This first season of Slayers came out in 1995 and I feel it’s only right to watch and review this series as we approach its’ twentieth birthday. So for the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring all five seasons of the show, as well as the movies and OVA’s.
Lina Inverse is the star of Slayers, a dark magic user who floats around in search of treasure and monsters to slay. After stealing from a group of bandits she meets up with a knight named Gourry, an absolute moron despite his skills with the sword. Together the two battle monsters and bad guys as a man named Rezo wants a statue Lina stole in order to awaken a dark lord and get back his eyesight.
Slayers has a very simple plot that allows it to be episodic while still carrying over a story. What I just described is the first arc, about eight episodes. In the second arc the characters are framed and being hunted by bounty hunters while in the third they have their final battle against the bad guys.
The first arc does a really good job of getting you into the show, providing great introductions to characters in a wonderful blend of comedy and nonstop action. The second arc is a little rougher, with a Pokemon-esque game of cat and mouse between the bounty hunters and our heroes. There are some hilarious episodes scattered in here but these, for the most part, feel like filler. The final arc is the biggest offender for me as it slows the show down considerably, loses the humor, and spends much of it in a shonen-esque fight that goes on way too long.
While the pacing and plot can be a minor issue, the world itself is the interesting part. While the unnamed fantasy land is pretty generic in look and legend, the characters that populate it are all so interesting, perhaps the main reason anyone will want to watch Slayers. While not all the characters are three-dimensional (in fact, I don’t think any of them are), they’re such good company, no matter if they are part of our good guys or one of the baddies.
Lina Inverse, our heroine, is a loud, annoying, and really selfish person. As a main character she is completely unlikeable and the opposite of the fantasy heroes the viewer is used to. She uses dark magic for her own gain, is only friends with certain characters because it benefits her, and treats everyone as a stepping stone. She still does some good, though in the end I feel that she only does it to save her own ass and perhaps become a hero.
Gourry is a knight and a complete moron. He joins up with Lina as her bodyguard and she later learns he carries the mythical Sword of Light, which she hopes to get from him despite the fact it is his family heirloom. In fact, we’re given to believe the only reason she follows Gourry is to get the sword from him (though there is a hint of a romance brewing between the two). He’s the comedic relief for the most part but he does, occasionally, get to be a complete badass.
Later on we meet Amelia, a “hero of justice” who’s pretty much the clumsiest girl in the world. Her father, Phil, is the prince who looks like a barbarian and is a staunch pacifist (unless you get him mad, then get ready for his Goodwill Toward All Creatures Kick). Zelgadis is the son of Rezo who was turned into a Chimera and banished by his father. He’s probably the most level-headed character with the best motivation. Then near the end we’re introduced to Sylphiel, a girl in love with Gourry who is only there to make sure the heroes win the final battle.
Then we have the bad guys. Rezo the Red Priest wants to resurrect a demon lord in a bid to get his eyesight back, something that has driven him crazy for years. He was a good guy but his search for sight made him go nuts, leading to his eventual death. Later, he returns as a clone created by a woman named Eris, one of his followers who loved him and wants to see Lina and the gang die for killing her beloved master.
The bad guys are all competent people with good intentions and backgrounds who are thrust into crappy situations. There are a ton of much lesser bad guys strewn in but the main villains may be more sympathetic than any of the heroes. I felt especially bad for Eris who couldn’t understand why the man she loved was taken from her. Rezo and Eris are just misguided.
Meanwhile the “heroes” are all idiots, which leads to a lot of great comedy situations but doesn’t make you care about their well-being. One of my favorite examples of the stupidity of our heroes is when Amelia asks Lina to blow up a hill using her magic so that the townspeople don’t have to walk over or around it in order to get to the next town. Thus, Lina uses her magic selfishly to blow the hill into a crater, and accidentally unleashes a hoard of malicious ghosts sealed within.
Hell, in the first episode Lina, in order to defeat a dragon, winds up blowing up the entire town she’s supposed to protect. She’s out of control and is the kind of character that in any other series would be the bad guy.
And that right there is why Slayers is so damn good. It’s making fun of traditional roles and tropes in fantasy. The good guys are selfish morons while the bad guys are the ones you feel empathy towards. Does that mean that the series as a whole suffers because we aren’t as impressed by the heroes? No. It actually makes it more fun.
So you’ll watch this show for the characters and not the plot, but I’m sure you’ll be stuck to the show for two more reasons.
First, the animation is so wonderfully nostalgic. The character designs are cute and nearly everyone gets those massive shoulder pads so prevalent in 90’s anime. The animation screws up occasionally with bad lighting effects, graininess, a small part of the frame not colored, any number of issues you can think of. But I feel that lends it charm, something I’m sure people don’t like to hear a critic say (imperfections are so cute!) but I think looking at something from a nostalgic perspective, it shows the leaps and bounds that have been made in animating anime.
The second reason you’ll stick? The music is so damn good. From the opening (a super cheesy, totally nineties theme) to the closing, every piece of music helps make an entertaining package all the more fun. Some of the music sounds Scooby-Dooish, lending that child-like feel you want from a good cartoon.
And that’s what Slayers really is; a cartoon. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all and manages to give even an older viewer a sense of childish nostalgia.
A lot of newer anime fans don’t understand where I come from when I talk about the eighties and nineties and how different anime was compared to now. Anime treats itself a lot more seriously nowadays than it did twenty years ago. In fact, I hesitate to call anime cartoons anymore because the medium has carved its own niche. Comedy anime nowadays aren’t comedies in the way of cartoons but in a more realistic sense, using words and realistic actions rather than silly faces and slapstick. And this is alright, it makes anime a unique medium. Hell, from the outset there were anime that weren’t like cartoons and saying that anime nowadays is different from back in the day is pretty obvious. Cartoons in America are a lot different too; as time goes on, things change.
But an anime like The Slayers is very rare nowadays and watching it after some more recent series, it comes as a breath of fresh air. It’s not at all an amazing anime in any way, but it’s a lot of fun and memorable. It’s a great escape from the monotony of modern anime and, even without comparing it to anything, still stands as a good show worth a watch if you haven’t already seen it
