That is, of course, where this review kicks in with all it's muscly might. Sadly, this review is not muscly, but it is very mighty and may in fact get me killed when a group of fans uncover this and some of them decide to make it their soul duty in life to hunt me down and ultimately turn me into meat.
We of course start with a flashback involving glowy butterflies at night time and a scream from a young child (oooo... spooky) and generally get this whole back story that isn't quite a back story because we haven't actually learnt anything beyond the fact that some kid has been in a room, has just screamed, and now has a massive blue muscly guy in the room with him. Perfect logic.
Anyway, most of the episode surrounds said boy who turns out to be a lad called Aladdin who has said blue hulk living in a flute around his neck (how he fits into said flute has the same logic as the Disney version of Aladdin: there is none). Anyway, he casually devours the delicious watermelons (mmm) and looks like a ravenous blob as a lovely gentleman called Alibaba sees him eating his caravan food.
There's a lot of stuff in the middle about Alibaba being a liar, something about this slave girl with pink hair, some blob man and his wine, the saving of a young girl from a plant that can get drunk on said wine, Alibaba almost drowns in said satanic plant of doom, Aladdin decides to stop being cryptic and saves him, they head for a massive tower of treasure (well the treasure is inside and apparently no one has made it out alive which brings into question the fact that people don't know whether they are still alive inside since they would not have gone in).
So I'm not going to nag too much about the plot; I'm going to leave you to watch it and try to get a grasp of it. It's generally grouped together much better than volume one of the series, although they push a lot into one episode. However, I feel it's done pretty well considering just how much they put in; but the main goal seems somewhat weak (but it's probably not the whole plot and just a temporary one until someone decides to destroy the world or something along those lines; I mean who could resist the urge to blow up the universe?)
So I'm going to focus on other aspects of this episode; the character's for example. Since it's only a first episode, I shouldn't really expect much in terms of character development. The two main figures in this episode are Aladdin and Alibaba. We already have a bit of understanding of Aladdin within the first episode through our fabulous flashback, but he appears to be a cheerful (if not comic relief) boy that seems to be generally ignorant of the world (whether this is to do with the room he was trapped in may bring out my Theorist side but I shall wait until after this review), and a general grasp of Alibaba who helps the rich by carting their goods across the desert that covers this entire bloody planet to their next location. Alibaba appears to be greedy and a bit of a jerk as well as an opportunist, but near the end of this episode we see he's a jerk with a heart of gold (check out TV tropes for that one mortals! Ha!), and they seem to be an alright pair that will hopefully continue to develop as the series continues.
The setting is very interesting and certainly brings out the deserty hell of 1001 Arabian Nights well. I've only seen a few sets and they are all varied and very beautiful and I certainly look forward to seeing more. Another thing done well is the character designs; they're individual and creative and even the minor characters have different appearances and attention to detail.
The use of music is beautiful, and I find the animation and voice acting very well done and very well scripted (especially considering this is a first episode), although I won't deny that I find Aladdin's voice a little too squeaky for comfort, but you can't have it all now can you?
There are three things I have a problem with in this episode. First of all, the villain is absolutely terrible. I found him amusing in the manga, but he was only there for a short while and thus I could endure him. However, he's here for the entire bloody episode; I can't take that much exaggerated evil, wealthy guys; it drives me crazy. If they wanted to make a good villain, even if only for one episode, give him some redeeming factor that will make him appear somewhat less bleh and more meh. I find the comedy to be weak in this episode. Again, I know that this is a first episode and that if there is comedy in a first episode it usually sucks. Honestly, the only thing that got a giggle out of me was when the prostitute (or whatever she was) karate chopped off the top of the bottle. Perhaps it will get better, perhaps it will not; I don't know. I also find myself complaining about the white-washing. I mean this is in a huge desert planet, and yet it's more difficult to find tanned people than it is to find light. I could understand it in the manga, considering how expensive it is to buy tones for tanned people, but you would honestly think they would try to put in more effort in the animated edition.
Anyway, enough rants about that. It was an okay episode. I'm intrigued by the next one. I suspect that one they get inside that tower of ultimate doom blob monsters will come and try to eat them or something along those lines. Maybe they'll find nothing and find it's already been looted. That would be ironic.
This is around the time I get theoretical. One cannot help but wonder how Aladdin got in that room. He himself has no memories around it and asked: "What am I?" and the genie hanging around in said room called him "my king". Could this mean that, some time in the past, Aladdin was a king and the genie was a servant of sorts. This would mean that someone must have put him in said room (or he went there himself) and there must have been some seal that kept him from aging and also erased his memories. But why prevent him from aging? Why simply lock him away if you could kill him for his title? Were they preserving him for something catastrophic in the future? On that note, why do these towers just pop out of nowhere? Is someone creating them? If that's the case; why?
So many mysteries; so little time.
See you next time maybe.
You'd honestly think they would have some colour...
