I guess me being dead won’t be enough. Okay, let’s get to killing this joke for good.
@Nobodyman:
I don't think this was a joke. I think this was unabashed fourth-wall-breaking back-tracking. I don't know if Ohtaka's editor made her do this or if she did it herself when she changed her mind and decided she didn't want to go this route, but either way it was awful. And if it was a joke, then it wasn't funny.
It is kind of sad to see someone who read 200 hundreds Magi chapters fail to recognize Ohtaka’s sense of humour, how she applies it and how she sets up her comedic scenes. Sarcastic, tongue-in-chick, cruel and unforgiving to her own characters – this is how Ohtaka has been operating since chapter one. Alibaba and Sinbad, Sharkhan and Hakuryu. It has been a long line of victims who fell into her hands, and it will go on all the while the manga is running. What is funny is you bringing her editor into this when this has been her modus operandi even in her own blogs that are not subjected to any editing at all.
It was obvious as soon as Alibaba made a long pause after the direct question that his answer at the very least would be only half-true and at most a set up for a joke – what it has actually turned out to be.
@No:
Doesn't change the fact it was a cop out. If it was revealed in the same chapter it was brought up in I'd be a little annoyed at it, but to have it as an end-of-chapter cliffhanger hinting at possibly giving more dimensions to a character and then saying "oh it was all a joke everybody, ha ha !" that's really dickish.
It’s not a cop out, it’s a set up. A two part light and comedic interlude. Like, I don’t know, chapters 84 and 85, which follow the same basic structure and are lauded as the funniest of this manga?
@Nobodyman:
This ain't no comedic pattern. And this ain't no Elizabeth joke either. This backtracking that Ohtaka is trying to pass off as a joke is so heavy-handed, sloppy, and contrived that I have trouble seeing how anyone can find it funny.
It is a comedic pattern, established as early as the first arc. Alibaba is naïve and immature. Alibaba has no luck with romance. Alibaba has no luck with women.
Being Alibaba is suffering.
How much more obvious can it get.
And even if we distance ourselves from the comedic nature of the last two chapters, Alibaba isn’t ready to get into a relationship yet. And who would make a good pair to him? Toto who plainly stated that it is Cassim and not Alibaba who is her type? Morgiana, a victim of emotional abuse, who has been freed from her emotional shackles for only more than a year, and only recently became comfortable with idea of friendship, and is yet to even realize what is her feeling for Alibaba which has been depicted in this very chapter? Kougyoku is a princess of an empire Alibaba's kingdom is occupied by?
Elizabeth? Yes please!
@Nobodyman:
But hey, if you're right, it's comforting to know that any seemingly serious development for Alibaba will be subsequently hand-waved as "LOL, Ali fails!"
Alibaba is one of the most - if not the most - developed characters in Magi. He has been developing and growing as a character ever since his first appearance, went through a whole character arc during Balbadd and kept moving forward during Sindria and even his small Reim segment.
But as soon as he is denied an imaginary relationship I guess all that stops existing.
I mean, come on.