As darkness descends across the land and monsters of all
sorts rise up to attack humanity, Lina Inverse, Gourry and Zelgadis are the
last line of defense. Against all odds
they must face the Demon Lord Shabranigdo and defeat him once and for all. Here’s hoping the country side has a sizeable
reward for such a huge job. And what
will the Slayers do IF they survive Shabranigdo? Well bringing down such a legendary menace
would make them popular…for both hero worshipers and bounty hunters alike. Old friends part ways, new allies force their
way in and everyone looking to make a quick buck on Lina and Gourry’s head pop
out of the woodwork. Looks like there’s
no rest for the Slayers in sight.
I stand by what I said last week. With all the build up til now, the episode
that kicked off this set of episodes could have easily been the season finale
of The Slayers. It was do or die time
against Shabranigdo and nothing, NOTHING was working, even Gourry’s sword. The tension was dialed up and it made everything
both appropriately dire and exciting. So
was it all worth it in the end?
Definitley. The first half of The
Slayers finished out the Rezo/Shabranigdo arc with flying colors. There was even an attempt to explain why the
Demon Lord was sealed behind Rezo’s eyes.
Apparently, he was an evil essence passed down from generation to
generation until he was finally unlocked.
Take that for what you will or the bit that Rezo was able to pull some
of his soul back to help in the final battle.
In the end, Lina Inverse get’s the MVP award for a Sword/Genki Dama
style combo. The Giga Slave looked like
an attack that could easily have backfired if Lina’s all wasn’t in it. I especially liked that her hair turned white
as a result, a sign that it does take a toll on her. Even more surprising was Shabranigdo giving
Lina and her friends all due respect for defeating him…you don’t see too much
of that when villains bite it.
So when all that was over, what’s next? How are they going to fill 13 more episodes of
series? Well you start a new quest of
course. Although, there’s both Pros and
Cons to this. I’ll start with the Pros. The last few episodes leading to the
Shabranigdo fight had been the most serious yet, even with a random joke thrown
in. So it’s not a bad thing to return to
the happy go lucky vibe of the beginning of the series, lighten things up. It provided plenty of fun and hilarious stand
alone scenarios (which I kind of expected from the very beginning until the
main Rezo plot began running throughout).
From battling bounty hunters to exorcising a town of ghosts, Lina and
Gourry were never short on danger and hilarity.
After all, this is a show where one second you’re watching a life or
death struggle with Demon Lord, the next you’re watching a bounty hunter trying
to lure a hungry Lina and Gourry into a trap…holding chicken while dressed as
KFC’s Colonel Sanders. Speaking of
bounty hunters, Lina and Gourry have rivals now: another wizard/swordsman duo
Vrumugun and Zangulus. Vrumugun is boring…seriously
he has zero personality and might as well be a block of wood who just happens
to have magic that can somewhat match Lina (sounds like a Con more than a Pro
but it is). Zangulus, however, is great. He’s a match for Gourry’s sword but is a bumbling
delight who just cant seem to find any good luck catching his prey. If it were just Zangulus going after Lina and
Gourry, this new development would be better.
Then we have the Cons of this new arc. Sadly, Zelgadis parted ways after the defeat
of Rezo/Shabranigdo and that sucks. He’s
easily been one of the best and most likeable characters on the show and ill
miss his comradere with both Lina and Gourry (but more so Lina cause I do ship
them). In his place, we get Amelia…who
starts off fine but grows increasingly irritable. Amelia is a “justice junkie” OR as Lina puts
it, “a looney hero worshiper….a short sized sorceress in training.” And she views Lina as the ultimate teacher
(boy is she in for a disappointment).
And her first couple of episodes are ok.
Amelia plays well off of her dad, Prince Phil, and she does get some fun
rageful reactions out of Lina pretty much all the time. It’s when the gang gets to Seyruun and we
discover someone has put a bounty on Lina and Gourry’s heads (which leads to
Zangulus and Vrumugun’s intro). Amelia
IMMEDIETLY switches sides and declares Lina and Gourry are villains who must be
punished. Wow, Gourry’s level of dumb
has been topped. To be honest, im
surprised Lina is letting her tag along.
There’s legit proof that Amelia will believe anything and if she’s told
Lina is a bad guy again, what’s to stop the same thing from happening? I cant believe we traded my favorite
character in Slayers (Zelgadis…tied with Lina) for my least favorite
(Amelia). Seriously, she’s gonna need to
make a big comeback to get into my good graces again.
While fun was had this week for sure, I will say that the
levity of the stand alone does give way to the fact that there’s no clear
indicator to where things are going.
Yeah someone put a bounty on Lina but that’s all the mystery we’ve
gotten so far. Maybe I’m nitpicking that
as im having fun watching the journey but I’ll always wonder what the final
destination is going to be and who will be the next big bad to close out the
season. If nothing else, can I please
have Zelgadis back? Guess we’ll just
have to wait and see where this all goes.
The journey continues next week.
See ya then everyone.
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