スレイヤーズREVOLUTION Anime episode 10
Slayers REVOLUTION 10

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

With Gourry facing Marquis Gioconda with his stone sword, Amelia and Gourry facing Ozel, and Lina squaring off against the assassin Zuuma in the arena, Duclis and Pokota battle in the lab where the mage tanks were created. Pokota again remembers how in Taforashia, he and Duclis were summoned to the castle when Pokota’s father (the king) was dying of the disease. He remembers Aka Houshi (Red Priest) Rezo showing up and coming up with a solution to keep the people of Taforashia from dying until a cure could be found by using a vase to form the crystal encasement around the people. Because Duclis and Pokota were also infected, Rezo changed them into their current forms (Tiger Beast-man and Digimon critter respectively) so that the two of them could look for a cure. The trip to memory lane is interrupted when Wiser emerges from a vent in the ceiling, having escaped from Xellos’s pit.

Back in the arena, Xellos eats popcorn and enjoys the battle. The combatants are holding their own though Gourry is not keen on fighting a woman. Marquis Gioconda being impressed with Gourry’s use of the stone sword and asks him if he’d like to be her fifth husband (numbers 1-4 having died in the arena despite their skills with the sword). This distracts Lina, allowing Zuuma to get an advantage on her and use his darkness, spell-nullifying ability. Because of this, Amelia and Zelgadiss have their finishing spell-attack on Ozel nullified by the darkness with Zuuma promising that Lina will hear the screams of her dying comrades. Amelia and Zelgadiss scream in the darkness.

Over in the lab, Wiser identifies himself to Duclis and tells the tiger-man and Pokota that he’d been investigating some nasty rumors of various illegal activities, which Marquis Gioconda seemed to be at the heart of. He further informs them that Marquis Gioconda is suspected of having stolen the funds from other country that were destined for Taforashia. However, since Taforashia disappeared, this caused things to become muddied and there’s still not enough proof. This news stuns both Duclis and Pokota.

In the arena once more, Zuuma is beating Amelia and Zelgadiss when Lina activates her Demon’s Blood Talismans and casts an amplified Ragna Blade, the spell unaffected by Zuuma’s darkness. She only has one shot at this since the spell drains so much of her energy, so she attacks Zuuma. Ozel gets between Lina and Zuuma before the blade can strike, causing Ozel to take the hit. Before “dying,” she explains that this action of hers is also part of her contract. Lina’s energy expended, the Ragna Blade disappears and Zuuma is free to strangle the helpless Lina, where he reveals that he became an assassin because of her.

Gourry is unable to do anything to help Lina as Marquis Gioconda prevents him from getting to Lina’s location. So Gourry throws his heavy stone sword at Zuuma but Zuuma somehow knocks the blade away. However, Pokota flies in and tosses Gourry the faux Sword of Light. With it, he breaks Gioconda’s sword and sweeps down into the arena to save Lina. Zuuma is forced to abandon Lina but Gourry can’t connect the Sword of Light with the elusive Zuuma. So wielding the Sword of Light in one hand, Gourry picks up the large stone blade in the other. Thus armed, Gourry is able to make some hits with the stone blade but still none with the Sword of Light. Lina has recovered enough to cast a Dark Mist spell. Gourry switches swords in the darkness and is able to remove the tips of one of Zuuma’s claws with the Sword of Light. With Zuuma injured, Lina takes advantage to fire a Flare Lance spell, which removes Zuuma’s claw completely. With that, Zuuma flees the battlefield in a whirlwind of smoke, but not before Gourry manages to fire the Sword of Light blade at Zuuma, removing his other claw.

Duclis, Pokota, and Wiser confront Marquis Gioconda about the missing funds for Taforashia. Initially she attempts to deny everything as lies told by Wiser. However, she then asks them “what of it?” Her reasoning was that since Taforashia was doomed anyway, all of the aid money would be wasted on doing anything for the citizens of Taforashia. Wiser says that while that may be the case, the money could have eased the suffering of those people. Gioconda is not ready to surrender until the battered Lina, Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadiss arrive, meaning she has no chance.

Duclis raises his energy blade to striker her but is stopped by Wiser, who says she must be brought to justice. Amelia confirms this, saying that Saillune will wish to participate in prosecuting Gioconda. Duclis tells them that this is not enough and strikes Gioconda with his energy blade, telling her she’ll be consumed in darkness. Her Zanaffar armor activates to the surprise of the others. Xellos warns them all to be careful since Gioconda’s armor is the perfected Zanaffar armor, created from the Claire Bible manuscript (unlike Duclis’s Zanaffar armor). Pokota realizes what this means and grabs the Sword of Light to strike Gioconda. However, he’s too late as the energy of the armor consumes Gioconda, creating a blast stream that then forms into the demon-beast Zanaffar.

Thoughts/Review:

Since mazoku feed off of negative emotions, having a scene showing Xellos eating popcorn while watching the fight was not only humorous, but also symbolic. There was plenty for him to feast on to be sure. I still have no clue as to what game Xellos is playing here. He seems to have wanted Zanaffar to be created for some reason though. Why? What purpose of the mazoku would be served by this? Or maybe it somehow has to do with Rezo. More on Zanaffar and Rezo in a bit.

I had thought that Duclis may have had his own Sword of Light, howbeit in red color, but this episode cleared that up. He just had an energy blade that reminded me of the energy blade that Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki would form and fight with. No idea how he made the blade though. It might be some sort of ability listed in the novels or it may be an anime-only contrivance.

Speaking of Tenchi, Yosho’s seiyuu KOYASU Takehito reprises his role as Rezo, which was awesome. He does a great Kururu in Keroro Gunsou and I knew he was still working in the business (Keroro Gunsou is still airing new episodes in Japan as of this posting) so I figured they’d get him back with little problem. It just wouldn’t be Rezo without his voice. ^_^

I liked the tiny reference to the romantic feelings Lina has for Gourry (though she’d deny it) by having Marquis Gioconda’s proposal to Gourry distract her in her fight with Zuuma. I doubt the writers actually go anywhere with the Lina-Gourry romance (which was highlighted in Slayers Next) but that might be nice to explore someday.

Now to Zanaffar. YES! The animators and writers took great liberties with the Zanaffar story in the Slayers anime. For starters, there was no Zanaffar armor but Copy-Rezo was able to create one just the same with the Claire Bible. Second, Copy-Rezo’s Zanaffar did not consume him, but became a part of Copy-Rezo and controlled by the clone. Third, that Zanaffar was a two-headed spirit-like dragon beast. That was nothing like how Zanaffar was described in the novels. For Slayers REVOLUTION, the animators seem to be “bridging the gap” as it were by having their Zanaffar created as it was in the novels and having the wolf-like appearance of the novels. However, it seems to be made of energy at the moment which was not my impression of the creature from the novels.

Still, hat’s off to the staff for a proper Zanaffar story. Since the novels stated that there are only two things that can kill Zanaffar (three counting the Blessed Blade), creating a faux Sword of Light is a way to fix things so that it and the 2nd weapon can be used in the final battle (and no, it is not Blessed Blade but I’m not spoiling what that second weapon is).

Zuuma. I like the revelation that he became an assassin because of Lina. It has been too long since I read the novels, so I can’t remember how he was initially engaged in the novels (and sadly, KanzakaDex does not have a page created for the assassin yet so no refreshers there I’m afraid) nor do I remember if Zuuma became an assassin because of Lina. I do remember something else happening with Zuuma though (which I won’t state) and we’ll see how the writers handle him.

I loved how Gourry revealed himself not to be a brainless idiot when it comes to fighting, which is how he defeated Zuuma. We’ve seen this before when he’s been able to instinctively understand the flow of combat and defeat opponents (sometimes by working with Lina for misdirects). However, this was the first time I recall Gourry actually saying something about not being an idiot when it comes to fighting. You go Gourry!

So, our heroes have to slay Zanaffar, find the vase, free the people of Taforashia (including Duclis and Pokota, though somehow I expect Duclis to die), and get this all wrapped up in three more episodes. ^_^ Should be fun!