Slayers

Powerful, avaricious sorceress Lina Inverse travels around the world, stealing treasures from bandits who cross her path. Her latest victims, a band of thieves, wait in ambush in a forest, thirsting for revenge. When Lina is about to effortlessly pummel her would-be attackers, the swordsman Gourry Gabriev suddenly announces his presence. Assuming Lina to be a damsel in distress, the foolish yet magnanimous man confronts the brigands in order to rescue her. After defeating them posthaste, the oblivious cavalier decides to escort Lina to Atlas City. Though not very keen on this idea, she ends up accepting his offer.

However, without realizing it, Lina has chanced upon a mighty magical item among her most recent spoils. Now two mysterious men are hunting the young magician and her self-proclaimed guardian to obtain this powerful object for apparently nefarious purposes. This way they begin their adventure, one where the fate of the world itself may be at stake.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Inverse, Lina Main

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Graywords, Zelgadis Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Gabriev, Gourry Main

Matsumoto, Yasunori Japanese

Saillune, Amelia Wil Tesla Main

Suzuki, Masami Japanese

Nels Laada, Sylphiel Supporting

Touma, Yumi Japanese

Rezo Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

El Di Saillune, Philionel Supporting

Anzai, Masahiro Japanese

Zangulus Supporting

Shimada, Bin Japanese

Noonsa Supporting

Shioya, Kouzou Japanese

Dilgear Supporting

Kakegawa, Hirohiko Japanese

Kobayashi, Noriko Producer, Associate Producer

Haigney, Michael Producer, Script

Watanabe, Takashi Director

Iwasaki, Yoshiaki Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 29, 2024

coolman6446

Recommended

If you want a medieval fantasy that feels like it was ripped right from a D&D campaign with serious and comedic moments in all, I'd recommend the show. It's a nice story that has good pacing and a nice OST to back it up. It's not a show you are going remember for too long after finishing it, but it's more so just a show to get cozy with and wind down for a bit. So yeah, a good show to watch if you just want something to chill out to with a D&D campaign feel to it.

If I was to give one complaint (more ... so a nitpick), it would be that the balance and timing of serious and comedic moments definitely took me out of having any stakes in the plot. Some big final arc battle will happen and then during the serious fight they'll splice in a joke with a cartoony face, and it would usually just remove most of my investment in the battle. There is also some of those infamous moments where one character gets blasted and the injury is serious, but moments before and after the characters are getting slapped and shot silly without any consequence. It wouldn't (and isn't) a big deal when this happens in a side fight because it's nothing important, but when one of the final battles has this happening it's a bit confusing to me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 29, 2021

Monchimon

Mixed Feelings

I thought, “why don’t we watch some anime classics?”, and slayers popped up as a good option for a chill anime to watch after Evangelion (my god lord, that one was deep). So let’s start with the review, keeping in mind that this anime is indeed from the 90th (1995), period when the people wanted long, auto-conclusive stories type series, which is why slayers may be quite boring between arc one and two for some people (me included, I’m not going to lie). Yet, the age when it was release is not an excuse, since auto-conclusive type anime can be both good and bad, and ... it depends a lot on how the story is made and expressed to the audience.

The story:
We don’t get too much here, since the main plot is simple: The adventures of Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev, a pair who will find more people through the episodes to join their group. The series can be divided in two arcs: Arc one, with the real Rezo, the debut of Zelgadis, and it ends with the defeat of Shabranigdo and Rezo; Arc two, starting when they get to Sairaag, with Rezo’s copy and the resuscitation of the beast Zanaffar as the main villains. I don’t have too much to complain with these two arcs, the reason being how well-organized were the climax, the battles and how they managed (thank God) to not fall in a deus ex machina, which happens way too much in some fantasy themed animes. HOWEVER, I surely have some important problems in the intermediate of arc one and two, because they were literally all fillers, which were quite boring to watch. There was no character development, main plot development, neither important character interactions, making it a waste of 7 episodes. We will talk about this more in the characters section. Excluding the filler, the plot is enjoyable and quite funny (though it is true that some jokes have aged badly), and you can feel that they gave time to think about the climax and to develop it, which is appreciated given the actual isekai animes.
The only problem that I can point out is how the world is presented. There is not really a line or an organisation to follow when it comes to this matter. Moreover, it feels like all the places, names and lore is thrown to your face. There’s no continuity feeling (especially in the filler, adventure part), which, again, can make Slayers a little boring because it looks like there is no end nor start.

The Art:
I, as a personal and subjective opinion, like the art a lot. It is the classic style anime art, with some rough lines, saturated colors and big eyes design. I’m a classic style lover. It is true that it is not the best animation you can find in the industry, but keeping in mind that the anime is from 1995, the animation looks pretty good, and fits pretty well with the lack of seriousness the anime gives most of the time.

The sound:
How can I say this… (I’m actually listening to the ost while writing this). The soundtrack is the same as the art, good old classics, memorable ones that when you hear them your first though is “Oh, wait, that’s slayers!”. Some are funny, others are perfect as battle theme. They are in general quite happy, and upbeat, I like them quite much too.

The characters:
OHOHOHO, here we go again. I have a lot to complain in this area, mainly because the anime lost seven chapters in fillers, and I was quite angry because of it.

Let’s start with Lina Inverse. Lina Inverse is an upbeat, confident girl. Confident because she is an amazing sorceress since the start of the anime (one of the reasons we don’t get too much character development from her, since there is not that much to develop). She likes food a lot, and she likes money and… Well, you know there’s not too much more to say. I mean, the audience get to see a little of another face of her at the climax of the two arcs: in the first, you see how determined she is to finished with Shabranigdo, and the phrase “I don’t want to die” makes you think a little about how would her past be; in the second arc, you see how she cares about her teammates and even almost die to save Sylphiel. There’s more character development in the second arc: how she acts when Sylphiel blame herself about Lina’s wound, how they make us see that Lina is the pillar, the leader that keep the team united and organized. Nevertheless, the problem with Lina is the problem I have with most of the characters: We don’t have a clue of how her past is. We don’t know what made her be what she is today, how she became powerful and why is she doing what she is doing. Most of the other characters (villains included) sins with the same problem, which makes them look more paper-thin people than realistic ones. Some examples are:

> Amelia Will, the childe sorceress that fights for justice and is scared of bad-looking monsters and is extremely clumsy (yep, that’s all, she don’t have other personality than that).
> Gourry Gabriev, the bucket-head swordsman, probably the main comic relieve of the anime. He is REALLY forgetful, but a good person (one that don’t lie and acts good with people). And that’s all.
> Rezo, the priest and main villain of the first arc, wants to use the power of one of the post powerful and dangerous demons to get back his sight. I’m sorry, there’s not more development than that (maybe I can let this one go a little since Rezo looks like he was controlled by Shabranigdo).

It is a red flag when a character who appeared in the last 6 episodes have way more development than one that have been in the anime since the start (yes, I’m comparing Sylphiel with Gourry here). And Slayers actually has a BIG RED FLAG in how awful the characters are managed. Some characters, like Zelgadis, managed to get somehow a bit of personality, since we can see small flashbacks about his past him wanting to be strong (why? We don’t know), and we notice that he actually trains with the sword the day before confronting Shabranigdo. Should we also mention how he reacted when his two friends (more friends than subordinates) die? Zelgadis is the only character that is not a happy flower and have his own flaws (he’s straight and indifferent about Sylphiel father’s dead) and has one and determined goal (getting his old body back; Sadly, again we don’t really know why he is that obsessed and the series doesn’t give us any hint). Sylphiel, on the other side, doesn’t have any past stories about her introduced, but the dead of her father can be taken perfectly as a point of start to feel how she gets to grow a little. After six chapters, the audience can see that she is now a slightly braver and committed to protect her team.

Overall, Slayers is a good if you want to pass the time watching fantasy, adventure anime with a D&D style. Plus points if you like classic art style and want to laugh a little.
People say that the second season is better and faster when ti comes to plot, so I’m giving all my hope to it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Mar 26, 2018

Imaishi

Not Recommended

As a person who is actually quite a lot into old anime, in fact even stuff much older than Slayers, I'm honestly bewildered by the amount of praise this show gets, and I think its status of an old classic might be heavily influenced by nostalgia. The anime is severely lacking in multiple areas, most of all it's just boring and completely devoid of anything unique.


Slayers tells a story of Lina Inverse, a powerful yet inconspicuous magician who travels around, kills monsters, fights bandits and robs them of their treasure. Over the course of the show, new adventurers, starting with a travelling swordsman Gourry, join ... her party and together they explore the fantasy world. You know the drill, and have probably heard something similar many times, because this is nothing new. Nevertheless, this extremely popular idea can definitely turn out very nice and become its own thing, if the authors bring their new twists and details to it. Sadly, this is not the case with Slayers.

Everything, starting with the setting, is bare of nuances and unique ideas. The anime is set in a generic medieval-fantasy world, with magic, creatures like trolls and dragons, princes, knights and the like. Philosopher stone and sword of light. Old and boring. There is also the demon-king sealed long ago and sought to be revived by his followers. You have never heard of something like that, have you?
While this could still allow for a great and compelling story, with brilliant and interesting characters, Slayers definitely doesn't deliver, it actually doesn't even seem to try.

The plot progresses in a pretty messy pattern, and despite not being very long, brings to mind 300+ episode shounens. It randomly jumps back and forth between important events revealing old mysteries, and completely meaningless, inconsequential fillers that shouldn't even be there, because they are neither interesting nor funny.
The story just lacks direction. The characters don't pursue any real goal to drive the plot. Something is happening, our adventurers just get dragged into it, do their job to solve the problems, rinse and repeat. Some of it can be pretty cool , but it all feels kind of pointless.
The mood and atmosphere also swing in completely unnatural manner, and it does stand out sometimes. Two characters are killed shortly after finally uniting with the main party, and you know what? Not even a minute later, the main trio is back at an inn, stuffing themselves and laughing out loud joking. There is not even a moment of grief or sadness, just a few shocked faces for a second.

Speaking of jokes, the humour is one of the weakest points of Slayers. It's extremely repetitive, childish and ham-fisted, appearing regardless of danger or situation at hand, and is at fault in the show rarely having the proper atmosphere. Lina has small breasts. That is the joke, hahaha... I won't be discussing wether this alone is funny or not, as that's purely subjective, but repeating this time and time again, episode after episode, is definitely boring and actually gets quite annoying, even if it could be funny at first. Gourry is stupid and doesn't understand the simplest of explanations, Amelia is clumsy, trips over and falls on her face. Oh, there was another joke with Lina, you know, she's on her period and can't cast powerful spells then, isn't that funny? You know, it's THAT time of the month, wink wink, haha...

This humour is also detrimental to characters themselves, because it's all around, and in fact pretty much defines them.
While there is focus on Lina, and she does get enough screen time and characterization to be more than just her breast size, it's a real problem with other characters. It's hard to say anything meaningful about Gourry other than that he's stupid and has bad memory, and Amelia being also silly and clumsy, because most of their scenes are either fighting or reusing the old jokes. Most of the characters are just very poorly characterized and thus it's hard to truly care for them. They're not unlikeable, but they definitely are forgettable and undeveloped. This should never happen in a show that wants to be more than a silly comedy.

The arstyle is mediocre, and character designs, save for Lina and Zelgadis, seem effortless. The animation is poor even considering the time it was made, and just screams low budget. Overall the anime doesn't look terrible, even if it's aged, but the visuals definitely don't help to make up for other aspects of the show either.

The music is actually pretty good and fitting, and few of the tracks are especially good and memorable. It's nothing spectacular, but it does its job well, and in my opinion, is the strongest aspect of the show.

Overall, Slayers is a very disappointing experience. It's a huge cluster of overused ideas and tropes. The story has weird pace and goes nowhere, the characters are basically running jokes, and at times just annoying. It's full of bad, repetitive humour and lacks fresh air, making the whole show pretty boring.
It's not the worst watch ever, it's not offensively bad at anything, but it doesn't really have anything going for it either, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, because there are shows better at everything Slayers does. It's just completely mediocre.
I really can't see why it achieved the status it has now, and personally see it as just another, uninspired fantasy adventure, severely lacking in character. I would only watch it if you want to see what one of the most popular 90s anime is all about.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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