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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
I'd like to request we watch 3 episodes this week. Because of reasons.

We'd also have to have another week of 3 episodes sometime in the future as well, again because reasons, how do folks feel about that?
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
In terms of pacing that works, since otherwise we have a week of one season ending and one season starting
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Whoever wrote these episodes clearly had not watched the finale of Slayers in some time, as characters react with shock to or need to have explained to them things they were clearly aware of during that arc. It's nice to see Zanaffar ... fleshed out a bit and an explainer of why exactly he was this weird thing that doesn't quite square with the rest of the cosmology, and required some weird shenanigans around Sairaag to deal with.

The action sequence choreography also kind of goes to pot, with entire sections of the fight just getting completely forgotten about so one group of characters or the other can monologue. The fights themselves are pretty good, but they don't weave together well at all. And poor Duclis; even after his climactic final scene, there's no time for him to do anything other than return in a new comedy body.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Everyone forgot that they already fought Zanifar and also nailed him to a tree, like, five years ago.

Sylphiel was there that’s how they met!
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
KEEP OUT: Weirdly named episode, but that was the least confusing thing about it. As has been mentioned, I'm not sure how much this season actually remembers form the first one. Lina does acknowledge killing Rezo, but never mentions Zanaffar or Sairaag at all, they all keep talking about Zanaffar as this legendary thing and not the final boss from three seasons ago.

For the most part I dig the extra fleshing out this otherwise MacGuffiny demon beast gets, its new backstory doesn't contradict anything from the first season and in fact helps explain why Rezo thought using something called a Demon Beast for his Shabranigdo Plan B if the Zanaffar (plural) was created precisely for that.

But the season doesn't do a good job explaining how Zanaffar actually came into play here, how Gioconda started making Zanaffar Armor to begin with, much less what 'Zanaffar Armor' even is or why that's the method Zanaffar uses to create more of itself. Bad enough the show seems to disregard much of what went down during the first season's finale, but it's not even explaining how its own new continuity works.

LEGACY: Hey it's Seyruun! Hey it's Sylphiel!! Hey it's Prince Phil!!! Suddenly the bad taste left in my mouth from the previous episode is cleared out, all is forgiven. Even though Sylphiel feels like kind of an afterthought, and as another consequence of mostly forgetting about the end of Season 1, she's just plopped into the Seyruun forces for some reason. I could buy that after Sairaag done got exploded (twice!) she packed up and went elsewhere, and if she wants to cross paths with Gourry then there are worse places to camp out in wait than the city where one of his known friends is a Princess. But it just could've used a mention, y'know?

Sylphiel's new dub actress is fine. She wasn't particularly strong in her original appearances so it's not surprising, but considering how the rest of the old dub cast has improved it might've been nice to give her another shot. I definitely approve of her calling Gourry 'Sir Gourry' now, sounds waaaaay less awkward than 'Gourry dear'.

Oh and speaking of, Lina FINALLY remembers to mention to Pokota that Gourry was the previous wielder of the Sword of Light and it's literally the only thing he's good at and Pokota happily hands over his replica. You mean that was an option this whole time? They could have just asked?!

MISTY: (is it official? Are we doing three? I'll spoiler just in case) PRobably my overall biggest gripe about this episode is the one appearance of Wizer and Xellos. Obviously we'll see Xellos later, but I took a look at cast lists for the remaining 13 episodes and Wizer is nowhere to be found. So that means the very last scene with our dear Inspector is just of him standing on a rooftop smartly deciding not to jump in on the final battle because he'd get in the way, and upon asking Xellos if he shouldn't jump in instead just getting 'lol no' as a response. That's it. I don't think we see Wizer again. And yet Pokota will be sticking around. Way to bank on the wrong character, anime team.

I don't much like Pokota, even after all this if I'm being honest. Part of this is the dub, while the rest of the main cast is much better than previously, Pokota just grates on me. I get he's supposed to sound like a young boy, but his performance just comes off as very stiff to me. Duclis isn't all that great either but at least you can handwave his voice being grating due to him literally being a monsterman. With how much better the main cast sounds, though, Pokota really comes off sounding like more of a 90s anime dub.

But as for the episode itself, Revolution corrects one of the biggest sins of Slayers Try, showing us Prince Phil and this time letting him actually BE Prince Phil. The moment is brief but I do appreciate seeing PACIFIST CRUSH one more time. Zanaffar is defeated, Pokota just casually tosses out a holy seed from Flagoon at the corpse (which Sylphiel reacts to, implying she DOES remember what went down in Sairaag but the show still isn't acknowledging it and this will never not irritate me) to take care of the miasma (which was an issue with the OG Zanaffar) and the series ends with the gang setting out to go Jar Hunting, but with no idea where to look. Thankfully the stinger gives us viewers a clue (Zuuma has it, remember him? I almost didn't)


Overall, good half season so far, though the past couple episodes dropped the ball a touch. Will Evolution-R regain its footing?
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Yeah Revolution was just some top-shelf Slayers-ing throuhoutnbut it stumbled as soon as Zannifar shows up. Partly because he wasn’t a very compelling villain when he first showed up (…as an upgrade to an existing villain) and fleshing him out a *little* here didn’t do a lot to change that. And that’s setting aside the fact that it felt like the writers just… forgot they already had Zannifar as a villain and the Slayers have been to Sairag. Twice. Which is wild considers the nitty-gritty details of continuity they take the time to acknowledge.

That being said, I liked that Zannifar was beaten by Lina getting clever with magic instead of just hucking progressively bigger spells at him until one worked, as usual.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Yeah Revolution was just some top-shelf Slayers-ing throuhoutnbut it stumbled as soon as Zannifar shows up. Partly because he wasn’t a very compelling villain when he first showed up (…as an upgrade to an existing villain) and fleshing him out a *little* here didn’t do a lot to change that.

Not only was he not a very compelling villain, but he completely displaced three other antagonists who did have compelling concepts beyond "big monster wants to eat things, grow stronger". Which we've had four times now? Shabranigdo, Dark Star, alt!Dark Star, and now Zannifar. Slayers IMO works best when the villains provide some kind of foil for Lina's selfish facade. Most other Slayers villains hit this to some degree or another, with Hellmaster and Rezo being really outstanding.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
We’re into the home stretch now!

Newcomer! New Journey!
Oh My Head! Where’s My Head?


We’ve got a long-awaited character finally joining the party! Sorta!
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
These are some A+ top tier gag episodes. “Nama” is hilarious, and the Dullahans are exactly the right kind of foils. Everyone gets a bit of a chance to show off and we get a top tier Dragon Slave.

It’s weird how much the entire Zanaffar arc seems to have been a shaggy dog story. After chasing it around for … 4? Episodes we’re right back at Gio’s castle, picking up the actual plot we’d been following through most of Revo, and almost nothing from the Zanaffar arc is relevant to it in any way.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
NEWCOMER: Oh hey look it's Naga! I mean, oh hey look it's a completely unrelated character with the exact same voice and laugh as Naga but it's not Naga!

I wonder if there's some rule about using Naga and the TV cast at the same time? Aside from noncanon appearances in various videogames the only other time Naga shows up in the same media as the TV cast is Slayers Premium, and even then no one notices her.

Anyway, 'Nama' is a living suit of armor who apparently is some totally unknown adventurer who got her soul trapped inside of it and will be hanging around for a bit since she lost her memory. This episode serves as an introduction for her and her and Lina have a pretty cool fight (where Nama showcases a proclivity to using Freeze Arrow which totally isn't another hint to her identity nope) and I do like the visual gags of Nama's armor acting like a a giant robot anime when she casts her spells. Lina doesn't get to melt her down in the end, but allows her to tag along. New party member get!

Is it too late to swap Pokota out for Wiser?

OH MY HEAD!: Love that episode title. This feels very fillery, but it's entertaining filler. I was almost expecting the big gag at the end to relate to that one episode from Try where Lina, Zel, and Filia help the ghost in the jar pass on by having the Dullahan be a relative of said jar ghost, but I guess not. Missed opportunity if you ask me.

I just noticed we didn't see Xellos in these two episodes, nor is he in the new opening! That's a shame. Oh speaking of:


The new opening, Front Breaking. Still a banger, but I think it's a step down from Plenty of Grit, both the song and the visuals. A good chunk of the first bit of this opening just shows previous villains (including Valgaav? So they're saying Try IS canon?) just sort of... drifting menacingly towards Lina before backing off. I mean, it's a fine enough opening, but it might actually be my least favorite of the 5 Slayers opening themes. It ain't bad, just the least impressive of a group of really great anime openings.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I don't think it was intended as a gag, but I loved Lina wearing a pair of pince-nez glasses in Newcomer; just *completely* incongruous with Slayers' art style and Linas design in particular.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
Total 100% filler. Quality Time doesn't even merit much discussion; it's just wall to wall gags.

Partner at least gives us some quality hints at a relationship between Naga and Amelia while scrupulously avoiding providing anything that could be construed as canonical confirmation. Some really good gags too.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Forgot to mention last week, but Oh My Head is one of the better gag episodes in the series, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that none of the Dullahans had heads, so the actors didn’t have to worry with matching their dialogue to the animation or anything; it sounded like they were all riffing with one another and it correspondingly felt like the most natural conversation Ive ever heard in any spoken dub.

Partner I have less to say anything about, but the visual gags and fact that Amelia and Nagma have such wildly different personalities and were stuck sharing a body is just a recipe for a good time
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
looks like the goofy filler arc might be coming to an end as this week we have

RAIDER! A Voice from the Darkness
SEEK! Who is Being Targeted?


And neither of those seem invoke zaniness
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Partner/Quality Time: One last shot of filler, the latter of the two being particularly bonkers.

One fun bit of trivia, when fish-boy fell in with the wrong crowd and showed up as a punk the music that was playing was actually Gourry's image song from the Slayers Next album, 'Set Me Free'. Strangely, can't seem to find it on the youtubes, but I recognized it immediately.

They also really teased the Amelia and Nam/ga connection but still wasn't willing to go all the way with it.

RAIDER: Oh good. Zuuma's back. Everyone's favorite. But also, good! Xellos's back! Everyone's actual favorite!

Also we say goodbye to Nama as Xellos rather unceremoniously shatters the jar that swapped her soul into the armor. We do get a rather interesting character beat for her, if you know what to look out for, when her demeanor briefly changes entirely when she learns Zuuma is an assassin. She shifts back into wacky shenanigans fairly quickly, but if you know your extended Slayers history you know Amelia and Naga's mother was killed by an assassin, and Naga ran away from home shortly after. So it makes sense she's not a big fan of the profession.

SEEK: Ok so it's obvious either the merchant or his kid is secretly Zuuma, right? Or at least working with him? Mainly I'm thinking that because it's so late to start adding new important characters, plus they're both needlessly antagonistic to damn near everyone.

I got a laugh at Lina immediately getting in Xellos's face but then taking him at his word when he says he has no idea who those monsters were. Is it true he's never directly lied to them? Hm. Only thing I can think of was that story he told them when they first met about looking for the Claire Bible because he was a priest where it was held, but he did immediately cop to it being a lie when he was surprised that it worked.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Good bye Nagma, you were the highlight of this filler arc, and once again, way more likeable a character than Potato.

It’s never quite clear if Lina knows who Nama is and is just keeping quiet about knowing her for Amelia’s sake (or at least because she knows Amelia wouldn’t shut up about it and wants to avoid the discussion, both are equally likely) or if she’s completely forgotten meeting her (she leads an interesting life), but either way good to see her, sort of, and her finally showing up is one of the indicators that they knew this was going to be the grand finale for the series.

That being said it would be nice if the penultimate villain was more interesting than Zuma. Who… y’know… is present.

At least we got some Monsters showing up; been a while since we had them!
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Well let’s see what that ol’ Zuma jerk has been up to, shall we?

TOWNSCAPE! Because it’s Man Made
UNCOVER! The Exposed Darkness
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Well… no idea what “Townscape Because it’s Manmade” means, other than an accurate but unhelpful definition of the word “townscape”, I guess. But these two episodes bring the long, pointless saga of Zuma to an end. In their defence, they also finally gave Zuma some stuff that made him interesting as a villain, and one of the nicer looking fight scenes in the series. But they also crammed everything that would have made me interested in Zuma into the last few minutes of the last episode before he dies.

Townscape is largely concerned with the party realizing that nothing about the whole Zuma arc makes a friggin’ lick of sense, so Lina and Gourry decide to follow around Ozul, the T1000 maid while she performs chores for Jackass Merchant Rennock. This doesnt move the plot forward any, but it does eat up some time, so sure, whatever. Also she goes ham on smashing some pots like she was in a Legend of Zelda game. Meanwhile, Amelia and Zel get attacked by those monsters again, and Zuma attacks everyone else. And then the fights all stop, and everyone is left going “Huh?”

But Ozul managed to stab Zuma in the fight, and later notices that Rennock is bleeding from that same spot, which I guess she doesn’t consider to be information worth sharing with anyone.

Uncover finally gives some context for all the Zuma/Rennock/Abel stuff, but for all the meandering this arc has had, they kind of gloss over some of the important things and leave them as inferences; seems the reason Rennock and his son don’t get along is because the son blames his dad for his mothers death, when they were waylaid by bandits; and Rennock didn’t become obsessed with revenge in hunting them down. And then Rennock says that vengeance doesn’t solve anything, and besides those bandits were all murdered before he could have gotten a chance to, and it’s implied that Lina is the one who killed those bandits in one of the filler arcs waaaay back in season 1, but they never come out and say it one way or the other. Then monsters come to attack Rennock, and Zuma comes to attack Lina and everyone gets separated; Zel and Amelia get attacked by the Monsters again but they retreat immediately when they had the upper hand because it turns out Zuma was controlling them all along and he needed them on hand (we also get a lot of lingering shots of Amelia getting tied up by the hair monsters tentacles, which was also part of the commercial bumper so… umm… good to know your priorities, animation team). Zuma reveals that he was Rennock all along, and that by using the Hellmaster Jar he imbued himself with some of Rezos forbidden knowledge, such as the ability to graft Monsters to his body to increase his own abilities, like a Cronenbergy Mega Man, so he murders the Monsters he hired and gained their powers, as well as much grosser arms, and also casually butchers his son because slapping demons into your body doesn’t help your sense of personal ethics any.

And now that Zuma has an actual backstory and a much more impressive set of powers and we’re all geared up for an exciting final confrontation that would have justified this whole dumb arc… Xellos up and murders him.

Ah well, bye Zuma, I forgot your were in the show every time you weren’t on the screen.
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
This arc seemed to be trying to set up a "chickens come home to roost" arc for Lina and the gang's actions during season 1 - there's multiple hints that Lina's bandit exterminations, the battle at Sairaag, and Rezo's whole thing are responsible for the trouble they find them in. But at least so far there's been no effort to actually ground those hints.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Also the opening showing all the previous villains giving Lina a staredown.

but to be fair, every one of those things were Rezos fault
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
TOWNSCAPE: The naming here is puzzling too. Is it referring to how Ozul is well liked among the townspeople, and much like the town she is also man-made? That's one hell of a stretch. Anyway Zuuma shows up again only to run away again and Ozul manages to knick him in the leg (whose side is she even on?) and later notices Raddock has the same injury by pure coincidence.

UNCOVER: We FINALLY get the truth behind Zuuma. Well, mostly. We find out he was Raddock all along, which was only surprising in as much as it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially with how much the story was hinting at a thing between his son and Ozul which went absolutely nowhere when Zuuma just decides to kill his own son because he suggested his single-minded obsession for killing Lina was maybe not the best idea in the world.

As for WHY Zuuma wants to kill Lina so much? Well it doesn't say it outright but it's hinted that because the bandits that killed Raddock's wife eventually died when Rezo 'sploded Sairaag, he blames Lina for stealing his chance to kill the bandits himself. When, again, REZO was the one that done blew up Sairaag and if anything he's been either working for or directly aiding Rezo the entire time.

And before the crew can decide if they're as confused by and sick of Zuuma's BS as the rest of us Xellos decides 'eff it' and just straight up kills him to be done with it. (fun bit of trivia, Xellos's 'true' monster form is that purple tornado energy cone, which we did see briefly back at the end of NEXT when he appears to fill the party in on what happened after Lina cast the Giga Slave) Xellos threatens to take the Hellmaster's Jar but he wasn't counting on Ozul saying no so he just shrugs and leaves.

What's coming for the remaining episodes? Who the hell knows?! It's obvious this whole Zuuma cul-de-sac in the plot just wasn't working, pity the writers couldn't realize that back at the end of Revolution when they had an easy opportunity to just kill him off then.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Kicking off the final plot arc now with;

VOICE! What’s Inside the Jar?
WISDOM! Seek the Time That Will Not Return
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
VOICE: I kept trying to place Rezo's new english voice and in this episode it finally dawned on me, he's Illidan from Warcraft (among others). I could have just looked up his voice actor I suppose but it's fun to guess.

This episode, I dunno, didn't really work for me. It's reeeeeeaaally late in the game for one last bit of silliness, much less introducing nameless mooks, fun as it is to see Lina pick on some bandits again.

There was a throw-away line back in Season 1 while the party was exploring Rezo's lab in Sairaag where Zel commented that Rezo had a cheesy sense of humor, despite absolutely nothing up to that point suggesting it, and we do see some of that here. Does Rezo like corny jokes? Or does he just enjoy being a troll even as a disembodied voice? Who can say?

WISDOM: Ahhh, this is more like it. This episode is the inevitable result of a Rezo-centered arc, Zel REALLY wants to be human again. Remember that character point? When was the last time that was relevant? The first episode of NEXT? Maybe half an episode in TRY? Despite Zel increasingly embracing his lot in life as one of Lina's convenience items it's important to remember that this is STILL what largely motivates him so of course he'd grab the opportunity to turn himself back if he thinks he can pull it off.

The flashbacks here were great and line up with what we know from the first season shockingly well. And hey! It's Zolf! And Rodimus! And Noonsa! And effing DILGEAR! And they're all hanging out and being buds with Zel and doing good mercenary work, it's great! Why couldn't we have had a several episode flashback from this time instead of that dead-end plot with Zuuma?

But anyway, Zel demands to know how to turn back into a human and Rezo is all 'lol no' and then Pokota steals the jar and flies off (who had his own crisis of faith in this episode as well but what the hell ever it's just Pokota) and then I guess we're all heading off for the last big plot event in Taforashia as Xellos looms over the party and opens just one eye so I guess he's half-serious? We should take this half-seriously?

Rezo also seems to maybe not want to be resurrected, Lina suggests? Guess we'll find out what that's all about next week, which should be our last week of the Slayers rewatch. This has been a fun ride, bumps aside.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Time to put this project to bed, I guess…

XENO! The Price of Revival!
YESTERDAYS MEMORY! Days Regained
ZERO HOUR! The Destroyed One!


I feel like “Xeno” might be cheating but it’s not like there’s an excess of X-words.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Also Spoony largely echoed everything I was geared up to say about last weeks episodes; I appreciated that we got one last Goofy Episode before the finale; and it was a Goofy Filler Episode that did, in its own way, advance the plot;

Rezos soul gives everyone a bunch of irrelevant side-quests which everyone assumes is because he’s gone a bit loopy from having his soul jammed in a bucket for years, but it turns out it’s because he was trying to help everyone except the party, and that’s because, Crab Satan notwithstanding, Rezo is a pretty solid dude.

Then we get a flashback to Zel in his human days (which *really* could have been a whole arc instead of that Zuma nonsense) where we get a refresher on Rezo when he was all hopped up on Crab Satan Juice to remind us that, no, Rezo pretty much sucks.

Which also ties in to the fact that Rezo can not make up his mind about wanting to be resurrected.

I wonder if that’s going to be relevant at all?

Probably not, there’s only a couple of episodes left; not really any time to explore why a guy with complicated morality and possessed by Crab Satan may be indecisive about being brought back to life
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Hate to see it go, but love to see it leave; great bunch of episodes to close out the series on.

Xeno is largely concerned with Rezo still being weirdly indecisive about whether or not he wants to be resurrected or not; finding all kinds of excuses not to do it and good reasons for people to bring him back; ultimately landing on the fact that only Potato’s original body can house his spirit; so if he comes back Potato will be stuck as a Digimon forever.

And Potato says “Well, not like being a stuffed toy has been an impediment, so sure, whatever”, and so Rezo is revived and this makes Ozul die for some reason and Rezo looks even more sinister than ever and his spooky music kicks in…

And in Yeaterday we see that, well, that was a fake out; Oxyl died because she was only built to survive to see the Hellmaster Jar taken care of, Rezo popped into Potato’s body which was way less ominous looking, and then went straight to work reviving the people of Topherasia, and everything looks great and we have a weirdly anti-climactic, good time finale for the series…

Exceeeeeept…

Turns out that Rezo still can’t see despite having a new, healthy body with functional eyeballs. And he still hasn’t explained why he had so many contradictory requests for what was supposed to happen to his soul. And also Xellos is around keeping a close watch on him.

And then we learn that you can take the soul out of the Crab Satan, but you can’t take the Crab Satan out of the soul; Rezo realized that Shrabranigdo was stuck in the Jar with him, and if he got resurrected, ol’ Shabby is coming back with him. And he wanted Lina to be the one to have final say in bringing him back because she is the only person on the planet who has a chance of killing the Dark Lord; this whole plot was him trying to commit suicide by Inverse.

And then The Ruby Eye opens up and the whole (extra long) finale is one big rematch against Crab Satan; who got a real glow up since his last appearance which was helped by the fact that the animation in Evolution is WAY nicer than season 1 as well.

We get two of my favorite things in any anime (spontaneous volcanos forming because of an intense fight and also the theme song kicking up in the middle of a climactic battle, and it’s the Next theme song, because they know what the best theme song is) and we get the party exploiting one of the long forgotten rules of magic / demon fighting, but it’s not enough and Shabby nearly gets a TPK…

And then Potato sacrifices his own sole breaking his Hellmaster Jar letting him reclaim his original body long enough to hold back Shabby letting Linda cast an Amplified Giga Slave; permanently destroying Ruby Eye.

And as a final “Whoops, my bad” Rezos soul returns Potato back to his stuffed animal body (since his original got Giga Slaved), and Potato’s dad says “I love my Digimon son” and Xellos (who was decapitated earlier) says “Huh, in the end I guess they really were… Slayers”

And I said “Oh! They were the Slayers all along!”

And we fade out in everyone going off on a new adventure.

Hooray!
 

Egarwaen

(He/Him)
While the rest of this season has veered between "great comedy filler" and "shoddy and unstructured plot", I think these final episodes are actually pretty good. The party's various plans for dealing with Shabranigdo make sense given what they know at the time they make them, the dramatic arcs for Rezo and Pokota are engaging, the fight scenes are fun... Overall a high note!
 
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