Magi Nation - Television Tropes & Idioms

Magi-Nation was (or is—it gets complicated) a Collectible Card Game produced by a company called Interactive Imagination. The Framing Device of the game was this: In a far-off world called the Moonlands (so called because it was located on the moon of a larger planet), people called Magi used their energies and the powers of a stone called Animite to cast spells, forge powerful relics, and—of course—to summon up enormous creatures called Dream Creatures with which to do work—and battle. Players of the game took place in those battles, using Magi cards, Spells, Relics, and the all-important Creatures. The goal of the game was to defeat your opponent's three Magi cards by reducing his energy to 0 while he had no Creatures in play. It had a small but devoted fanbase, but little funding; like so many good things, it faded into the ether. Over its full run, it produced six complete sets (one went unreleased, but significant portions of it can be found online), numerous promo cards and two Game Boy pseudo-Mons RPGs.

This is where things start to get a little strange.

After the game ended its run in the USA, it continued to be released in Japan for two full years after the final set's release in the United States. The second RPG video game, released on the Game Boy Advance, came out only in Japan, and was heavily connected to a manga based on the series—with a wildly different art style from the rest of the series. (Compare this promo

◊ of the hero from the first RPG with this promo

◊ of the hero of the second game. Yeah.) The video game was actually a remake of the first Game Boy Color game with the American intelligent Deadpan Snarker Tony Jones swapped out for a Japanese hyperactive Idiot Hero named Dan and with better graphics. The official U.S. site teased that the sixth set would be released to coincide with a CGI Animated Series that was currently being developed, based somewhat off the Game Boy game. Unfortunately, said cartoon also seemed to be trapped in Development Hell. Fans began to lose hope.

Cut to six years later.

Magi-Nation has been described as "The Firefly of Collectible Card Games"; considering the heavy amounts of Executive Meddling involved in the fates of both, this may be an apt metaphor in more than one sense. Whether the poor, battered franchise is finally put out of its misery or ignobly resurrected remains to be seen. There is, perhaps, a sliver of hope that the Revival goes well yet...

Tropes common to the franchise as a whole include:

Amazing Technicolor Population: Paradwynians tend to be green, the people of Nar are frequently blue, and Bograthians come in a whole range of sort of sickly-looking hues. And Core Magi just get weirder...
Anachronism Stew: Being that it's a fantasy world, probably justified—but why are these people from a fantastic realm eating jellybeans and quoting The Princess Bride?
Badass Grandpa: Many of the Magi. Being an elder in the Magi-Nation universe is essentially a one-way ticket to Bad Ass land.
Brains And Brawn: Korg and Zet. To quote a Lets Play of the GB game: "They're like Pinky And The Brain. In that order."
Bubbly Clouds: Arderial
The Corruption: The Core.
The Dark Side: Shadow Magi are "normal" magi who have started using Core power.
Death Mountain: Kybar's Teeth
Dumb Muscle: Many, but Korg is the standout example.
Fungus Humongous: Underneath. The Ormagon. There's a reason a quote from this game is on that page.
Jungle Japes: Paradwyn, and perhaps Bograth to an extent.
Kid Hero:
- In America, Tony Jones, a Deadpan Snarker who also has some aspects of The Daria.
- In Japan, this was changed into Dan, an Idiot Hero with tons of fighting spirit who rarely thinks things through.
Kill It With Fire: Zig-zagged! While the Cald region does get a number of damaging and destructive abilities, they're also big on healing and rejuvenating abilities, providing the warmth of life.
Krem Quay: Bograth
Lethal Lava Land: Cald
The Lost Woods: Naroom
Mons: The Dream Creatures
Our Dragons Are Different: The Hyren.
Punctuation Shaker
Sealed Evil In A Can: The Shadow Geysers, and Agram.
Seashell Bra: Many of the female Orothans wear this kind of attire.
Shifting Sand Land: The aptly-named Sands of d'Resh.
Slippy Slidey Ice World: Nar
Too Good To Last: Siiiighhh...
Trademark Favorite Food: Evu and jellybeans. There's even a relic in the card game named "Evu's Jellybeans."
Underground Level: The Underneath
Under The Sea: Orothe

Tropes found in the card game include:

Art Evolution: Compare this card◊, from the first set, to this card◊ from the last one.
The Caligula: Korg, after declaring himself All-High King of Bograth.
Early Bird Cameo: One of the earliest Shadow Magi was a d'Resh shadow magi, three full sets before any other d'Resh cards came out. Bograth was also mentioned on cards before Bograth cards were released. Pre-errata'd for your convenience!
Hurricane Of Puns
Infinity Plus One Element: Universal spells, creatures, and relics, which can be used without penalty by any magi.
Mineral Mac Guffin: The Heart of Paradise.
Puni Plush: Straight lines? Angles? Never heard of 'em.
Shout Out: Many, from the generically nerdy (Such as The Princess Bride) to the more obscure. And, for some reason, lots to the Disney Animated Canon.
Stripperiffic: Just check out the costumes on some of those female Magi. Erm, wow. This is a kid's game?
Swiss Moment: Many of the Shout Outs on the cards won't make sense to a little kid. Then you grow up, and suddenly, seeing the random nod to a Frank Zappa song on the Snow Hyren is the funniest thing ever.
This Is Your Brain On Evil: Shadow magi—"normal" magi who use Core power—usually.
The Woobie: The people of Bograth are almost nothing but Woobie-people. Poor folks.

Tropes found in the video game include:

Bonus Boss: Ormagon
Disc One Nuke / Game Breaker: If you can get ANY kind of Hyren early on, you're basically set for the rest of the game. (If you can find one)
Doomed Hometown: The Underneath is completely destroyed after Tony takes care of the shadow geyser there.
Guide Dang It: Other than Ormagon, did you know that you had to go through places on the world map before Orothan F showed up? Didja? Nope. What about the Hyrens? Uh...probably not. And how about finding the Cloud Frond? I don't know a single person who knew how to get that on their first try. Or the Lightning Spell?
Infinity Plus One Sword: Ormagon, again.
Kleptomaniac Hero: Lampshaded; At one point Tony complains about going through all the trouble to break into strangers' houses and not finding any valuables half the time.
Magikarp Power: Weebos, which start out one of the weakest dream creatures of the bunch, learn Wreck, a rare move which makes them a harbinger of death. Of course, it takes quite a bit of training to get them there. Made somewhat easier by how common they are in the beginning, and how easy it is to forge their level up. Could potentially become a Disc One Nuke or Game Breaker if someone was willing to grind like crazy.
That One Boss: Zet actually proves to be one of the harder bosses in the game, with the ability to act twice in one turn and very high energy. This is especially surprising given how relatively easy Korg was.
That One Sidequest: Ormagon! Who knew?
Word Salad: Before eating some Translator Seeds, the speech of Moonlands people sounds to Tony like random strings of nonsense: "Exploding sock puppet!"
You ALL Look Familiar: Averted—almost every NPC you will encounter in the game has an actual counterpart in the card game. Well, if you've got Loads And Loads Of Characters, you might as well use 'em, right?