Meet Lina Inverse.
Slayer of dragons, scourge of thieves and bandits, monster of the
countryside, Lina has many names…and not all of them are nice ones. True she tends to bring more destruction with
her acts of salvation but there’s no denying her power. And Lina’s going to need all the power she
can get when a mysterious foe comes after her for a statue she acquired during
her recent plunder. Pursued by a shadowy
force, Lina and her dimwitted “bodyguard”, the swordsman Gourry, certainly have
their work cut out for them. But no job,
no battle, no table of food is too big or small for Lina the Dragon Slayer.
Well break time’s over, time to get back to the
grind. And after thinking about it quite
a bit, ive decided to head back to a pretty big nostalgia title, another one I
feel has lost some of its presence in later years. Welcome to the world of The Slayers.
Long before the days of Gate and the digital fantasy
realms of Sword Art Online and Log Horizon…there was an age undreamed of…ok the
Conan bit is a little much but still. In
the early to mid 90’s fantasy was finally starting to make more headway in the
world of Anime after the mecha influx of the 80’s. While Record of Lodoss War was more traditional
Dungeons and Dragons style romp, Slayers is something else all together, even
if it has some shades of its more serious fantasy brethren (the animation of
the 90’s and some of the music does sound Lodoss like). Lodoss was played for full serious fantasy
storytelling, Slayers is here for the laughs and entertainment. While it might divert from that path a couple
of times in this intro set, the course is set and it looks like we’ll have
little deviation…which isn’t a bad thing.
So what sets this series apart from most other fantasy
titles? One name, Lina Inverse. If you think about it, this cute little
sorceress is the template for several anime characters to come down the line
(the short stature of Edward Elric (and the same temper when called short); the
Haruhi Suzumiya levels of extortion and admiration for her own legend; and the
unintentional destructive reputation of Vash the Stampede). Lina is a hit from the get go. While she is prone to leaving scorched Earth
wherever she goes, theres no denying Lina is good at what she does: beating up
bad guys, slaying monsters and stealing their treasure. Lina isn’t without her own sensitive side as
we see with her interactions with fellow main cast members Gourry and Zelgadis
(we’ll get to them in a second). It
shows that for all her arrogance, she can be nice and give credit where credit
is due. Lina also gives Slayers most of
its humorous edge at her own expense. My
favorite joke (wrong as it may be) has to be when she loses her powers
for…particular reasons she doesn’t want to discuss and it’s hilarious that
Gourry doesn’t get it and Zel is actually shy about bringing it up matter of
factly. Point is, with Lina at the helm,
Slayers is off to a good start right away.
Along for the ride, at the moment anyway, are Gourry and
Zel. Gourry is a bad ass with a sword
with the intelligence of a kindergartener.
His humorous moments of dumb can be hit or miss, since most of his schtick
is poorly repeating exposition and obvious facts. But his heart is always in the right place,
especially when it comes to Lina…eventually after he quits calling her a little
girl (just wrong). Zel is an instant
cool character that I want to see more of.
His cloaked bandit look, his skill with a sword and magic, his tragic
backstory (it seems), it’s almost a basic template for a bad boy Shonen
character…except Zel isn’t brooding too much.
He can even sort of match Lina in magic and hand to hand combat, making
him a welcome addition to the cast, a bit of serious mindedness to balance
Lina’s impulsiveness and Gourry’s…well dumb.
The first few episodes of Slayers provides a surprisingly
equal amount of laughs and action. The
humor takes the front of the pack but never feels too forced (that much, there
are admittedly some moments and bits that went on for far too long) and isn’t
afraid to step back and let the swords clash and magic fly with a little less
levity. It’s not bloody like Lodoss and
not as rapid fire as Dragon Ball Z but it’s fun enough (it does have the
destructive level of DBZ with Lina’s ultimate Dragon Slave attack though). I will wonder if the series will ever take a
more serious, darker turn like Martian Successor Nadesico did. Granted, Nadesico was a parody of the
scifi/mecha genre and still stayed true to itself, even with the change in
direction. I hope Slayers will do the
same when/if that time comes, though I think it will eventually. After all, there’s also the aforementioned sad
backstory to Zel and his encounter with Rezo, the red priest. While Zel was first introduced as a baddy but
his motives began to change, Rezo immediately screamed “bad guy” maybe even
“big bad”. Just the way he talked and
his look (im wondering if his blindness is him playing dumb for Lina and
everyone else), I felt he could be trusted.
So it was odd to see Lina so welcoming of him during their initial
encounter. Granted, Rezo is a big deal
and she would fanboy over him a little.
But Lina questions everyone she meets, or tries to swindle them. It seemed out of place early on for her to be
even a little trusting (it took her about three episodes to warm up to
Gourry). Im probably nitpicking a bit as
she does theorize about Rezo being a fake later on.
So, we close out Week 1 of The Slayers on a pretty good
note. The humor is likeable and
legitimately funny. Lina Inverse rocks
and her companions have their strong points too. There’s a little dark overcast for those who
want a more serious central plot. And
there’s plenty of 90’s nostalgia Anime in the presentation from the art style
to the extremely catchy opening and ending themes (side note: it’s cute that
the main lyrics of the opening theme are “Get along, try again,” as the third
season of Slayers is Slayers Try and before Slayers Revolution, the proposed
fourth season of Slayers was dubbed Slayers Again…yeah coincidence but it makes
me chuckle). Well we’ve spent a summer
dealing with Holy Grail Wars, unbearable sacrifices and Shiro Emiya’s head to
wall slamming logic…yeah The Slayers will be a welcome change of pace. And the laughs will continue (along with a
continuing story im sure), next week.
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