Slayers

É um filme que não é muito ruim, se não dormir, dá para assistir. It's a movie that's not too bad, if you don't sleep, you can watch it.

I remember as a child, my mom got me Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie on a library rental; in the bonus features was a trailer for Slayers: The Motion Picture. I watched that trailer over and over, being in love with the song.

Years later (actually, this was 10 years ago! I would've been 13 at the time) I recalled that trailer and song, and found the whole film available on YouTube to watch. It was amazing - met my expectations! Beautiful main characters, good humor, exciting action, well-added drama...

The English dub was excellent, as well. Cynthia Martinez really brings out Lina Inverse's fiestiness; while I expected Naga to sound more seductive, I appreciated the haughtiness to her voice, brought by Kelly Manison. Upon my first viewing, I was wondering if these characters, given by their names, were really meant to be European, and also if Naga's laugh sounds like the original Japanese. It turned out I might as well be right!

I also learned afterwards that this is based on an anime series. Thankfully, you don't even need to watch it first in order to understand this. It's short, sweet, and stands as its own. And if it wasn't for The Motion Picture, I wouldn't have checked out and fallen in love with the Slayers show.

I went through a period of time when I was obsessed with the theme, "Midnight Blue" by Megumi Hayashibara (Lina's original voice actress). I'd listen to it endlessly, much to the annoyance of my family!

I love this movie so much, I added it to my Christmas list in 2015, and got it on DVD in the mail.

Slayers is one of those things that's been on the list of "something I should probably watch one day" given it was one of those cornerstone 90's anime that all my friends love. The opportunity presented itself for me to watch this today, and I took it, making it the first piece of Slayers media I've ever seen.

And it's fun! But also kind of weird, in the way movies based on series tend to be, where the first half of this movie is basically just all these little vignettes where villains queue up one by one to get destroyed by Lina and Naga in a single hit. It's breezy and it's funny, don't get me wrong, but it does feel like it goes on a little too long for a bunch of dudes that are ultimately inconsequential.

When the movie finally starts moving on its central plot, it almost feels begrudgingly so. But at least it's well-established that Lina and Naga are basically unstoppable, so that when a credible threat emerges, it's that much more impressive.

The glue that holds all of this together is the animation, which is A+ prime 90's anime gold. The monsters, the spell effects, all of it is gorgeous, and there's something about the hand-painted cels on real film stock that makes it feel that much sharper and more colorful than a lot of modern digitally-produced anime. This era of anime at its peak in terms of look and style.

Also, count me among the many who are amazed that Naga, a pretty iconic Slayers character, only ever appears in these movies and is not from the actual Slayers series at all. Weird!

Had never seen any of the series before, so this was my trial run...

Damn, that was funny. I love the way the Nahga and Lina play off each other (and how everyone feels the need to point out the obvious physical differences between them). The battles are well done, and often to comedic ends (look at the whole battle at the docks).

A well done, simple anime flick.

I highly recommended the DVD... original Japanese dialog with subtitles always strikes me as better than dub.

I've been an anime fan for six years now, and had never seen "The Slayers" in any shape or form before this movie. I had always meant to though, since I'd learned from other fans that it was a great series. Last week, I noticed this tape was available for rent at the video store. I eagerly picked it up........

And was VERY disappointed. I thought that this movie was just plain awful. It was neither funny nor containing any shred of an interesting plot. On top of my list of problems with this movie:

-I found the dialogue to be irritating (though the humor found in the Slayers series might rely on campiness, so I might have missed the point);

-the characters annoying, with personality traits that are barely interesting;

-a rather dumb plot (why exactly DO Lina and Naga team up, anyway?). I will admit that the 'breast enlargement' sub-plot made me smirk (as did the breast-bouncing bit in the castle midway through the flick), but a quest for a bigger bust does NOT make for a good movie when that's all that's going for it;

-and the battle scenes almost put me to sleep. Lina and Naga just fire off spell after spell after spell - whoopee ding. There was no sense of challenge or suspense/danger of the protagonists losing the magic fights.

Sorry to those who enjoyed this (though I'll be darned if I can figure out how you did), but this movie wasn't worth the free rental coupon I used to get it. 'Slayers: The Motion Picture' wasn't as bad as the first 'Sorcerer Hunters' video, or that loathsome 'Battle Arena Toshinden' movie, but it wasn't too far behind in my book.

I won't be giving up on the 'Slayers' series - maybe 'Next' or 'Try' or the originals will float my boat. But it'll be a cold day in hell before this turkey winds up in my anime collection.

Try the Project A-Ko series instead.