Slayers [Import]

Meet sorceress Lina Inverse -- she's short, flat-chested, brash, loud, eats like a barbarian, ridiculously powerful, and has a temper as hot as her fireballs.

She's also the lovable anti-heroine of "Slayers - The Complete First Season," a thoroughly hilarious and warped little classic anime. The first season blends fantasy spoofs and a solid little story about good vs. evil (or justice vs. evil, depending on who you ask), when our heroes aren't dressing in drag or mugging bandit gangs.

Recently Lina robbed the bandit gang known as the Dragon Fangs of several valuable items, and when the gang's few surviving members attack her, she's rescued by a handsome but dumb swordsman, Gourry Gabriev. But the bandits aren't the only ones after her loot -- the mysterious Chimera Zelgadis and his weird minions want one of the items Lina stole, while the revered priest Rezo wants to stop Zelgadis.

But after being abducted and then freed by Zelgadis (and nearly molested by a giant fish), Lina discovers that she may have her allies and enemies switched around. And as Lina, Gourry and Zelgadis are pursued by Rezo's monstrous allies, they learn the real reason that Rezo wants the statuette -- yes, it's to unleash ultimate evil upon the world, and all that.

After all that, Lina and Gourry find themselves traveling with a justice-happy princess named Amelia, just in time for a bounty to be put on their heads. To find out who their new enemy is, they have to travel to the city of Sairagg -- dodging a crazy mercenary, a manipulative wedding-happy sorceress, a seemingly unkillable wizard, a gay sea dragon, and countless mercenaries and heroes.

But Sairagg only provides more questions, as Lina and her friends -- including Zelgadis and the timid shrine maiden Sylphiel -- confront the sorceress that has a grudge against him. But they're shocked to learn that the mastermind is an old foe that they had previously killed -- and he has a whole new evil plot to destroy the world. And all that.

Spoofs of the fantasy genre are a dime a dozen. The real challenge is creating a spoof that also has a story and mythology all its own -- and "Slayers" succeeds brilliantly at doing that. Not only is the complete first season gutsplittingly funny, but it also has a really solid storyline and thoroughly enjoyable characters -- although admittedly Amelia takes some getting used to.

There are two interconnected arcs of epic battles with Dark Lords and maniacal wizard-priests, with sword duels, hidden libraries, mystical ruins, frequent explosions, devastated cities and multi-coloured trolls ransacking quaint medieval villages. It's a solid enough fantasy series, and it takes the usual fantasy tropes -- big dumb guy with magic sword, sorceress, Dark Lord, plucky princess -- and promptly turns them on their heads.

And there's a lot of humour too, raging from a horde of Lina and Gourry clones ("It's... TINY!") to a series of running gags. At least half the episodes contain and/or end with some kind of massive explosion and possible rioting. And a couple stories wedged between the two arcs are entirely devoted to comedy -- including Lina being bribed to "marry" a rich boy, and the very macho Gourry having to dress as a girl ("Somebody please take my life!").

Lina is a brilliant fantasy anti-heroine -- she's flat-chested, assertive, hypersensitive and wonderfully bombastic, and Lisa Ortiz does an excellent job. Eric Stuart is a little more awkward as Gourry, a swordsman with a childlike attitude and a tiny brain, he improves as the season goes on. Hyperactive princess Amelia is kind of annoying at first, with all her jumping and yells about justice, but fortunately she becomes more likable when they get to Sairagg ("I hate fighting this thing!").

Zelgadis is the best-rounded character of the bunch, since he starts as a semi-villain but soon reveals that his only real goal is to become a human being again. Unfortunately Daniel Cronin voices Zelgadis for the first half of the series, and makes this complex character sound like a depressed stoner. Thankfully Crispin Freeman brings more humour, anger and power to the character after that.

The complete first season of "Slayers" is a solid fantasy series that also happens to be a hysterically funny spoof. Definitely a must-see.

The main character of this crazy series is Lina Inverse, a petite yet very powerful 15-year-old sorceress with red hair and a temper even shorter than her height. Though she fights against the forces of evil, she is more of an anti-heroine as she is very violent and keeps the dirty wealth of bandits for herself after killing them.

The entire "Slayers" anime consists of 78 TV series episodes divided up into three 26-episode seasons, five movies, and six OVA episodes. This DVD set contains the entire first season of the TV series where Lina first meets her three tag-along partners. First there's Gourry, a blonde swordsman whose great with a sword but low on brains. Zelgadis is a cursed half-demon, half-golem, half-human who plays the role of the serious loner of the group that's featured in just about every anime. Finally there's Amelia, a clumsy princess who specializes in white magic...and she's also a major justice freak. Together, these four characters make up the main cast of the TV series, though there are several other characters who temporarily join the group throughout.

"Slayers" is basically a comedy/fantasy-adventure anime. The action consists mostly of the characters throwing DBZ-like magical blasts and other interesting spells at each other with some occassional swordplay added in the mix. It's a fairly light-hearted story loaded with humor, but each of the three seasons tend to get pretty dark, bloody, and serious towards the final episodes. My only gripes are that by the second season the relentless slapstick comedy gets stale, as do the plots which always involve Lina and the gang searching for some ancient, lost magical item in order to defeat yet another, more powerful ancient monster bent on destroying the world.

The basic plot of this season is as follows: After Lina attacks a group of bandits and steals their possessions, she meets up with Gourry. Lina soon discovers that one of the items she took from the bandits is actually the key to unleashing Shabrinigdo, a very powerful creature of evil that was sealed away long ago. After surviving several attacks by thugs wanting the key, she and Gourry encounter Rezo the Red Priest, who was born blind. He appears to be an ally at first until his true objective is later revealed.

This is the best season of the TV series, IMO. First of all, because it's the first, the plot is totally fresh, unlike the second two seasons. The pacing is great too as it practically hooks you right after the second episode. It does slow down a bit in the middle with a few comedic "filler episodes" (as do the other two seasons), but the plot picks up again in the last few episodes. Overall, it's pretty good and I especially recommend it if you're into fantasy RPG games.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that though this is the first season of the TV series, it actually isn't the "true" beginning of the story. The six OVA episodes and all the movies except for "Slayers Premium" are actually prequels to the TV series. Lina is a bit younger and is teamed up with her original ally/rival, Naga the Serpent, a goofy, tall, scantily clad sorceress with an annoying high-pitched laugh and breasts the size of soccer balls, who just happens to be my favorite Slayer! Though regarded as inferior by most fans, I personally prefer those movies and OAVs over the TV series because Lina and Naga are just hilarious together and the plots are always fresh and fun. You can see Lina and Naga's first meeting in "Slayers Excellent". I recommend at least checking out "Slayers Return" or "Slayers: the Motion Picture"--they're the best IMO.

This anime is GREAT. I am a seasoned vet of anime, having seen many many many anime, some good and some bad. This anime takes the cake for being the best anime I have EVER seen. It is hilarious and has good action. The young sorceress Lina is believable as a regular 15 year old girl going about her life, except that her life involves killing dragons, bandits, and demons and using magic. The animation is good but the first episode is kind of jittery when anything moves. It is bearable and it does end after about half of the first episode is over. The audio is not perfect but the story, characters, comedy, action, ect. is more than perfect. It more than deserves its five star rating.