Review: Magi - The Labyrinth of Magic V.15

Title: Magi - The Labyrinth of Magic
Volume: 15 (of 27+)
Creator: Shinobu Ohtaka
Format: Right-to-Left
Original Publisher: SHOGAKUKAN
US Publisher: VIZ
Release Date: 12/8/15
Pages: 192
ISBN: 142155965
MSRP: $9.99
Genre: Shonen Sunday
Rated: T (Teens)

Description: Alibaba arrives in the Leam Empire and begins training under the renowned warrior Shambal Ramal. Learning to perfect his Djinn Equip means mastering two mis-matched types of magoi within him, and the training won’t be easy. Elsewhere, Morgiana continues her long journey home, and in the far-off Kou Empire, a succession crisis is brewing that could have dire consequences for everyone!

Contains Nights 139-148:

• Night 139: The Leam Empire
• Night 140: Yanbara
• Night 141: Colosseum
• Night 142: Fusion
• Night 143: The Highest Priestess
• Night 144: The Great Rift
• Night 145: Gathering
• Night 146: One World
• Night 147: A New Emperor
• Night 148: Six Months Later

Review:

Cover: The cover this time features another new character who shows up for the first time in this volume, the High Priestess of the Leam Empire,  Scheherazade. Her character is shown straight on with a golden green light shining down on her. The Colosseum from this volume is behind her. The Series title is across the top in lime green color. The volume number and mangaka are across the bottom.

The spine from top to bottom has the Shonen Sunday brand logo, the series title, the volume number, the mangaka, an image of the High Priestess of Leam taken from the front cover, a magic lamp, and the VIZ company logo.

The back cover has a very ancient looking image with our two Magi's, Aladdin and Judar, on the top half of the cover. The bottom half has the volume summary.

Out of the entire cover, the best part for me was the image on the back with Aladdin and Judar. The artwork is just beautiful, almost like an oil painting. The rest of the cover for me falls a bit short. I don't like the color scheme and using random characters now on almost every cover for the past 10 volumes now is becoming a bit dull. It would be cool to see characters that are actually in the series a bit more, even ones from previous volumes; the Priestess is literally in two chapters in this volume and doesn't even stand out, nor has she been in any other volume of this series yet!

Artwork: The series is done in a shonen style of artwork. While I love the action sequences, the artwork tends to be a bit more cartooney when it goes into its more comedic moments. It's not a bad thing when a series changes art styles, but the artwork in this series changes so much that it kind of feels like a three year old is drawing those sequences.

Translation: Character names, places, relics, and attacks are all intact. Sound effects are changed to make it easier for English speaking readers to understand.

Extras: There's a two page mini-comic that has no relevance at all to the main story. When this series first started, the mini-comics were like deleted scenes. Now they are just more chances for a bit of comic relief that really isn't even funny.

Content (Warning: May Contain Spoilers): Last volume we got to see what happened with Aladdin as our main heroes departed each on their own individual journeys. This volume begins with Alibaba as he is now in the Leam Empire and is looking to be trained by Gladiator warriors in order to gain more strength to be of help to his friends. It takes a bit of time before he can actually be trained by the Gladiator master of Leam, as he must first battle in the Colosseum and prove he is worthy enough to become a Gladiator himself.

We later get to see Morgiana as she continues on her quest to find her people. She meets a boy named Yunan who tells her she can finally rejoin her people, and it may be the best for her well being as the Kou Emperor is dead and that a great war will soon be coming.

The last main focus of the volume deals with Hakuryu returning home where his siblings are all trying to decide who will be the next emperor, but it is his step-mother who takes the thrown. Hakuryu is enraged and uses his Djinn Equip to try and kill his evil step-mother once and for all, but her own magic is much more powerful and he can't penetrate the barrier that surrounds her body. Six months eventually pass and we see Aladdin as he is now top class of the Magnoshutatt Academy.

The majority of this volume really focused a lot on Alibaba, which I actually enjoyed a lot with the whole Colosseum fight. I really wish though we got to see a bit more of Morgiana's story as we only got a glimpse of her travel, nor do we learn yet if she decides to go find the rest of her clan or not. The Hakuryu story is where we have most of the drama right now in the series, as it is more on a political level with characters trying to figure out what will now happen after their leader had died. The real probably disappointment in this volume is while we got to see where our heroes ended up, it just left us readers with a lot more questions that need to be answered. I also wish that Aladdin had a bit more screen time as we did not even get a full chapter with our main Magi.

Objectionable Content:

• Language: No
• Violence: Yes
• Nudity: No
• Sexual Situations: Yes

Overall Rating: 6/10

Where Purchased: Barnes and Nobles
Original Review Date: 1/4/16