I have watched Slayers from the beginning. I have the previous collections, and even some of the movies (god knows why). I have fond memories of watching it in high school, and although it's nowhere near the best show I've watched, I have a lot of fun with it. This new Slayers show is bound very closely to the ones that came before it (somewhat surprising since they were so long ago), so I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to someone who hadn't seen the previous series. I have to think that it would be very hard to get into.
Slayers Revoltion is a bit mixed, at first. On the good side, the animation is higher quality, although new viewers will probably be turned off a bit by the character style, which, though a bit smoother, is pretty much the same as the old designs. The music is basically the same as before, and they managed to get the same VAs, so right from the start, the series feels like Slayers.
A new character is added early on in the series: a little beast thing named Pokota. One of the first problems I have with Revolution is this character. His personality is to much like Lina's, and watching them fight gets old pretty quickly.
Slayers has never been the most original series. Both Next and Try cribbed quite a bit off of the original, and Revolution is no exception. Especially in the first half, I felt like the series was just retreading old ground. This got much better during the second half, as did a lot of the problems, but I almost gave up before that point.
The second half of the series is a lot better, and feels like it's going somewhere. In addition to the general acceleration of the pace, this part was structured differently than the usual Slayers seasons. Probably because the season was so short, there were a lot more plot episodes, and a lot less filler. Not that I don't enjoy Slayers filler, but it was an interesting deviation.
In the end, this series was really just half a season. There were a lot of things set up that weren't resolved. A lot of the more interesting plot threads, in fact. Because of this, and because they've gotten some of the more annoying filler out of the way, I have high hopes for the next Slayers season, if they manage to get one out.
