The Slayers Group Watch Thread

[Octopus Prime]

Hi! I'm Octo! And my single favorite anime series, ever, is The Slayers. The whole darn thing, really (Try has some thematic problems, but it's fine). And I have been hankerin' to rewatch it, as it's been a while since the last time I did.

Furthermore, Slayers is a moderately popular 90s anime, and I KNOWS we got peeps who love that kind of fresh nonsense, and after talking about it on the Discord, I figured "Why not make a whole darn thread for it!"

And hey, GUESS WHAT, BUDDY, YOU'RE READING THAT THREAD RIGHT NOW!

Haven't decided on a watching schedule just yet, but we can hammer out the deets later; I'll edit this post as needed.

I'm thinking we just cover the first season for now, and see how we all feel about continuing after that.

So who'se up for some fantasy hijinks?

EDIT
We’re kicking off with the first two episodes of the first series;

Angry! Linas Furious Dragon Slave
Bad! Mummy Men Aren't My Type

Between May 28 and June 5.

 

[SpoonyBard]

I'm down for that, I have the first season on DVD (inexplicably not Next, even though it's my fav, I should correct that one of these days).

Is there a streaming service with it? Crunchyroll maybe?

 

[Octopus Prime]

Crunchyroll perhaps, but the DVDs aren't terribly expensive now. At least comapred to when I first got them and they were TWO HUNDRED BUCKS a pop

 

[SpoonyBard]

Looks like they're available on FUNimation? Dunno about the movies/OVAs but the original three seasons and Revolution/Evolution-R are there.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Those are the important parts anyway! The OAVs are *fine*, but far and away the weaker part of the franchise

 

[Egarwaen]

Funimation has all of the TV series but none of the movies or OAVs

 

[Ixo]

Spoony sent me an enormous Slayers box set for Festivus year before last so I kind of don’t have an excuse not to.

 

[Egarwaen]

Why don’t we aim to start next weekend with some reasonable initial batch of episodes? That’ll give anyone who needs discs shipped a reasonable amount of time.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Sounds good. Shall we say 2 eps a week?

 

[Kairu]

I'm in. I caught a batch of episodes years ago in one of the screening rooms at an anime convention; always meant to go through a proper watch of the series at some point.

Two a week sounds reasonable. If we limit it to the TV episodes how many would that be.

 

[Octopus Prime]

IIRC, 26 episodes per season and four seasons, so 156 total.

Well, 3 26 episode seasons, and two 13 episode seasons, but it’s hard to separate Revolution and Evolution, and the math works out the same way either way

 

[Purple]

They kept the alphabetical episode naming running. It's one season. It's just one season that had to move a letter over for network hopping reasons. And we're just not sullying ourselves with any of the OAVs or movies, yes?

 

[Issun]

I have never ever watched this series and it's on Hulu. I'm in.

 

[Daikaiju]

FUCK YES.

 

[Aleryn]

WATCH IT. Upon first viewing years ago I felt like I found some magical love letter to all the JRPGs I burnt hours into. And it was good besides that.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I've been sitting on Slayers for a while and always wanted to but never got around to watching it. So this gives me a great excuse, thanks!

 

[Octopus Prime]

They kept the alphabetical episode naming running. It's one season. It's just one season that had to move a letter over for network hopping reasons. And we're just not sullying ourselves with any of the OAVs or movies, yes?

I see no reason to waste our time.

The dub for the movie at least sees it fit to make the villain a Loony Tunes riff for some reason, that’s something.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Updated the OP;

Were watching the first two episodes of the first series;

ANGRY! Linas Furious Dragon Slave
BAD! Mummy Men Aren’t My Type

Between May 28 and June 5th

Be there or be square!

 

[SpoonyBard]

Cool beans.

Before we start the episodes for reals, what was everyone's first introduction to the series? First Slayers media I saw was at my University's anime club (remember those?), one evening they showed one of the OVAs and I was hooked. I can't remember which one it was exactly, one of the latter ones I think. It involved Lina and Naga getting into a fight with giant robot golem proxies of themselves.

I enjoyed it so much I rented the VHS fandub (remember THOSE???) of the only other Slayers media they had, the first two episodes of Slayers Next. A bit of a shift, to say the least, but I loved that as well and eventually got around to watching the rest of the series (in the proper order).

 

[Octopus Prime]

I have no idea where I first heard of the series, but I knew it existed and that it was very much up my alley and I asked for it for Christmas and by God, Santa delivered that. First DVD I ever owned, in fact!

 

[Rascally Badger]

I am vaguely aware of Slayers from being a nerd on the internet for the last 20 or so years. I've never seen it and only barely know what it is about. I am in for this group watch.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I am vaguely aware of Slayers from being a nerd on the internet for the last 20 or so years.

Same, but change that to like 25 years. I remember seeing ads for Slayers stuff in anime rags and fan sites in the mid-late 90s but wrote it off as potentially being too horny. My most direct exposure to Slayers is Dota, weirdly enough.

 

[Super Megaman X]

Octo, I always knew you were a pretty swell dude, but Slayers is also my favorite anime ever, so you get some major respect points from me, my dude. I discovered Slayers senior year of high school, when my best friend managed to get his hands on the three TV seasons on DVD. I don't know how exactly he had heard of it, but he said that he knew I would like it, so I gave it a chance. The first episode was decent enough, the second interesting, but by the time I had finished the third, I was absolutely hooked. Nothing has changed since that day. I unfortunately probably won't be able to do the watch with you guys, my schedule's pretty full, but I'm SUPER DUPER EXCITED for more TTers to experience this magic!

 

[Purple]

And we're just not sullying ourselves with any of the OAVs or movies, yes?

I see no reason to waste our time.

The dub for the movie at least sees it fit to make the villain a Loony Tunes riff for some reason, that’s something.

wrote it off as potentially being too horny.

So first off, it's worth noting that at least 95% of the horny is relegated to the OAVs and movies, which are a weird prequel thing where most of the very fun cast isn't there and in their place is... a walking boob joke. Advertising wise though, yeah, those got WAY more exposure back in the day as they were put out by ADV, at the absolute height of their weird "whopping 2 episodes on a weird white VHS tape" popularity, while the actual TV series was put out by the relatively obscure Software Sculptors.

Side note, and this is just my opinion, grain of salt, etc. as someone who actually generally prefers to watch most things dubbed these days, Slayers is still on my short list of sub-only shows. So if given the choice, that'd be my recommendation on how to proceed.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’ll admit that the dub makes one change which is sticks with through the whole run of the show that never sat well with me and always came across as clunky, but otherwise the dub is so engrained in my heart and soul I could never go back.

It was naming the specific species (nation?) of demons that make up 90% of the shows villains “The Monster Race” instead of “Mazoku”, incidentally. It was a made-up term! They could have translated it as anything or left it untouched, but they went with the most awkward and confusing choice!

 

[Octopus Prime]

My inclination is towards dubs, but, except for that one thing I noted, there’s no real difference between the two. Listen to your heart.

 

[JBear]

Listen to your heart.

By which, of course, Octo means that if you hear "ba-dump, ba-dump", you should do dubs, and if you hear "doki doki", you should do subs.

First Slayers media I saw was at my University's anime club

Same, except that I was in high school and not yet actually attending that university, and it was near the end of season 1, not an OAV.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Close, you should watch the subs if your heart sounds like “doki-doki”. And the dub if your heart sounds like “Mario 2-Mario 2”

 

[SpoonyBard]

I'll be doing subs, it's what I'm familiar with and the one time I tried the dub I cringed so hard I pulled a muscle.

My tastes have changed lately and I'm no longer the fervant sub-only zealot I was in my youth, these days I do prefer modern dubs, but the dub for Slayers just oozes old 90s dubbing... let's say charm. Though the absolute worst dubbing choice we won't see until season 2.

Though if Slayers ever got a re-dub with the voice actors out there today then I'd totally give that a shot.

 

[Octopus Prime]

They kept the original VAs even with Revolution, and that was produced 10 years later. Except Xellos, they recast him.

I... did not pour one out for what we lost.