Magi: Putting the Word "Adapt" in "Adaptation"

Image from Pixiv
A good adaptation doesn't always mean getting every single little detail.

 
Magi covered about 17 chapters (the first two volumes) in three episodes. That's quite the feat, considering that the chapters were around twenty pages each early on. And before you think that this is going to be a post complaining about the lack of X scene or Y detail in the anime which makes the manga SO MUCH BETTER by comparison... It isn't. I think that Magi has been a really good adaption so far. Why? It cuts out a lot of the fat.

The first chapters in Magi featured Aladdin mooching off a caravan containing a former thief. The thief had been accepted by the members of the caravan as family, but when they find out her past, they stop trusting her and kick her out. There's some drama, and ultimately Aladdin has to save everybody with the help of Ugo. It's pretty much the same pattern as what happened with Alibaba, except that leads to the main plot instead of just being a one-off. Thief girl and company show up a few chapters into that arc, but they don't do much. The last time I checked, the characters haven't seen or heard from them again. Despite being in the opening chapters of the manga, they've become irrelevant to the plot. So the anime cut them entirely.

  I like that. For how quickly the anime got through the first dunegon arc, I was really happy about how much of the stuff that really mattered to the characters and the plot got through. Nothing relevant to what is going to happen was cut. The anime definitely has a vision for what kind of story it wants to adapt, and that's the story that Magi has become, rather than the faltering first steps of the manga.

As much as I like the manga, I have to be honest; in the beginning chapters, it didn't seem like Magi knew what kind of story it wanted to be. It's a bit random at first, and the only guess that I can make at an answer is because it was trying to stay in syndication when its initial formula didn't work. I don't know if any of this is true--this is all my own assumptions--but it feels like the manga was originally going to be about Aladdin's wacky hijinks with Ugo, with the dungeons and myths of the world added in a little later. The backstories are a bit wobbly in the beginning as well, with the exception of Morginna's, which is pretty clear cut. In the beginning parts of the first dungeon arc, we hear a little bit about Alibaba's mother and get some cryptic scenes about Aladdin and Ugo but that's pretty much it. Everthing else is in the moment. It's not until the Balbadd arc that all of this crystalizes into what Magi has become since: half political intrigue focusing on the countries that are trying to control the world, half magical shounen dungeon diving with supernatural abilities and weapons.

 
So as a manga reader who wasn't completely sold on the series until that arc, watching this adaptation cut out a lot of that extra nonsense so that the characters can get through the dungeon and then straight back to world-building is fascinating. The pace has slowed down a lot since we've gotten to the Kouga clan, and once again for good reson. A lot of the things that are explained to Aladdin (who he is, what is Rukh and how does it work) are very important concepts that the rest of the series will build on. Equally important is the introduction of the empire that is trying to take over the world. There's a fair bit of political intrigue in Magi, and this empire is the source of most of it. Clearly, the staff is thinking more about the big picture of this story instead of getting hung up on minute details like, should we include the scene where Alibaba and Aladdin decide which way to go in the dungeon based on the number of scratches in the wall?


I'm not saying that the manga is bad or has a lot of padding. It's just refreshing to see an anime try to bring out the best of its source material than try to avoid angering the fans by animating every last detail regardless of whether it works in the adaptation or not (*cough*Little Busters*cough*). There have also been some changes here and there to better set up the overall story as well. There have been some flashbacks from Alibaba as well as a couple reworked lines to fit what's about to happen in his character arc better. The introductory scene for a very important character, Judal, is given more weight, and we even get a short scene of him with another character who will not become relevant for a while yet. The staff is looking down the road and planning accordingly. As a fan, that makes me really happy.

Images from Pixiv and Crunchyroll.com.