Let's talk about Slayers

ayase

ayase

State Alchemist
Here's a bit of an obscure and technical question for you AUKN. But we do like our technical info here judging by all the lists and the pedantry so perhaps you can help.

The character battle and recent Slayers discussion prompted me to dig my OVA and movie DVDs out and give them a rewatch (R1 Motion Picture and Book of Spells, R2 UK everything else, all ADV releases) and in doing so I realised that the video quality is often particularly crap by today's standards. There's a lot of edge enhancement and dull colours, nothing is particularly sharp and further reading indicates some have even been cropped.

So what I'm wondering is, is there a better video source available? Does anybody own or know what the Japanese releases are like (looking at you here Rui)? Or even more of a long shot, is there any indication they might get HD releases at some point, being produced as they were in the 90s and traditionally animated?
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

ayase said:
Here's a bit of an obscure and technical question for you AUKN. But we do like our technical info here judging by all the lists and the pedantry so perhaps you can help.

The character battle and recent Slayers discussion prompted me to dig my OVA and movie DVDs out and give them a rewatch (R1 Motion Picture and Book of Spells, R2 UK everything else, all ADV releases) and in doing so I realised that the video quality is often particularly crap by today's standards. There's a lot of edge enhancement and dull colours, nothing is particularly sharp and further reading indicates some have even been cropped.

So what I'm wondering is, is there a better video source available? Does anybody own or know what the Japanese releases are like (looking at you here Rui)? Or even more of a long shot, is there any indication they might get HD releases at some point, being produced as they were in the 90s and traditionally animated?
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I don't know much about technical stuff so I can't help you with that but I would say that I'd love to see some kind of HD Super Ultimate Edition of Slayers released here (thinking Anime Limited, although if MVM are branching out it could be an interesting option for them).
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

Definitely, although I don't see that happening for a long time as there aren't any HD releases for Slayers in Japan yet. That's why I'd be interested to know if any of our more Japanese fluent members might know of such a release being anywhere on the horizon.
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

A pal of mine has asked me if Slayers would be appropriate for her daughter, who is in her mid teens. I have literally no idea!

Also been asked what the deal is with all the series and OVAs / movies. Again, I have no idea, and what I've looked up online hasn't done much to educate me. Is it all in continuity? There are some quotes on the Wikipedia pages from Helen McCarthy that indicate it may not be.

Hayulp!
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

Cool, though maybe we should split this off? Rui will be willing to help us with anything and everything Slayers related I'm sure.

Slayers is very interesting continuity wise. It is all one continuity, Lina sometimes hangs around with her little adventuring group and sometimes she hangs around with Naga (who is also probably the most age-inappropriate thing in Slayers) but never at the same time. Whether the idea that her friends should never meet was intentional at the start I don't know, but it's now become a running joke and effectively serves to separate the three TV series (Lina & Co.) from the OVAs and movies (Lina & Naga). So either can be watched independently without any knowledge of the other, although watchers of both will be rewarded with some nice little in-jokes.

I'm never the best person to ask about age suitability because I'd just let anyone see pretty much anything, but I suppose the potentially objectionable material would be jokes / mockery about boob sizes, allusions to periods and cross-dressing. So to be honest it should all be pretty familiar ground to teenage girls, and Lina is a teenage girl. It's not like there's any graphic sex or anything and violence is usually played for laughs, except when there are really things at stake and then the atmosphere makes it pretty clear.
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

Much obliged, Ayase, me old muckah!

That's plenty useful. Boobs / time of the month seems fair enough. The young lady in question is certainly of an age where such stuff won't be shocking.
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

Why would anyone object to the cross-dressing in Slayers, it's responsible for at least one of the best episodes. I'd go on about it but I'd rather avoid spoilers for anyone lucky enough to still have that to see for the first time.

Aren't there four (or five) TV series including Revolution and Evolution-R? I thought they were decent enough but I have no idea if they're actually popular or not so maybe that's a factor.

Apparently there were plans for a re-mastered Blu-ray release of the Slayers movies and OVAs in Japan (for the start of this year) but it was cancelled for some reason. That's a little disheartening, especially if it was because of a materials problem rather than something that might change (money, timing or whatever).

I always just assumed that the Lina/Naga stuff was set before the TV series but I guess some of it could have happened in-between. There are certainly gaps where the group splits up (it's kind of impressive that they manage to keep meeting up, although I guess adventurers are more likely to gather in adventure hotspots).
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

Gotta say, looking into Slayers stuff to get to the bottom of this made my head spin. I'd tried looking for info on here, but couldn't find anything easily, and a lot of my usual go-to resources came up blank. So cheers, guys! This could easily have become a massive project!

It does surprise me a little that what's supposedly held in high regard as one of Japan's most popular media franchises is actually getting pretty tricky to find unless people are happy to accept second hand stuff. From what I gather the first movie and OVA collection have NEVER been released here on DVD in spite of everything else having been. That seems a little strange to me.

My curiosity goes as far as having Lost Universe on my 'to watch' pile. Apparently there's a link to Slayers. Except there isn't. But there is. ARRRRGH!!! MY HEAD HURTS!!!
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

Smeelia said:
Aren't there four (or five) TV series including Revolution and Evolution-R?
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Yes, yes there are. I just totally forgot about them for a minute there. I liked them well enough but the animation didn't have quite the same charm as the old shows and I found Pokota quite irritating. I just wanted to see the old characters interact and this bloody Pokemon looking thing appears and takes valuable screen time.

That news about the HD release is a bit of a downer, I certainly hope quality masters survive. There should be, the movies were shown in cinemas to my knowledge which should mean there are 32mm reels out there somewhere.

Smeelia said:
I always just assumed that the Lina/Naga stuff was set before the TV series but I guess some of it could have happened in-between. There are certainly gaps where the group splits up (it's kind of impressive that they manage to keep meeting up, although I guess adventurers are more likely to gather in adventure hotspots).
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If there's anything Slayers succeeds in capturing it's the atmosphere of old school fantasy RPGs, so they probably just stayed where Lina left them.

As you probably know HdE, the TV series' are readily available from MVM but this is a nice collection of the movies and OVAs (well I say nice, barring the low visual quality I've mentioned) that's only missing the first movie and first OVA series you're talking about. Why they weren't included and were never released in the UK I have no idea, because I have an R1 copies of those and they're ADV releases as well. All I can think is that someone else must have had the UK licence for them and just sat on it.
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

I tend to agree about Pokota, I'm not really sure what they were thinking with that one and his story could have been just an episode or two (it's probably similar enough to some of the other guest characters from the previous shows).

I think the "old school RPG" aspect is one of the main reasons I liked Slayers to begin with, I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

As for Lost Universe, I did try it but couldn't get into it. It starts out with a pretty cool heroine and a suspiciously familiar seeming hero but the heroine gets completely sidelined in a very short time (apparently because she brought a gun to a swordfight). It did have some decent moments though and I was watching the dub so maybe I wasn't watching it properly. I'm often tempted to give it another go but I think it might just be one of those shows that could have been great but couldn't quite figure out what it wanted to do. The shadow of Slayers might also have harmed it I suppose, maybe it's the reason they didn't let the main female character play too big a part. I'm open to hearing alternate interpretations that people had though if there are any fans around.
 
Re: The Q & A Thread (for questions that do not need a threa

edit: I see this was actually discussed in the middle of another post.
 
I'm afraid I don't have the Japanese DVDs for Slayers. I was most into it back in the VHS days, so... ;_;

With regards to Lina/Naga vs Lina and the gang, they're based on different series of the same novels (which came out in a sort of chaotic way over the course of many years). Like with the infamous Rurouni Kenshin, the cool stuff towards the end of the novels was never adapted into anime and the anime staff stuffed themselves by coming up with an original continuity from the end of Slayers Next onwards, which would have made fitting some of the plot stuff back in again later difficult.

The Lina/Naga stories are set before the television adaptations though the anime staff put a couple of nods to Naga in later as fan service. Lina is meant to be younger and (slightly) wilder back in those days, and (more of a spoiler) it's an open secret among fans that Naga is actually Amelia's long lost older sister - which is why the staff never let them meet properly.

You can chart some of the chronology by Lina's spell choices because as batty as the series is, the author put quite a lot of effort into worldbuilding and Lina's skills as a mage evolve over the course of the series.

R
 
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Cheers for the thread Rui, as well as the timeline clear-up. There's also a spoiler under that spoiler tag that I wasn't going to be responsible for spoiling, but now that I think about it I learned that from reading info online rather than from actually watching Slayers, so I'm not sure "spoiler" is an accurate description. Maybe "something it's more entertaining to learn after the fact than before"?

Rui said:
the cool stuff towards the end of the novels was never adapted into anime and the anime staff stuffed themselves by coming up with an original continuity from the end of Slayers Next onwards, which would have made fitting some of the plot stuff back in again later difficult.
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Well this thread just keeps the disappointment coming. Try and Revolution/Evolution-R are probably the weakest parts of the franchise in my eyes and now I have something that might go some way to explaining why. FMA: Brotherhood style new series to fix this when?
 
Ok, I've arranged the spoiler tags slightly differently to give additional warning :D

The second thing was never explicitly mentioned anywhere in the anime that I remember (or the manga, or even the novels aside from hints and details) so I'm not sure when the best time to learn about it might be. I guess people who discover it right at the end can enjoy rewatching the entire series all over again!

R
 
Informative stuff, peepholes.

It's even made me marginally curious about the series. I've actually bought a copy of the DVD set in that link after chatting to my pal about it. It'll go to her daughter, after I've had a sneaky look at it! :3

Wild and crazy thought: First Slayers movie and OVA series may be something to ask UK distros for. It's actually quite something to consider that there's very little of the anime franchise that the UK hasn't had, considering it's size. Gundam, Fist of the North Star, Sailor Moon and a bajillion other mega-franchises can't claim that.
 
Well HdE, I hope you and she enjoy it. You can take the opportunity to reverse the insert so it makes for a classier looking gift.

Rui said:
novels
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And now I've learned there's an Encyclopaedia. And an RPG. Probably no-one plays it any more, but... lore. *Urge to start learning Japanese again rising*

Slayers is just one of those shows that whenever I get talking about I get the desire for more, in whatever form it might take. Damn it, look what's happened now:

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I didn't realise the first two seasons followed the novels and then Try onwards deviated. The beginning of Try has a rather odd piece of "world building" so it'd be interesting if that was an anime original idea. Try did still have some decent episodes so I guess they didn't do too badly overall.

ayase said:
Slayers is just one of those shows that whenever I get talking about I get the desire for more, in whatever form it might take.
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For some reason I was expecting to see a hug pillow when I scrolled down.

Talking about Slayers does make me want to watch it again (even though it wasn't that long ago that I watched it last). Also, Rune Soldier, which I associate with Slayers for some reason (they're both Fantasy RPGish comedies I guess).
 
Smeelia said:
For some reason I was expecting to see a hug pillow when I scrolled down.
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Heh. That's a plunge I've never taken. A Naga hug pillow wouldn't really be show accurate
but I guess a Lina one would be.
wlTKWNa.jpg
 
Slayers was my first anime and I loved it. I watched it way back when I was 13 years old. (I'm 31 now!)

The first three seasons weren't really animated all that great, so even if a remaster was done, it would never look amazing. Plus, the Funimation releases aren't that great, although much better than CPM's.

I wish Yen Press would license the novels too :)

While I'm wishing things, it would be great to see more of it animated from further on in the novels. The first arc was really all that was animated (Slayers, NEXT). Then R-Evolution-R essentially picked and chose from the first arc too. TRY was virtually all original stories.
 
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