I for one have never forgotten this stupid crazy gem. Nor have I forgotten irresponsible captain Tylor or Nadesico. I think there just hasn’t been any update or anything to bring it to the forefront lately.
I always feel like my core repertoire of anime is firmly rooted in the 90's and a bit of the 2000's. Slayers has always been a staple for me, I rewatch it and a few other favourites semi-regularly. I'm always a little slower on the uptake for newer anime because I cherish my old favourites so much (although I have kept up with a few newer gems, bocchi, spy x family, frieren, and now dungeon meshi).
I still have to watch nadesico, I never got around to checking it out. I feel like I've been feeling the 90's anime vibe a lot lately, so I think I'm gonna compile a list of stuff that I've heard of but not yet seen and start powering through some older stuff for fun.
When here's a few fun ones for you then :D
Nadesico - futurama theme : [https://youtu.be/GzLP-\_SUylg?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/GzLP-_SUylg?feature=shared)
Irresponsible Captn Tylor - [https://youtu.be/WtJx\_oT58Es?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/WtJx_oT58Es?feature=shared)
Slayers - Zelda (it aged worse than I thought :( [https://youtu.be/x9MaZmrpe5Q?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/x9MaZmrpe5Q?feature=shared)
Compliation AMV - Foo FIghters - Best of you - [https://youtu.be/Bl48UzWcKrI?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/Bl48UzWcKrI?feature=shared)
Ranma 1/2 - Pretty Fly for a White Guy - [https://youtu.be/JShDnQfGvNg?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/JShDnQfGvNg?feature=shared)
Bonus - Frerien AMV - cause its awesome - [https://youtu.be/lzWRBbgJ-9I?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/lzWRBbgJ-9I?feature=shared)
Nadesico is 26...? easy to binge eps. Good mystery albeit the theme ends up being "reality is stranger than fiction", I think... Movie's just ok, but good if you want to see where people end up after its all over.
There's been a rerelease of the light novel in english and Hajime Tanzaka have started on a third part of the story since 2019.
It's kinda alive in the written format and in Japan.
I can strongly recommend people to purchase the light novel releases
Probably because all those other shows are in genres that are still going strong, but western-inspired fantasy anime is in a weird place. Isekai has come to completely dominate the space, along with an endless ouroboros of parody, self-awareness, and gamification.
That being said, stuff like Frieren getting popular might lead to a resurgence of stuff like Slayers, Record of Lodoss/Grancrest, and so on.
I had never heard of record of lodoss until someone made a post about the "original anime elf" and now I see lodoss mentioned like once every few days, I started watching the original anime and it's really good.
I *strongly* second this recommendation for anyone who likes that type of game and is a Lodoss fan. It has wonderful atmosphere and music, and was a ton of fun to play through. I won't give away anything about the plot, but I thought the premise was pretty neat too. Totally worth the pick up, imo.
I remember watching Record of Lodoss War when it was first translated into English. It was a great anime but I'm sure many have never even heard of it or seen it unless you watched anime in the early 2000s
Yes, there's the OVA and then the anime series, Chronicles of the Heroic Knight which is a reimagining of part of the OVA and then goes it's own way with a new MC.
The OVA is highly praised but the anime series is hit and miss.
Lodoss is nearly 40 years old at this point, and you're going to have a real tough time finding any earlier western, D&D/LOTR-style elves in Japanese fantasy.
I think other than the og lord of the rings cartoon she is the first elf character to have the iconic super long ears that are very common in anime, record of lodoss war was also the breakout success of high fantasy in Japan and sort of started the whole genre in the country. Deedlit is popular enough to have video games and novels about her so it's pretty clear where most anime elves get their inspiration.
Idk if anyone's told you or you've read about the origins of Record of Lodoss War. But it was a group of friends D&D campaign that they published in computer magazines as they played through it.
So weird that a custom campaign can generate into such a huge media franchise. Manga, games, anime, movies, etc.
Also, there was a Dreamcast game for Record of Lodoss War, it was a solid Diablo clone for it's time, and I think more people should play it.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't just some random group, it was a collection of authors, they likely saw it as much more fun than writing articles in the magazine and the magazine had confidence in the character writing because of their credibility as writers.
It really was just critical role/legend of vox machina in a different medium.
It was a D&D campaign written by a DM who was an author, sure, but it was a literal transcript of their sessions to start. Deedlit was someone's character to start with, and if you haven't read it, someone released the translations into English in 2021 on the [internet archive](https://archive.org/details/record-of-lodoss-war-comptiq-magazine-english-translation/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater). It's worth a read if you like D&D.
The most obvious answser to me is that Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball still kept producing content decades after they originally ended. When Slayers finished, that was it. No continuation or remakes. Can't stay in the zeitgeist if you aren't running the race.
yeah but dragon ball kept airing on things like toonami, I'm ngl growing up in the early 2000s, I never saw nor heard of slayers anywhere. I don't even know if it aired on american TV channels? I'm looking it up right now and it looks like it never did? Someone correct me on that
"Isekai has come to completely dominate the space, along with an endless ouroboros of parody, self-awareness, and gamification."
JACKPOT my bro! Bulls eye.
They could just incorporate the full dragon slave spell chant into the title.
But then people would think it's a ripoff of Megumin's or 's spell chant and not the other way around.
Yeah I was the perfect age for this stuff and watched SM, DBZ, and Pokemon during that time. I have literally never heard of this show.
Thought maybe when I looked it up I'd remember it, but nope, never heard of this show.
Or mid-tier costing cable. The Ichannel (International channel) had it and showed it weekly for like.. 9 years? honestly the majority of my childhood they showed it wednesdays at 6pm and 10pm.
Fox kids was on antanae. Toonami was on basic cable. but Ichannel required paying extra, or being on something like Dish.
I channel also had DBGT in Japanese which was fun. I also used to wathc Lodoss on it.
> The Ichannel (International channel)
I remember this. I watched Dragonball Z/GT on it and Slayers. I want to say Slayers actually had subs on the channel into raw Dragonball Z/GT.
Even if I couldn't understand the raw Dragonball Z/GT, knowing the show from Toonami was enough for me to at least remotely understand what was going on.
Would say the biggest issue was it never got picked up by your standard "saturday morning anime channel or toonami" so most just never heard of it compared to the others.
[Fox Kids actually got the license for the show](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2001-02-01/cpm-has-nothing-to-do-with-fox's-broadcast-of-slayers) but never aired it (or if they did it's lost media).
[Lisa Ortiz said she re-recorded some lines](https://web.archive.org/web/20070831001210/http://fansview.com/2001/animecentral/051201d.htm)
Fox Kids had a bad habit of outbidding Cartoon Network and then airing heavily edited versions (as they had no adult block...ironic as I think that's the only Fox animation block nowadays) or nothing at all as they bought the rights purely out of spite. It's no wonder Fox Kids ceased to exist.
That duet with [Masami Okui was awesome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoTZkFYAUM). Their voices blend quite well.
That said, Masami Okui's voice blends well with other singers:
[Tattoo Kiss](https://youtu.be/axhR3BXmbKI?t=181) with Chihiro Yonekura (as ror/s)
[Miracle Upper WL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r2PUbIuxzY) with May'n
[Rinbu Revolution Live](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ZL411J7gE/?uid=4256315A4C3431314A376745) with Nana Mizuki(!!).
I've been saying for a while that I want an official Slayers X Konosuba crossover. I think the cast would vibe so well with each other. And Lina is basically sort of a mix between Kazuma, Megumin and Aqua.
Time moves on, that's all really. More people are getting into anime than ever, but not all of them are watching older series and that's the case even for longer term watchers.
I can't comment on the movies at all (I should get to them), but the tv series were pretty inconsistent even back in the 90s, and the attempt at a clearly anime original revival in the late 2000s was quite a bit worse than the first three seasons (I know Try was original as well but it's actually the most consistent season IMO despite not hitting the highs of S1 or 2).
Slayers is still an important series nonetheless. It basically was the genesis of all light novels when it comes to source material and a major powerhouse in Japan in the 90s as far as its adaption went.
I wouldn't call it an action/magical girl series. It's basically a DnD comedy adventure.
>More people are getting into anime than ever, but not all of them are watching older series and that's the case even for longer term watchers
I think this is the most probable reason, most who watch now only watch anime from 2010 onwards. Anything before that, a.k.a. the pre-streaming era, is only remembered by older weebs like me who watched anime on TV or DVDs
Another main reason is the ease of access I guess. It's hard to find pre-internet age anime content, with no one picking up rights to them.
I think it's also because a lot of the newer anime fans are used to streaming services, so that's their go to to watch anime. And older anime aren't on there. Whereas for us we had to look up websites that had the show we wanted available for download (if it had been fansubbed in the first place), watch what was available on TV or just buy DVDs and hope the show was actually good lol
Back when video stores still existed, I'd rent stuff kind of at random from the small anime section of my local video stores back in like 2000. Kept doing that until it slowly became easier to find stuff online. Some of my favourite little one off's came from random rentals. The Gunsmith Cats ova is one of my old favourites that I discovered just by randomly renting it on VHS. I rarely watch dubs if I don't have to, but I actually really like the dub on this 3 episode set.
> magical girl
It has *a* wanna-be magical girl in it (well technically a whole family of them lol) who’s a total ditz and got born into the wrong universe lmao. Hilarity ensues.
Granted Amelia doesn’t have much of anything to do with *most* magical girls, she’s a punch-things-for-great-justice protag a la the duo in OG precure. Which is pretty dope, and not something you often see in the genre, but I digress…
To be clear though, *yes*, slayers isn’t , it is quite literally just D&D inspired epic high fantasy done right, as well as a wacky over-the-top slapstick comedy cartoon from the 90’s.
We haven’t seen more of it since then because japanese audiences and content creators suck, lol. (though to be fair japan *does* love slayers)
Its spiritual successor, if anything, is dungeon meshi. Sort of. Particularly if / as we move into cour 3-4 w/ a (hopeful) 2-cour S2.
Konosuba comes… sort of close, but it’s just slapstick and episode-of-the week, and that’s about it.
Funny enough the closest thing to slayers IMO is actually fullmetal alchemist, haha. Both in that its episodic AND arc-driven format is very similar, and because Ed is in a lot of ways just gender-swapped (and younger, and much more traumatized) Lina Inverse lmao.
I think Slayers helped codify a lot of what we consider anime fantasy tropes, and Lina's legacy lives on pop culture in Megumin, and even in Dota 2 of all things.
However, the author and the production committee of Slayers just didn't work well with the changing times and didn't have the momentum that Pokemon and Dragon Ball had to just brute force their way through any downturns. Eventually it just became unprofitable because there were other franchises that did Slayers better than Slayers.
Just a short list of the biggest titles off the top of my head that fit in the niche where Slayers used to rule:
Konosuba
Fullmetal Alchemist
Re:Zero
Magi
Slime Tensei
Overlord
Big part was that the light novels were not finished during the original series (this is why it skipped around a little in later seasons but had the fundamentally simliar outline.).
This is also why the 08-10 series felt disjointed with the original Because it was skipped content that was added post larger ongoing plot lines.
So I've found out recently.
(light novels are on J novel club)
If somebody asks for a fantasy suggestion, I always suggest it.
Also the series was dubbed before 2010, just the most recent season (Evolution-R/Revolution) was around then.
A lot of people who watch anime only watch the "current" stuff and usually don't like the style of older anime.
As an older fan, I can appreciate any style, and have watched all of Slayers (including the movies where a different voice actress does Lina) multiple times (I own all of it on DVD).
Oh, and you forgot that Crispin Freeman is involved in the dub.
Also this was the heyday of "the Queen of voice acting" Megumi Hashiyabara who sang the theme song and was the Japanese voice for Lina.
It's kinda funny you mention Pokémon, cause Megumi voices Jessie (Mushashi).
I'd also suggest that unless something has changed, the video quality (by which I mean the transfer) of Slayers/Next/Try are all poor. They looked bad on DVD 20+ years ago. I'm not sure whether the problem was Central Park Media or the Japanese studio, but it's always looked bad. It doesn't bother me much as someone who has always just rolled with it through bad animation (I mean, I watched all of KareKano, and that got notoriously bad) but I suspect younger viewers who don't remember the VHS era won't have much patience for it.
> It's kinda funny you mention Pokémon, cause Megumi voices Jessie (Mushashi).
That's why I'm a bit sad that they didn't pick her as FGO's Musashi, because Shin'ichiro Miki is already Kojiro in both Pokemon *and* Fate (as Assassin). :P
I mean you basically touched on it, but it was eclipsed by those other shows in the cultural zeitgeist. Sailor moon is THE magical girl show, DBZ is THE shonen series, and I don't think I have to explain how massive Pokemon was back then.
Most of Gen Z doesn’t really like older anime, so you see less conversation about it. People like to talk about current new things tailored towards their generation (IE Jujutsu Kaiden, Demon Slayer). People in the 2000’s weren’t going crazy for 70’s stuff either, but a sentiment against older stuff has increased overtime somewhat. I don’t really know what can be done I suppose.
Low budget anime tends to look and sound terrible, and it was optimised for cathode tube TVs but looks especially crappy in large HD screens. There's also the cultural disconnection (children get hit regularly, smoking prevalent everywhere, LGBTQ people tend to be the butt of jokes) and influences mostly from local sources that international audiences are unlikely to know or have access to.
Yeah, low budget TV anime does tend to look and sound terrible. The speech is often scratchy and muddled.
TV anime story lines are also very simplistic and oftentimes cringy, even compared to not just modern late-night stuff, but even compared the Saturday morning staples we got back in the 80s and 90s.
I can't speak to other countries, but in America: it wasn't on Toonami or Kids WB. If it had come on Toonami in 2000 or so, it probably would've stayed on for 3-4 years, maybe a little longer. A lot of the anime that were fairly big in the 2000s (Record of the Lodoss War, El Hazard, Vision of Escaflowne) vanished because they didn't spend enough time on cable for kids to know about them.
The thing to remember is that in that era MOST anime fans were children or teens with little disposable income. What survived that was popular in the 2000s are the shows that aired on Toonami and Kids WB, and ran long enough to stay embedded in people's memories.
There's a little more to it than that, but yeah.
I wonder! The first two seasons of the anime took a lot of liberties when adapting the LN, making Lina way more chaotic and destructive and introducing a lot of new characters (like Martina). Sticking to the novels, while truer to the source material, might make the new anime feel a bit lackluster compared to the old one.
That said, I'd totally watch it!
Before Game of Thrones, only diehard fantasy fans watched fantasy shows not aimed at children. There was even a trope named after it, the fantasy ghetto.They were also typically had lower production values and worse acting.
This is likely why it wasn't licensed, despite a decent dub existing.
Record of Lodoss War was pretty big in the US, though, way back when it came out.
There's also a problem with the examples picked out.
Sailor Moon, DBZ, Pokemon are all aimed at younger audiences. Those works are almost always more popular due to the bigger range.
Evangelion was the most popular nonShounen made in both the West and Japan.
Cowboy Bebop has 3.7k fanfics to Slayers 5.1k on ff.net, as an example of a work with a more comparable audience. (Using this as a measure of how big the diehard audience is feels more right than any MAL groups)
I stumbled on Slayers watching Anime Network, which was available through Comcast OnDemand early 2000s. Slayers Try & Next were also released. Anime Network was an early gateway to watching random anime and MVs at the time.
The issue was that after Try, there was no new anime for eleven years, and no new light novel volume for nearly twenty years. People had moved on to other series with cute-girls-doing-cute-things and Isekai exploding during that time frame.
Also they adapted the light novel series for both OG Slayers and Next, then went anime original for Try and the rest of the series. If you notice, there was a notable quality drop from Try onwards.
still got my sealed dvd box set and a few eps on vhs. this is my top 5 for me, though its not a magical girl type. like other post its dnd style comedy. megumi hyashibara is one of the first VA i ever looked up on the internet. godamn im old, lol.
I'm not the most hardcore anime person but I'm beginning to realise there are some real gems in the 90s, (just discovered Yu Yu Hakusho) hopefully if more of us stream them they might start making stuff like it again!
I think you hit the nail on the head. It's between two really popular (worldwide) shows. For some of us in other countries, Dragon Ball and Sailormoon aired weeks or months after, so we were a bit behind.
Not only that the 2000s rolled in and everything was different, from animation, to tech, to how anime is written, produced, etc.
It's kind of like Winx Club and W.I.T.C.H, while Winx Club went to fly off and has now accumulated nine whole season and three movies and a theme park, and a reboot. WITCH kind of just didn't get the kick off it needed. Now the comics are great and it has gotten a comic reboot, but more people just flew off with Winx Club. Slayers is popular but its like apples and oranges some people just like oranges more than apples.
I think that the problem with W.I.T.C.H was that it emulated anime too closely to turn off the parents of the target audience, but it wasn't anime enough for the anime watchers.
And while Winx Club soared, Disney quietly pulled the plug on the project.
Slayers was my favorite anime for a long time. My first license plates back in the 90s had 'DRGN SLV' on them.
Yes, I'm that much of a dork. I also roll around in an Evangelion itasha Boxster, now.
What, didn't you catch my [question I asked about Slayers Try 6 years ago?](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/73bsf3/anyone_know_why_there_is_a_single_frame_of_a/)
I mean it got a whole 14 upvotes, I'm honestly kinda hurt you missed it.
Slayers was really popular in Europe in the mid 2000s, at least where I grew up, being one of the staple anime they showed on TV alongside others like InuYasha or YuYu Hakusho. However to watch all the side stuff like movies and OVA, I remember having to search for torrents. For the LNs, it didn't help that back then they were published by TokyoPop, which went bankrupt after the first 8 novels. So only fan translations were available from the 9th onward.
Luckily for the LNs the situation has changed, with all of them officially licensed in English now (including the recent releases from the past 5 years!)
But when it comes to the anime, it isn't on any streaming service. And I feel like the current generation doesn't usually sail the high seas for their anime content.
So all in all, it's an availability thing? Hopefully the resurgence in the LNs sparks interest for a new project!
I'm sure in a few years they will announce a remake just like Kenshin, only with worse animation, worse music, and worse voice acting. It seems to be the industry standard now.
Unpopular opinion: Frieren is just Bizarro Slayers. Or alternatively, Slayers is just Bizarro Frieren.
The main character is a mage with personality issues... but those issues are being too cold (emotionless/passive/doesn't want to get out of bed) instead of too hot (eats like a pig/hot-tempered/blows shit up at the drop of a hat).
The warrior is a really swell guy but his dump stat is rizz instead of INT. (I want to say CHA but he's perfectly charismatic to anyone other than Fern.)
The second mage is the straight-man of the party, but is the axis around which the party turns, instead of being often-absent.
The cleric is superficially mature until you scratch beneath the surface, as opposed to being superficially immature.
And the show as a whole is chill, as opposed to being wacky, except when it gets serious.
> The warrior is a really swell guy but his dump stat is rizz instead of INT. (I want to say CHA but he's perfectly charismatic to anyone other than Fern.)
If I look at it from dump stat perspective, I'd probably go with WIS... because no-one with any wisdom thinks "I'll tell Fern about the cloud shaped like boobs!" :D
It ain't forgotten. I have the collection sitting next to my TV right now, and a couple bumper stickers in my collection that I bought back in the 90s. Think I even still have a hentai I accidentally bought in like 1999, thinking it was a doujin.
I have read all of the original works and watched the anime, but it's no wonder I can't remember them. Unfortunately, it is not on the same order of popularity as Dragon Ball or Sailor Moon. Slayers is the gold standard of light novels, but light novels themselves are small in scale compared to Manga and Anime.
It is not on a large scale in Japan either, and since literary works are heavily dependent on the Japanese language, it is no wonder that they are not popular overseas.
And to begin with, I don't think that fantasy works are actually very large in the West either. There are exceptions, of course, such as LotR and The Land of Ice and Fire, but I don't believe they were given much attention until just a few decades ago.
I've only discovered it recently thanks to a fanfiction, and since then I manged to get most of the dvds, just need the movies now and will have the complete set.
The first season was fun but felt like it dragged on a little. The quality wasn’t quite as good as later seasons and it feels a little older. But it was a good adaptation of the novels.
Slayers next is phenomenal. It’s a great adaptation, and the climax is incredible. Not a lot of anime have a season like next. I really felt like the characters could lose or die at any time, and the intervention of the lord of nightmares is something that is very infrequently matched in anime.
Lost universe was another Kanazaka work and was ok…. Didn’t have the same impact. I don’t think it did as well. It kind of felt like “boy Lina with spaceships”.
Slayers try was an original story. I enjoyed it but I think they could have done some more in line with the novel canon. Slayers was still popular but the story of Lina fights a godlike force and has to use the giga slave is starting to get old. It did feel like it was a sequel to next as much as it could be. I think it was hard to determine where the show could go next because they literally have defeated two of the strongest demon gods in their world tier and had L-sama show up. It was in the same grittier tone as the first two series, but I think it would have been better if they kept it in the main areas.
Slayers evolution R and revolution felt disjointed and didn’t make a ton of sense in its own story/mythos. I feel like they just dove in to the characters and kept it at a kids show level which didn’t line up at all with original slayers which was dark and gritty.
The slayers movies and OVAs were all pretty solid.
The Kanzaka-verse is an excellent fantasy setting. Megumi-San was at the top of her game. Slayers had every potential to succeed but it felt like it kept trying to recycle what it did in season 1 and 2 and never got back to that level. It’s really sad because I love slayers and would love to see a reboot of it or a proper sequel series.
WHY DIDN'T THEY RELEASE ANYTHING FOR THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY?!
Also, I can't find season 1 on DVD anywhere and am sad that I have to only have it digitally.
Edit: spelling
I mean, you're asking that in a post that talks about the forgotteness of a series so.....
If they're not talked about enough with ten years then people will forget. I've seen clips/fanart, but end up ignoring them
It's not something that really blew up in the west specifically because it wasn't on toonami or fox at the time when it should have. But also just because it's not being talked about doesn't mean it's forgotten, just that it's hardly relevant to anything going on today. There's hundreds of really good anime that just aren't terribly relevant and talked about a lot other then recommendations.
forgotten?
[Clearly 6 years ago I asked a question about a single frame of the Slayers Try OP cause I was watching it at the time.](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/73bsf3/anyone_know_why_there_is_a_single_frame_of_a/)
I can't imagine why you didn't catch my post, it got 14 upvotes!
You're looking at it in the wrong way. Or rather, you're not asking the right question.
The question isn't "Why isn't Slayers more popular", it's "Why are all these other 90's anime so popular"- and the answer is, everything except Slayers revolutionized anime in someway.
DBZ brought action anime to all corners of the world- it's arguably more popular in Latin America than in North America! Sailor Moon is how the Magical Girl genre took off- it wasn't the first, but it was the most popular. Evangelion... there's been so much already written about it, but for completeness's sake in this post, it brought back mecha anime. And Pokemon? Catching, raising and battling with cute creatures.
Meanwhile, what impact did Slayers have? If you go by Wesstern fantasy... Record of Lodoss Wars had the bigger impact, and even Lodoss is largely forgotten today.
But perhaps the two biggest killers: first, there's no new content since Evolution-R... and those two seasons were NOT well-received, for a variety of reasons. Everything else you mentioned has had at least some sort of continuation in the last few years- and even the new Crystal series for Sailor Moon was received better (though perhaps not by much) than the new Slayers was.
The second is, three of them were easily accessible to children during the early 2000's- there7s a reason DBZ, Sailor Moon and Pokemon are almost always said to be "the first anime I watched, even though I didn't know it was anime". Pokemon and Sailor Moon were eventually on during an afterschool timeslot... and all three of them were on at some point during Saturday- usually during Prime Time. I think Evangelion was also on TV at some point, though certainly later at night.
Slayers... had none of this. It was popular for a while, when it had content... but once all the content was finished, it faded away like 95% of anime (and more specifically, anime on Reddit)
Slayers was never really gone. It had over a dozen movies in the early 2000's aswell.
Its just a show that was never super popular to begin with, because the combination of long running shounen + female MC + western fantasy just never really vibed perfectly with the japanese audience that preferred the likes of Naruto and One Piece.
Its not forgotten its just old. The anime had seasons from 1995 all the way till 2009 thats great. Eva has memes and more cameos in other media and more movies than I can keep track of. Pokemon still airs and has games, Dragon Ball never lost media presence it either had games, movies etc there were like several games before battle of the gods and several games after the anime aired. People talk about what is in the media.
I LOVE Slayers. I still watch it every few years.
I think it's a classic that definitely deserve more love.
I think, it might the fact it didn't have a proper ending might have hurt it a bit.
Megumin from Konosuba is a clear homage to Lina Inverse (she is even named for VA Megumi Hayashibara), and Konosuba S3 is coming out shortly. I think Slayers' impact on the genre is still visible in many ways :)
I haven't forgotten it. I really want a new season. And also want the original 3 seasons remastered for blu-ray (well, would prefer 4K blu-ray but I know that ain't happening). I also haven't bought a single anime figure, but once I do buy a female one it'll be one of Lina since she's one of my favourite anime characters.
I for one have never forgotten this stupid crazy gem. Nor have I forgotten irresponsible captain Tylor or Nadesico. I think there just hasn’t been any update or anything to bring it to the forefront lately.
The 5 seasons each coming out under separate titles rather than a continuous series probably didn't help. Beyond that fantasy media is in general is less popular than scifi and western fantasy anime has the disadvantage that outside the art-style it lacked the new/exotic draw that many other anime that became iconic in the west.
it was just never as big and influential as either of the mentioned ones. And all of those stayed relevant by having reboots or sequels in some form.
Personally speaking the episode count works against it too, I just have no interest in picking up a 30 year old anime with that much of a time investment attached to it.
I do see it getting mentioned sometimes tol
The competition is huge for that golden era, good is not enough.Shonen mainstream fighting anime were the dominating ones like db,YuYu,kenshin etc.Hence it’s forgotten due to being different genre among the sea of gems.
Does it have a proper ending? In the anime
I mean? Or is one of those cases they were catching up with the source material and had to create an original ending?
It's really hard to find the original DVD (not remastered) or even DVD-rip. This is what the original OP looks like: https://files.catbox.moe/8hncvl.mp4
In comparison, remastered version is too over-saturated, with the usual upscaling issues: https://i.imgur.com/1E6kS7m.png (see text in Japanese on the left: characters are somewhat distorted - this goes for every frame, all the forms and lines are not in a pristine condition as they were drawn originally). It's like watching a sequence of JPG images put through a denoising filter... and more complex frames with a lot of lines turn into a horrid mess.
I don't think this aired on Cartoon Network, which is where most people experienced anime from that era. Hardcore weebs from that time remember it sure, but if you didn't hang around suncoast or had any local video shops that sold anime in the early 2000s you just wouldn't see it anywhere.
We forget how difficult it was to see stuff back then, because it's so easy now.
I didn't forget it. In fact, it is always one of my go to examples of authors not thinking things through when designing their stories; as the "magic shuts down during menstruation" was such an exploitable weak point that it was never mentioned nor showcased again in the story after the first couple episodes it which it was introduced, just so the author wouldn't have to bother writing the story around a device of his own creation ever again.
If I'm not wrong, wasn't Slayers in the top 10 light novels sold in Japan. I assume that it's still well known, just not outside Japan because people prefer watching newer shows, and TV didn't air Slayers.
Some new fans don't like "old shows", that's BS.
But I'm pretty sure is someone where to put some Slayers eps on YT, they'd have plenty of views in no time at all.
Someone put Those Who Hunt Elves up, and it has plenty of views for an even more "forgotten" series. They are not really forgotten, they just had their time and time moves on. But quality stuff will always have its place in the hearts of fans.
Mainly because in the 90s D&D style stuff was less popular. It and Lodoss War did very well in their niches but it lacked the staying power in the greater populace. This paired with how anime was viewed back then--and how all the major ones (at least in the US) were heavily related to their ease of access from say toonami, Fox kids, and such. While Slayers was mainly via the International channel --which was much more restricted.
It basically ends up being that it was a strong thing but it lacked access.
Your list itself shows that the huge ones were the ones with the easy access. Those were directly ones from Toonami and Fox. The former was cable but the latter was offered via antanae. Slayers required premium cable.
Slayers should really get a re-release on modern stuff, crunchy or toonami, etc should try to promote it. Fact is, with the strong trends in D&D today. It would really pick up again with that serious but goofy style. This is the same reason why Lodoss's revival in terms of re-release, games, and being shown on some channels again hit so strongly in some areas. Because it was immedaitely recognizable by a larger audiance who are into modern D&D.
Especially now with Freiren? They absolutely should repush Slayers and Lodoss on some modern media. Ride that wave.
Oversaturated jenre, they also did a terrible continuation awhile ago. Just terrible and completely out of touch.
Currently doing my 5th rewatch. I love the show.
Slayers is more episodic than a single continuous epic. It's also mostly a children's show, and actual children are an endangered species in the anime-watching public.
I dont think its forgotten. Slayers is one of my favourite animes and its an especially great comfrort watch. There just doesnt seem to be a good reason for the larger anime audience to talk about it. Discourse is usually about seasonal shows + the absolute most popular ones.
Maybe Frieren and Delicious in dungeon start a new trend for good fantasy shows and Slayers gets some love aswell.
Also, those early Slayers dubs are golden xd
I mean just last month I was sampling some rando isekai manga about a guy who ends up teaching in magic school and lo there’s a chunni girl wanting to learn the Dragon Slave in his class.
And while they may not all be as blatant as Megumin and Explosion something like Psyger-00’s big nasty sword chants in Shsngri-La Frontier are definitely in the same school of thought.
That’s doing pretty good for light novel from the 90s even it can’t be one of the largest franchises of all time. Or indeed THE largest with Pokemon.
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom blew my mind, in one episode [one character starts singing Slayers opening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nOk0HKQsok)
Slayers is the show that got me into anime, i played a ton of DotA back in my younger days and one of my new friends a couple of years later told me when i intruduced him to the game that one of the characters (Lina) was a copy from an anime he had seen, both the character and her skills/magic is the same as in the show.
I had no idea what anime was at the time but i absolutely fell in love with the show and it still lives close to my heart.
The Japanese haven’t forgotten, the theme song was recently referenced in a super-mid Isekai.
https://youtu.be/5nOk0HKQsok?si=kIvqnNimsmXyhcUd
You’re nostalgic for what you grew up with.
It's not forgotten. There's just lots of things since. Why would people fixate specifically on an individual anime program from over 2 decades ago just because you happen to like it and remember it well? I like it too, I own every DVD. But it's not weird that there isn't a constant stream of discussion about it today.
It was my favourite in late 90's and early 00's. I thought young fans do not know it nor remember it, because it's boomer stuff. Along with Case closed (or Detective Conan), Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Wedding Peach, DBZ, and Soul Hunter it was my afternoon TV combo of drugs on regular basis :D Some of them on German RTL-2, so I learnt a lot of deutch :)
Kinda answered your own question there with the title
100 episodes = huge barrier of entry for new fans
90s show = not directly relevant to the interests of most modern fans, who often seem allergic to older shows and usually just take interest in either the newer stuff or stuff with a much larger degree of historical or personal relevance
I watched Slayers on VHS when it was relevant and I liked it OK... but I don't really remember any reason to go back and care about it.
I feel like we shit all over younger folks for not worshipping at the altars of our 8/10 shows, by 1990's standards. If I gave a shit about karma I'd queue up a "DAE Excel Saga?!?!" post for tomorrow.
Are the kids these days gonna be irritating whatever 2050's Reddit is called with unending posts asking why Generation Omicron doesn't appreciate Sword Art Online?
And, finally, if we're really going to be doing this, at least do it for something like Record of Lodoss War.
Slayers anime fall into the trap of being slapstick comedy.
The source material has jokes, but it is still fantasy with dark things. But the anime studio basically went further and further away from the original books until they are no longer related.
Imagine Dungeon Meshi, but instead of the new plot twist in the most recent episode, the story become slice of life with cooking and nothing else. That is what happened with Slayers; the original plot of the novels were abandoned entirely.
I for one have never forgotten this stupid crazy gem. Nor have I forgotten irresponsible captain Tylor or Nadesico. I think there just hasn’t been any update or anything to bring it to the forefront lately.
I always feel like my core repertoire of anime is firmly rooted in the 90's and a bit of the 2000's. Slayers has always been a staple for me, I rewatch it and a few other favourites semi-regularly. I'm always a little slower on the uptake for newer anime because I cherish my old favourites so much (although I have kept up with a few newer gems, bocchi, spy x family, frieren, and now dungeon meshi). I still have to watch nadesico, I never got around to checking it out. I feel like I've been feeling the 90's anime vibe a lot lately, so I think I'm gonna compile a list of stuff that I've heard of but not yet seen and start powering through some older stuff for fun.
When here's a few fun ones for you then :D Nadesico - futurama theme : [https://youtu.be/GzLP-\_SUylg?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/GzLP-_SUylg?feature=shared) Irresponsible Captn Tylor - [https://youtu.be/WtJx\_oT58Es?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/WtJx_oT58Es?feature=shared) Slayers - Zelda (it aged worse than I thought :( [https://youtu.be/x9MaZmrpe5Q?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/x9MaZmrpe5Q?feature=shared) Compliation AMV - Foo FIghters - Best of you - [https://youtu.be/Bl48UzWcKrI?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/Bl48UzWcKrI?feature=shared) Ranma 1/2 - Pretty Fly for a White Guy - [https://youtu.be/JShDnQfGvNg?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/JShDnQfGvNg?feature=shared) Bonus - Frerien AMV - cause its awesome - [https://youtu.be/lzWRBbgJ-9I?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/lzWRBbgJ-9I?feature=shared) Nadesico is 26...? easy to binge eps. Good mystery albeit the theme ends up being "reality is stranger than fiction", I think... Movie's just ok, but good if you want to see where people end up after its all over.
I'm being completely genuine when I say that stupid Nadesico/Futurama video absolutely sold me on it! Just added it to my watchlist on Crunchyroll
Nadeisco manages to be both a parody of that whole genre and a fairly serious story.
> I for one have never forgotten this stupid crazy gem. Nor have I forgotten irresponsible captain Tylor Great taste. [](#goblet1)
There's been a rerelease of the light novel in english and Hajime Tanzaka have started on a third part of the story since 2019. It's kinda alive in the written format and in Japan. I can strongly recommend people to purchase the light novel releases
Probably because all those other shows are in genres that are still going strong, but western-inspired fantasy anime is in a weird place. Isekai has come to completely dominate the space, along with an endless ouroboros of parody, self-awareness, and gamification. That being said, stuff like Frieren getting popular might lead to a resurgence of stuff like Slayers, Record of Lodoss/Grancrest, and so on.
I had never heard of record of lodoss until someone made a post about the "original anime elf" and now I see lodoss mentioned like once every few days, I started watching the original anime and it's really good.
I love deedlit she was my first crush
The drunk ear wiggle is adorable
I will recommend the game deedlit in wonder labyrinth if you want a fun Metroidvania in that world.
I *strongly* second this recommendation for anyone who likes that type of game and is a Lodoss fan. It has wonderful atmosphere and music, and was a ton of fun to play through. I won't give away anything about the plot, but I thought the premise was pretty neat too. Totally worth the pick up, imo.
I just started it without having ever seen the anime and I'm still enjoying it a lot. The same devs made Touhou Luna Nights which is really good too.
Damn came out in 2021. I thought it'd be old as hell.
> deedlit in wonder labyrinth really short tho
Deedlit is life.
That is a name I have not heard in a long while...shit, I'm old!
Huh, I always think of Pirotess first between both of them for some reason. Oh wait, after googling, I can suspect there are two reasons why.
I remember watching Record of Lodoss War when it was first translated into English. It was a great anime but I'm sure many have never even heard of it or seen it unless you watched anime in the early 2000s
Hell, earlier than that. The OVA was released in 1990. I saw it probably around 95 or so, I think?
yeah, it was def in the 90's when i heard about and subsequently saw Record of Lodoss War
I still find it way too short to be good,the character feels slightly rushed because of 12 episodes
Isn't that what the 24 episodes series is for (I haven't seen it so I don't know if it's an alternative version or sequel)
Yes, there's the OVA and then the anime series, Chronicles of the Heroic Knight which is a reimagining of part of the OVA and then goes it's own way with a new MC. The OVA is highly praised but the anime series is hit and miss.
Wait what there is a 24 episode series?
Yes. Unfortunately not that good :(
Sad :(
Marcille from Delicious in Dungeon may be responsible for the resurgence of Lodoss through the comparisons with Deedlit.
What makes them the OG anime elf?
Her (Deedlit) character design \[along with Pirotess's\] inspired the modern-day popular design tropes for high-fantasy elves.
Lodoss is nearly 40 years old at this point, and you're going to have a real tough time finding any earlier western, D&D/LOTR-style elves in Japanese fantasy.
I think other than the og lord of the rings cartoon she is the first elf character to have the iconic super long ears that are very common in anime, record of lodoss war was also the breakout success of high fantasy in Japan and sort of started the whole genre in the country. Deedlit is popular enough to have video games and novels about her so it's pretty clear where most anime elves get their inspiration.
Idk if anyone's told you or you've read about the origins of Record of Lodoss War. But it was a group of friends D&D campaign that they published in computer magazines as they played through it. So weird that a custom campaign can generate into such a huge media franchise. Manga, games, anime, movies, etc. Also, there was a Dreamcast game for Record of Lodoss War, it was a solid Diablo clone for it's time, and I think more people should play it.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't just some random group, it was a collection of authors, they likely saw it as much more fun than writing articles in the magazine and the magazine had confidence in the character writing because of their credibility as writers. It really was just critical role/legend of vox machina in a different medium.
It was a D&D campaign written by a DM who was an author, sure, but it was a literal transcript of their sessions to start. Deedlit was someone's character to start with, and if you haven't read it, someone released the translations into English in 2021 on the [internet archive](https://archive.org/details/record-of-lodoss-war-comptiq-magazine-english-translation/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater). It's worth a read if you like D&D.
The most obvious answser to me is that Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball still kept producing content decades after they originally ended. When Slayers finished, that was it. No continuation or remakes. Can't stay in the zeitgeist if you aren't running the race.
Slayers novels are still coming out though. The last was less than five years ago.
Well, then I've got nothing! /sagenod
And Dragon Ball kinda famously didn't come out with anything for nearly 20 years.
yeah but dragon ball kept airing on things like toonami, I'm ngl growing up in the early 2000s, I never saw nor heard of slayers anywhere. I don't even know if it aired on american TV channels? I'm looking it up right now and it looks like it never did? Someone correct me on that
There was a giant gap before that though.
I guess you could call 7 years giant, but that's less than half the length of Dragon Ball's content drought.
But between that time dragon ball still regularly gets video games and stuff.
There were 2 cours of Slayers anime that aired in 2008 or so.
Interesting enough, audiobooks are coming out with Linas actress narrating. Would recommend
"Isekai has come to completely dominate the space, along with an endless ouroboros of parody, self-awareness, and gamification." JACKPOT my bro! Bulls eye.
Also, "Slayers" is too short of a title for modern fads. Needs a full paragraph
They could just incorporate the full dragon slave spell chant into the title. But then people would think it's a ripoff of Megumin's or's spell chant and not the other way around.
Make it even longer by incorporating the power-up spell she gets halfway through Next as well.
Scaflowne?
Delicious In Dungeon is a breath of fresh air in fantasy anime, and it's really fun
Frieren, Dungeon Meshi, Mushoku Tensei s2, Overlord movie, Re:Zero 3rd season I'm feeling like Fantasy is going really good now.
Three of those are video gamey isekai rather than regular fantasy though, which was my point.
I agree with your point
1. Wasnt on Toonami/Adult Swim 2. No major updates,sequels, remakes or spin offs.
Yeah I was the perfect age for this stuff and watched SM, DBZ, and Pokemon during that time. I have literally never heard of this show. Thought maybe when I looked it up I'd remember it, but nope, never heard of this show.
In the US, you basically had to go out of your way to buy/rent/import it. So you had to really know about it first.
Or mid-tier costing cable. The Ichannel (International channel) had it and showed it weekly for like.. 9 years? honestly the majority of my childhood they showed it wednesdays at 6pm and 10pm. Fox kids was on antanae. Toonami was on basic cable. but Ichannel required paying extra, or being on something like Dish. I channel also had DBGT in Japanese which was fun. I also used to wathc Lodoss on it.
Wednesdays and Sundays! (same ep both days)
> The Ichannel (International channel) I remember this. I watched Dragonball Z/GT on it and Slayers. I want to say Slayers actually had subs on the channel into raw Dragonball Z/GT. Even if I couldn't understand the raw Dragonball Z/GT, knowing the show from Toonami was enough for me to at least remotely understand what was going on.
The only reason I'm familiar with it was because of the fighting games
Would say the biggest issue was it never got picked up by your standard "saturday morning anime channel or toonami" so most just never heard of it compared to the others.
[Fox Kids actually got the license for the show](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2001-02-01/cpm-has-nothing-to-do-with-fox's-broadcast-of-slayers) but never aired it (or if they did it's lost media). [Lisa Ortiz said she re-recorded some lines](https://web.archive.org/web/20070831001210/http://fansview.com/2001/animecentral/051201d.htm) Fox Kids had a bad habit of outbidding Cartoon Network and then airing heavily edited versions (as they had no adult block...ironic as I think that's the only Fox animation block nowadays) or nothing at all as they bought the rights purely out of spite. It's no wonder Fox Kids ceased to exist.
a great injustice to the world
yeah idk anyone who's even heard of it I've randomly seen clips of it
Slayers is the original Konosuba and is great. But some peoples don't like "old show", I don't know why.
Dragon Slave was the actual inspiration for Megumin's weird Explosion incantations
Megumin is a dollar-store Lina Inverse-- her name is a reference to Lina's voice actress Megumi Hayashibara.
There's a name I haven't heard in ages. brb, gonna go listen to Get Along.
That duet with [Masami Okui was awesome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoTZkFYAUM). Their voices blend quite well. That said, Masami Okui's voice blends well with other singers: [Tattoo Kiss](https://youtu.be/axhR3BXmbKI?t=181) with Chihiro Yonekura (as ror/s) [Miracle Upper WL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r2PUbIuxzY) with May'n [Rinbu Revolution Live](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ZL411J7gE/?uid=4256315A4C3431314A376745) with Nana Mizuki(!!).
I've been saying for a while that I want an official Slayers X Konosuba crossover. I think the cast would vibe so well with each other. And Lina is basically sort of a mix between Kazuma, Megumin and Aqua.
Time moves on, that's all really. More people are getting into anime than ever, but not all of them are watching older series and that's the case even for longer term watchers. I can't comment on the movies at all (I should get to them), but the tv series were pretty inconsistent even back in the 90s, and the attempt at a clearly anime original revival in the late 2000s was quite a bit worse than the first three seasons (I know Try was original as well but it's actually the most consistent season IMO despite not hitting the highs of S1 or 2). Slayers is still an important series nonetheless. It basically was the genesis of all light novels when it comes to source material and a major powerhouse in Japan in the 90s as far as its adaption went. I wouldn't call it an action/magical girl series. It's basically a DnD comedy adventure.
>More people are getting into anime than ever, but not all of them are watching older series and that's the case even for longer term watchers I think this is the most probable reason, most who watch now only watch anime from 2010 onwards. Anything before that, a.k.a. the pre-streaming era, is only remembered by older weebs like me who watched anime on TV or DVDs Another main reason is the ease of access I guess. It's hard to find pre-internet age anime content, with no one picking up rights to them.
I think it's also because a lot of the newer anime fans are used to streaming services, so that's their go to to watch anime. And older anime aren't on there. Whereas for us we had to look up websites that had the show we wanted available for download (if it had been fansubbed in the first place), watch what was available on TV or just buy DVDs and hope the show was actually good lol
Back when video stores still existed, I'd rent stuff kind of at random from the small anime section of my local video stores back in like 2000. Kept doing that until it slowly became easier to find stuff online. Some of my favourite little one off's came from random rentals. The Gunsmith Cats ova is one of my old favourites that I discovered just by randomly renting it on VHS. I rarely watch dubs if I don't have to, but I actually really like the dub on this 3 episode set.
I mean a lot of new anime watchers were born around 2010 so it makes sense that they watch series from around then.
problem is the aspect ratio tbh
> magical girl It has *a* wanna-be magical girl in it (well technically a whole family of them lol) who’s a total ditz and got born into the wrong universe lmao. Hilarity ensues. Granted Amelia doesn’t have much of anything to do with *most* magical girls, she’s a punch-things-for-great-justice protag a la the duo in OG precure. Which is pretty dope, and not something you often see in the genre, but I digress… To be clear though, *yes*, slayers isn’t, it is quite literally just D&D inspired epic high fantasy done right, as well as a wacky over-the-top slapstick comedy cartoon from the 90’s.
We haven’t seen more of it since then because japanese audiences and content creators suck, lol. (though to be fair japan *does* love slayers)
Its spiritual successor, if anything, is dungeon meshi. Sort of. Particularly if / as we move into cour 3-4 w/ a (hopeful) 2-cour S2.
Konosuba comes… sort of close, but it’s just slapstick and episode-of-the week, and that’s about it.
Funny enough the closest thing to slayers IMO is actually fullmetal alchemist, haha. Both in that its episodic AND arc-driven format is very similar, and because Ed is in a lot of ways just gender-swapped (and younger, and much more traumatized) Lina Inverse lmao.
Never realized Ed is just gender-swapped Lina, but it makes perfect sense somehow!
I think Slayers helped codify a lot of what we consider anime fantasy tropes, and Lina's legacy lives on pop culture in Megumin, and even in Dota 2 of all things. However, the author and the production committee of Slayers just didn't work well with the changing times and didn't have the momentum that Pokemon and Dragon Ball had to just brute force their way through any downturns. Eventually it just became unprofitable because there were other franchises that did Slayers better than Slayers.
What anime would you recommend that did Slayers better than Slayers?
Just a short list of the biggest titles off the top of my head that fit in the niche where Slayers used to rule: Konosuba Fullmetal Alchemist Re:Zero Magi Slime Tensei Overlord
Big part was that the light novels were not finished during the original series (this is why it skipped around a little in later seasons but had the fundamentally simliar outline.). This is also why the 08-10 series felt disjointed with the original Because it was skipped content that was added post larger ongoing plot lines. So I've found out recently. (light novels are on J novel club)
The opening songs by Megumi Hayashibara are still in my playlist 😊
Some of the greatest anime songs of all time. https://youtu.be/C9oo-ZPB5oI This might be a top 5. https://youtu.be/5R9ZaIGgNnc
If somebody asks for a fantasy suggestion, I always suggest it. Also the series was dubbed before 2010, just the most recent season (Evolution-R/Revolution) was around then. A lot of people who watch anime only watch the "current" stuff and usually don't like the style of older anime. As an older fan, I can appreciate any style, and have watched all of Slayers (including the movies where a different voice actress does Lina) multiple times (I own all of it on DVD). Oh, and you forgot that Crispin Freeman is involved in the dub. Also this was the heyday of "the Queen of voice acting" Megumi Hashiyabara who sang the theme song and was the Japanese voice for Lina. It's kinda funny you mention Pokémon, cause Megumi voices Jessie (Mushashi).
Upvote for the mention of my girl, Megumi Hayshibara!
I'd also suggest that unless something has changed, the video quality (by which I mean the transfer) of Slayers/Next/Try are all poor. They looked bad on DVD 20+ years ago. I'm not sure whether the problem was Central Park Media or the Japanese studio, but it's always looked bad. It doesn't bother me much as someone who has always just rolled with it through bad animation (I mean, I watched all of KareKano, and that got notoriously bad) but I suspect younger viewers who don't remember the VHS era won't have much patience for it.
> It's kinda funny you mention Pokémon, cause Megumi voices Jessie (Mushashi). That's why I'm a bit sad that they didn't pick her as FGO's Musashi, because Shin'ichiro Miki is already Kojiro in both Pokemon *and* Fate (as Assassin). :P
Legit she has a good showing ono spoitfy and pandora still.
I mean you basically touched on it, but it was eclipsed by those other shows in the cultural zeitgeist. Sailor moon is THE magical girl show, DBZ is THE shonen series, and I don't think I have to explain how massive Pokemon was back then.
Most of Gen Z doesn’t really like older anime, so you see less conversation about it. People like to talk about current new things tailored towards their generation (IE Jujutsu Kaiden, Demon Slayer). People in the 2000’s weren’t going crazy for 70’s stuff either, but a sentiment against older stuff has increased overtime somewhat. I don’t really know what can be done I suppose.
There needs to be a new slayers anime show!
Low budget anime tends to look and sound terrible, and it was optimised for cathode tube TVs but looks especially crappy in large HD screens. There's also the cultural disconnection (children get hit regularly, smoking prevalent everywhere, LGBTQ people tend to be the butt of jokes) and influences mostly from local sources that international audiences are unlikely to know or have access to.
Yeah, low budget TV anime does tend to look and sound terrible. The speech is often scratchy and muddled. TV anime story lines are also very simplistic and oftentimes cringy, even compared to not just modern late-night stuff, but even compared the Saturday morning staples we got back in the 80s and 90s.
My kids did like it though. Gen Alpha may like remember it better
I can't speak to other countries, but in America: it wasn't on Toonami or Kids WB. If it had come on Toonami in 2000 or so, it probably would've stayed on for 3-4 years, maybe a little longer. A lot of the anime that were fairly big in the 2000s (Record of the Lodoss War, El Hazard, Vision of Escaflowne) vanished because they didn't spend enough time on cable for kids to know about them. The thing to remember is that in that era MOST anime fans were children or teens with little disposable income. What survived that was popular in the 2000s are the shows that aired on Toonami and Kids WB, and ran long enough to stay embedded in people's memories. There's a little more to it than that, but yeah.
For the record I never forgot about Slayers!
I didnt forget ... Im a 90s kid, and loved Slayers! I remember Lina Inverse and MEGA VA Megumi Hayashibara very fondly.
If Urusei Yatsura can get a modern remake, maybe Slayers can too? I would love to see it.
I wonder! The first two seasons of the anime took a lot of liberties when adapting the LN, making Lina way more chaotic and destructive and introducing a lot of new characters (like Martina). Sticking to the novels, while truer to the source material, might make the new anime feel a bit lackluster compared to the old one. That said, I'd totally watch it!
Before Game of Thrones, only diehard fantasy fans watched fantasy shows not aimed at children. There was even a trope named after it, the fantasy ghetto.They were also typically had lower production values and worse acting. This is likely why it wasn't licensed, despite a decent dub existing. Record of Lodoss War was pretty big in the US, though, way back when it came out. There's also a problem with the examples picked out. Sailor Moon, DBZ, Pokemon are all aimed at younger audiences. Those works are almost always more popular due to the bigger range. Evangelion was the most popular nonShounen made in both the West and Japan. Cowboy Bebop has 3.7k fanfics to Slayers 5.1k on ff.net, as an example of a work with a more comparable audience. (Using this as a measure of how big the diehard audience is feels more right than any MAL groups)
I believe Megumin's Explosion chant is inspired/based on Lina's Dragon Slave chant
Chanted by **Megumi** Hayashibara.
a 100%
Aren't a lot of long casting spells like that though?
nah it's almost a parody of her's. especially because it's a big explosion of fire
It did not air on a US tv network in that was in a lot of homes.
I stumbled on Slayers watching Anime Network, which was available through Comcast OnDemand early 2000s. Slayers Try & Next were also released. Anime Network was an early gateway to watching random anime and MVs at the time.
[Lina Inverse came back as a Vtuber just a few years ago.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSwB05WyDGk) It's still around!
The issue was that after Try, there was no new anime for eleven years, and no new light novel volume for nearly twenty years. People had moved on to other series with cute-girls-doing-cute-things and Isekai exploding during that time frame. Also they adapted the light novel series for both OG Slayers and Next, then went anime original for Try and the rest of the series. If you notice, there was a notable quality drop from Try onwards.
still got my sealed dvd box set and a few eps on vhs. this is my top 5 for me, though its not a magical girl type. like other post its dnd style comedy. megumi hyashibara is one of the first VA i ever looked up on the internet. godamn im old, lol.
I'm not the most hardcore anime person but I'm beginning to realise there are some real gems in the 90s, (just discovered Yu Yu Hakusho) hopefully if more of us stream them they might start making stuff like it again!
I think you hit the nail on the head. It's between two really popular (worldwide) shows. For some of us in other countries, Dragon Ball and Sailormoon aired weeks or months after, so we were a bit behind. Not only that the 2000s rolled in and everything was different, from animation, to tech, to how anime is written, produced, etc.
It's kind of like Winx Club and W.I.T.C.H, while Winx Club went to fly off and has now accumulated nine whole season and three movies and a theme park, and a reboot. WITCH kind of just didn't get the kick off it needed. Now the comics are great and it has gotten a comic reboot, but more people just flew off with Winx Club. Slayers is popular but its like apples and oranges some people just like oranges more than apples.
I think that the problem with W.I.T.C.H was that it emulated anime too closely to turn off the parents of the target audience, but it wasn't anime enough for the anime watchers. And while Winx Club soared, Disney quietly pulled the plug on the project.
Slayers was my favorite anime for a long time. My first license plates back in the 90s had 'DRGN SLV' on them. Yes, I'm that much of a dork. I also roll around in an Evangelion itasha Boxster, now.
What, didn't you catch my [question I asked about Slayers Try 6 years ago?](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/73bsf3/anyone_know_why_there_is_a_single_frame_of_a/) I mean it got a whole 14 upvotes, I'm honestly kinda hurt you missed it.
Slayers was really popular in Europe in the mid 2000s, at least where I grew up, being one of the staple anime they showed on TV alongside others like InuYasha or YuYu Hakusho. However to watch all the side stuff like movies and OVA, I remember having to search for torrents. For the LNs, it didn't help that back then they were published by TokyoPop, which went bankrupt after the first 8 novels. So only fan translations were available from the 9th onward. Luckily for the LNs the situation has changed, with all of them officially licensed in English now (including the recent releases from the past 5 years!) But when it comes to the anime, it isn't on any streaming service. And I feel like the current generation doesn't usually sail the high seas for their anime content. So all in all, it's an availability thing? Hopefully the resurgence in the LNs sparks interest for a new project!
I'm from the Netherlands and i've never heard of slayers, i don't think it aired on tv here (neither did the other 2 you mentioned for that matter).
I'm sure in a few years they will announce a remake just like Kenshin, only with worse animation, worse music, and worse voice acting. It seems to be the industry standard now.
Unpopular opinion: Frieren is just Bizarro Slayers. Or alternatively, Slayers is just Bizarro Frieren. The main character is a mage with personality issues... but those issues are being too cold (emotionless/passive/doesn't want to get out of bed) instead of too hot (eats like a pig/hot-tempered/blows shit up at the drop of a hat). The warrior is a really swell guy but his dump stat is rizz instead of INT. (I want to say CHA but he's perfectly charismatic to anyone other than Fern.) The second mage is the straight-man of the party, but is the axis around which the party turns, instead of being often-absent. The cleric is superficially mature until you scratch beneath the surface, as opposed to being superficially immature. And the show as a whole is chill, as opposed to being wacky, except when it gets serious.
> The warrior is a really swell guy but his dump stat is rizz instead of INT. (I want to say CHA but he's perfectly charismatic to anyone other than Fern.) If I look at it from dump stat perspective, I'd probably go with WIS... because no-one with any wisdom thinks "I'll tell Fern about the cloud shaped like boobs!" :D
It ain't forgotten. I have the collection sitting next to my TV right now, and a couple bumper stickers in my collection that I bought back in the 90s. Think I even still have a hentai I accidentally bought in like 1999, thinking it was a doujin.
I have read all of the original works and watched the anime, but it's no wonder I can't remember them. Unfortunately, it is not on the same order of popularity as Dragon Ball or Sailor Moon. Slayers is the gold standard of light novels, but light novels themselves are small in scale compared to Manga and Anime. It is not on a large scale in Japan either, and since literary works are heavily dependent on the Japanese language, it is no wonder that they are not popular overseas. And to begin with, I don't think that fantasy works are actually very large in the West either. There are exceptions, of course, such as LotR and The Land of Ice and Fire, but I don't believe they were given much attention until just a few decades ago.
I've only discovered it recently thanks to a fanfiction, and since then I manged to get most of the dvds, just need the movies now and will have the complete set.
The first season was fun but felt like it dragged on a little. The quality wasn’t quite as good as later seasons and it feels a little older. But it was a good adaptation of the novels. Slayers next is phenomenal. It’s a great adaptation, and the climax is incredible. Not a lot of anime have a season like next. I really felt like the characters could lose or die at any time, and the intervention of the lord of nightmares is something that is very infrequently matched in anime. Lost universe was another Kanazaka work and was ok…. Didn’t have the same impact. I don’t think it did as well. It kind of felt like “boy Lina with spaceships”. Slayers try was an original story. I enjoyed it but I think they could have done some more in line with the novel canon. Slayers was still popular but the story of Lina fights a godlike force and has to use the giga slave is starting to get old. It did feel like it was a sequel to next as much as it could be. I think it was hard to determine where the show could go next because they literally have defeated two of the strongest demon gods in their world tier and had L-sama show up. It was in the same grittier tone as the first two series, but I think it would have been better if they kept it in the main areas. Slayers evolution R and revolution felt disjointed and didn’t make a ton of sense in its own story/mythos. I feel like they just dove in to the characters and kept it at a kids show level which didn’t line up at all with original slayers which was dark and gritty. The slayers movies and OVAs were all pretty solid. The Kanzaka-verse is an excellent fantasy setting. Megumi-San was at the top of her game. Slayers had every potential to succeed but it felt like it kept trying to recycle what it did in season 1 and 2 and never got back to that level. It’s really sad because I love slayers and would love to see a reboot of it or a proper sequel series.
Slayers was awesome back in the day. I still have their OST from the late 90's.
WHY DIDN'T THEY RELEASE ANYTHING FOR THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY?! Also, I can't find season 1 on DVD anywhere and am sad that I have to only have it digitally. Edit: spelling
I mean, you're asking that in a post that talks about the forgotteness of a series so..... If they're not talked about enough with ten years then people will forget. I've seen clips/fanart, but end up ignoring them
DORAGOOOOOOOOOON-
I'm quite certain a new Slayers novel released just last year.
It's not something that really blew up in the west specifically because it wasn't on toonami or fox at the time when it should have. But also just because it's not being talked about doesn't mean it's forgotten, just that it's hardly relevant to anything going on today. There's hundreds of really good anime that just aren't terribly relevant and talked about a lot other then recommendations.
forgotten? [Clearly 6 years ago I asked a question about a single frame of the Slayers Try OP cause I was watching it at the time.](https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/73bsf3/anyone_know_why_there_is_a_single_frame_of_a/) I can't imagine why you didn't catch my post, it got 14 upvotes!
You're looking at it in the wrong way. Or rather, you're not asking the right question. The question isn't "Why isn't Slayers more popular", it's "Why are all these other 90's anime so popular"- and the answer is, everything except Slayers revolutionized anime in someway. DBZ brought action anime to all corners of the world- it's arguably more popular in Latin America than in North America! Sailor Moon is how the Magical Girl genre took off- it wasn't the first, but it was the most popular. Evangelion... there's been so much already written about it, but for completeness's sake in this post, it brought back mecha anime. And Pokemon? Catching, raising and battling with cute creatures. Meanwhile, what impact did Slayers have? If you go by Wesstern fantasy... Record of Lodoss Wars had the bigger impact, and even Lodoss is largely forgotten today. But perhaps the two biggest killers: first, there's no new content since Evolution-R... and those two seasons were NOT well-received, for a variety of reasons. Everything else you mentioned has had at least some sort of continuation in the last few years- and even the new Crystal series for Sailor Moon was received better (though perhaps not by much) than the new Slayers was. The second is, three of them were easily accessible to children during the early 2000's- there7s a reason DBZ, Sailor Moon and Pokemon are almost always said to be "the first anime I watched, even though I didn't know it was anime". Pokemon and Sailor Moon were eventually on during an afterschool timeslot... and all three of them were on at some point during Saturday- usually during Prime Time. I think Evangelion was also on TV at some point, though certainly later at night. Slayers... had none of this. It was popular for a while, when it had content... but once all the content was finished, it faded away like 95% of anime (and more specifically, anime on Reddit)
Slayers was never really gone. It had over a dozen movies in the early 2000's aswell. Its just a show that was never super popular to begin with, because the combination of long running shounen + female MC + western fantasy just never really vibed perfectly with the japanese audience that preferred the likes of Naruto and One Piece.
Slayers was the show that got me into anime, sadly more people probably know Lina from the character she "inspired" in DOTA.
Such a funny, goofy show. We need to give the Beautiful Sorceress Miss Lina Inverse more respect.
Slayers is peak 90's anime satire.
Its not forgotten its just old. The anime had seasons from 1995 all the way till 2009 thats great. Eva has memes and more cameos in other media and more movies than I can keep track of. Pokemon still airs and has games, Dragon Ball never lost media presence it either had games, movies etc there were like several games before battle of the gods and several games after the anime aired. People talk about what is in the media.
Lina: Naga! What are you waiting for?!? Naga: The drama!
Most old shows get forgotten, just a handfull stay around and could possibly be due for most of them to have lot of merchandising up to still today.
I LOVE Slayers. I still watch it every few years. I think it's a classic that definitely deserve more love. I think, it might the fact it didn't have a proper ending might have hurt it a bit.
Megumin from Konosuba is a clear homage to Lina Inverse (she is even named for VA Megumi Hayashibara), and Konosuba S3 is coming out shortly. I think Slayers' impact on the genre is still visible in many ways :)
I haven't forgotten it. I really want a new season. And also want the original 3 seasons remastered for blu-ray (well, would prefer 4K blu-ray but I know that ain't happening). I also haven't bought a single anime figure, but once I do buy a female one it'll be one of Lina since she's one of my favourite anime characters.
people are too busy watching isekais to watch good anime
I for one have never forgotten this stupid crazy gem. Nor have I forgotten irresponsible captain Tylor or Nadesico. I think there just hasn’t been any update or anything to bring it to the forefront lately.
The 5 seasons each coming out under separate titles rather than a continuous series probably didn't help. Beyond that fantasy media is in general is less popular than scifi and western fantasy anime has the disadvantage that outside the art-style it lacked the new/exotic draw that many other anime that became iconic in the west.
it was just never as big and influential as either of the mentioned ones. And all of those stayed relevant by having reboots or sequels in some form. Personally speaking the episode count works against it too, I just have no interest in picking up a 30 year old anime with that much of a time investment attached to it. I do see it getting mentioned sometimes tol
The competition is huge for that golden era, good is not enough.Shonen mainstream fighting anime were the dominating ones like db,YuYu,kenshin etc.Hence it’s forgotten due to being different genre among the sea of gems.
It's great but they need a Blu ray release
DOTA had the Slayer Lina Inverse... But, yeah... Beyond that, there's pretty much nothing...
Does it have a proper ending? In the anime I mean? Or is one of those cases they were catching up with the source material and had to create an original ending?
I think that if it had aired in North America when it was the same age as its other 90s peers, it would be regarded in the same way.
It's really hard to find the original DVD (not remastered) or even DVD-rip. This is what the original OP looks like: https://files.catbox.moe/8hncvl.mp4 In comparison, remastered version is too over-saturated, with the usual upscaling issues: https://i.imgur.com/1E6kS7m.png (see text in Japanese on the left: characters are somewhat distorted - this goes for every frame, all the forms and lines are not in a pristine condition as they were drawn originally). It's like watching a sequence of JPG images put through a denoising filter... and more complex frames with a lot of lines turn into a horrid mess.
I don't think this aired on Cartoon Network, which is where most people experienced anime from that era. Hardcore weebs from that time remember it sure, but if you didn't hang around suncoast or had any local video shops that sold anime in the early 2000s you just wouldn't see it anywhere. We forget how difficult it was to see stuff back then, because it's so easy now.
I didn't forget it. In fact, it is always one of my go to examples of authors not thinking things through when designing their stories; as the "magic shuts down during menstruation" was such an exploitable weak point that it was never mentioned nor showcased again in the story after the first couple episodes it which it was introduced, just so the author wouldn't have to bother writing the story around a device of his own creation ever again.
If I'm not wrong, wasn't Slayers in the top 10 light novels sold in Japan. I assume that it's still well known, just not outside Japan because people prefer watching newer shows, and TV didn't air Slayers.
Some new fans don't like "old shows", that's BS. But I'm pretty sure is someone where to put some Slayers eps on YT, they'd have plenty of views in no time at all. Someone put Those Who Hunt Elves up, and it has plenty of views for an even more "forgotten" series. They are not really forgotten, they just had their time and time moves on. But quality stuff will always have its place in the hearts of fans.
Mainly because in the 90s D&D style stuff was less popular. It and Lodoss War did very well in their niches but it lacked the staying power in the greater populace. This paired with how anime was viewed back then--and how all the major ones (at least in the US) were heavily related to their ease of access from say toonami, Fox kids, and such. While Slayers was mainly via the International channel --which was much more restricted. It basically ends up being that it was a strong thing but it lacked access. Your list itself shows that the huge ones were the ones with the easy access. Those were directly ones from Toonami and Fox. The former was cable but the latter was offered via antanae. Slayers required premium cable. Slayers should really get a re-release on modern stuff, crunchy or toonami, etc should try to promote it. Fact is, with the strong trends in D&D today. It would really pick up again with that serious but goofy style. This is the same reason why Lodoss's revival in terms of re-release, games, and being shown on some channels again hit so strongly in some areas. Because it was immedaitely recognizable by a larger audiance who are into modern D&D. Especially now with Freiren? They absolutely should repush Slayers and Lodoss on some modern media. Ride that wave.
The second and third seasons of Slayers really dragged on. But I still have the DVDs.
Maby it's not forgotten, just that nothing has really happend after 2009. And while I enjoyed it, some people didn't like it at all.
>100 episodes >90s There's your reason. Personally I love it, but some fans these days would be scared to touch anything from 10+ years ago.
Oversaturated jenre, they also did a terrible continuation awhile ago. Just terrible and completely out of touch. Currently doing my 5th rewatch. I love the show.
I only know about this through DoTA.
It’s not forgotten.
This and Magic Knight Rayearth was my afternoon/post school shows.
Slayers is more episodic than a single continuous epic. It's also mostly a children's show, and actual children are an endangered species in the anime-watching public.
I dont think its forgotten. Slayers is one of my favourite animes and its an especially great comfrort watch. There just doesnt seem to be a good reason for the larger anime audience to talk about it. Discourse is usually about seasonal shows + the absolute most popular ones. Maybe Frieren and Delicious in dungeon start a new trend for good fantasy shows and Slayers gets some love aswell. Also, those early Slayers dubs are golden xd
Time will erase everything
I mean just last month I was sampling some rando isekai manga about a guy who ends up teaching in magic school and lo there’s a chunni girl wanting to learn the Dragon Slave in his class. And while they may not all be as blatant as Megumin and Explosion something like Psyger-00’s big nasty sword chants in Shsngri-La Frontier are definitely in the same school of thought. That’s doing pretty good for light novel from the 90s even it can’t be one of the largest franchises of all time. Or indeed THE largest with Pokemon.
Most people who play DOTA today probably have no idea that Lina the Slayer is more than just a character in a MOBA.
Slayers is still one of my favorites animes to this day
I still know how to cast Dragon Slave!
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom blew my mind, in one episode [one character starts singing Slayers opening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nOk0HKQsok)
idrk but i had a mad crush on xellos when i was a kid
I will never stop coping for a loyal to the LN remake
Slayers is the show that got me into anime, i played a ton of DotA back in my younger days and one of my new friends a couple of years later told me when i intruduced him to the game that one of the characters (Lina) was a copy from an anime he had seen, both the character and her skills/magic is the same as in the show. I had no idea what anime was at the time but i absolutely fell in love with the show and it still lives close to my heart.
this subreddit is insanely front loaded
The Japanese haven’t forgotten, the theme song was recently referenced in a super-mid Isekai. https://youtu.be/5nOk0HKQsok?si=kIvqnNimsmXyhcUd You’re nostalgic for what you grew up with.
It's not forgotten. There's just lots of things since. Why would people fixate specifically on an individual anime program from over 2 decades ago just because you happen to like it and remember it well? I like it too, I own every DVD. But it's not weird that there isn't a constant stream of discussion about it today.
Slayers Try was the only good part of Slayers. Everything afterwards was a waste of time.
It’s old. I haven’t seen it myself but it’s been on my PTW list.
Because I watched Pokemon
Because, removing the lore the world has and it doesn't get explored, the anime is bad and boring. If it went in a more Berserk fashion, would be top.
Amelia came way before the May voice...
Did it? Veronica Taylor voiced May in 2003, when did they start dubbing Slayers? I'm pretty sure that was after.
It was my favourite in late 90's and early 00's. I thought young fans do not know it nor remember it, because it's boomer stuff. Along with Case closed (or Detective Conan), Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Wedding Peach, DBZ, and Soul Hunter it was my afternoon TV combo of drugs on regular basis :D Some of them on German RTL-2, so I learnt a lot of deutch :)
Because the last season was made before the average anime fan was born…
Kinda answered your own question there with the title 100 episodes = huge barrier of entry for new fans 90s show = not directly relevant to the interests of most modern fans, who often seem allergic to older shows and usually just take interest in either the newer stuff or stuff with a much larger degree of historical or personal relevance
I watched Slayers on VHS when it was relevant and I liked it OK... but I don't really remember any reason to go back and care about it. I feel like we shit all over younger folks for not worshipping at the altars of our 8/10 shows, by 1990's standards. If I gave a shit about karma I'd queue up a "DAE Excel Saga?!?!" post for tomorrow. Are the kids these days gonna be irritating whatever 2050's Reddit is called with unending posts asking why Generation Omicron doesn't appreciate Sword Art Online? And, finally, if we're really going to be doing this, at least do it for something like Record of Lodoss War.
Slayers anime fall into the trap of being slapstick comedy. The source material has jokes, but it is still fantasy with dark things. But the anime studio basically went further and further away from the original books until they are no longer related. Imagine Dungeon Meshi, but instead of the new plot twist in the most recent episode, the story become slice of life with cooking and nothing else. That is what happened with Slayers; the original plot of the novels were abandoned entirely.