I've never actually seen this part of the anime, but I'm very familiar with Mai, Shu, and Pilaf since the anime added them in from the very beginning. Even though I'm pretty sure I found them slightly annoying, I definitely have to credit the anime for incorporating them into the earlier stories, since it makes the journey feel more connected, like it was leading to a natural conclusion rather than just kinda stumbling onto one. Pretty interested to see how this plays out, I loved them falling for the arrows & the villains convo on that. It's especially funny to imagine that they drew the arrows on there despite thinking it wouldn't work.