I’d say this farewell dinner for the trio was very fitting for them. It pretty well reflected their personalities both positive and negative. At the very least it was a much less dramatic farewell than the one that they had with Hakuryuu and for that I’ll be a little grateful. Still, it does remind you what is good about these characters and also what their less flattering qualities. Still a good cast all things considered and now we get to see them going on their own journeys.

It seems the main focus for now will be on Aladdin’s personal journey. It should be somewhat interesting since we haven’t really seen him on his own since early in the first season. Hard to say how things will go since sometimes Aladdin can vanish into the background despite being a magi. Will be interesting to see how long he can conceal his magi background.

The farewell party obviously had a different mood for Morgiana in comparison to Alibaba and Aladdin. Obviously she hasn’t quite gotten past the whole Hakuryuu shocking confession and how she was not prepared for that kind of thing. Fortunately/unfortunately the other two didn’t really know about this. I suppose a positive came from Alibaba managing to help take Morgiana’s mind of things with the fish stuff. Another nice positive for Morgiana came from the farewell scene with her and Alibaba. Getting that necklace was a nice gift just for her personally, but also his consideration in giving her something else that may serve as a household vessel in the worst of circumstances.All of them may face dangers on their journeys and at least that might come in handy.

I think a less flattering part of the farewell came with the whole girl hunting with Aladdin and Alibaba. Certainly a comedy focused scene and both are young guys so not that surprising they are pretty girl focused. At the same time how Alibaba tried to brush Morgiana off was a bit questionable. I mean starting out with reasoning that feigned concern about a girl being out late, but dodging the need to walk her to the hotel because there’s no risk to her. I don’t necessarily blame him for wanting to go out on the town, but could have gone about it in a better way. In the end though, not a bad guy.

Regardless the whole thing probably left Morgiana more confused and frustrated than she was before. She hears the things that Alibaba was saying to those girls and compares it to what she heard from Hakuryuu. Honestly you have to wonder what she thinks about romance at all. Living most of her life as a slave and having a lot of emotional growth delayed because of her background. There really was no way she could respond to Hakuryuu’s confession as she was. I’m not surprised she got frustrated enough to stomp the ground either since she probably does have feelings towards Alibaba that she doesn’t quite understand yet.

While good comedy scenes with Alibaba getting grabbed by the questionable beauty yet again, it does show how far off we are from any pairings in this series. Not that it matters so much in a shounen series, but just makes you stop and take note regardless of the pairing hints we’ve seen in the past few episodes. Long as Alibaba especially is more focused on outdoing Aladdin or just chasing women in general he’s probably not in any position to get involved romantically with anyone. Morgiana has a lot of growing to do because of all those years spent as a slave. Hakuryuu goes between relaxed and revenge focused and Kougyoku needs friendship more than romance right now.

As to Aladdin, his journey certainly was eventful right out of the gate. I mean damn running into another royal member from the Kou Empire. This guy was seriously unstable at times though with a real bloodlust. Not that those thugs deserved a lot of mercy, but damn even I was grimacing and shocked at how bloody and violent the whole scene was. I seriously hope they don’t have to fight that guy any time soon since he is pretty damn dangerous. Doesn’t seem like a purely evil guy, but pretty dangerous. Not surprising to see a connection between Kou and Magnorstadt, though if we get more of that meeting I wouldn’t mind finding out some details.

Does make you worry though with magical tools spreading all over the place. We’ve already seen the terrible damage they could cause with the pirates, but even bandits are getting their hands on them. There has to be some reason they are getting spread around. Could be related to Al Thamen and dark djinns. Though seems pretty clear Magnorstadt is involved in all of this and Aladdin is walking right into a dangerous situation.

Seems like a question of when Aladdin gets exposed rather than if. Not that I don’t think he’ll try to keep a low profile, but it’s just how the story would seem likely to go. For now though it will be good for Aladdin to learn more magic so he can be more capable in fights. But he also wants to see the path this society of magicians being supreme will take. After all that’s happened he needs some answers and to find out just what this country is up to.A dangerous situation with him being limited by that crystal. It will keep him from easily being identified as a magi, but it does also cut him off from the Ruhk. I just hope Aladdin knows what he is doing.

So now the group has split up and we can begin to follow their separate stories. I am curious to see how they handle this. Not sure if we’re just following Aladdin until his story here is over or if we’re going to bounce from character to character. I’d almost appreciate bouncing around since sticking on one character for the whole time before switching might make it less enjoyable. Not to mention all these events are happening at the same time so cutting away to give everyone some attention might be a good balanced approach. Regardless we’ll have to wait and see how things unfold.
Score: A-