Originally posted at the DL February 2016
OP2 (Give a Reason)- The single best remembered song in Slayers, and with good reason. The intensity of it builds in a way that gets you to follow one rhythm just before it ramps again, and it's almost impossible not to move along with it. There's also this very real sense of incredibly sincere emotion to it that I just don't.... quite know how to explain. We're moving to Megumi's rhythm, but she's really baring her soul here, y'know?
ED2 (Jama wa sasenai)- Not an exceptional song, but a solid one. The chorus stays with you well and the buildup is decent. Not a lot of meat to it but a certain amount of that is normal in EDs.
Mmm.
Next upon rewatch is certainly better than The Slayers.
The trouble is that's true more because of production values and the show finding a more consistent comedic voice, so a huge chunk of it just kinda flows right over you. This improves in the second half of the season... well, let's break.
Weakest Episode- The Unexpected End? The Shocking Truth! Kanzel and Mazenda just aren't terribly interesting and the threat level attached to them is tedious. Combined with being the end of Alfred's thing and the engineered succession conflict in Seyruun the whole episode is basically saddled with trying up a lot of crummy storyline. The animation for the city outskirts being levitated is pretty bad too just for flavor.
Mostly because we stopped dithering and finally found a primary villain rather than just one-note minions. So we have actual goals and a mounting sense of dread. And in those conditions they start getting real character moments again (for people who aren't Martina, Martina is the most consistently good part of the season), and let's be real, we're all here for Lina, Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis. In particular, there's something about Lina just immediately taking to Auntie Aqua that I really love; oh, Lina hates people when she can't take advantage of them, but older lady who gently ribs her excesses? Loves her. The battle with Gaav is also pretty nice, because they do a good job of establishing that oh okay actually we can throw our biggest guns at this and plan all day and it's just not going to work.
Actually, let's sidebar. Part of the issue in the first half of this season is what I usually think of as the Shonen Problem; we have our big superhero actiony shows. We want the main character to be the special snowflake with extra powers. And the villains have to be able to fight those powers, so... only the main character can fight the villains. And this doesn't have to be true, but it's a trap that the writers have to actively work against.
And one of the key reasons I remember the first season as better than it really is (other being the note about humor above) goes back to that. They did so, so good at making sure the whole team was integrated into the fights, and Kanzel and Madenza threw all that out. Nope, everyone else flails, only Lina's AWESOME NEW SPELL can do anything functional.
The fight with Gaav avoids this by just making it such that actually even lina can't get this shit done! and then...
Best Episode- The Souls of the Dead! Lina's Final Decision! I doubt anyone's terribly surprised. Everyone dies horribly with great suffering! Go To Next! I also considered of course but sharing the major speech with the Lord of Nightmares means we can judge based on the emotional bits, and I think Lina's struggling in the face of everyone dying horribly is a bit more affecting than Gourry's mad dash to pull Lina back from the kiosk.
Yeah I dunno if there's anything deeper to say really. Slayers likes to repeatedly gutpunch the audience sometimes. It keeps working.
Rating- 8/10. I'm really underselling the stronger points of the series because humor just tends to be very hard to hold on to, at least for specific examples or analyzing why something is funny or how funny it is. The overall strength of the cast and the clockwork running of their timing is very strong throughout and that makes the season.
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