The Slayers Group Watch Thread

[Octopus Prime]

The DVD set has screwed me over for my naming scheme!

Otherworldly has precisely one interesting thing going for it (Lina being worried she broke the universe by shooting a Giga Slave into a dimensional gate) and it’s a fake-out.

 

[John]

OTHERWORLDLY: I'm sad it took me until Lina was falling down the rabbit-hole to get the Alice in Wonderland reference with her dress. I still enjoyed the silliness, even though it's something they've done before, probably more than once. After three seasons and who knows how many movies/OVAs, they're coming up a bit short for filler episode ideas.

Logistically, since this part of the world presumably doesn't have magic, the only way I can see them pulling off illusions of this type would be with heavy psychotropic drugs. I'm amused and appalled at both Zel and Lina being force-fed mushrooms while their clothes are removed by theme park attendants.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Especially with a theme park as elaborate as this, you’d think that *someone* would have realized that Lina and Zel have no idea where they are and are confused and disoriented about everything prior to her exploding the place with a Dragon Slave.

I guess between that and the fact that they replaced everyone’s clothing while they were unconscious, that would explain why nobody was very upset when she demolished a large chunk of the park

 

[Octopus Prime]

Pandemonium was a drastic improvement of these two episodes; still not to the heights of other filler episodes (can’t all be Tennis Tournaments and Fishing Trips), but in comparison it was a fun lark and had lots of Lina explosively overreacting to virtually everything, and Zel sedately under reacting to everything.

And Try is the JRPG season, and what self respecting 90s JRPG didn’t have a Ghost Ship sequence?

 

[John]

PERIL/PANDEMONIUM: Even though there were three people in this episode, it really was just the ladies interacting with the ghosts. Zel was relegated to the Time Stretcher role by just having him noodle around on a guitar for a gag the entire episode. It was jarring that they left Pleasure Island off screen, there could've been much better gags there than Jar Man. Though, I did have some flashbacks to Return of the Obra Dinn, so that was something.

I thought when Filia had found the ship's log, she would've come bursting in to Lina with the True Story, but it was more important to her to play Antiques Store. That was about the only surprising thing in this episode, which I'm grateful for.

 

[Egarwaen]

Otherworldly: this is what happens when only one player shows up and the GM says they’ve got a one-shot prepared for exactly this occasion

pandemonium: and this is what happens when only three players show up and the GM pulls out their second emergency one-shot. I loved Lina and Filia trying to get the Captain to just stop talking and pass on already at the end.

 

[Octopus Prime]

More Filling, Great Taste!

Love is in the Tiny Differences
Amelia in the Village of Justice

Once again, this would be easy if the order was reversed, but nobody was thinking of my well-being when they settled on the order of letters in the Alphabet. Let’s go with… umm… Quissing and Restless.

I think we’re back to PLOT STUFF next week

 

[John]

The Funimation titles are Immediate Results? Love is in the Tiny Differences and The Right Person in the Right Place! Amelia in the Village of Justice!, if that helps with our naming convention.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Let’s change the R one to “Right!” Then.

Kind of unreasonably proud of myself for Quissing, so that can stay

 

[SpoonyBard]

Kind of amazed Quistis's fanclub in FF8 didn't call themselves the Quissers.

 

[Octopus Prime]

There’s at least a 6/10 chance she’d allow that and it may be part of the reason she lost her job

 

[John]

Quissing: Now we get some potential origins for the weird fish guy from the first season! Though that one was a little less... conversational than this group, who are just humans in fish form.

I don't quite get how both of them changing their forms actually changed anything, unless they can do that on command now. That would be a good way to spice things up!

They're getting some good mileage out of Gourry's Munch Scream face. Too bad he didn't get to do anything other than be bait this time. I'm assuming his sword is back with the whole Dark Star Summoning island? He's a bit impotent without that, gotta find a replacement soon.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I kind of think that Gourry had to put on a mermaid costume solely because this is the Q episode.

Right (or Rangers, that would have fit too, in retrospect) is definitely my favorite filler episode of this season. Loved the gags with the stage crew trying very hard to make them look good. Amelia is living her best life here, and Gourry is forced to be the straight man for once in his life.

 

[SpoonyBard]

QUISSING: Hey remember those freaky fish guys from the first season? Here's another episode with more of them!

Honestly kind of a milquetoast filler episode, nothing dull or outright bad, but not really great either. I dig the scale coloring on the fishpeoples bodies subbing for hairstyles, and the return of Gourry being inexplicably coerced into crossdressing, but that's about all this episode has going for it.

It's weird that Lila and her dad have human-like eyes (as does Kerel after his fishification) but the other fishfolk we see in the episode have the same disturbing dead fish eyes that Noonsa and Rahanimu did, right? That's a bit distracting?

RIGHT: Ok, this is more like it. Probably the best filler episode of the season, yes. Not quite Lake Dragon level, but top tier filler episode. I adore the clan of senior citizen Sentai Ranger LARPers, and the Forest Dwarves who are totally in on the gag and faint on cue, and the weird kitten-dragon, and Gourry never hitting his mark during the big dramatic posing, and Zel straight up stating at the end 'welp that's all the filler!'. Good stuff.

Now that the filler is behind us, the preview for next week tells us we're finally getting back to the character that truly matters, Jillas!

 

[Egarwaen]

Really, it's remarkable how little filler Try's had until now. Given that you might expect the filler episodes to be half-assed, but no, these are both full ass filler episodes. I love the gag at the start of Quissing, where Fillia's divination powers seem to be leading no-where but no, in fact, Amelia and Gourry are on a fish island surrounded by fish people engaged in fishy pursuits. The rest of the episode is more or less the same "zany fish people" and "odd couple" gags we've been getting since early in Slayers, but combined.

Also staving Gourry gag.

Right is, I think, possibly one of the best filler episodes so far - I would agree that Lake Dragon's better, but it's close. It's got the zany filler characters who everyone else is reluctantly tolerating, the genre shift, the appeal to a principle character trait of one of the protagonists, the over-the-top action, a Prince Phil gag, and the total no-sell ending.

 

[John]

One thing I forgot about in QUISSING, I really liked Gourry's line when the sea monster started going after him, "I think that thing wants to eat me just for the halibut!"

RIGHT - Like you all said, this is a great piece of Justice! Gourry got a sword out of the deal, and Amelia got to LARP with the best of them. I enjoyed the one-off commercial break image of the Sentai Octogenarians, don't remember them doing that particular bit before. I liked that by the end, even Amelia wasn't quite sold on just how into Justice this troupe was, but still went along with it. Take it down a notch!

 

[Octopus Prime]

The production team with Try really like mummified Gourry

 

[Octopus Prime]

We’re back to PLOT STUFF next week with

WHERE THE LIGHT LEADS
A HEROES ADVENT

Let’s say Swarm and Trial

 

[John]

SWARM - One thing I like about this show is they don't always take the safe approach of making the non-human characters just humans in a different form. Sometimes they do, with Gillas and Filia, who are pretty much Humans but with tails, but the ones like the Monsters, Almayce, and his buggy buddy are something different, with their own motivations. They still speak the same language, and may take similar actions, but their goals don't always align.

Poor Gillas, being a star-crossed hater keeps getting in the way of his happiness. In this case, he could've settled down and been the Cool Uncle to foxy pipsqueak, if only that pesky Lina would've stayed dead. He didn't actually show any real feelings for the pup's mom though, at least in the English dub, suggesting she was just a means to an end. Even the pull of teaching a kid how to shoot guns, bringing inappropriate birthday gifts, and all the other Cool Uncle perks wasn't enough to get him to give up his life of Revenge. He also thought that shooting a giant missile and blowing up most of the town was a good thing, showing that he wasn't a coward? Strange logic, he may have been knocked around by his bombs one too many times.

 

[Octopus Prime]

If not for Gourry, he’d easily be the Slayers character most at risk of CT injuries. Maybe Amelia, but she has healing magic.

Really appreciate the stylistic consistency with the Overworlders; everything about them is just different enough from everything else in the series that it really sells the fact that they don’t belong in the Red World; and the bug monsters are another example of that. Every other non-human, no matter where they fall on the Cartoon Varmint/Monster Manual spectrum looks like they all came from the same artist; the bugs *don’t*.

 

[John]

TRIAL - It's the Bug Alien Zerowing Sidekick's time to shine. I liked alternate reality Aerith bending reality to match her prophecy, and that all three of the Overworld characters have their own personalities. One of them really looked down on Almayce for going soft and not wanting to destroy this world, so it'll be nice when he gets his comeuppance eventually.

I thought Aerith and Amelia were really reaching by applying the appearance of water to saving the town, but you gotta have something to live for, I guess. Filia had some nice foreboding crying to cliffhang the episode. Time to see what other big bad something has to be unsealed to be able to re-seal Dark Star off for good.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Anna/Aeris is really quick to trust the gigantic ominous man who is full of magical fireballs on the basis that he's pretty tall.

I guess Logos(?) has taken over Main Villain status, as Almayce turned out to be a good (albeit scary looking) guy, and Valgaav dunn got et up by a cthulhu made of skulls. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Also, we get the introduction of Slayers equivalent of the Fastball Special; The Gourry Bomb

 

[SpoonyBard]

SWARM: After how distractingly detailed and complicated Almayce looks, his two pals from Overworld are far more simple in their design. With how many obvious cut corners that were taking whenever Almayce had to do more than move a little bit I wonder if the animators rebelled at the thought of adding two more of his race to the cast and concessions had to be made to simplify them.

Anyway, Erulogos's main character trait is that he's a huge asshole.

Poor Jillas could have had his happy ending but it looks like the story has plans for him still?

TRIAL: Oh good I wasn't the only one who made the Aerith connection. Kind of on the nose, isn't she?

And here we meet the other Overworlder, Why So Sirius. I guess they both get an episode to themselves, even if Erulogos crashes this one anyway if only to remind us what a huge asshole he is.

Anyway, Sirius XM's main character trait is that he exists.

But he does manage to save a town by blowing it up so that's something I guess?

 

[Octopus Prime]

Well Lina does that in every other episode and she’s the lead protagonist, so he’s done his homework

 

[Egarwaen]

I think the Overworld characters are really fun villains; they play with Slayers' actually super awesome cosmology, and they follow the tabletop RPG/CRPG tradition of extraplanar villains while avoiding all the common tropes for what those villains are. I wish they'd hung onto the early Slayers conceit that Lina's a dab hand with a sword in addition to her magic, but I'm pretty sure that's gone for good. It does give Gourry something to do, but Amelia's brawling seems more effective. Erulogos and Sirius are simpler than Almayce, but still clearly Aren't From Around Here.

One of the things I like about Trial is it falls into the Slayers tradition of looking like it's jaded and pessimistic, with heroes who are mainly motivated by money and food, but it's actually pretty optimistic and generally people who assume the best, trust others, and try to make the world better are rewarded and validated, even if they're occasionally mocked.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Oh I didn’t actually say what this weeks episodes are, did I?

History Sealed Away
Cry for the Fallen

Which well call… UNEARTHED and VENGEANCE

 

[SpoonyBard]

UNEARTHED: After last time ended with Filia having some sort of breakdown at a revelation we pick up this episode with... no immediate explanation as to what that was about. Ok.

Snowy mountains are a new environment for the gang, at least.

They come upon a temple that has 'endgame second-or-third-to-last dungeon' written all over it, which is only reinforced as they are immediately hit with a cutscene upon stepping inside. If you had guessed that the Golden Dragons who insisted that they and only they knew what was best for the world and genocided this other dragon race that they insisted was totally up to no good for reals were actually the ones who could not be trusted, well, congrats for having a basic level of genre knowledge. Of course the reasoning behind the Ancient Dragon's extinction is stupid as hell, and of course it's because they had the final macguffin everyone is looking for.

We also see that the reason Xellos is still hanging out with Almayce and his gang is that he agreed to help out as long as they let the Monsters borrow some of Darkstar's power to resurrect ol' Shabracadabra, which is exactly how this will shake out I'm sure.

Anyway, Erulogos shows up to be an asshole and Pharos Sirius shows up to just kind of be there and then a swarm of Golden Dragons descend on the temple as if the messy situation couldn't get more messy.

VENGEANCE: Oh Xellos. You tried so, so hard to be the intimidating baddie. But you had your moment back when you were torturing Valgaav, and while you very nearly succeeded here in grabbing the macguffin, Lina was there to put you back in your place. RIP intimidating villain Xellos.

(yes he gets away with it in the end anyway, but any tension he had built up was long gone after Lina jumped on his face)

Meanwhile Erulogos hasn't reminded us what an asshole he is in like five minutes so he decides to genocide the Golden Dragons for the hell of it which is supposed to full of dramatic irony or whatever, but it mostly just fills time.

Best part of this brawl between everyone present is, of course, Amelia exploiting Xellos's weakness, and Zelgadis only half-heartedly going along with it, just enough to get the job done.

But anyway, after Lina gets the final weapon, which is a bow that fires Kamehameha's apparently, Erulogos has to remind us again what a giant asshole he is and kills Almayce for... some reason, I'm sure. Xellos gets the weapon, though, and bamfs out of there, with Erulogos in hot pursuit.

Sirius looks at Almayce's body and spends like half a second thinking about maybe actually doing something, but then teleports off as well. Such a deep character.

And now we're set up for the last four episodes. By this point in NEXT Phibrizzo had kidnapped Gourry, and this doesn't pack quite the same punch. But if I remember right the next four episodes are all one giant fighto so buckle up for that I guess!

 

[Octopus Prime]

Couldn't help but notice that it looked like all of Sirius' Hadoukens seemed to originate from his crotch.

IIRC; Amelia, Gourry and Zel vs. Xellos is the last bit of Jokes before the finale, so I hope you enjoyed them. I certainly did.

Goodbye, Almayce; it was really hard to remember if you were good or bad

 

[Egarwaen]

“We all agreed that we had to destroy Darkstar!”

“Did we?”

Is actually a pretty great villain betrayal. Not nearly as good as the Phibrizzo reveal, but still pretty okay, and ahead of Copy Rezo killing Eris. The Ancient Dragon genocide is both over- and under-played here; we find out why the Gold Dragons did it, but we also already knew it happened, so the amount of time Lina’s party spends in shocked reaction is totally out of step with the audience. The piles of skulls are super creepy, and the establishing shots of the temple and the fields of giant metal crosses around it are great foreshadowing. Try’s location design is, overall, fantastic. And Lina going from “where’s the string? Where’s the arrows?” to “lol JK I know exactly how it works” and blowing a hole in the sky was awesome.

Action quibble: the Gold Dragons’ laser breath is totally ineffective against Erulogos, bending around him with no apparent effort on his part. But then Lina tells the Elder and Filia to blast Almayce with their laser breath and it seems to work just fine on him? I don’t remember if this is meant to let us know that Erulogos is lying about who and what he is, or if he just has a defensive trick, or what, but it felt weird.

Bonus: Xellos eating boot and then getting wrecked by a comedy routine.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Almayce was already established as the weaker of the three of them, and was presumably still not fully recovered from that hole Valgaav tore into him way back when, so maybe Lina was just guessing and got lucky.

Or maybe Dragon Form laser breath is a different element than Human Form Laser Breatg?