Here’s my Magi first impression; A shounen series with lots of promise and excellent production values? This is definitely an A-1 Pictures production, alright. It’s the first series that I won’t be episode blogging in spite of the facts that I love it and the title rocking my anime list. Yes, you heard that right; I wouldn’t be episode blogging an anime which captivated my interests due to the simple fact that my episode-blogging schedule is already filled-up. Well, let’s not waste our time dilly-dallying and let us proceed to the grilling sessions!

Leading the charge for the excellent productions is Magi‘s stunningly great visuals courtesy of the guys in A-1 Pictures. If you’ve seen how stunning they are in Sword Art Online, Fractale, and Shin Sekai Yori; you’ll be stunned more by this series. All of the art and illustrations are traditionally-drawn objects and backgrounds with great detailing, polishing, sharpening, and colouring! This would be a visual feast to the eyes, unlike a damned “shiny” series from this season. Character designs show A-1 Pictures’ design language, but the details totally contrast this from the other character designs whose designs heavily feature the design language. Not only they fit and define their characters, but the character designs also redefine the Arabian Nights-based characters. That’s not all, they’re incredibly detailed and polished like how you expect from this kind of budget. Animation may not be as smooth-and-stunning as what were seen in Another, Code Geass, and Hyouka, but they’re relatively smooth enough.

Being Arabian Nights-based; you might expect flimsy, shabby, and awkward Arab World-esque background music and sound effects. However, it’s averted in Magi. The music has great arrangements and rearrangements. Orchestral sounds don’t disappoint; they’re astounding and sets your mood as if there’s an esper controlling you. Magi‘s background music should be noted for having the best excitement-fueling BGM among the Fall 2012 anime I’ve seen and care about. Voice acting for this series is another of its shining gems. The seiyuu’s efforts and audio direction are spot-on. Perhaps, this is the best Yuuki Kaiji role I’ve heard. Ishihara Kaori should also be noted to have done an excellent job as a cross-dressing voice role as Aladdin. Standing ovation for the audio quality should be done.

Excellence isn’t only in the presentation criteria, the content is also great! While there are certain writing patterns of the shounen genre followed by the script, the dialogues here breathes a new life into the genre. Magi‘s unique story of combining elements, characters, and stories from various stories from the Arabian Nights makes this intriguing on how the series would be able to mix-and-mash them all while narrating an entirely-original story out of it. It also has a sizeable mystery and suspense to boot. No questions should be asked, people should watch this series even if there’s no guarantee, yet, on how this series would fare in the long run.

Images Used are under Fair Use.