#i wish magi was dubbed and he would return

[myspecialinterest]

the spanish dub in sinbad no bouken is just something else

i specially owe Carlo Vázquez my entire life he makes an amazing amazing sinbad but like every single one of the actors is amazing

i could talk sm about each of the characters for hours ive listened to them for years and loved it

[embrues]

*snoop dog vc* greetings loved ones let’s take another journey.. if you like insomniac boys with shitty pasts who don’t give a good goddamn who GOT that juicy redemption ark then do i have a deal for you ! for one easy payment of a fruit roll-up, you too could have this aforementioned fella !  ( there are absolutely no refunds bc i eat the payment immediately sorry )

☾*✧･ﾟ:*「 lee hoseok ( wonho ). transmale. he/him. 」did you know that there’s a human in seoul named hyun jitae? they have been here for their entire life and they are an officer. they are currently twenty-five and is not a part of the ju jak and does know about the magi. i heard that they are known to be pugnacious, but worry not ! i heard they are also very stalwart too. remember to stay out of trouble, the magi are lurking around every corner ! ( markus, nineteen, he/him, cst. )

tw for transphobia, abuse, in general just some awful parenting, violence and death.

so, let’s start from the beginning, where all full stories rightfully have to. born to a hunter and housewife, he was the third of three children and was the first girl of the family.  his innocence could only last so long with the corruption in his bloodlines, an ancestry of hunters stretching many years through the hyun family and long standing supporters of the ju jak cause. it was a poison that was passed down to each generation when they matured and he would be no different.

his parents had been fairly lax, bringing his twin brothers up, two years his senior, but they toughened up when he was born. jitae was expected to be their picture-perfect child, ideally one who would marry into another family of hunters to keep the lineage going, seek out magi and do as he was told. from a young age, a gender divide was very much enforced upon him ; he was told that pink was for girls, blue was for boys and all the other ridiculous stereotypes. he wasn’t allowed to play with his brothers’ toys, even though he clearly had a much higher interest in them. they insisted on having him wear skirts, even though all he really wanted to do was steal his brothers’ shirts.

his father was always far too busy to be emotionally involved with anything he was up to, his mother, though she held the same ideals as his father did, was much more encouraging – even when he seemed to only want to throw mud outside with his brothers or spend his time sat quietly maneuvering small bugs around his hands. life seemed easier then, and if you ever were to ask he’d like to come back to here, the fragile and comfortable age of five.

at nine, he officially ditches his full name and takes on the shorter, snappier shortening of it, blatantly ignoring anything else. he also ditches a lot that was forced onto him, and begins to slowly tarnish the image that has been built around him – the first step in that is cutting off long, brilliant locks with a pair of safety scissors. ( he’s grounded for a solid month for that particular endeavor after a rather long beating, but they at least take him to a barber to clean up the botched job. )

up until he was about thirteen, the veil over his eyes remained. he’d always been warned to not get to curious what his father got up to in the late hours of the night, or why his brothers always went with him. up until then – and then shit starts to hit the fan when he is thrown head first into long training sessions. he finds comfort in ripped jeans and stolen shirts, cardigans and hoodies have become his safety net. at least, he surmises, he has this one thing that he could have for his own. ( even that was something borrowed, snagged from his brothers’ closets. )  his mother seems to catch on, discreetly leaves recently bought t-shirts sprinkled within his wardrobe. he dyes his hair blonde for a few months, not without strong opposition, before returning to his natural black – he’s experimenting, more than anything else, wants to smash as many of the buttons set in front of him as possible and come into his own instead of the mold he was crammed into. teacher often being an older cousin, or his elder brothers the days his father will allow, endurance and agility training quickly become his daily after-school activity. knives and hand-to-hand combat were his favorite though, each unfortunate mistake earned him a new nick or a bloodied lip when he wasn’t quite fast enough. wasn’t quite good enough. ( even though he resented his father, he wanted him to be proud. )

at fifteen, he starts sneaking out with his elder brothers whenever they can manage. instead of paying attention to their father’s long lectures on preparation and being adaptable, the three sit outside and complain together. his brothers smoke cheap cigarettes that they buy with their minimum wage ; he steals a drag here and there, and makes his brothers swear not to tell. ( he doesn’t really care if they do, though. maybe hopes that they did. )  gets much too competitive during short spars and more than satisfied when he can manage to beat any of his older relatives.

seventeen brings a new form of rebellion, but most notably confusion about his identity. his brothers wholeheartedly accept his requests to refer to him by jitae but his father remained adamant and bigoted in his ways. outbursts aimed at him became frequent, to be dubbed unfit for the family had brought more than feelings of rage within jitae but snapped something he didn’t know he had. halfway through that seventeenth year, he’s arrested for defacing of property. ( he may or may not have painted profanity in bold red letters on some unsuspecting victim’s vehicle. ) in homage to his first arrest, many long summer days spent doing community service.

at eighteen, it seems as if all the world’s anger has seeped into his body. where mischief and joy once lingered, pure hatred for the situation around him blackens his entire being. he starts getting into fistfights, and comes home ( more often than not ) at three in the morning. if his parents wanted to disown him before, they’re on the verge of it now ; they can’t stand who he has become, and it all comes to a very ugly head when he brings a girl home and his parents find out.

everything seems to click into place, somehow working in his favor that makes even his nihilism fall silent. his father gives up the prospect of the short fuse having any use as a hunter, and that’s his chance and he takes it. flees their family home with well wishes from his older brothers who offer him a hand, an out. he politely declined, his pride always more prominent that the two combined. he lives in something like peace, it’s quiet and almost maddeningly so but he maybe can equate that to comfort. eventually manages to get access to hormone therapy, taking up a job as a cashier for some local understaffed business that was understaffed. he manages, daily phone calls to his concerned mother who’s always sure to tell him that his father still does love him. ( fat chance, he’d always butt in before she can finish the phrase. )  

easing into a monotonous pattern of life comes with great difficulty but he does manage, heads to the gym near religiously everyday to work away any stresses. learning to loosen when strangers smile at him, even smiles back some days. things were fine, a little rough but fine. he’s on the cusp of twenty-four when he gets the call from his hysteric mother, his father has been killed. things.. things change then. he heads back home because he cannot abandon his mother there and leave grief to eat away at her. ( like slipping on an old glove- it fits perfectly yet it was unfamiliar. he thinks maybe this is how life truly spits in his face. ) what comes next can only be described as a domino effect.

he takes up the torch, when he knows he shouldn’t and even with the reasoning voices of his brothers. he had fallen back into the cavern he worked so hard to crawl out of, a stout pillar of the ju jak standard all over again. he is certain he doesn’t have the strength to make the climb up a second time. he keeps a pistol holstered to his thigh, a trained eye on everyone around him. heavy circles are a stain under his eyes, the scars that litter the canvas of his body remind of a past almost escaped. ( something screams that this is what he was made for, BORN FOR. NOW HERE’S THE KICKER ; he knows that once he slips, he will not rise & will only greet depravity like an old friend. )

but he doesn’t. with the reappearance of a certain elder hyun, the decision to drop his role as a hunter, fall from the ju jak emerges and it doesn’t take much deliberation on his part. he leaves, abandons the cause and everything he once stood for. (  thought he stood for; CONVINCED himself he stood for. )  joins the police to stand alongside his older brother.

personality-wise ? he’s STILL an absolute shit most of the time, pretty abrasive. y’know, rubs just about everyone and their grandmother the wrong way. he’s aggressively opinionated and he’ll break your goddamn nose if you try to pull any shit on him or his loved ones.

curses like an absolute sailor.. every other word is likely a swear. 

feel free to slide on up into my ims or hit me up on discord for plots ( you might have to give me yours since i don’t think.. you cAN ADD MINE SINCE I DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE A NAME OK IT’S A WHOLE THING )

[swipestream]

SUPERVERSIVE: “Magi” is an awesome show and that you don’t know that is sad

I’ve realized that unless I think the battle scenes and characters are really, REALLY awesome I actually prefer watching people deal with politics and economics. This is the exact reason “Log Horizon” is such a great show, and one of the things that makes “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” so great are the vast background machinations going on between various semi-independent groups that may or may not be at odds with one another.

“My Hero Academia” is that rare show that has action scenes that are so awesome and characters so memorable that I’m happy with them being the focus of the show, and ditto with “Yu Yu Hakusho”. My second favorite shonen (to MHA), however, is not particularly notable for its action scenes (which are at a perfectly passable level) or its characters (which are never offensively terrible but are hit and miss in terms of memorability and creativity). What it is absolutely great at is dealing with the political machinations of its world and in making its characters act realistically within it.

This show is “Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic” and its sequel season “Magi: The Kingdom of Magic”, and it is a damn shame that they have fallen so far under the radar in recent years.One can be forgiven for thinking it’s a typical shonen action show if one only watched the first arc, or even the first two arcs (at least the second, by far the show’s weakest, is very short). It’s a fairly straightforward adventure story about quirky characters who meet up in an Arabian-inspired fantasy world and decide to run off with each other and go treasure hunting. Even so, as far as those stories go the characters are entertaining, particularly Ali Baba, who soon becomes the most interesting and complex character in the entire show, and one of my all-time favorite anime characters. The action is fun.

And there are points of interest even here. “Magi” does an admirable job of not whitewashing the horrors of the Arab world while at the same time making its appeal clear. The world is beautiful, atmospheric, and has an air of adventure, but the social systems are cruel and suffering is commonplace. Ali Baba himself fluctuates wildly between bravery and cowardice in a way not really common among protagonists in shonen shows, and the hints at his mysterious backstory are well-placed.

The second arc unfortunately moves away from Ali Baba and focuses on Aladdin, a cheerful 12 year old and the titular magi, which at this point as far as we know means he has especially strong magic powers and is friends with a genie. This arc is easily the worst of the show, focusing on Aladdin’s relationship with a small tribe of desert people who find themselves suddenly at odds with the massive Koh Empire, a growing world power with the goal of eventually getting, through force or otherwise, the entire known world under their thumb. The main thing to take out of this arc is the introduction of the Koh Empire, an explanation of the show’s magic system, and the show’s running theme of the perils of globalism that make the show especially timely. Outside of that, the best I can say about this arc is that it’s mercifully brief.

In between this is an arc following the character of Morgiana. I’ll get to this later.

Luckily, it is after this that the show REALLY hits its stride. What follows is the Fog Troupe arc, and I think I can honestly say that it’s one of my favorite arcs in any anime ever. Aladdin returns to the kingdom of Balbadd to meet up with Ali Baba and passes through the kingdom of Sindria, lead by Sinbad. Yes, this is THE Sinbad the Sailor. Magi makes the interesting decision to have our characters find Sinbad when he is already a powerful and well-established king (there would eventually be a prequel series about the rise of Sinbad that was entertaining enough). Aladdin decides to travel with Sinbad, who is on his way to Balbadd himself to deal with a mysterious group known as the Fog Troupe that have been robbing his merchants.

And it is there that Aladdin and Sinbad discover the shocking truth behind the Fog Troupe’s shadowy leader, a discovery that leads to a chain of events that rapidly spiral out of control.

Right. In terms of summary I’m going to stop here. It is from this point on that the show moves from “Good” to “Great”. The Fog Troupe arc delves deep into the difficult political situation in Balbadd, the difficulties inherent in finding ways to deal with it, the decisions made by other nations when they notice the quickly unraveling stability of the nation, and the backstory of Ali Baba and how that affects his actions. Interspersed in this are some truly stellar battle scenes. Ali Baba comes into his own as an outstanding character, one of the only ones I’ve ever seen who is capable of carrying both entirely comedic and entirely dramatic roles in the narrative equally well. In fact, the only other character I can think of with that ability is Vash the Stampede. Now that’s good company!

The very best thing I can say about the Fog Troupe arc is that the show manages to maintain this level of quality, or close to it, for the entire rest of its run! Season 2 actually leaves Ali Baba behind for the majority of it but the complex social structures it explores along with the behind scenes machinations of the various competing nations makes it damn near just as compelling as the best parts of season 1, and sometimes even more so.

I mentioned above that I would get to Morgiana, and I will. Morgiana is a somewhat unusual character in that she doesn’t actually HAVE to be involved in anything going on but continually makes the decision to join our other protagonists of her own accord. Freed from slavery by Ali Baba despite the fact that she also tried to kill him under the orders of her master in the show’s first arc, Morgiana’s original goal is to return to her people’s homeland but she eventually comes to the conclusion that she owes too much to Ali Baba to leave him behind in the middle of such a huge crisis.

I could summarize a lot of the show without mentioning her but I decided to bring her up here because I would be doing her a disservice if she was never mentioned. Morgiana is a great character. Her personality is actually interesting! She plays a distinctly feminine role in the narrative as support for the male leads, and acts incredibly grateful to them because of her kindness. She is essentially superpowered due to her race, which is what makes her so valuable as a slave, but she uses that power always in service to others. Her character arc partially plays out in a separate arc but it is very well-handled. Her scenes also tend to be very fun – because of her powers the animation tends to be very on point when she gets the spotlight (take a particular look at her animation in the first OP, because wow).

She also has one of the most interesting character designs I’ve seen yet for an anime heroine. She is supposed to be a foreigner and she actually looks like a foreigner. She’s pretty, but there is something slightly unconventional about her appearance that really makes her stand out amongst the rest of the cast in the best possible way. The actress also manages to somehow make her actually sound like a former slave – there is a sort of quietness to her voice that gives the impression she is unused to voicing her own opinions or expressing strong emotions. This is a credit to the English voice actress, who does an excellent job imbuing the character with a unique personality.

I really wish I could talk more about the specifics of what makes the show great, but for once I don’t want to spoil things. When it explores the complex social and class-based differences that lead to the chaotic and dangerously tyrannical structures of the various governments it does so without forgetting that there are multiple parties involved, that even the underclass aren’t necessarily blameless when it comes to their circumstances, and that the line between oppressor and oppressed is far less black and white than it originally appears. And yet it does all of this without ever compromising on the idea that good and evil exist and it is our duty to do good. That a shonen action show manages to explore ideas in such depth while still managing to feel like a shonen action show is incredibly impressive.

There isn’t much else to say about the show except, I suppose, that it’s very pleasant. The show benefits greatly from scenes where the characters just hang out with each other. It makes their relationships feel realistic, and their comradery feel earned. This helps a lot when the main cast gets separated for any length of time. They can meet up and hit it off immediately without anyone feeling like they missed anything.

If I had one comparison to make of the show, I would call it a somewhat inferior version of “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”, and since I consider “Brotherhood” one of the greatest shows of all time this is still a very high compliment. It breaks a lot of interesting ground for a shonen in the complexity of its international and social politics.

Unfortunately I think its first two arcs got it to slip under the radar a bit, and that’s really a shame. After I finished season 2 (and the fun if rather slight prequel “The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor”) I actually went and found the manga because I was so excited to continue the story, and so far I definitely haven’t been disappointed.

This is a true hidden gem and one of my favorite anime ever, and I highly recommend it…if only to drum up enough interest for a season 3!

Two final notes, ones I make often:

The dub is really excellent, especially the voices of Ali Baba and Morgiana, who manage to cover an impressive amount of range. If you look for that sort of thing this one is definitely worth it.

Every OP and even ED is killer in this show, though my personal favorites are the first ones of each.

Really fun!

SUPERVERSIVE: “Magi” is an awesome show and that you don’t know that is sad published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames