Lina Inverse is the epitome of 'I support women's wrongs!' Girl bossing and Girl Failing simultaneously. Love to see this retrospective as it's been a decade since I last watched this anime

I can't hear Lina Inverse without Lisa Ortiz! Also, the Dragon Slave is the Kamehameha of the Magic World and no one can tell me otherwise!

How much Gourry's stupidness is real and how much it's an act in the first three seasons is certainly up for debate. He's the only person that knew that Xellos was a mazoku and didn't say anything because he figured it was so obvious that clearly everyone else had to know. He certainly must have lost half his brain by Revolution though.

I will point out, Martina put an actual working curse on Lina at one point, calling on an imaginary monster. Meaning by just sheer willpower she casted actual, dangerous magic! If she ever gets her life together, she could become the most powerful sorceress in that universe. And I love that the only thing that's stopping her is her being her. My headcanon at least XD

Slayers is such a classic and I'd so love to see more modern anime in this vein.

The OVAs and Movies are worth checking out. They're Lina & Naga instead of the usual crew but they're designed to be stand alone. I don't think anything captures the spirit of Slayers like any of Slayers Return/Great or Gorgeous and they're basically one shot campaigns that people would run with their friends with recurring characters. No Lisa Ortiz in them but Cynthia Martinez still did a great job as a younger, more inexperienced Lina.

Stumbling upon Slayers with my sister is a really nostlagic memory for me. I had no idea what to expect but we ended up loving it. To this day Lina is my favorite female character in anime. Period. I've only seen snippets of the English dub, but from what I have seen Lisa Oritz kills it. I also love how this is probably the only anime where every opening/ending is sung by the leading character and also delivers every single time. The openings are SO good! Glad to see someone give it the praise it deserves.

I love Slayers! It was one of my first animes growing up! The anime's 2nd season op is my favorite. Also same Lisa Ortiz will always be my Lina Inverse.

This video came up on my recommendeds, and I'm so happy more and more people are finding one of my favorite series. I remember when it was releasing, waiting for every new VHS to come out back in 1996 here in the US. Lina remains one of my favorite characters. Lina was one of my biggest inspirations as a shy, quiet people pleaser to learn how to be loud, aggressive, and occasionally selfish with my own goals. Something I don't see mentioned here (or in the comments) is that the world building and magic system were so well thought out, there was actually a d20 game system developed and officially produced as well! Difficult to find nowadays, but it's probably out there in PDF form now. Also fun fact, the light novel series is STILL ongoing with a new one that was released recently in 2019 (and translated to US release last year 2023). The movies are a blast for the majority of them being pre-series, and one mid-series (Premium) and I would recommend them if you ever want some fun side-content and Gourry lore. I'm thrilled more and more people are finding this series in this day and age of run of the mill isekai fantasies.

You have no idea how happy I am to see someone else being equally obsessed with Slayers as I am. Maaan, I love this show! Lina is the BE(A)ST 😈😈

God this tickled my nostalgia itch just right. This series meant the world to me and its sad to see it doesnt get as much love these days. Thank you! Side note, any old school hardcore slayers fans out there remember when there was a slayers fan comic where they were trying to stage a hamlet play?

Fun Fact: Shes actually playable in a Tales game. She appears as a fully playable character available for free in Tales of the Rays! She can even cast Dragon Slave if shes not interrupted. It takes....as long as you think it does to cast...

Unicorn of War putting out a Slayers video as I'm rewatching Slayers?? I'm so happy

This made me so happy. Every time you mentioned Lisa Ortiz in Winx, I was always thinking "okay but Lina tho..." And here we are, to my unending delight. I've not seen a lot of anime; it's a small handful compared to most (One Piece, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, the original FMA, Utena, and some other essential-to-mid-famous shows). However, Slayers is my absolute favorite. And the English dub cast is 99% of that. Sylphiel sounds slightly stoned off her gourd, it's true, and I am completely with you on OG Zel and Amelia, but everyone else is pure talent, especially for a 90s dub cast. *_* Even when the anniversary series had to change some voices, the new voices are just as fun as they were before. I like the Revolution-R Xelloss just as much as I liked David Moo, just in a different way. The incantations are amazing, and I too have had Dragon Slave memorized for roughly a decade and change :p Thank you for touching on this wonderful, legendary, hilarious piece of media. I am eagerly looking forward to your deeper dive when it comes! ^_^ P.S. Lina would not be a Swiftie, she'd likely feel called out by songs like Bad Blood and Blank Space. Zelgadis is the closet fan (he is FAR too Shadow the Hedgehog to admit it), while Amelia enjoys Taylor's music on a purely superficial level and gets mentally scarred if she looks too deep into the Swift abyss. Gourry will jam out to her music and remembers every lyric by heart, but then forget who sang it as soon as the song is over. Like...IMMEDIATELY.

Netflix released a DOTA: Dragon's Blood series where a character called Lina makes an appearance. It's pretty clear after a bit that it's THAT Lina. My immediate thought was they didn't get Lisa Ortiz to voice her. Missed opportunity.

I’ll be honest. I don’t care that she’s a short queen. Lina Inverse showed me that the ability and wild abandon to destroy an entire city is one of the most attractive qualities a person can possess.

The Slayers is truly a Magnum Opus, and I'll love to see it return!

The Slayers, Slayers Next, Slayers Try...my favorite 90s animes. Just the right mix of comedy, serious, and epic.

Slayers TRY is, I think, probably my favorite season of the animated series. I really enjoy Filia as a character; she was one of the first times we ever got a dragon as an actual protagonist and not a monster or, at best, some random sagely NPC - this was before the glut of bad isekai and underwhelming dragon-girl characters. She has a genuinely interesting character dynamic, despite the fact she and Zelgadis can be considered to both fit the "straight man" comedic archetype, her character is funny, her art is great, and her story is genuinely tragic. It's such a shame the Slayers' creator (who wasn't really involved in TRY) absolutely hates the season in general and Filia in particular and has declared them non-canon.

I actually discovered this anime about a year ago when some of my friends on Twitter were fans of this anime so I checked out the first season and I was instantly hooked. I then checked out NEXT and TRY and loved them both. I am planning on watching the rest of the series some time this year.

Honestly I've been into anime since I was a kid, and was always introduced to new ones via ads or related websites. However, I've noted there's a big writing-quality issue in a lot of shonen anime (rushed/underdeveloped concepts, mixed messages, etc.). I'd love for you to cover that.

This joint was influential to my own stories as a kid. That era when episodes were uploaded onto KZfaq was unbeatable. If you're looking for something just as goofy, there's another comedy anime called Gokudo.

I saw one of your avatar videos, clicked into your channel, saw the thumbnail for this video and instantly followed....this is such a core influence and to this day one of my favorite series. I'll have to comment again once I actually have time to finish watching the video but just seeing it made me so happy XD

I have loved Slayers since watching it back when it was first released. The Motion Picture was really cool with a fantastic incantation of the Dragon Slave. The series is something i go back to all the time

Man I miss this series. It was one of the first anime I ever watched, and I owned the VHS boxed sets of both NEXT and TRY. The magic system is really fucking good if you look into it. So is the worldbuilding. Also the openings are all fire, and I miss Megumi Hayashibara singing the OP for every anime ever.

Final some talks about this incredible classic

I remember stumbling onto Slayers when I was in high school and I loved it, for pretty much all the reasons you pointed out. Try is also my fav but yes Next is peak Slayers. I've always kinda considered Lina to be one of the best anime heroines, she was hyper intelligent and shrewd but she wasn't perfect and she had her flaws too, such as navigating her feelings towards Gourry which my teenage self 100% could relate to. Anyway, this anime will always have a special place in my heart, thank you for this wonderful video.

I honestly preferred the movies/OVAs, probably cause I first got introduced to this franchise (and anime overall!) via The Motion Picture and the dynamic between Lina and Naga amuses me more. A series just featuring those two would just be so much more fun than the constant will they/won't they of Lina and Gourry.

The Slayers are one of the top 10 in my list of anime, its so funny how Lina is the heroine even when she destroyed most of the place she see, even her bad reputation make her the best.

Lisa Ortiz did a good job sounding like an English version of Megumi Hayashibara's rendition of Lina.

Lisas screaming about Linas sister killed me. I first heard it and repeated it multiple times and i still laugh so hard i cant breath and feel like im gonna vomit my stomach hurts so much.

It's also kinda funny that both Amelia's voice actress and Zelgadis's voice actor changed out halfway through The Slayers. Never really did know why that happened, but after that the cast was set...right up until they didn't take David Moo back as Xellos for Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R, which was a huge mistake.

Ah Jillas, such a great part. RIP Maddie Blaustein, what an icon

I love Slayers. I checked it out because of the dub having quite a few voice actors from the 4Kids Pokemon dub. The characters are really fun, have solid chemistry, the humor is great and the action is good. The way it can blend such goofy comedy in one episode and then jump right into some high stakes dark battles is pretty impressive too. Next is by far my favorite series. It has the best character development for the cast, the group chemistry is solid, the humor is terrific and the romance between Lina and Gourry is really sweet. Even though they go back to the status quo at the end, it never felt like it really affected their relationship. It's quite obvious that they have feelings for each other and Gourry basically already confessed by saying that he'll protect Lina for the rest of his life. The music for every series is terrific too, especially Give A Reason. They knew exactly what they were doing when using that for an insert song during Evolution-R. I haven't seen much defense or praise for Try. I always thought that people didn't like it because it was anime-only content. I like a lot of the new characters introduced, especially Filia and Valgarv, and the story was still engaging, but the humor wasn't as good as the first two series. According to Wikipedia, there were plans for a fourth Slayers series after Try, but the plans fell through so it never happened, which is a shame. It would have been nice to get more Slayers series and I did enjoy Try, so making more anime-only seasons with the creator's involvement could have been interesting. But at the same time, it might have been for the best to take a break after Try given its reception. It's been awhile since I saw Revolution and Evolution-R. I was happy that we finally got new Slayers series and Funimation got most of the original dub cast back together, which was awesome. The new art style looked nice, but I agree that there's just something charming and appealing with how the animation looked in the first three series. The new music was pretty solid too. They basically felt like two halves of the same series as opposed to two different series like I think the marketing was trying to make them out to be at the time. Pokota was pretty annoying, but I think he got a bit better over time. I wasn't too fond of them bringing back Rezo again, even it was supposed to be an anniversary series. I'd have to rewatch them to fairly judge them, but I kind of wish that we gotten more series afterwards or maybe just more adaptations of the light novels. Part of that is because I'd want to have the dub cast reunite again, but it would also just be cool to see more of this world. More adventures with Lina, Gourry, Zelgadiss and Amelia just sounds like a fun time. I'll be excited to see your breakdowns of each series down the road. It's been awhile since I've rewatch any of them, but I I still have fond memories of popping in the DVDs to watch each series for the first time.

Literally just saw your Hazbin video where you compared Alastor to Xellos and got excited about Slayers content. I subscribe and then find THIS. I am absolutely READY to watch this. I don’t know many people who love Slayers (Zelgadis first anime crush when I was like 12)

I have to second the opinion that the movies and OVAs are totally worth it. [minor spoilers ahead] . . . . It also is strongly implied that Naga (not that much of a spoiler: Amelia's missing older sister) is the talking armor Nama in Slayers EVOLUTION-R. There also is a scene in Slayers Try where Amelia mentions her missing sister when the topic of siblings is brought up. Knowing Naga really adds to such moments (and her dynamic with Lina is unique).

My favourite joke in Slayers (which I wished they used a lot more) is when there's a bunch of debris violently smashing against Zel while he just stands there nonchalant, talking to the others. I would have loved if he was even more invulnerable and if the party used him for that more.

Yooo, I legitimately grew up on Slayers, like. Sailor Moon, into Pokemon and DBZ, then into Slayers when I was like 8 or 9 xD I have all the light novels and have re watched this series, (aside from the anniversary seasons) so many times, my old youtube page was even Slayers themed, you did such justice by this video and I appreciate it so much! Th is has just brought back a flood of memories. Happy note: I actually met Lisa Ortiz at a comic con like 2 years ago and got her to sign a Lina Inverse poster! had 0 idea she would be there xD I may have been panik at the time xDDD

I discovered Slayers when I was in middle school back in the late 2000s when I was at my local F.Y.E store and I noticed a box set of the first season in the anime section. I bought it, took it home and loved it. The worldbuilding, the sense of wonder, the combination of humor and drama. All of it was great. Also yea I might've lowkey had a crush on Lina when I was a kid. Don't laugh XD

Slayers is among the first anime I watched as a kid, and to this day, is among my favorite anime of all time. Thank you for reigniting my love for this series!

Thumbs up! A great summation

The japanese dub actress for Lina is also amazing, and she sings the openings too !

"Possibly the most Chickenist Chicken I ever did see" Dead lololol

Thank you for making a Slayers Video ❤️ My first memories about Slayers come rushing back. My big brother had the first two seasons plus the Ova's. While I (6-7 years old) was sick and stuck at home, he let me watch olny the first season, but I watched Next in secret. I instantly fell in love with the show. You can bet I cried the last episodes of season one when I first saw it! When I got older with access to the internet I watched Try, Revolution and Revolution-R . Slayers is very close to my heart I love the characters, especially Lina.( my brother always compared me to her, mostly for my temper ^^') I love the humor, the storytelling and how the characters grow (Season 1-3).

Huzzah! More Slayers fans!

as a fan of classic anime it's nice to see someone talk about a forgotten gem like this Hey thomas i have a question have you seen any of the precure series if you have which one is your favorite the original series holds a special place in my heart yeah i'm a guy who loves magical girl anime and shows Winx club was one of them but i dropped out of the series by season 5 and seeing season 8 and fate i was like yeah i'm sticking with the classics Also what's your thoughts on Huntik it was a good series but sadly didn't catch on

Fun fact; there is a spell in Dungeons & Dragons very similar to the Ragna Blade called the Black Blade of Disaster, which creates a sword-shaped "planar rift" that the wizard can then use to cut down their enemies. It's a 9th level Evocation spell, making it one of the most powerful spells in the game, and even has a HP-draining effect on the caster in its original form. But considering that D&D struggled to find much of an audience in Japan (not helped by TSR foolishly turning down an offer to license Lodoss from the *hugely* popular Record of Lodoss War as an official campaign setting, causing the creators to market their own RPG systems of Lodoss RPG and Sword World RPG instead and take D&D's place), and that the first appearance of the Black Blade of Disaster was in 1991's "Drow of the Underdark" sourcebook, it's probably purely coincidental. But man, talk about coincidence!

Hot damn, I found this channel yesterday and you've already triggered a Core Memory Unlocked! moment XD

Lol, this video was dropped on my birthday. 😆 I love this series. ❤ Naga the serpent FTW! 😂😂😍😍 Zelgato is loved by all. Including straight dudes. 🤷‍♂️ Finally, I made it to the end. Great review! Also... Lost Universe FTW!

I find it interesting that the Dragon Slave incantation that is now used is not the OG. The original is: "Darkness beyond twilight. Crimson beyond blood that flows; buried in the flow of time. In thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness. Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess. Dragon slave!" Even now, some 20 years later, I still cannot imagine anyone else besides Lisa Ortiz as Lina's English VA.

Oo classic Slayers! It's really great to find more people talking about it!

I do recommend the first movie (Slayers: The Motion Picture) as it’s got good comedy, awesome action scenes, a wonderful score, a well made dub via ADV (rip one of the best English dubbing anime companies), a villain you want to punch in the face, the film’s duo (Lina and Naga) work off each other decently and the credit song Midnight Blue is just chef’s kiss. One of these best anime songs around and one of va/singer queen Megumi Hayashibara’s best work. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve listened to it.

You are inside my soul rn

I actually never heard of this before but this will definitely be the next Anime that I will watch, thank you

God the spells from this show were so fucking good. I loved these shows so much. Lina was such a fun protagonist. It was a super pivotal anime for me.

Slayers is definitely one of my favorite anime franchises. Glad its getting more attention. Lisa Ortiz is a legend!

Make Sly Cooper content, we all would love that

Try is also my favorite season, and yes, Jillas is definitely one of its highlights thanks for the shout out for that funky little guy XD

My favorite anime of all time.

YOOOOOOO THIS ONE IS MY SHIIIIITTTT!!! AWESOME!!!!

It's quite funny how many famous VAs are here I mean you have original voice of Ash Ketchum, the shredder from tmnt (2003 version) alucard from hellsing and seto Kaiba just give examples

Can't believe you are doing a video of my favorite anime an character of them all 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

38:49 " Join my outline , or DIE! " I thought this was so funny I had to Google what MLM meant to keep up 😅

One of my favorites. Lina Inverse is amazing

It’s been about 15 years since I watched Slayers. This was such a wonderful video, and now I need to go rewatch the whole thing. Watching this I had a weirdly emotional reaction to the dragon slave incantation, starting to tear up every time a snippet of it was played. Really unsure what’s going on in my brain to cause that 😂

Slayers is one of my favorites, a girl who i knew in high school had some of the episodes -found more at a local rental shop -all of try and bits of the original but took me years to find the entire series on dvd. when if finally became easier to get those. But i loved this series really happy the books got reprinted and the audio version is now up to the second book and is voice by Lisa Oritz -I love hearing her voice Lina again. I even recently got the Va for Amilia's autograph and I already had my favorite character from that series Xellos. I just wish they would do more with this series, a new adaptation that follows the book plot more closely maybe?

man , i used to love slayers.

Thank you! for explaining what those 5 golden circular symbols mean, I was always curious 😊

Hahaha oh wow what a blast from the past. I'm a bit older than you. As a teen in the 90s, Slayers was indeed a Big Thing back then. Unfortunately I never got into it, as it never aired in English, and I was funneling all my allowance into Sailor Moon and Escaflowne fansubs lol. Btw if you haven't seen Escaflowne, you'd probably love it! Plus have you seen Iria: Zeiram the Animation? Another classic from the 90s! Project A-Ko is a parody of 80s anime tropes and is full of chaotic hilarity. And I'd be remiss if I did not mention Cowboy Bebop, a masterpiece in storytelling. Since you appreciated all the amazing storytelling in ATLA you would love Cowboy Bebop. Great dub too. Check them out!

Ah, Slayers brings me such nostalgia. I love all of it, even the weaker seasons, and Slayers try is too, my favorite. I saw classic way back when before I was 10. Yes I was a kiddo in single digits when I watched this and I latched onto it hard. Lina was obviously my favorite character, and when Try rolled around, Valgaav was my first favorite anime villain. Heck, I didn't even know what anime was at the time. I just thought it was a cartoon. How I first saw it was basically when my parents got it and watched it in the living room and they deemed it okay for me to watch. You'd think seeing scary things such as monsters and Lina getting shot would terrify lil' ol me, but nah. Death of my fav character, although made me worry, I was confident she'd come back kickin' like she always does. Because it's fuckin' Lina Inverse, of course she would. To this day, I still adore this show and it is a very big inspiration for the stories I'm writing. Heck, the two man characters of my story- SkyLight are kind of similar/inverses of Lina and Gourry, named Ikah Torvelt and Galtorihe. While Lina inverse is a wise cracking all powerful sorceress, Ikah is a talented, confident, yet eccentric merc. Both are really out for themselves most of the time, like in it for money and adventure. Galtorihe is the exact opposite of Gourry in the fact he's arrogant and demeans Ikah, yet can't be rid of her because he's a weapon-spirit and she wields his blade. Due to this conflict, many shenanigins like the ones seen in slayers shall ensue, although more chaotic. Inspirations aside, I wish Slayers had more attention like this and that more anime adapted the same dynamic the show portrays. This fun, witty, comedic adventure with the occasional dark plot to keep people coming back for more. Slayers isn't afraid to express itself, be proud for what it is, and I will always be here for it. I can't wait to see what other videos you have of Slayers.

Love from a MothersBasement and Vaush fan!

Are we getting a full video on Tales of the Abyss? Yesssss

I love Lost Universe. We exist.

All slayers ost slaps!

my list of favorites gose from Next being my favorite to try then original to Evolution-R and finally Revolution Naga fans know why the last 2 are like that

I’m going to check this anime out now

They also have a dnd spin off from the old d20 OGL from 3.5 edition. It’s honestly one of my favorite systems. I try to fit it into all of my campaigns.

Im sure glad i bought the 3 season box set a few years ago. thanks to Kyoto video. Plus hearing the 4Kids Pokemon cast is always a joy. Eric Stuart being my favorite.

Oh wow! A classic!

YEEEEAAAA LOVE HER

It's funny because Gourry is voiced by Seto Kaiba and Lena's got super dragon powers. She's like a Blue Eyes White Dragon that can talk.

You know what, I wish the Sword of Light spoke to Gourry like Craven Edge did with Grog.

I would give good money to have Lina Inverse meet Frieren. Absolute water and oil.

I came across this anime when I was little on a Spanish channel super late at night over my dads house and then again when I first got Netflix I was hooked and watched every season and the movies❤❤❤❤

Slayers is really a great anime.🥰 I enjoyed watching the adventures of Lina and the group. Since yesterday I started watching all the episodes again. Of course you have to like the old school character of the anime and know that there are a lot of clichés in it. But that's why I like the anime so much. My favorite characters are Gaury and Xellos. However, sometimes I found it a shame that Gaury played the typical fool for most of the time. And I wish he wasn't always portrayed as stupid. However, I am sure that he is actually much smarter than shown in the anime. But his big heart makes it all go away for me. Truly a 💎 of old anime. And I think it's still very good. I had very good memories of Slayers and wanted to see if that was still true. And wasn't disappointed.👍 💙

When you get down to it I don't think it's truly possible to miscast the giga slave. "My mind is my power power is my mind. When uncorrupted by other elements my mind becomes my purest power." That line implies that she has absolute power over her power so unless she wishes the power to miscast it won't miscast. She also wishes to have a form in reality so I don't think she'd truly allow the world to be destroyed.

Slayers, when we loved the fillers more than some plot episodes. Make fillers great again. I wonder if those fillers were og fillers, or were present in light novels

Aah, Gourry! Proudly and obliviously representing Himbos decades before it became popular!

YEAAAA

Anyone ever think what would have gone down if Martina had met and teamed up with Naga. Basically Linas worst nightmare.

You have to check out the first movie!

1:11:45 excuse you, I LOVE Lost Universe! What's not to love when Dark Star Dugradigdu and Canal Vorfeed are SPACESHIPS in that Universe instead of Demons and Divine Dragons! Lol

I had never seen this before

This anime is actually collating with a game in playing called summoners war chronicles rn

Need more Redhead Magical Girls? Magic Knight Rayearth! ^___^

I believe it's actually canon that Gourry being (increasingly?) dumb is Lina's fault. There's a movie where she has to do a specific thing and gets time-looped. Lina being Lina, she barely tries and keeps screwing it up. I think it's word of god that something about the time-reversal magic caused minor defects in the timeline, focused on Gourry's ancestor. Wouldn't have been a problem if it didn't happen _dozens_ of times. It's a very Slayers thing to happen.

i've said before, i'll say many more: anime ladies **PEAKED** at lina inverse.

As someone who’s watched both the movies and the tv series Cynthia Martinez as Lina made me sad when I watched the first film because I was hoping it was going to be Lisa Ortiz but Cynthia as Lina grew on me to the point were if slayers got anymore movies I would love it if Cynthia Martinez would reprise her role as Lina just in the films because she does a great performance as Lina too although I still have a preference for Lisa Ortiz as Lina fun fact btw Megami Hasahibara who voice female form ranma in ranma 1/2 Jessie in the Japanese version of Pokémon and rei in evangelion just a little fun fact for you also I’m glad I discovered your channel through your Hazbin hotel video and got suprised with your comparison of xellos with Alastor as that made me check out your channel and see this video and your content seems like videos I’d like so I subscribed keep up the good work

Im only to 1:44 and when i heard that clip of Lina doing the dragon slave, my brain went "I know that voice! Who is-?! EWWWW, ITS SERENITY WHEELER!!!!" or Korrina from Pokemon. But i know her as Serenity from Yu-Gi-Oh first.

Icy encantation in 4kuds winx