Anime Meta-Review
Slayers: Return
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Title Info
- type: movie
- grade: watchable
- people: Hayashibara
- made: 1996
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
The second of the slayers movies. Like the other movies this is set before the TV series, and is led by the lethally cute (perhaps more lethal than cute) Lina Inverse and her offsider, companion and nemesis Naga the serpent. In this story Lina finds herself hired to stop the worlds wimpiest evil conspiracy from digging up an ancient treasure. Of course the evil conspiracy calls upon its allies (which confirms that adventurers are really strange people), the townspeople get involved and the action begins. And then when the truth of the ancient treasure is revealed things get even more interesting.
Like all slayers series this anime features a great deal of humor, action and high power magic. The tempo is maintained by the complex character of Lina, the clever dialog and the sense of energy imbued in all actions. It must be said however that you might enjoy this more if you've met Lina before. Given the short running time (1 hour) and the heavy action and humor requirements the character work gets the back seat. This is enhanced by their being an awful large number of minor characters for such a short anime. Still, the writers know how to pull this one off, and the result is very enjoyable.
Likewise the animators and character designers know what works. Some of the background characters look like familiar nightmares from a D&D game that got of control. And while they may not get many lines the look and actions speak volumes. The animation is to a high standard, looking very good. It also manages to combine a sense of realism alongside usage of immense magic with suprising skill. And the spell effects, and combat, looks good, even to rendering the massive collateral damage that is such a part of the slayers experience. The character design, animation, voice and general production are all excellent.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009