We’re taking a look at the popular anime series of the 1990s, which is based on the light novel series written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. Give me an “S”! Give me an “L”! Give me an “A”! Give me a “Y”! Give me an “E”! Give me an “R”! Give me an “S”! What does that spell? Slayers! The story follows the adventures of teenage sorceress Lina Inverse (Megumi Hayashibara - JP, Lisa Ortiz - EN) and her companions as they journey through their world. Using powerful magic and swordsmanship, they battle overreaching wizards, demons seeking to destroy the world, and an occasional hapless gang of bandits. The anime series is considered one of the most popular of the 1990s.
Lina Inverse, the main protagonist (pictured above), specializes in black magic, specifically attack magic that calls upon the power of demons. Her signature spell, Dragon Slave, comes from the power of the Dark Lord Shabranigdu, while Ragna Blade and her most powerful spell, Giga Slave, call upon the Lord of Nightmares. She is also a skilled swordsman, though not on the level of Gourry or Zelgadis, as she lacks physical strength. Lisa Ortiz, the character’s English voice actress (TV series only!), is known for the original Musa in Winx Club (4Kids run)… Musa before Musa… except Lina isn’t the Fairy of Music. Lina is joined by Gourry Gabriev (Yasunori Matsumoto, JP; Eric Stuart, EN), a mighty yet dimwitted mercenary swordsman who meets Lina at the beginning of the series and accompanies her from then on as a self-appointed bodyguard, Zelgadis Graywords (Hikaru Midorikawa, JP; Daniel Cronin, eps. 2-10 EN, Crispin Freeman, eps. 18-104 EN), a sorcerer who Lina and Gourry meet, and a retainer who is actually seeking the stone to make himself powerful enough to kill Rezo the Red Priest as revenge for turning him into a chimera, Sylphiel Nells Ruda ( Yumi Tōma, JP; Stacia Crawford eps. 18-26 and 49-52 EN, Stephanie Sheh eps. 90-93 and 104 EN), a shrine maiden and the daughter of the high priest of Sairaag. She knows Gourry from when he helped her father in a previous visit to the city, and has had a crush on him ever since and Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune (Masami Suzuki, JP; Joan Baker eps. 11-13 EN, Veronica Taylor eps. 14-104 EN), the youngest princess of the Holy Kingdom of Saillune, and its head shrine maiden where she joins Lina and Gourry on their travels after they stop her uncle and nephew's assassination attempts on her father, Phil Saillune. I know there are a lot of characters in the anime adaption, including the light novel series, but Substack will refuse emails over 100 KB once the newsletter is posted.
Sadly, there’s no legal way to stream this anime series unless you can find it on YouTube (paid), Crunchyroll, or Prime Video (TRY, English dubbed, paid). I also found this shindig on the Internet Archive. There’s also Slayers Royal and Slayers Royal 2 (both pictured below) for the Sega Saturn… but they are only released in Japan. The anime series’ official website (Japanese only) is still up… but not for long.
…and that’s how we review this popular anime of the 1990s on Substack. Don’t forget to subscribe to this newsletter for more retro gaming and anime (and I hope I didn’t wake anyone up in the middle of the night).
