What’s it about ?
A fresh take on the Arabian Nights.
Characters
Alibaba is our point-of-view character through most of the episode. At this stage, he’s a snivelling coward barely ekking out a living. (Yuuki Kaji should voice more snivelling cowards, as he’s very good at it.) Still, he’s got some shreds of decency left under the smarm.
One day he meets Aladdin, a strange kid who was eating his merchandise. Kiddo’s got an awesome flute that summons a giant powerful djinn, but he only uses it when Alibaba shows some spine and does the right thing.
Our villain of the week is Budel, a generic evil merchant and slaver Alibaba is initially working his debts off for. Of more interest is his boss Jamil, who exudes more charisma in a single minute of screentime than his underling over the whole episode. Presumably he’s going to be important.
There’s also a redhead slave that our heroes make token efforts to break free throughout the episode. In a dark bit that I hope is intentional, they completely forget about her at the end as they ride towards the sunset.
The overall plot involves “Dungeons”, big inexplicable towers full of traps and treasure that are sprinkled all over the place. Aladdin found his flute in one of them, and wants to “free” more of those djinn containers. Alibaba’s perfectly happy to tag along with the kid, because treasure ! (And it’s probably safer to stay with the kid who managed to successfully infiltrate one of those.)
Production Values
I’m not too keen on the way our heroes’ face contort round when the show goes for comedy, but it can’t be denied that it’s not afraid to use distinctive character designs.
What did I think of it ?
This is fun. It takes a while to hit its stride, but there are some nice gags, the stakes are reasonably high, and Aladdin’s use of his deus-ex-machina djinn feels appropriate enough.
I’m game for more.
