The Slayers Next

TV - 26 episodes

The second series of The Slayers, and it manages to outdo its predecessor.

Lina and Gourry are back, this time trying to get a look at the legendary source of knowledge, the Claire Bible. They once again find Amelia, this time doing official royal business as she tries to prevent a war with a neighbouring country. Unfortunately, the Royal family of the country is more than a little weird and plans to take over the world, with Princess Martina taking the reigns. It turns out their portion of the Claire Bible is just about golem building though, and after showing the royals what an angry Lina can do they head off to find the real Claire Bible. Amelia comes too along with Zelgadis, who had been working with Martina in exchange for the non-existent cure in the copy they had. They soon meet up with Xellos the Mysterious Priest, who claims to have knowledge about the Claire Bible, so they all head off to find it, with Martina following behind hoping to avenge herself on Lina for blowing up her city. Unfortunately, Seyruun's royal family, of whom Amelia is one, is having some major problems, and the whole thing seems to revolve around Lina.

This show is naturally very much like it's predecessor in style. Generally bold and colourful, there seems to be less emphasis on the details of the world and more on the story, which works just fine as it means that the story flows far better this time round without the constant explanation of why things are as they are. This also puts a great deal more emphasis on the character development, and its nice to see the character grow as the series progresses, especially during the larger events later in the series. On the other hand the jokes are pretty much the same, so you may find them starting to get a bit repetitive, particularly if you watch the shows within a small amount of time. The placing of the jokes however is less strange, on the whole leaving the show to be serious when it wants to be. It follows the same pattern of filler and plot arcs as the last.

The general audience of the show hasn't changed, but late on some of the human looking Mazoku (Monsters) do get hacked about a bit, losing a limb or so. Not being human though it's okay since they have black almost gaseous blood. Nothing really bad though.

The visuals of the show are still the same, although the animation does seem to be of slightly better quality. The detail level is still high giving it its trademark look. Still not the best looking show in the world, but not that bad. The music is also the same, to the point of using some tracks from the previous series. A combination of silly jingle type pieces and moody genre music. The 'divine protection spell' song with Lina and Amelia was a very cute touch.

The dub, again, is not one I like very much. The same cast returns, so if you enjoyed the last one you'll enjoy this, but to me it feels annoying as often as not. The voice for Gaav though is as good as any in the cast, though Zelgadis still manages to sound the most comfortable, this time along with the new girl Martina. The big letdown was that they didn't dub the 'divine protection spell' song, instead keeping the original Japanese one. Given the English voices when they were learning it that may not have been a bad thing though. On the plus side you do get Zelgadis singing it when he has to teach them it, and he does have a pretty good singing voice when he wants to!

The appeal for this show is simple: if you liked the first series, you'll like this. If not then leave this alone. On the whole it flows better than the last and the story is certainly more interesting, making this series generally more enjoyable than the previous one.

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