett brings to the show is morally complex, with few trivial answers as to what’s moral, ethical, right, or wrong. There are some scenarios where obviously something is out of line, but where you’re not gift-wrapped a perfect solution that makes the wrongdoer look like a complete moron.
I’ve touched on Mogamett before and will try to rehash myself only as much as is necessary, so for now, our first introduction: Mogamett is a wise and kindly old man, teacher and foster father to Sinbad’s retainer and now mentor to Aladdin and Titus. And Aladdin, who can see the flow of the Rukh (a fact that normally gives him an infallible ability to know a person’s character), trusts Mogamett even though his better reasoning in the face of the evidence of Magnostadt’s shady arms dealing at best and Al Thamen association at worst suggests that maybe the man in charge isn’t the man to trust.
Then there’s Titus. As the mysterious transfer student, Titus is the only other student who can match Aladdin. Titus is a young man with a rather girly appearance (causing Aladdin to offend him in trying to confirm that he is, in fact, a male student). At Mogamett’s suggestion they have something of a mock battle, both to work out their issues and to determine just what level of advanced classes they’re ready for. During the fight, each of the two sees that the other also has a gem implanted in his arm, suggesting to Aladdin that Titus is another Magi going incognito.
Titus gets very bent out of shape over the whole matter and ends up attacking Aladdin after, which results in Titus being confined for a time. During that, Aladdin is able to actually talk to and befriend Titus, revealing his nature as a Magi to Titus and learning that Titus’s gem is something of the opposite: a grant of power from Scheherazade, the third orthodox Magi (after Judar and the guy Morgiana met) who is currently backing the Leam empire and who sent Titus to spy on Magnostadt.
After Titus is let out, he and Aladdin tour the city of Magnostadt. Much of it seems to be a paradise, where an abundance of magical power and fancy magic items makes life easy. However, the boys are warned to avoid the Fifth Authorization District, which is off limits. Naturally, they decide to stick their noses into it.
What they find is an underground hive of scum and villainy where the non-magician citizens (called Goy) who don’t have any other gainful employment are confined. All in all, it’s more than half the total population of the city-state. There, the construction of the city uses them as batteries, passively draining their Rukh in order to fuel the wonders of Magnostadt above.
Especially given the terms used there’s a possibility that some politics was intended, but I’m going to give Magi the benefit of the doubt and say that the politics of Magnostadt itself are the only ones on offer.
The thing is, while this seems like a totally evil dark secret, it actually isn’t exactly. It’s strongly implied that while not everyone in the Fifth Authorization District chose to be there, and it’s certain they can’t leave, many of them did select this life where (they express) they can live totally idle with all their basic needs taken care of just at the cost of it being short and sickly and underground. At the very least, the fact that there is some degree of a mutualistic relationship, however abused, makes the issue more complex. Apparently things were bad enough for the peasants under Dunya’s dynasty (which ruled before Mogamett lead a magician rebellion), and having seen a similar story of abuse of power in Balbadd and that the lower classes there probably did have it worse given how many were starving to death or purged, it is believable.
But, that doesn’t entirely excuse the harm being done by the system. Similar to the Ursula K. LeGuin story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, there’s a legitimate question of whether greater overall good or less harm should be preferred, and the case for the ends not justifying the means is made by a forsaken child. This forsaken child is named Marga, a cute little girl Titus and Aladdin come to empathize with, who is on the brink of death due to her life force being depleted by the Fifth Authorization District. A little time on the surface would probably let her make a full recovery, but the enforcers who appear would rather throw her into the pit to be consumed utterly.
Aladdin and Titus save the little girl, of course, causing a ruckus in the process that sees them brought before Mogamett.
Mogamett gives them the whole long flashback (even displaying things as he experienced them with magic) about how the country used to be run, how the magicians were used as living weapons, how callous cruelty cost him his friends and family, and then finally how he led the rebellion against the old dynasty, gaining the support of the people at large and eventually building Magnostadt on the ashes, taking both authority and responsibility. He allows the students to continue visiting the Fifth Authorization District, and even asks to meet Marga, who he allows to live on the surface with Titus. However, in that encounter Aladdin finally resolves the dissonance surrounding Mogamett: He is, deep down, a person with a strong conviction in decent ideals, hence why the White Rukh still favors him. But, his kindness has become myopic, and he no longer exactly sees the Goy as people. The fondness he shows Marga when interacting with her is the fondness someone would show a cute puppy, while the callous scorn with which he regards a peasant who tried to cling to the tails of his robe is the same callousness with which one might regard a mangy stray. It doesn’t matter how high-minded he once was, or how much there still is a good core in him if he can’t use it for the people as a whole.
Of course, then things start to go to hell. Aladdin confirms that researchers in Magnostadt are doing work on Black Rukh, confirming there’s some connection to Al Thamen (eventually revealed to be that they worked together to develop the Dark Metal Vessels, but that Mogamett pulled out when he found Goy were being allowed to use them), while Titus reveals that he doesn’t have a lot of time left to live. He is, it turns out, a clone Scheherazade made of herself to act as a vessel for her power, and is not intended to last.
Especially not since Leam’s armies are on their way to annex Magnostadt, in part to outrace the possibility that Kou might try the same thing. Scheherazade speaks through Titus to issue Mogamett an ultimatum, and he actually shows off some of that goodness he supposedly has left when he stands up to her not just for his nation or race-driven ideals, but because of her mistreatment of Titus as his own person. Mogamett cuts the connection, and Scheherazade sends in the brute squad to take over Magnostadt and recover her wayward clone. The magicians of Magnostadt, for their part, are prepared to stand their ground, defending their homes and, yes, even their Goy charges (or so the Goy feel).
The war for Magnostadt takes up, essentially, the rest of the show. Leam is the first in, battering their way through Magnostadt’s magical barriers until Aladdin, in a fairly awesome show of power, removes his limiter and with his new training and full power summons giant sand images of Ugo that, after nonlethally fighting off some of Leam’s top warriors, turn into a river of sand that sweeps the entire army back out to the shore.
The Leam champions try to take Aladdin on again, but Alibaba is there with the Leam forces to stop them from doing anything too stupid, and we finally meet Scheherazade (the show’s centuries-old-loli, using clone bodies to both rest her true body and extend her life) when she calls Aladdin to a meeting.
Aladdin pleads with Scheherazade to have peace, if only because he’s afraid of what Mogamett might do if his back is really up against the wall. The Black Rukh research, it seems, is more dangerous than we were told, with Aladdin insisting that a grave misuse of it could trigger the end of the world, which has happened once before (to the world the Magi and Djinn came from, where Solomon ruled) and is what Al Thamen is trying to cause.
Scheherazade seems willing to listen but, before she can really change the status quo another army (this one Kou) shows up to try to take over Magnostadt, and Mogamett decides to take matters into his own hands.
To a degree continuing his paradox, Mogamett sacrifices himself in order to summon and control a vast mass of Black Rukh. He falls, but unlike the other falls in this show, he knows what he’s doing and is intentionally trying to access the Black Rukh in order to gain the power to save his people (albeit, in a deliberately drawn contrast with his younger self who wanted to help everyone, only magicians) , knowing there’s no way back for him, both because of what falling means and because he’d be feeding himself to the core of that energy draining furnace (which is also going to have its effects on the Fifth Authorization District turned to full power to do this).
The Dark Djinn powered by Mogamett are initially very effective… perhaps too effective, as they seem to become a cohesive mass of evil when initially defeated, rising again every time someone tries to put the boot into it as long as Mogamett is still down in the furnace burning up himself and all the Goy in order to keep his monster going. Titus sacrifices himself pulling Mogamett out in body, but the darkness continues unabated, even causing a giant portal in the sky to open and Al Thamen’s evil god to start sticking its nose in.
The final battle, then, is to stop Al Thamen’s god (basically Azathoth) from touching the ground from its portal in the sky as the Mogamett-fueled Black Rukh abomination tries to pull it down. If the thing touches the planet, all the white Rukh goes away and the world dies, but the real foe can’t be fought and all the power they can throw against the summoning abomination isn’t much good as long as it’s still fueled.
This leads to getting Aladdin an opening to do his Solomon’s Wisdom thing, and doing his best to heal Mogamett’s heart. The conversation in soul space between Aladdin and Mogamett is fairly dynamite, in which Aladdin is able to rekindle Mogamett’s empathy. Mogamett, however, denies redemption, and while his soul departs (rendering the monstrosity mortal) he tasks Aladdin, who is still among the living, with finding a way to save the innocent souls lost to the Black Rukh. In the meantime Mogamett, responsible for at least some of that awfulness, will go ahead and suffer with them. It’s a good final note for the character, in my opinion, that he’s willing to pass up his “get out of hell free” card in order to atone for what he’s done.
In any case, the big boss monster takes real damage like everything else and is dispatched, with everybody showing up to get their hits in including Sinbad, his allies, Morgianna, and the third Magi with her. Scheherazade expires and, in a mystic soul space where she meets Ugo, chooses to have Titus sent back as a new Magi instead of herself. The Kou royals are willing to have peace just as soon as they can squeeze Aladdin for some answers about what the hell is going on. Magnostadt’s principled magicians pick up the pieces of their shattered city, gathering survivors and looking out for the people as they were originally meant to. The team is back together again. And, critically, Judar and Hakuryuu make an appearance to remind everyone they’re going to be a third faction going forward. And that is the end of Magi: the Kingdom of Magic.
Overall, I feel like it was an improvement over the first season. True, we lost the Gygaxian dungeon delving, but that was in a lot of ways a weaker element, so it’s not exactly missed. We spend a lot of time in Magnostadt, but unlike Balbadd that had an uninterrupted marathon arc, Magnostadt gives us at least three separate arcs (Training, Titus/Fifth Authorization District, and the War) that are distinct from each other and separated in such a way that even while we stay in the same setting we don’t feel like we’re just doing the same thing over and over. And, on the whole, the emotions are better: Cassim never resonated as well nor was as complex or engaging as Mogamett.
That said, there are downsides. It’s kind of unfortunate that Morgiana and Hakuryuu fall as far out as focus as they do, getting barely any screen time in the latter half of the show. Even Alibaba is kind of scarce, making time for Titus and Aladdin, and you do miss the ensemble cast when its broken up. Further, there’s not quite the sense of optimism and adventure. In the first season there was some moral quandary material in Balbadd, but while the characters were often gray the situation really wasn’t, and more of the show was concerned with wacky dungeons and evil sorcerers. In Kingdom of Magic, most of the emotional conflict is about those tough topics. They’re done well and I think there’s better artistry here, but it’s not as light on its feet or fun to watch. I love a good quandary, but I have to admit it’s going to detract from some people, potentially those who have their own strong opinion on the answer in particular. And Al Thamen is in full clown mode now, the stupidly evil insanity we saw in Sindria not letting up. As psycho Evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains go they’re extremely well done, all things considered, but that’s not exactly a top-tier sort of villain.
On the whole, while I would recommend the second season higher than the first, the letter grade system doesn’t have the granularity to actually give it a higher mark. Magi remains at B+, if a B+ that I would strongly suggest checking out.