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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
WARNING: This episode might have some of the last real hi-jinx of the season, with Gourry being briefly brainwashed by Eris. (assuming there was anything in there to wash) But besides that moment this episode largely focuses on Eris's motivations for trying to be the seasons big bad. And we also have the shocking reveal that the Rezo here is a Copy!

So wait. You mean the thing that was so obviously true and the entire party had already speculated was true and the story had clearly laid out was true actually turned out to be true????

Yeah the lingering on that 'reveal' is just a little comical.

I did like Eris's flashback, not so much for her motivations but in that it finally shows us some actual pathos for Rezo. Like, in the first part of the season we were told he was willing to go to extreme lengths to cure his blindness, but we never actually saw said blindness ever being a hindrance to him. In this flashback we can at least see how tormented he was to be trapped in darkness, and while it's still a crummy motivation to summon Crab Satan to solve his problem it at least frames it a bit better. Plus Rezo DID have a contingency in place, even if said contingency was to summon another hideous monster to fight the first one he summoned. I'm not sure what his plan was to deal with Zanaffar after the fact, I guess he was hoping when winter came along it would simply freeze to death.

Anyway the episode ends with one of the most obvious betrayals in genre history as Copy Rezo decides he's sick of Eris's laugh, I guess, and kills her to take Zanaffar's power for himself. Curse his sudden and inevitable betrayal!

X-DAY: Yeah really stretching with the titles here, huh? There aren't many english words that start with X.

So as Eris is dying she realizes that maybe this whole plan was kind of dumb, and Copy Rezo just anime-blasts her body away because animating the upcoming fight around it would have been tricky. (also did anyone else notice her belt buckle was a Fast-Forward symbol? I can't unsee that now)

Copy Rezo wants to kill Lina to prove he's better than the original, so basically he wants to anime-fight the protag to prove he's STRONGER which makes his motivations a bit more shonen-y for this series.

This episode is basically just a beat-down from top to bottom as Copy Rezo just bodies everyone in the party as they try to stand against him. Even Gourry's Sword of Light, supposedly Zanaffar's weakness, does diddly-squat. But we do get some rather obvious foreshadowing that the holy tree Flagoon will have something to do with his defeat.

Copy Rezo also wants Lina to use the Giga Slave against him, specifically, since it was the spell that killed Rezo. I mean, technically it killed Shabranigdo, Rezo was ALREADY dead by that point but whatevs. He will not be the last villain to demand Lina cast that particular spell. And after kicking around the party long enough Lina decides to give him what he wants, but Sylphiel's intervention and Copy Rezo's subsequent rage has the episode end on a rather shocking cliffhanger.

See ya'll next week!
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I definitely noticed Eris’ Fast Forward belt and have consistently forgotten to mention it until it was too late. Good bye, Eris; ill always remember you as you lived; with a way cooler outfit than your characterization warranted.

I liked that everyone, including Rezo, was kind of surprised that being possessed by Zannifar didn’t turn him into a big cool monster man; it just gave him a weird, noisy shadow and heterochromia. And also maxed out his stats and gave him infinite MP

In addition to the death of a great belt and shoulder pads, and the last joke of the season, Warning also had I believe the last Good Fight he season; with the party splitting up to deal with each of the remaining villains and getting utterly linked because of it. Lina was actually doing really well against Eros until she mind controlled Gourry, granted, but Copy Rezo was reestablishing his final boss bonafide. After that it’s pretty much all Dragonball fights, which are fine too, but the show kind of sets itself higher than that in general.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
Eris got an unusually cruel and prolonged death scene, as per historical standards of this show--though things will only escalate from here. Kind of a waste of a character, though--had they revealed Eris as a white mage follower of Rezo earlier on, we could have had a nice thematic conflict (and more than likely an interesting set of battles) between the black magic sorceress who fights mostly for good, vs the white magic cleric consumed by revenge and power. It would have even given Sylphiel a nice context to chew on! Ah, well.

But you have to wonder--if OG Rezo's plan was to have Zanaffar fight it out with Shabby Dabby Doo, then he seriously had no idea his eyes were a vessel for the latter, huh? At best, his body would've been torn apart between Shabranigdo and Zanaffar fighting over it to possess it; at worst, they would have merged and become an even bigger threat. And also, even if Zanaffar was his trump card, then why did he go and use the Philosopher's Stone at the tower so far removed from his lab, where he didn't have access to his wards and tools?

Oh, and I did find it amusing how, a couple episodes ago, Sylphiel was adamant against Lina attempting the Giga Slave again, since a miscast would destroy existence. But then, when Lina actually goes and casts it, Sylphiel all but tackles her during the incantation, forcing Lina to nigh-miraculously hold it in. Way to almost destroy existence in trying to prevent Lina from destroying existence, Syl!


Copy Rezo wants to kill Lina to prove he's better than the original, so basically he wants to anime-fight the protag to prove he's STRONGER which makes his motivations a bit more shonen-y for this series.

Somewhere in Kanzaka and Araizumi's notes there must be an alternate Slayers where Copy Rezo became the very tall Vegeta to Lina's very short Goku and on the one hand, we were robbed of the comedy potential, on the other, I'm glad we didn't get that version because the story is already so very heavily skewed towards magic-using munchkins as it is.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
Ah, this comforting nostalgia. "Copy Rezo!" "I am the one you'll fight!" Other things that seem to get repeated weirdly often.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Regular Rezo was only blind because he had a little chunk of Satan in his eyes (which he was unaware of); shouldn’t Copy Rezo have fully functional peepers even without Zannifars power?
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
He... he just never thought of opening his eyes until it was too embarrassing to admit.
 

John

(he/him)
WARNING: A pretty fun lead-up to the end of the season. They didn't write enough for the whole party to do though, so the other ladies just get to sit back and whine, unfortunately. Sylphiel in particular had big Deanna Troi "I'm sensing something bad is happening" energy. Haven't watched the next episode, but my gut says that the tablet having a missing corner means the summon doesn't work 100%, giving the team an edge. Who's to say, I've been wrong in the past. I'm still waiting for Lina's sister to show up after they name-dropped her about 12 episodes ago.

I was hoping Eris would get skewered by a long thin blade, and then would gracefully drop down into the Lifestream. Instead she just gets poked with energy like a chump. Ah well.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Regarding Rezo's blindness, I think it's confirmed later at some point that Shabranigdo inhabited Rezo's soul, which is why is why Copy Rezo doesn't have to worry about Crab-Satan, but I guess Rezo was born blind regardless. My take was always that, rather than being responsible for the affliction, Shabby just took advantage of it and prevented White Magic from curing it in order to drive him to more extreme measures.

So Copy Rezo was likely also blind, but presumably a strong enough healing spell would have solved that problem and I guess he only bothered when he absorbed Zannafar's power.

(I don't know how that explicit red glint in his eyes that the show lingered on for one moment and only one moment factors into that explanation since Ruby Eye = Shabranigdo is kind of a giveaway, so maybe this explanation is all bunk)
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Copy Rezo also has one cats eye and one normal eye, as opposed to two glowing spooky eyes.

Not sure if that’s a Zannifar thing or they just slapped some cat DNA in there when cloning him, like the Jurassic Park dinos and frogs
 

John

(he/him)
X-DAY: Ah well, I guess Eris wasn't fully dead yet, and got to show some remorse from cloning her bae. Now she's definitely super dead, just like Lina is (don't trust the omniscient narrator, there's no way she can survive this).

Good battle, I liked the tactical move of having Lina attack from below. Rezo's cat-eye is actually an aimbot/wallhack patch, so he saw what they were doing.

Sylphiel's dub voice actor just doesn't get any better, does she? Everyone else is good to ok, but she just doesn't have range.

Time for the Mana Tree to blow pixie dust on everyone, and to make Lina the new Mana Goddess!
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Time to bring season 1 to a close with

YES! A Final Hope: The Bless Blade
ZAP! I Always Win


Guess things are going to be okay?
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
YES!: Things were pretty touch and go there for a bit, the fact that Lina needed the help of two white mages just to stop the bleeding is pretty dire.

The moment Zel bubbles Syl and Lina to send them away to a safer place certainly got Amelia's attention, maybe this Zelgadis fella ain't as big a crank as he puts on!

My favorite character moment in this fight though is Gourry trying, trying oh so hard, to step up and be a leader here in Lina's absence. He does his jellyfish-brained best, bless him. He even uncharacteristically remembers what the Ra Tilt does, though characteristically forgot it didn't work on Shabby and likely wouldn't work on Zannafar. Still, gold star for effort Mr. Gabriev!

I had totally forgot Phil barged into the final battle to lighten the mood and I'm so glad I did because it put a big smile on my face all over again. As it lead up to that moment I was remembering SOMETHING was going to happen but couldn't quite remember what, but then it all came back to me as the best side-character in the series rushes in to solo the final boss. Thank goodness for Prince Philoniel.

Anyway Lina dies for a moment but thank goodness Sylphiel was also a trained non-magical medic on top of being a priestess so she is able to restart her heart. I guess this proves that white magic needs some life to work with in order to do anything. Then Sylphiel stumbles upon the episode's MacGuffin (which she had hid there as a child showing once more that she has a mischievous side that we just don't see enough of), Lina is fully restored and everyone rushes to take out the final boss.

ZAP!: There really isn't any zapping in this final episode, I guess they just wanted a Z-word. But the big bad's pet monster is named Zannafar, they could have just gone with that!

Anyway, lots of great fighty-fight moments, powered up sword of light, double-boosted Ra Tilts, more of Rezo's stupid laugh, and Lina lands the final blow without even using a single spell! (besides Raywing) Sylphiel sits out the first round of the fight for some reason, but fulfills her role as guest party member by participating in the final battle scripted sequence where she needs to do a thing to heal the thing so it can do the thing. Flagoon is restored, Rezo is impaled upon it, Zannafar is dissipated with Flagoon acting as a demonic heatsink, and Rezo is left as a normal man that has a giant sword embedded in his chest so that's not an ideal circumstance for him.

Copy Rezo has a deathbed realization that this whole plan was kind of dumb, much like Eris, and for some reason the party grants him a burial under Flagoon despite all he's done. Guys, he did obliterate an entire city, just because he was really really sad about not being the OG Rezo doesn't mean his repetance is genuine.

Anyway, Sairaag is being rebuilt (oh there are the survivors) and I guess no one asked the party of powerful mages what on earth happened and just lets them have a feast among the hardworking peasants. (I think this is the first time we see Zel also being kind of a glutton? He does fit in!) I guess Prince Phil vouched for them. (speaking of I like that Sylphiel has the same reaction to Phil being a Prince that Lina did, they're not too different those two)

And so the season ends with the entire party together, running off towards the horizon to a new adventure and this is certainly where we will pick up with them again in the future.

I'll do a full season decompress later, but I really enjoyed this rewatch.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
I haven't had time to watch these yet, but I HAVE somehow had time to research what we are NOT watching next. What we ARE watching next (if I properly recall from earlier discussions anyway) is... Next, but between the first season and Next came the release of both a movie and 3 OAV episodes, all of which are prequels, not featuring the bulk of the main cast, just Lina and her old traveling companion Naga, who we technically saw for like 3 frames. She looks like this:
MV5BMmRlM2I3M2YtNjdjNC00NmJiLWEzYzYtZTRjODZkYzUyZWM2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzU1NzE3NTg@._V1_.jpg

She's another black mage obviously, is kind of an idiot and a narccisist, does that "ohoho" laugh a lot, and if a joke can be made about the size of her boobs, it will. Kind of a one-note character.

The movie is... really forgettable. Something something previous owner of the sword of light, something something there used to be elves but they got splatted by a demon, something something closure.

Meanwhile the 3 OAV episodes in this gap between seasons covers:
- The Scary Chimera Plan which... I mean yes, that's pretty scary.
- Some "please feed this loser kid some levels on this rigged pity quest" deal.
- This thing with this mirror that makes opposite aligned doppelgangers which admittedly has the pretty great payoff that Mirror Lina is a generous pacifist who respects authority.

And then there's another 3 movies and 4 OAVs but they weren't released until later so don't get to be part of this historical footnote. Anyway these aren't particularly worth it and I just spoiled the two good gags.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
No matter how early I get up to do a recap on Friday, Spoony always manages to beat me to the punch and say everything I was going to.

l really Iiked The party coordination in the actual final battle; always like seeing team ups like that, and the animation looked terrific.

Also liked that Rezo finally got a beefed up cool monster form (even if it’s a lot less dramatic than Crab Satan), but it was only in time to be slain.

The real Slayers we’re the friends we made along the way
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
The movie at least had some nice animation, and the dub had the inexplicable and delightful decision to make the villain a Loony Tunes reference
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Speaking of OAVs I know the Naga stuff doesn't fall under the purview of the tv series, but if and when we wrap up Try and before moving on to Revolution shall we watch Premium? Yes it's an OAV but it's like the only one that stars the TV cast.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
On that note, are we going to jump right into season 2 next week, or wait a bit? Maybe do a different series inbetween?

I've seen Netflix has both Jojo and One Piece, which I have wanted to finally see and rewatch respectively. One Piece would need a cutoff point, either at the end of the East Blue arc (50-something episodes) or if too long then at the end of the Baratie arc (like late 20s?).
 

John

(he/him)
YES: Well, that's certainly a lot of 4th wall breaking and clips from earlier shows. The explicit gags and characters falling over was a bit much for me, but Phil is a silly treat. The name alone is a perfect anachronism, and his Pacifist Mace is awesome. He would wear out his welcome very quickly, so good thing he's only used sparingly.

I liked that Sylphiel accidentally/on purpose went to the ruins of her childhood home to heal Lina, giving the artists a break while she reminisced over all the times Lina made things worse for her. I was less happy with yet another macguffin that showed up at just the right time. I guess if the enemy keeps raising the stakes, the party also has to upgrade from time to time.

Finale will wait for my next workout, but I'm looking forward to it! As far as a break or what to do next, I'm ok with whatever. Funimation has seasons 2 through 5, but no OVAs or movies. I like the 2 episodes per week format, gives me time to catch up if I'm not able to fit in exercise days through the week.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
I want to lodge a formal complaint with Funimation for completely missing the reference that the Japanese title of the episode is a direct quote of Lina's opening monologue.
 

John

(he/him)
ZAP: I liked this final battle, even though Lina's super magic sword reminded me of He-Man's Power Sword. The cold open was a bit weird, just a jarring little intro of Rezo shooting a tree and then just cutting to the title page. I'll give Gourry a pass on his line, "You should never hit a girl in the face" implying that it's fine to hit them in other places. He doesn't always think things through.

The dub on Funimation didn't have any sound for the final coda scene, the one implying that everyone was heading back to Sairaag. Was that something they left off the original VHS releases, in case they didn't get the rights or it wasn't profitable enough to pursue? The dub in general had a ton of low budget markers, so doing more might not have been a sure thing.

That did cause me to flip on the sub version, to get the details, which also showed that the intro video music has a slightly different opener than the dub one. It's much less bombastic right out of the gate. Also, the voice actor for Rezo matches the character design much more than in the dub. Ah well, the dub was a time capsule.

Overall, fun series, one that I wouldn't have watched if not for this thread, so thanks! I'm down for wherever we go from here, even if it's a break.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
But how will we keep track of our progress through the marathon if the episode titles aren't themed after the letters of the alphabet?
 

John

(he/him)
I think people who have watched these before should make up appropriate titles in the same convention. It would really help me out.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
I'm heading home this weekend so I'll be able to grab my bootleg totally legitimate Slayers NEXT DVD set.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I think people who have watched these before should make up appropriate titles in the same convention. It would really help me out.

Given how rarely the alphabetical order thing actually made a lick of sense, this is an easy fix.

For season 1; only DASH, ESCAPE, MONEY, PASSION, RETURN, SHOCK kind of fit what the episode is about. Maybe IMPACT, JACKPOT and X-DAY, if you're willing to get a bit poetic
 
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