The Darkstar Weapons.
When these five weapons of powerful light are united, they can bring
forth one of the most terrible forces of darkness in existence. And Gourry Gabriev has been walking around
with one his whole life. Now it’s up to
The Slayers to protect it and keep the others out of Valgaav and Almace’s
hands. Easier said then done when warring
kingdoms, dangerous temples and Valgaavs ever faithful servants are standing in
their way. Everything comes to a head as
Lina and company confront Valgaav once again.
Is there anything they can do to stop the summoning of Lord Darkstar and
prevent Filia’s prophecy from coming to pass?
I’ll admit, I was worried going into Slayers Try this
week. At the end of the last set, we
kicked off a stand alone adventure that sadly ended up becoming pretty boring
and when it continued it decided to throw in some central storyline elements to
shake things up when all it did was make me question if some of the feel good
magic of Slayers had begun to fade. What
should have been a fun tale about two waring nations and young love played
second fiddle to advancing the search for the other Darkstar weapons. It felt like a big misstep. I should have known Lina Inverse and the
Slayers couldn’t stray totally off course as Slayers Try came back big time
after this.
I haven’t had a chance to talk much about Jillas,
Valgaavs ever faithful eyepatch sporting fox demon servant. If it’s one thing I have to credit Slayers
Try for, it’s the bonds between the villains.
Jillas and his former Ogre partner were saved by Valgaav in similar
fashion to how Valgaav was saved by Gaav.
That kind of loyalty is a good breath of fresh air for one of the weaker
aspects of Slayers as a whole, the bad guys.
Jillas got to steal the show this week when he managed to outsmart Lina
and the gang and steal Gourry’s sword.
It gave a rather underappretiated (until now) character a chance to
prove he’s a great adversary for The Slayers, using smarts, nearly pitting the
team against one another and using his bombs to great effect (his weapons and
tactics have been a great foil for the magic based skills of Lina’s crew since
his introduction in the season premiere).
Jillas also did the unexpected and drove the team right
into an epic mid season finale. There
was a lot to take in and unpack once we reached Valgaav’s HQ. Xellos’ true monster nature seeped through,
turning out some scary moments when he nearly beat Valgaav senseless while
cackling. It’s easy to forget that
Xellos has never been a good guy considering how easy going he is around
Lina. But he is a monster and a
trickster and he’s hardly on the side of Angels. In one of the most surprisingly touching
moments of all of Slayers, Lina forgiving Xellos for wanting to sell her out to
Valgaav didn’t seem all that out of place.
There’s a strange understanding between them, always has been and,
somehow, Lina and Xellos can both depend on each other (to a certain
degree). For better or worse, Xellos is
a member of The Slayers and that will always count for something.
Then there’s Almace, who was revealed to NOT be a bad
guy. Turns out he was playing the
villain because he couldn’t think of a way to get anyone to go along with his
rather crazy plan: summon Darkstar so he could destroy him. It’s a risky plan for sure and logically, no
one would go along with it. Heck, Lina
had to remember how quick the Golden Dragons were to sell out another world to
keep their own safe. I like how Lina was
all business and rather mature while she heard out Almace’s story and managed
to strike a truce with the former Deity.
Even Lina Inverse knows how to step back and take in the facts before
its time to blow stuff up.
And man did stuff get blown up…like a lot. The all or nothing brawl with Valgaav brought
out the best Slayers Try has had to offer yet.
The animation stepped up its game after being rather stiff and stilted
since the season premiere. It didn’t
feel quite as smooth and fluid as Slayers Next but it was a huge improvement
regardless. Everything from Valgaavs
summoning of Darkstar to Lina shooting him with a Dragon Slave point blank in
the chest was epic and worth every moment to get here. Special mention should go to the creature
designs once again. Sure Valgaav’s look
matches a lot of the dark angel bad boy style of the 90s. However, ive always liked his hybrid
monster/ancient dragon look. And
Darkstar proves once again that when Slayers wants to make your nightmares come
to life…well it can. Though, the sad
trade off is that it looks like Valgaav was willingly atomized by Darkstar
before the portal could be sealed (by beings of light?). So…who’s going to be the big bad for the
second half of the season if he is truly gone?
Despite a rough start, Slayers Try brought it’s A Game to
one of its biggest events yet and closed things out on a very good cliffhanger,
cause Slayers is very good at that. Lina
adrift at sea, the others nowhere to be found?
Whoa can you even imagine a better way to cap off the first half of a
rather shaky season? It might look bleak
for Lina but if she needs to locate her comrades one at a time, I might finally
get my wish of stand alone adventures in the new world. Oh yeah, I cant wait to get to next week
now. Slayers Try is finally on the same
kind of fire as Slayers Next. See ya
next week.
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