In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Slayers, Megumi Hayashibara (Lina Inverse's seiyuu) has released an album called "Slayers MEGUMIXXX" (to be read as "Megamix Kiss"). Rui Araizumi, the illustrator for the Slayers light novels and some of the manga, has also released the artwork for the jacket of the album (pic related). As far as I can tell, it has all of the music from the anime, OVAs, and movies, it also includes the radio drama songs and "Otome no Inori", which is the duet Lina and Amelia sang dressed as idols during Slayers NEXT. It will also feature a new song to commemorate the 30th anniversary, titled "Two Thumbs Up!".
The album is a 3-disc set that will cost 3,000JPY (~28.00USD), excluding taxes. This is a shockingly low price for everything being put into it, and according to Japanese Twitter the fans are eager and willing to purchase the product.
After the success of the Animate Cafe event, in which both locations eventually ran out of stock of both special goods and some of the menu items, the potential success of the album bodes very well for Slayers' future. Volume 17, having released October of last year, has surprisingly strong sales for a franchise that had been previously dead since 2012. The reason for the sudden resurgence of Slayers popularity? No one knows... But we're happy it's here!
Other interesting news is that Japanese Twitter has a new hashtag floating about, "#いにしえのスレイヤーズグッズ自慢大会" ("#old-Slayers-stuff-pride-competition), where people with ancient Slayers merchandise show off their hidden treasures. The goal is to find the "rarest" commodity related to Slayers since its inception 30 years ago, and people have provided everything from limited run jackets to long-lost artwork. If you want to see things hidden in the flow of time, it's a hashtag worth checking out.
Is any of the new stuff actually translated? I remember that most of the original series was between Baka-Tsuki and Tokyopop.
Owen Robinson
well the old fantasy stuff fits perfectly in the wave of isekai stuff ... and for most younger fans the absent of game mechanics might look like a bigger change from the usual formula, than it truely is.
Ryan Price
Volumes 8-15 of the light novel have been fan-translated. Volumes 16 and 17 have no translations whatsoever.
The industry needs more variety in fantasy right now. I'm enjoying Dungeon Meshi, Made in Abyss and Ryoumin 0-nin Start no Henkyou Ryoushusama but not a lot of other current fantasy series are doing a lot to capture my attention.
I've never actually seen Slayers after all this time. Worth a watch? What should I expect?
Bentley Richardson
It's worth watching on the grounds that it was a staple 90s shounen. If you want to see something that helped influence later works, even if only tangentially, it's worth a view. The problem though is that it's a 90s anime that didn't take itself seriously. This means that, unlike something like HnK or DBZ where it's so serious it's ridiculous, the show's key parts are locked within the fanbase and are difficult to share. In other words, if you don't understand Slayers, you won't understand the jokes.
If you're on the outside looking in, sure, the scene is kinda funny in a nonsensical way, but it's more dumb than entertaining. On the other hand, if you understand Slayers, you can get the humor of Lina being the funny man for once instead of the straight man for the gag.
This isn't necessarily a good thing, because you might have to watch the show a second time to "get" it, and again, it's a 90s budget anime, so some of the visuals and gags are weak compared to what we've had in the two decades since then. Heck, you might have to read the light novels to fully appreciate the jokes, as there are certain scenes (on from S1E17 in particular) that you can easily miss without having extended universe knowledge.
The -good- thing about this, however, is that JC Staff actually cared about staying true to the Slayers spirit, and every little detail is a love letter to the light novels. The most prominent one being that Slayers NEXT uses many shots directly from Rui Araizumi's artwork from the books. There's great care put into the anime, but I will be the first to admit it's not perfect.
Don't listen to that other fag, Slayers is lots of fun. Great characters, funny gags, believable worldbuilding. The best of the 90s comedic fantasy anime wave.
First series very good second series very uneven third series very good OVAs very very very good except the millenial one
Ethan Campbell
the issue is Linna's bullshit asspull powers
Jonathan Moore
Lina is a mary sue. If you can overlook her the rest of the show is worth watching.
Dominic Allen
hahaha WRONG
Lina hasn't defeated anything stronger than 1/7th of Shabranigdu, which required the Sword of Light, an incomplete Giga Slave requiring a roll of 1 on a 100-sided die, and Shabranigdu's host actively trying to get killed to succeed. She didn't couldn't harm Hellmaster, she could only wound Garv who had been reincarnated dozens of times as a human over 1,000 years using a spell she couldn't cast without the Blood Demon Talismans, and even with her allies she's never even touched Xellos, who is one-scale below Garv and Hellmaster.
>Lina hasn't defeated anything stronger than 1/7th of Shabranigdu which no other human in that world can get close to doing even with all of that help/luck. she is a genius child prodigy and the rest of the cast is useless next to her. face it, she is too OP
Zachary Wilson
Lina could only pull that off because she read a copy of the Claire Bible when she was a child, even though she didn't get the full incantation for the Giga Slave. The fact that she can cast a Giga Slave without needing an amplification circle or the Demon's Blood Talismans is very telling, since she's in the category of humans that are at peak human pool capacity potential. Canonically, she's not the greatest prodigy in-universe; her older sister, Luna, the Knight of Ceifeed who can cut a fired Dragon Slave in half and used a kitchen knife as a pre-teen to kill a dragon, is. Canonically, Lina's not even the strongest standard spellcaster that doesn't have a god power-up; Naga the Serpent is. The only reason Naga and Lina are on equal playing fields is because Lina knows Dragon Slave and refuses to teach Naga how to cast it. If Naga knew Dragon Slave, she'd surpass Lina since she has a slightly stronger pool and bucket capacity. Since that's canon, then Naga could also have beaten that fragment of Shabranigdu if she knew the Giga Slave as well.
Heck, even Gourry is more bullshit-OP than Lina on the grounds that he's arguably the only human alive who can safely wield the Blast Sword, a weapon used by Ceifeed Himself, without it killing him in the process because the weapon is so sharp it can't be sheathed, and it's as strong as a Ragna Blade (if not stronger) without needing a cast time and an amplification circle, AND Gourry moves faster than Lina ever could.
>Lina could only pull that off because she read a copy of the Claire Bible when she was a child, even though she didn't get the full incantation for the Giga Slave she developed the spell from incomplete fragments because she's a genius child prodigy mary sue Naga is a joke character, Luna is not a sorceress and not even in the story, and Gourry is too dumb to learn spells although he has magical capacity
Jose Reed
And the reason Lina has this much drive to apply herself is because of her incandescent inferiority complex, especially compared to Luna. Lina has a reason to be as strong as she is, and even then she has limits that are consistent. For example, yes, she knows how to cast Ragna Blade, but after destroying the Demon's Blood Talismans in Vol. 15 she can't cast the spell in Vol. 16 without a potent, -stationary- amplification circle. Not only can she not create this circle herself, but even if she could she would have to stand perfectly still in the middle of a fight to charge it. Yes, in the anime, she's largely stationary, but throughout the stories and even the OVAs she can't do that unless someone is serving as a major distraction.
Compare this, where she gets a power-up, loses it, but doesn't miraculously get to keep it, with other shounen protagonists. Lina is perfectly balanced.
While I do appreciate the old OPs and EDs, the one good thing Slayers Revolution has is its ending song. Somehow Hayashibara still has the voice of a powerful singer despite being an old lady, even if this was back in 2011.
>Rui Araizumi has also released the artwork for the jacket of the album. Oh, Lina-chan looks great. It is a pity that now albums need only one illustration. Back in the days CD albums had a back cover and a booklet pics.
Аctually that wasn't even a 1/7th of Shabranigdu. It was half-mazoku made of Rezo and half-awaked 1/7th of Shabranigdu. Just as with Luke - his soul in half-demon resisted the destruction of the world. So Rezo and Luke helped Lina destroy themself. And in LN Halcifom and Zuuma, after they merged with mazoku, at some point brought themselves to death because their souls came into conflict with their feelings / desires / priorities
I wonder if contemporary JC Staff could do a decent movie. They haven't done an OVA in years, maybe a new Slayers one might work if they got Kanzaka to write for them again and had Hiroshi Watanabe direct it if he hasn't retired.
