スレイヤーズREVOLUTION Anime episode 01

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: A fleet of pirates are on the seas with the captain of the bunch sitting on a pile of treasure they’ve captured. However, the celebrations are short-lived as two ships are taken out by fireball spells. Looking to discover the cause of this, the pirate captain sees a small ship with a red-haired female on the bow and a blonde-haired man in the rear. The pirate captain orders a counter-attack, but the sorceress takes out all of the cannon balls with a widespread Flare Arrow spell.

The sorceress orders the man in the back, named Gourry, to ram the lead pirate ship, which he does. The sorceress introduces herself as beautiful, genius, and other things before announcing herself as Lina Inverse. The pirates don’t know the name and decide she’s to be taken down. So, Lina decides to have herself some fun and punish the pirates. This is all observed from afar by a fleet of military warships, upon one of which Princess Amelia of Saillune (sometimes spelled Seyruun) and Zelgadiss (a chimera consisting of rock golem, blow demon, and human) ride. Amelia observes her former comrades in action, noting they haven’t changed at all.

Also on the ship is a man named Wiser Flayon, who is Ruvinagald Kingdom’s Special Inspector and who wants to talk with Lina Inverse. As the pirates bring out a hostage, a pink fish-woman who’d apparently been named “Miss Mermaid,” to try to get Lina to back down. She tells them the her people’s knowledge of Lina, and suddenly the pirates know Lina for real, having been put off by Lina’s talk of beauty and genius. As such, they all immediately grovel before her. The military fleet launch their own attack on the remaining pirates. Amelia orders the pirates to surrender and seeing her old friend, Lina doesn’t get angry about being attacked. The surviving pirates flee in long boats, but a spell from Lina puts an end to them.

On shore, Lina and Gourry finish a large meal when Amelia and Gourry finally join them. Amelia explains that they couldn’t just dock a military fleet in port. Wiser introduces himself, then throws handcuffs on Lina, arresting her for being Lina Inverse. While Amelia is shocked by Wiser’s unexpected decision to arrest Lina, she, Gourry, and Zelgadiss feel that as Lina’s legal council, fighting a charge of being “Lina Inverse” will be difficult. Lina is not amused by this. Figuring Lina might try to escape, Wiser has an army of knights, cannoneers, archers, and mages surround the restaurant.

Lina has had enough and breaks her handcuffs. She then takes out much of the armies surrounding the joint. Wiser orders the survivors to attack and with the cannoneers firing, Zelgadiss suggests running. They run into “Miss Mermaid,” who’s just escaped from being turned into soup and they flee with her. Wiser hops on a bicycle and pursues. Before the group can reach the city gates, Wiser catches them and reveals his backup, which crashes through the gate — a mage-tank type Z1. The Z1 looks like a turtle, so Lina and company simply turn and flee back into the city where they encounter the surviving knights.

The Z1 follows them, and fires, nearly taking out Gourry if it weren’t for Zelgadiss using his stone-like shell as a shield for Gourry. Lina decides it is time to take the fight to the mage-tank and the group attacks the wheels of the tanks. This causes the Z1 to flip up and then roll through the city like a coin on its side, where it takes out buildings and the rest of the knights. Lina is about to finish things up when the group hears a Dragon Slave spell being recited and look to see a small critter about to cast the spell. Lina is frustrated by this and while the four in the group escape (with fish-girl and Wiser surviving somehow), Lina is now pissed that someone stole her thunder.

Thoughts/Review: Hearing Megumi-san doing the voice intro at the start of the Slayers Revolution episode, I got shivers; this indeed was Lina Inverse again, as if no time had passed at all.

This first episode does things right on so many levels. For long time fans of the series like me, we get the good stuff we enjoyed from Slayers. There’s Lina’s “beautiful, genius, sorcerer” introduction. There’s Gourry’s super strength (seen with the boat) and idiocy. There’s Lina’s punishments for insults steered at her. There’s Gourry’s frantic nature when something goes wrong (such as instantly needed to reforge his sword). Of course, there’s Zel and Amelia too.

For those who’ve never seen a moment of Slayers in their lives, the writers have set this first episode up so that you don’t have to know a thing about it. Yeah, there’s a very quick rundown of some previous incidents Lina’s been involved with, which establishes her reputation to new viewers and for us old fans, gives us something to laugh about. There are a lot of laughs in this first episode of Slayers REVOLUTION, if you liked the humor from the original Slayers. In many ways, this episode was like a different version of the very first Slayers episode (pirates instead of bandits, a mage-tank instead of a dragon), only with Zel and Amelia in from the start.

I had been afraid that fish-girl (“Miss Mermaid”) would annoy me. However, she provided a few laughs with her making the pirates understand exactly who Lina Inverse is. Also, Lina’s jokes about fish-girl’s nearly being fish dinner were amusing to me. I just hope fish-girl doesn’t become annoying. I see that as been a possible pitfall.

As for Digimon-mage, the jury is still out on him as well. His being able to cast a Dragon Slave spell is interesting (and funny that Lina goes nuts because she was beaten to the punch). Again, there’s a possible pitfall here, but I’ll give the writers space to play this thing out.

So, exactly why does Wiser want Lina Inverse arrested? Being “Lina Inverse,” while funny, is no crime. What is that Digimon-like mage? Why did he feel the need to take out that town with a Dragon Slave spell?

Speaking of Dragon Slave, I missed the after-cast sound effect from the original TV series. I hope that gets put back in.

I’m hoping that elements from the main storyline in the novels come out in this anime. The fact that Gourry and Lina have been looking for a new sword for Gourry is one such element from the novels. I hope others come out as well, including a segment of Ruby Eye Shabranigdo. Seeing the remaining Mazoku lords would be cool as well.

While Slayers TRY may not be the best of the TV series, I do like the idea that with the mazoku barrier gone, guns and gunpowder (introduced to the franchise in Slayers Try) made their way into the lands that were once sealed off from the rest of the world.

Music-wise, I like the OP and ED themes. They haven’t grown on me to the point of my saying, “must buy soundtrack” as I have done before, but that could happen in time.

Character design-wise, everyone looks pretty much as they did in the original Slayers, only with the cleanness that CGI animation and art offers.

Basically, this first episode of Slayers REVOLUTION has gone a ways to show that it won’t be a Slayers TRY (at least, not yet) and that’s a good thing. I eagerly look forward to episode 2.