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Slayers TV Series #1

Slayers review

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Animation:
It's sort of like Sailor Moon, except that the spell sequences can't compare to SM's transformation sequences.
Now, if you haven't seen Sailor Moon, which would make my comparison pretty useless, then I'll just say the animation is pretty flat. Lighting, detail, and realistic movements are just some of the things you won't find here.
Luckily, you don't have to! Because, although I hate to go with yet another SM reference, the offbeat style of the series doesn't really call for perfect animation. It's supposed to be crazy and it's supposed to be funny, so the style works. Who needs perfect animation for facefaults and Lina kicking Gourry in the face for making fun of her bust size?

Plot:
First of all, the characters:
Lina - A hot-tempered sorceress who eats a lot, fights with Gourry a lot, gets angry extremely easily, and has complete confidence in her abilities.
Gourry - A travelling swordsman who happens to have the legendary Sword of Light, gets attacked by Lina a lot, and makes fun of Lina a lot.
Zelgadis - A warrior and spellcaster who was cursed with a golem body, is searching the world for a way to cure it, and tends to be the "dark" character of the show.
Amelia - A white mage who believes that justice will triumph over everything, but is often too clumsy to do it herself.
That's literally all there is to their personalities. When you look at it, they're actually really shallow characters, but the thing is that you put them all together and somehow it just works. They can all play off of each other's personalities and, again, it just works. I can't really explain it.
That said, the plot was actually the selling point of this series for me. Practically every review I've ever seen across the Internet goes on and on about the comedy in this series, but I really don't get why. Sure, at least two or three jokes show up even in the most serious episodes, and sure, there are some pure comedy episodes. I particularly liked the wedding episode and the acting episode for their comedy aspects.
But it's the plot that gets me, because it's ongoing from episode 1 to the end. At first, taking a statue from a band of theives doesn't seem like much of a start to a series... Until it's found out that that statue may be a key to resurrecting the dark lord Shabranigdo, and suddenly everyone's after it. It was nicely done, with Lina trying to protect it at all costs and wondering whether it was Zelgadis or Rezo who could be trusted. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before the real bad guy would get it, but the way it was done was nicely executed: Zelgadis was after Lina in order to get that statue, but only because he thought Lina might trust Rezo with it. She'd been trying to keep it away from Rezo too, but because neither Zelgadis nor Lina could trust each other, it ended up in Rezo's hands anyway.
That leads to the big showdown somewhere around episode 10, and then Lina and Gourry go travelling on, meet Amelia, end up wanted, find out who put the bounty on their heads, and eventually find out who those people are working for, have showdowns with all of them, come out victorious...
The point is, there's only one break in the story from episode 1 to 26, and that's after the fight with Shabranigdo. Somehow, it had enough twists in the story to keep me interested from episode to episode and wanting to see what happened next.
It sure isn't a Kenshin-quality plot, but it's solid enough.

Humor:
Ah, the legendary Slayers humor...
I really don't see why it's so legendary. If nothing else, it's a bunch of chest jokes, Lina beating up Gourry, Zel and Amelia making up sarcastic remarks, and Amelia trying too hard to be the hero.
Which isn't to say that it's not funny. Probably the only thing ruining it for me was that Slayers wasn't one of the first series I saw, so the comedy was, more or less, comprised of a bunch of things I'd already seen. That and it didn't seem like it was living up to the hype, because the show actually tries to take itself pretty seriously and it seemed like every review I read wouldn't acknowledge that.
If your standard of "serious" is Serial Experiments Lain, maybe Slayers looks like pure comedy, but to me, Slayers is more serious than the Rurouni Kenshin TV series ever was and THAT show was based on real historical events!
But getting back to Slayers, it did make me laugh and I won't deny that. In fact, it's a funny show. The only thing is that they seem to spread the jokes too far our and I think that hurts the overall light-hearted side of the show a little bit.

Soundtrack:
"Get Along" is one of the best opening songs ever and the closing isn't bad either, but the background music was pretty lame most of the time. A lot of it was actually dark and foreboding, but the problem is that it wasn't dark and foreboding enough to really get across anything emotionally.
There isn't a piece in Slayers that I can think of that stands out, with the possible exception of the somewhat funny music that plays when Lina fights the first fishman or during Amelia's introductions in the first episode you see her.

Overall:
Slayers is a funny show with good serious moments, and I like it. The only thing I'm left wondering is why everybody else won't even point out what I thought was a pretty good plot, because it's definitely worth mentioning.
Recommended.

A list of my other 29 anime reviews:
Right here
All of the series I've reviewed are listed at the bottom of the Saint Tail review.

Overall Rating: 8
Animation:7 Plot:8 Humor:8 Sound Track:6
Weight: 40 (Reputable Vote)
Date: 07/31/2002 08:38:54 am PST
By: Jiggy
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=119048

>But it's the plot that gets me, because it's ongoing from episode 1 to the end. At first, taking a statue from a band of theives doesn't seem like much of a start to a series... Until it's found out that that statue may be a key to resurrecting the dark lord Shabranigdo, and suddenly everyone's after it.

If this wasn't such a vapid show (let's face it... people DO tend to watch it more for the comedy than the plot) I would be jumping up and down on your face right now.

What's the point of reviewing something for those who might be interested in trying something new, if you tell them the whole plot before they see it!!

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