スレイヤーズ EVOLUTION－R Episode 05
Slayers Evolution-R 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Lina is not happy that Nama-chan’s efforts to help them find the Hellmaster Jar (where she had her soul swapped) and Zelgadiss agrees. So Lina begins a series of electric-based attacks and amazingly that seems to do the trick. She remembers following a rare butterfly to a ruin and as it happens, the same kind of rare butterfly appears and Nama is off chasing it. Figuring they’ve nothing to lose, the group follows her and sure enough, they end up at an old tower. Nama says she recognizes it and they enter. Nama issues a warning about traps too late for Lina to miss the first one. Naturally, Lina isn’t too happy about this.

Because the group’s conversations about Rezo have been negative, Pokota gets angry because he refuses to believe that Rezo had any evil in him despite the fact that Rezo’s eye’s (and soul) contained the Mazoku Dark Lord, Ruby Eye Shabranigdu and that Rezo had turned Zelgadiss into his current form. So Pokota proceeds to the next chamber through the crack in the doors where he discovers Xellos waiting. Gourry gets the door open and the rest of the party arrive. Xellos explains that the jar that “Nama” touched wasn’t the same one that supposedly contains the soul of Rezo.

Gourry detects an attack and gets nicked from a weapon from Zuuma. Turns out Xellos has been waiting for Zuuma but Zuuma has only one thing on his mind — Lina. Hearing that Zuuma is an assassin, Nama freaks out and begins going berzerk, slinging Freeze Arrow spells everywhere and apparently having a flashback. She then summons a Dimos Dragon and this action troubles Xellos, so he breaks the jar in the room that swapped Nama’s soul into the suit of armor. This causes Nama’s soul to leave the suit of armor and return to its original “home.”

Xellos wants the Hellmaster Jar that Zuuma and his boss have, but Zuuma is still not interested in dealing with Xellos. Since Xellos is too much of a threat to Zuuma, he tells Lina to meet him in Vezendi or someone will die. With that he is gone and Xellos quickly follows suit. Now, Lina and company are left with no choice but to take a trip to Vezendi.

Meanwhile in the jungle somewhere, Nama/Naga’s laugh can be heard coming from a taped box labeled “tangerine.”

Thoughts/Review:

Hmmmm. The Nama story continued the implication that Nama and Naga are the same person by making Nama freak at the word assassin. Since it was an assassin who killed Naga and Amelia’s mother and ultimately caused Naga to leave home, it stands to reason that she’d have such a flashback. Certainly Xellos seemed to know that “Nama” wasn’t the real name of the soul in the armor. The question is, why is her laugh coming from a taped-shut box after Xellos broke the soul jar? Does that mean that Nama in fact has no connection with Naga or what? It was a weird moment to be sure, but it does remove Nama from the story for a while (or so it seems).

While I’m thinking about it, I would like to complain about how the writing didn’t make it clear where Nama-Naga had her soul transferred. It *seemed* like it was the place where they found the living armor so I couldn’t understand why they’d be following Nama around looking for the Hellmaster Jar. Then this episode, we learn, “Oh yeah. Nama was actually way, way, WAY away from that first place when she had her soul swapped.” OK. That would have been better explained earlier on IMO (though maybe I just missed something since I don’t sleep much these days).

Xellos’s return is always a fun moment. I liked how the writers made things seem as if Xellos might be working with Zuuma but the moment Xellos revealed that Zuuma’s people have what Lina and company want and that Xellos was opposed to Zuuma and company having the jar, well that made things much more interesting to me. I can’t remember how Zuuma was dealt with in the light novels, but the writers may well be setting things up so that Xellos can even the odds a bit for Lina and company (since I figure that whatever modifications Zuuma has will make him about equal strength with mazoku).

Should be interesting to see where things go from here.