Monday, May 27, 2019

Slayers Try Part 5 Episodes 19-22

Lina, Gourry, Amelia, Zelgadis and Filia are finally reunited and set to resume their quest to finally destroy Darkstar.  But their quest has now become a race against time.  Almace’s other allies have no qualms about destroying Lina’s world to rid themselves of Darkstar and are just as strong a foe as Almace once was.  That’s right, The Slayers are picking a fight with Gods from the Overworld now and it’s shaping up to be a battle for the ages when Gods, Monsters, Demons and Lina Inverse clash to see who will gain the final key to unlocking Armageddon.

Well you know a situation has gotten really bad when Gourry actually asks the right question for once, “Who are the real bad guys?”  While Slayers Try has done several of the confirmed bad guys a favor and given them genuine depth and motivations for doing what they do, this season seems content to keep trying to one up everything by changing allegiances and shifting the spotlight so much…that yeah you have to wonder just who should Lina and The Slayers really be trying to defeat this season?  In the end, I guess you could say everyone who isn’t Lina, Gourry, Zel, Amelia or Filia deserves an ass kicking, and that definitely includes Xellos now.

One person I hope doesn’t meet a bad end is Jillas.  We discovered that after the mid season battle, the one eyed pyromaniac had found a happy life with a beautiful fox and her son who looks like a cuter version of Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog.  They even had the same Australian accent gifted to Jillas and it was sooooo cute to hear little Tails call him “Uncle”.  But the lull of peace couldn’t outweigh the lull of vengeance.  Jillas wants payback against Lina for her taking his friends away.  It was tear jerking to watch Jillas say goodbye to the people who had saved him but it was also pretty impressive to see him use gunpowder to create a weapon as powerful as the Dragon Slave.  Jillas could be the MVP of Slayers Try where Martina was MVP of Slayers Next.

Besides setting things up for the season finale in grand fashion, this weeks episodes were about examining the sins of the past, especially when it came to Filia’s people.  The Golden Dragons, especially their Grand Elder, had their crimes on full display when The Slayers found their temple where the remains of hundreds of Ancient Dragons like Valgaav still littered it.  It was horrifying and finally got Filia to drop her pompous, righteous attitude and really question the people she had sworn her loyalty to all this time.  If the Golden Dragons are willing to go to such extremes, especially when the Ancient Dragons were just trying to save the world themselves, should we call them the true bad guys of the season?

Then there’s Almace and his other Gods from the Overworld.  Clearly communication isn’t their thing because everyone in this trio had their own agenda.  Eurologos was absolutely gung ho about bringing Darkstar through and just stranding him there to save their world.  The soft spoken Sirius seemed to teeter back and forth (all the while earning the admiration of a girl who was pretty much Aerith from Final Fantasy VII…but that didn’t really go anywhere).  And Almace ended up paying for not being more watchful of his allies by biting the dust at the hands of Eurologos.  The Gods aren’t the good guys either it seems.

And finally Xellos…man I was willing to give him a pass the last time but now he might be edging into unforgivable territory.  In his quest to restore one of his masters, he’s willing to let the world burn and sell out Lina and her friends for good.  It’s almost a wonder that Xellos has never just done this from the start.  Clearly, he’s more powerful than even The Slayers combined and could end any fight in a single attack.  Maybe him holding back is a sign he could still turn things around and return to the uneven line between good and evil despite being on the full side of evil right now.

Jeez with all these double crosses and deep cross examinations, it’s a wonder were even still watching the same series.  It’s hard to judge if we’ll ever return to that great balance of humor and action that makes Slayers Slayers but right now, it’s all about making things as epic as possible.  And when you aren’t trying to keep up with who is and isn’t a bad guy right now, Slayers Try is going for big with scale.  The animation is still just above Season One level right now but it did step it up a notch in several places, such as Gourry’s duel with Eurologos and the Overworld Gods slaughtering hundreds of Golden Dragons.  The fact that we did see hundreds of Golden Dragons flying on screening with tridents and unleashing fire was something I never thought id see outside of Record of Lodoss War.  Oh and Lina getting the last Darkstar weapon, a bow and arrow, was pretty cool too, here’s hoping she keeps that.

For every good thing about this season, there’s always something to shake your head at with Slayers Try and not in a good way.  Things have been pretty uneven til this point and its not fully because of tone issues.  Slayers Next had the same worries with me but made up for it by making the drama really damn great.  Slayers Try is…well trying to hard and now I feel it has to try harder to nail its season finale.  At the very least it looks like we’ll have a battle royale for the ages…and hopefully it’ll just be Lina and friends and Jillas coming out of it in one piece.  Check back this Friday for the Season Finale of Slayers Try.

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