Literature / Slayers

"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!"

Slayers (formally marketed as The Slayers in the U.S.) started as a series of serialized Light Novels written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi, which was first published in 1989 in the Japanese Dragon Magazine (no relation to the American one of the same name). Originally it was supposed to follow the adventures of the Cephied Knight, a champion for good named Luna Inverse. However, when filling out her background, the writer found her little sister Lina far more interesting.

The light novels were adapted into an anime series that ran throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Has five TV seasons (Slayers, Slayers NEXT, Slayers TRY, Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R), six OVAs, five movies, six video games and a whole lot of manga made. Became extremely popular in the West, in part because of its quirk of having a female as the lead in a Shonen series.

Lina Inverse is a young and very powerful sorceress. She wanders the world looking for treasure to steal and magic to learn. Unfortunately (from her point of view), she tends to end up in situations where she's got to save the world instead of just make a fast buck. She will attempt to wring money out of most situations, such as once extorting gold from a town that was actively being ravaged by a dragon. She's also got an amazing temper, having destroyed both the dragon and the town she was protecting with one spell because the dragon embarrassed her by not stepping on her. She still expected to get paid, too. She has earned the titles "Bandit Slayer" (it's not stealing if they've already stolen it!), "Dragon Spooker", and "Enemy Of All That Live" in a few short years.

Much to Lina's chagrin, she ends up with a group of people following her around, usually because they're all trying not to get killed by something. In the OVAs, set before the TV show, this is the deranged sorceress Naga, who believes Lina is following her around as her rival. In the TV series, this is the dumb-as-a-jellyfish swordsman Gourry Gabriev, the justice-obsessed princess Amelia, the taciturn chimera Zelgadis, the self-proclaimed "mysterious priest" Xellos, and occasionally the shrine maiden Sylphiel.

She eventually comes to like them, and is beginning to fall for Gourry by the end of NEXT. She'll deny it if asked, and insists she's only after Gourry's sword.

The series alternates between serious fights and quests to save the world, and silly slapstick humor. There is one Cross Dressing episode per season, and they will sometimes take breaks in the middle of serious story arcs or fights for semi-plot-related silliness.

This show has all five seasons up legally on Hulu and Funimation, and after the merger, Crunchyroll, (though they can't stream these outside the US), in both English audio and subtitles. They are currently available on DVD. Tokyopop's English translations of the first eight novels are out of print, but still relatively easy to find used. In July 2020, J-Novel Club announced their intentions to localize all the novels from the beginning, including the ones Tokyopop didn't touch. J-Novel Club also announced in 2021 that they would be releasing audiobook versions of the novels narrated by Lina's English voice actress Lisa Ortiz, starting with the first volume in November 2022.

On May 16th, 2019, Dragon magazine officially announced that Hajime Kanzaka is starting work on another arc of the series. This was following the release of a new mainline novel in 2018, 18 years since the last one.

Not to be confused with the band Slayer, Goblin Slayer, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Has a Character Sheet and a Recap page.

Compare it to Record of Lodoss War if only because of the quip that Lodoss is what Dungeons & Dragons GMs wish their campaigns were like, and Slayers is more like what they really are.

Main media in the franchise include:

Light novels

First arc:

1. The Slayers^note  Retitled "The Ruby Eye" for the first English release.
2. The Sorcerers of Atlas
3. The Ghosts of Sairaag
4. The Battle of Saillune
5. The Silver Beast
6. The Darkness in Vezendi
7. Gaav's Challenge
8. King of the Phantom City

Second arc:

1. The Mystic Sword of Bezeld
2. Conspiracy in Solaria
3. Delusion in Crimson
4. The Dynast Plot
5. Presages of Incarnation
6. Hatred in Selentia
7. The Demon Slayers!

Third arc:

1. A Chance Encounter in Atessa
2. Long Way Back

Anime

• Slayers (1995) - the first season, which adapts first and third novels from the series.
• Slayers NEXT (1996) - the second season, which adapts novels 2, 4, elements of 5, 7, and 8.
• Slayers TRY (1997) - the third season, which has no novel counterpart. The autor hated it, and the proper sequel, scheduled for 1998, never materialised.
• Slayers REVOLUTION (2008) - the fourth season. Mostly another original story, but also utilizes some elements of novel 5.
• Slayers EVOLUTION-R (2009) - the fifth season (or the second half of the fourth, if you want); an Immediate Sequel to REVOLUTION, it also adapts elements of novel 6.

Videogames

• Slayers (PC-98) (1995)
• Slayers (SNES) (1995)
• Slayers Royal (Sega Saturn, Playstation) (1997)
• Slayers Royal 2 (Sega Saturn, Playstation) (1998)
• Slayers Wonderful (Playstation) (1998)

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Slayers provides examples of the following tropes:

#-A

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Slayers Premium (the jars the octopi carry and the water) and both Revolution and Evolution-R (some spells, water, and structures in the opening sequences).
• Above Good and Evil: The Golden Lord/Lord of Nightmares was the original creator of both the Mazoku and the Gods, but seems to side with neither. When a powerful Mazoku gets the bright idea to use her power for his particular purpose (destroying the world), she just blasts him into nothingness. After making world-destroyers and world-protectors, she's mostly absent, but sometimes meddles anyway. If she has an agenda besides just sitting back and watching what happens, we never find out what it is.
• The Abridged Series: projectshadow99's The Slayers Abridged.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Blast Sword, from the second arc of the novels, is so sharp that it can actually cut through astral beings like Mazoku, who can't ordinarily be harmed by physical attacks.
• Achievements in Ignorance: In the finale of NEXT, when The Lord of Nightmares is floating away in Lina's body, Gourry goes after her in an attempt to get Lina back. Exactly what Gourry intended to do when he caught up with her is a mystery, as he can't exactly stab the creator of all things out of Lina. Fortunately, the Lord of Nightmares decides to give Lina back after witnessing this.
• Action Girl: Lina, Amelia and several others.
• A-Cup Angst: Lina's not exactly flat as a board, but spending so much time with Naga and Amelia has made her rather sensitive about the fact that she lacks large breasts.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: There's a bit of it across each form of media, but both Rezo and Zelgadis transitioning from novels to anime (and Zelgadis again in the Hourglass of Falces manga) is the biggest change.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Lina's hair color has shifted over the years: she began as a brunette (older novels, a few of the movies), transitioning to a coppery red color (older anime seasons and later main novels), and finally to bright red (newer anime and Special novels). Interestingly the fact she was originally brunette has not been completely forgotten by merchandise makers, as a few illustrations and merchandise that were made as recent as 2018 have depicted brunette Lina.
  • Amelia and Xellos both have black hair in the novels which are stylized purple, while both of their hair is straight-up purple in the anime. Also, Amelia's tunic is light yellow in the novels and white in both the anime and video games, and the Slayers Royal games, oddly enough, give her purple leggings in lieu of her pants.
  • Finally, Zelgadis' skin in the older books is a greenish color, his hair is silver, and his eyes are purple. In the anime, his eyes and skin are blue and his hair is purple. Art Evolution in the novels now has his novel design more resemble his anime design. His one unique trait in the novels, however, is a bridge of stone stuck between his left eyelids. Also, his white tunic becomes a deep tan in the anime and games.
• Ad Bumpers: Shows rapid-fire cuts of the main characters and a Super-Deformed version of them, and a lingering look at one of them in modern clothes. Season one had Setting Update stills instead.
• Aerith and Bob: For example, Philionel and his brother, Randy.
  • A more exaggerated one in the "magic tennis" episode of NEXT.
    Announcer: And in our next set, the Frost siblings versus the team of Martina Xoana Mel Navrachoa and Keith!
• Affably Evil:
  • Rezo is a bishonen who is unsettlingly calm and polite. He's not exactly ''evil'', however.
  • Xellos, particularly the anime incarnation, is generally polite, well-mannered and charming... until he decides to remind the viewers that he's part of a race of Chaotic Evil Omnicidal Maniacs.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: appears to be standard issue among Gold Dragons and Ancient Dragons, who can convincingly take human forms. Among the Mazoku, however, only the most powerful are masters of this ability; the middle-level Mazoku tend to have Red Right Hands when pretending to be humans, and ones lesser still are limited to their true, monstrous forms.
• Age-Gap Romance: In the first season and the start of the novels, Lina is 15 and Gourry is 22.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Eris and her creation Copy Rezo, especially in the anime.
  • Real Rezo. Particularly after Evolution-R, where his real goal is to be killed for good, before the Shabranigdo fragment takes control again and blows up the world.
  • Ozzel isn't exactly a villain, although due to Rezo's orders (or those of whoever happens to own the Hellmaster's Jar at the time) she does sometimes have to act as an antagonist to Lina and the others. And her succeeding in understanding human emotions, and proving she has a soul, comes just in time for her to die.
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • Novels only: Luke, a former assassin, is in love with his partner (and the one who convinced him to change his ways) Milina; Milina does not acknowledge his feelings at all. In the Hourglass of Falces manga (in which both of them are regular members of the group), however, it's shown that she somewhat reciprocates them.
  • Eris and Ozzel to Rezo.
  • Sylphiel to Gourry.
• All-Natural Gem Polish: Averted in the first novel and an early episode of the anime. Lina lifts a load of treasure from bandits, but finds that most of the gems are flawed and not worth much. She then enchants them into protection amulets to up their sale value.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Chimeras, all whom are frowned upon for their appearances (which, in turn, tends to make them emotionally unstable). Beastmen also gain some flak, but not as much. On the other hand, Dragons tend to look down on all of the other races, save maybe the Elves, due to their...nature.
• All There in the Manual: Interviews with the author of the novels are found in the back of every Slayers novel. They're one of the few sources of info in regards to how the world works, because most of the media do not elaborate about how magic works, character backgrounds, and overarching stories (such as both the war between Shabranigdo and Ciefeed and the Mazoku war that made the Inner World barrier) beyond some basic facts. For example, almost everything about Gourry's backstory is in interviews only, save for one story released in a novel detailing an incident he got involved in a few weeks before meeting Lina. There are several guidebooks out now as well, but they're hardly elaborate - one of them has profiles for Satellite Characters Luke and Millina, but they have no established backgrounds given. Even then, the established universe can be confusing to interpret because Kanzaka contradicts himself about his canon's own work and often makes facts up on the fly.
• Aloof Big Sister: Luna Inverse hasn't even actually appeared in the series, yet just the implication of her is enough to strike mortal terror in Lina. In all fairness, she brought it on herself. Lina is capable of defeating gods, and even summoning the creator of all things. Yet when a servant of the gods comes looking for someone to save the world, they contact Luna first. Think about that for a moment.
• Alternate Continuity: Numerous. All the mediums telling the story of Slayers have shared events and similar plot progressions (if involving different details and in slightly different orders) up to the Hellmaster Phibrizzo arc, after which they all split into completely different directions.
  • The main series of novels (Slayers) was the first and original iteration. It is split into two arcs (1-8, 9-15), with the first arc being the one that has direct counterparts in anime and manga format.
  • The anime (Slayers, NEXT, TRY, Revolution, Evolution-R, as well as the Premium movie), serves as the second iteration, based on the first arc of the novels until the finale of NEXT (with one skipped plotline from the novels later getting animated in Evolution-R). It should be noted that it contradicts the novels (and also itself) in a few places.
  • The Knight of the Aqua Lord manga is officially recognized as a third continuity (splitting from the novel verse after volume 8), and exists as another alternate second arc, standing alongside novels 9-15 and TRY as an original story directly following the Phibrizzo arc.
  • The Lina and Naga adventures (the Special novels, Special and Excellent OVAs, and first four movies) are canon back story to all three.
  • Additionally, manga counterparts exist for the first two anime seasons, Revolution, and Evolution-R, as well as two other manga series, Slayers: Light-Magic and Neo-Slayers: The Hourglass of Falces, with Hourglass of Falces as possibly the first entry in a new ongoing fourth continuity.
  • Additionally additionally, five video games, two named just Slayers, then Royal, Royal 2 for Sega Saturn/PlayStation, and Wonderful for the PlayStation, none of which are considered canon.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Mazoku/Monsters.
  Shabranigdo: The power of the Monster race flows from [...] terror, anger, sorrow, despair.
• Always Save the Girl: In this case it's Always Save The Boy. Lina uses a spell that might well destroy the world if cast incorrectly, simply because there's no other way to save Gourry.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • Quite a few, all Played for Laughs. The most prominent would be clothing, ranging from typical fantasy armors and robes, to modern-looking sun dresses and t-shirt/pants combos. Zelgadis wears a hooded sweatshirt of all things in an episode of Revolution.
  • There's the odd serious example from time to time, too. Episode 25 of the first series has Sylphiel trying to revive a fallen Lina with modern CPR, including chest compressions.
• And I Must Scream: The original fate of Daymia in the novels is... not pretty.
• Animated Adaptation: Originally a serialized set of novels.
• Anime Theme Song, sung by Megumi Hayashibara. And not just one; all 14 of the anime theme songs have been sung by her.
• Anti-Magic:
  • The Spell "Flow Break" dispels everything but White Magic and causes animation spells (such as armor and Golem) to stop working.
  • There was a Magitek train in TRY, the power source of which absorbed all magic, making attack spells about as useful as throwing toy squibs.
• Anticlimax: The first episode of NEXT has Martina unleashing a giant man-driven mechanical golem to use against the Slayers cast. First, she uses it to fire an energy beam that obliterates a mountain in the distance with a huge explosion to show off its power. Just as Martina turns the target sights on Lina and her friends, the golem malfunctions and breaks down. Lina points out that the golem had been in storage for centuries, so it eroded from lack of maintenance.
• Apocalypse How: Across three of the five seasons of the anime and in a few novels, the Big Bad usually shoots for Class X (obliteration of the planet), regardless of their reasons why. And that's not even mentioning the Giga Slave. If that were to run wild, it rates as a Class Z. And it's the hero's original spell.
• Art Evolution:
  • It's obvious there would be some of this, considering that the first anime season aired in 1995 and the most recent came out in 2009, but even watching the third season (TRY) and going back to the first is pretty jarring. Gourry and Lina's character designs in particular have changed quite a bit over the years, to the point that Lina's hair has even changed color from reddish-brown to bright red over time.
  • This also occurs in the original novels' artwork. Older drawings of the characters and the first five novels or so are much more detailed in regards to the characters' clothing and the backgrounds, and the eyes and faces of the females are very rounded. Later novels and art overall are less detailed, the eyes (such as Lina's, Gourry's, and Amelia's) are sharper, and faces are a bit more deformed. Gourry in particular looks much, much different in the early years of the franchise, and in the final novel he almost looks like a different person.
  • It's also worth nothing that, when the covers of the novels were re-drawn, Rui Araizumi drew Zelgadis a bit more in the likeness of his anime design, even making his skin blue (originally in the novels, his skin is greenish).
  • And the art of the ''Super Explosive Demon Story'' manga starts off similar to the novels (highly detailed, fluid poses, rounded figures) and deteriorates overtime (stiff poses, no conservation of detail, etc.).
• Ascended Extra:
  • Technically Amelia and Zelgadis, considering the fact that they do not appear in the second arc of the novels at all, whereas they are major characters in the anime and most of the manga and games.
  • By contrast, Luke and Milina, Lina and Gourry's two other party members from the second arc, only appear outside the novels in the Hourglass of Falces manga, where they are part of a six-man band instead.
  • Xellos only appears in five of the novels (cameoing in the last one), so technically he could be this, especially considering his role and given relationship with Filia in TRY.
  • And because of his role in the fourth and fifth seasons, Rezo also qualifies.
• Audible Sharpness: Most of the swordsmen, especially Gourry and Zangulus.
• Audio Adaptation: Ten, all of them made well after the three early anime seasons aired. Among them is a crossover with the cast of the Sorcerer Stabber Orphen series.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: The whole cast in the end of Evolution-R fighting to the tune of "Give a Reason".
• Avenging the Villain: Eris, Valgaav, Jillas.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Blast Blade is so incredibly sharp that it has to be magically dulled before it can be handled safely.

B

• Badass Adorable:
  • The final boss of NEXT, Hellmaster Phibrizzo, also applies, as he takes pleasure in tricking people into thinking that he's a cute little kid, when in reality, he's one of the strongest characters in the franchise.
• Badass Cape: All the main characters have these, along with most other fighters and magicians.
• Badass Normal: Gourry, helped slightly by a legendary magical sword.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The anime's opening and closing credits make the series seem like a serious, epic fantasy series. The show itself is a comedy, however, and rarely takes itself seriously for more than one episode at a time.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Averted and then played straight in the first manga, (Slayers: Medieval Mayhem), where Lina Inverse's nipples are visible in some scenes. In the US release, these scenes were censored using this technique.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Michelle the Witch from the manga. As soon as the villagers see how pretty she is, they almost instantaneously accept that she must be innocent.
• Become a Real Boy: Ozzel's desire, in a sense. She does it only because she wants to understand human emotions so as to better follow Rezo's orders, but she does seek to become as human as she can be. She succeeds in a fashion, only to lose her animating will after fulfilling Rezo's last order, and thus her only purpose for existing.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: In The Slayers Perfect (Slayers the Motion Picture), it's played for laughs as Lina awakens and sees the King and the Queen chanting too loudly at her. The laughs are made even more potent by the fact that Lina already has mysterious dreams, but this one turns to be a fake.
• Berserk Button:
  • Lina has lots of these. Particularly involving interrupting (or stealing) her meals, her appearance, her 1,001 nicknames, or her status as a Pettanko.
  • Filia herself has a Xellos-shaped berserk button. Well justified since Xellos has murdered thousands of other dragons.
  • Zelgadis has a much more subtle one and it's not played for laughs most of the time: his chimeric body. The only times he ever loses his cool is when he thinks he's found a way to be human again then finds out he's wrong.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Amelia's normally a sweet girl, but if you endanger someone she cares about, watch out!
• Beyond the Impossible: The magic of the series is theurgic magic (meaning it draws from faith in Gods or Demons). Martina uses a curse, on raw willpower, drawing from the energy of a spirit that doesn't exist, since she made it up. Granted, it isn't nearly as impressive as the magic others but that she can use this at all, even for minor curses or dowsing, is insane. For the long explaination, click the note ^note  Curses are a form of Black Magic (drawing from the Demons/Monsters, per Word of God and in several forms of media), so technically, Martina is drawing power from the Mazoku and thinks that it's from the spirit she made up. However, considering her magic is like "any random Mazoku that will listen to me" and it goes off without a hitch. Not even knowing who you're calling upon, and still managing a spell is still impressive.
• Big Damn Heroes: Prince Phil does this at the end of the first season to help Lina and the others. It leads to the rest of them having to save him.
• Big Eater:
  • Part of the world's background details is that magic burns up calories when cast and so mages need to eat more than usual. It's most prominently exemplified by Lina, mainly because she is a very powerful sorceress and casts potent spells at the slightest excuse. Gourry, despite (or perhaps because of) being a Badass Normal, regularly eats just as much as she does. Amelia also frequently eats just like Lina does when travelling with her, partially for the same reasons as Lina, partially for the funny in seeing a princess wolfing down tons of food like an animal. Zelgadis, on the other hand, is rarely seen eating and certainly not in the same fevered manner, possibly because of his chimera nature.
  • Filia the dragon priestess is seen gulping down an entire cauldron's worth of hotpot as a once off gag about halfway through the ''TRY'' season.
• Big Little Man: The first episode doesn't give any way of determining Lina's height until she meets up with Gourry.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family:
  • Word of God states that Gourry came from one, and this is why he became a lone mercenary in the first place. His entire family screwed itself over in who would possess the Sword of Light, and it's implied that most of his immediate family is dead because of it.
  • The Seirune royal family is almost just as bad, as there seems to be a lot of conniving and backstabbing over the throne. Prince Phil has faced two assassination attempts now, one by his own brother and the other by his nephew!
  • Lina is REALLY scared of her older sister, Luna, implying she may be the strongest character in that universe.
• Bilingual Bonus/Meaningful Name: In Spanish, Rezo's name means "prayer." In the Latin American dub, Lina is known as Rina. Her name is similar to riña, which means "quarrel."
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lina, despite her cute and petite appearance, qualifies for this so much.
• Bittersweet Ending: As of the ending of Evolution-R, Pokota has got his kingdom and father back, but he's still stuck as a stuffed toy, his real body destroyed in the fight against Shabranigdo.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The villains are more villainous than the heroes are heroic.
• Black Comedy: In NEXT, Zelgadis swings his sword at a bandit leader, intending to knock him out, but...
  Zelgadis: (after slashing the bandit leader) Don't worry, I only struck you with the backside. ([[Beat]] and notices his sword) Oops... sorry... this is a... double-edged sword...
• Black Comedy Rape:
  • Only in the Japanese version of the first light novel, in regards to Noonsa and the "mating joke"; Zolf suggested raping Lina when Zelgadis captures her in that version. When it was translated by Tokyopop, the kiss joke was inserted instead; the Japanese version of the anime carried the "kiss" notion as well. In the Super Explosive Demon Story manga adaptation, Zolf again suggests rape (and this is also censored when it was translated)
  • Happens again in the third light novel when Lina and Gourry are incarcerated by guards near Sairaag. One of them eggs the idea of rape again, until Gourry intervenes by making a highly inappropriate joke about Lina being sick "in certain places." Lina is not amused in the least.
• Black Magic: Actually used by name, refers to any spell that draws its powers from Mazoku.
• Black Mage: Any wizard who specialises in casting Black Magic or the Fire, Ice, Lightning spells from Shamanism can be considered this, though the in-universe terminology seems to be "sorcerer". Lina Inverse is a black mage by both definitions.
• Blood from the Mouth:
  • Happens during the rougher battles regularly, but it happens to Zelgadis the most. Reasonably, it notifies when his invulnerability is waning, thus signifying that shit will hit the fan.
  • It randomly happens to him in The Reveal of episode 10 of Evolution-R when Rezo tells him that he cannot become a human again; of course, it's presumably symbolic.
• Bloodless Carnage: In all of the anime adaptations, this is played straight until roughly the final third of each season, when the plot finally sets into its climax and the battles become more intense.
• Bodyguard Crush:
  • Gourry towards Lina, at first only in the anime but then eventually in all mediums despite Kanzaka's original intent of no romance.
  • Also Jillas towards Filia at the end of TRY, though it seems to be less romantic then simple devotion for her kindness.
• Body Horror: The Ragunut Rushavna spell, only seen in the novels, turns the victim into a fleshy piece of meat that is repeatedly eaten by snakes for eternity; the victim suffers from this pain endlessly until the caster - usually a Monster - is destroyed. Daymia, a minor character, suffers this fate in the novels (whereas in the anime, he was merely turned to stone).
• Book Ends: Rezo-Shabranigdo is the first major enemy that Lina and her crew battle in the first season and he comes back as the final villain at the end of Evolution-R.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Pokota definitely had his moments of this.
• Breath Weapon: Most dragons seem to have one. Golden Dragons in particular have laser breath, which they're shown to be able to use even in human form — Filia's tendency to use hers when she's aggravated with Xellos is frequently played for comedic effect.
• Broken Pedestal: Zelgadis once fought on Rezo's behalf, believing he was the generous healer most people believe (and also because Rezo is his guardian and great-grandfather). This all changed when he found out how far Rezo was willing to go to cure his blindness, including experimenting on Zelgadis, and worse, willing to risk the destruction of the entire world.
• Bust-Contrast Duo:
  • The series beginning presents us with hot-headed female lead Lina and supporting female character, the dark-haired Sylphiel, vis-a-vis the affections of male lead Gourry. Again, the chest issue comes up in regards to the Fiery Redhead, but most consider it an Informed Attribute.
  • Later in the prequel series before Lina meets Gourry, her companion was Naga the Serpent, an arrogant and Stripperiffic sorcerer with a chest even bigger than Sylphiel (and she doesn't doubt to show it to Lina) that usually antagonizes her, seeing Lina as The Rival, despite the fact both travel and work together.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Luke the swordsman, who gets shafted by Millina frequently.
  • Zelgadis in the anime, namely during filler episodes where he's either being used (Lina using him as a boat anchor in NEXT comes to mind) or is teased for his grumpy attitude when everyone else dives headfirst into embarrassing situations.
  • Amelia during earlier seasons of the anime and a lot of manga adaptations. Taken up to eleven in the Slayers Premium movie, where she spends the first half ranting, nearly gets murdered by demonized octopi, and winds up abandoned on an island unable to speak by the end of the movie.
  • Gourry becomes this when he either falls into traps or is forced to cross-dress.
  • Naga the Serpent, occasionally.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Literally, with Amelia in Evolution-R breaking her arm trying to hold back one of the Big Bad's attacks with her bare fists.

C

• Calling Your Attacks:
  • Every magic spell. Justified in non-anime material — mastery of magic in the Slayers setting is accomplished by skill with "Chaos Words", the incantations. The more powerful a sorcerer is, the less words they need; simply invoking the name is all the good wizards actually need to cast a spell. And if they use more Chaos Words than they actually need, the power of the spell is amplified further. This also means that only the very best wizards in the world can actually cast a spell without even speaking its name.
  • Also exploited: Lina once called Fireball, causing her opponents to flee in terror, but cast only a simple Light spell.
  • Amelia's dad Phil also likes doing this ("Pacifist Crush!", "Kindness to All Creatures Kick!", "Good Will Towards Men Smash!", "Joyful Reunion Bearhug!", "Benevolent Giant Swing!", "Brothers Unite Hand Slap!").
• Camp Gay: The dragon in Episode 17 (first season). Yes, dragon.
• Canon Foreigner: Any of the original characters from the video games, which are officially non-canon.
• Care-Bear Stare: In one episode of TRY, Amelia, Gourry and Zelgadis incapacitated Xellos by singing songs of love and joy.
• Cast from Calories: Literally the case Word of God is that the bodies of those with high magical capacity fuel that capacity directly from the calories in the food they eat, which is why even waifish and petite girls like Amelia and Lina (both powerful spell-casters) eat thousands of calories at each meal and remain thin.
• Catchphrase: Xellos's "Sore wa himitsu desu" or "That... is a secret".
• Cerebus Syndrome: By roughly the eighteenth episode of all of the anime seasons, the battles suddenly get more violent, with the plot reaching its height and bloodier battles creating a rather scary twist. The most jarring example may be by the 20th episode and beyond of NEXT, when, after nearly three episodes of hilarious slapstick, a mazoku nearly kills Amelia, Zelgadis is severely wounded (for the first time) protecting Amelia from the Mazoku Lord Gaav, and Gourry is kidnapped and brainwashed to kill Lina and the others.
• Chased Off into the Sunset: Lina and Gourry in the first episode.
• Chef of Iron: There's such thing as Dragon Cuisine.
• The Chessmaster:
  • Hureika from Knight of the Aqua Lord fancies herself one of these, even treating the entire thing as her "game."
  • Hellmaster Phibrizzo definitely qualifies as one of these too, manipulating almost the entire list of events of season two, be it through Xellos or directly.
• Chick Magnet: Gourry, so very much. He attracts Lina, Sylphiel, Martina, Nama a.k.a. Naga, Kuppi, Gioconda, and almost every main female character in the show.
• The Chosen One: Lina's sister Luna is the Knight of Ciefeed and is able to wield his strength; alledgedly it can rival that of high-level Mazoku such as Xellos. Lei Magnus, Rezo, and Luke are the known holders of the seven split pieces of Shabranigdo (the other four are unknown). And in the third season of the anime, Lina is chosen by Filia to take on Dark Star Dugradigdu; it is revealed by the final episode that she was an ideal choice over Luna because of her ability to wield the Lord of Nightmares' power, and, unlike Luna, who is affiliated with the gods,(mainly specializing in White/Holy power), Lina has affiliation with neither side, and could easily combine Black and Holy magic to create the magical power needed to defeat Dugradigdu.
• Close-Call Haircut: Lina gets a magic suppressing circlet latched onto her head. Gourry throws a surprised Lina up into the air and slashes at her face with his sword. A small piece of hair falls off, but the circlet is successfully sliced off her head. She repays him by bashing him over the head with her own SWEATDROP for doing something so dangerous.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Lampshaded; Amelia thinks things really works this way.
  "Everyone knows the bad guy always wears black!"
• Comedic Sociopathy: One of Lina's major traits.
• Comically Serious: Zelgadis, poor guy.
• Continuity Lockout:
  • The belated Revolution and Evolution-R seasons of the anime attempted to avoid this by conveniently not mentioning the fact that the four leads had defeated an incarnation of Zanaffar before. It would've worked, had it not been for the fact that both seasons played this painfully straight in the first place - absolutely no prior establishment of what had happened before both seasons - and the end result was most of the viewers being those who had seen the first three seasons from eleven years back. Along with the issue with Zanaffar, there is also the fact that why Lina and Gourry are seeking a new sword (and the importance of the Sword of Light), and they also don't mention directly that Zelgadis and Rezo are related by blood, getting rid of some of the depth that Zelgadis' emotional turmoil against Rezo.
  • This is also a massive problem with the Slayers Special/Smash novels. There are over fifty of those versus the fifteen "main" novels. Mind you, those fifty are supposed to serve as a prequel to the fifteen, and they're still going, whereas the last of the main books came out in 2000. It also doesn't help that both series began around the same time, in the early 90's.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The ending for Revolution features the plane chart that notes the hierarchy of the five Mazoku generals, the four Dark Lords, and the Lord of Nightmares suspended in the background. The two spots on the chart reserved for Phibrizzo and Gaav are destroyed (as they were Killed Off for Real in NEXT).
  • In an odd crossover version, it is revealed that Gourry's Sword of Light's true name is "Gorun Nova" which in the Lost Universe series takes the form of one of the Five Lost Ships created by the ubervillain of that world, Dark Star Dugradigdu. In the Slayers part of the multiverse (which only exists in the series, and not the Slayers novels) DarkStar Dugradigdu's five generals became the Weapons of Light instead of spaceships.
  • Vurumugun (the real one) is in attendance at Zangulus's wedding at the end of NEXT.
• Continuity Snarl: In the plane chart featured in the ending of Revolution, the spot on the hierarchy representing Dark Star Dugradigdu is unblemished, despite the fact that he was destroyed in TRY; it seems to be a Discontinuity Nod due to the fact that Kanzaka has officially proclaimed he does not like or consider canon the events of ''TRY'', except for the fact that the opening Evolution-R acknowledges Valgaav, the final eyecatch for the series (one of them serving as the page image) features characters from all the seasons, including TRY, the army of Saillune has cannons made by Jillas (both the character and the technology is from the Outer World), and Gourry having lost the Sword of Light and needing a replacement only makes sense if TRY happened.
• Converging-Stream Weapon: The Dark Star Weapons in TRY. At the end of the season, all five weapons are combined with a Yin-Yang Bomb into a Wave-Motion Gun.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Word of God states that both Zelgadis and Gourry also lack parental figures.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Zolf's ideas of torture are...really strange.
• Cool Big Sis: Averted with Luna Inverse who scares Lina more than anything else in the world, but played straight with Martina who unknowingly looks after the child form of Hellmaster Phibrizzo while Lina and the others fight Gaav.
  • Also averted with Naga, who is actually Amelia's sister; her time with the group as "Nama" proves it so. Also, when they did actually meet (in a radio drama taking place after Slayers Premium, Naga disguised herself in front of Amelia and claimed she was a friend of Lina's.
• Cool Helmet: Filia wears a helmet (more of a circlet, really) with gigantic Christmas ornaments stuck to the sides.
• Cool Sword: Gourry's Sword of Light. At first, it appears as a regular old sword, but once the blade is removed, Gourry can summon forth a blade of pure monster-slaying light. Lina's Ragna Blade also qualifies, being a blade of raw magical energy that draws its power from the Lord of Nightmares, the creator of the world.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Before Sylphiel can use a healing spell on Lina in the first season, she had to restart her heart. She begins by pounding on Lina's chest, then doing compressions and Mouth-to-Mouth. When Lina regains her color, Sylphiel applies a healing spell. Conceivably justified in that any brain-damage from Lina's heart stopping or broken ribs from CPR might have been healed by Sylphiel's white magic. It's worth noting that Sylphiel's spell also seemed to replenish the gallons of blood that Lina seemed to have lost when she was struck.
  • Done for laughs when Zelgadis gets waterlogged, Amelia suggests doing this to him to revive him. Audible heartbeats sound, implying Amelia was about to do mouth to mouth with Zelgadis. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes, the chef Ashford gives it to him, making him give out a muffled scream.
• Creepy Child: Hellmaster Phibrizzo in NEXT, and Rezo-Shabranigdo in Pokota's human body in Evolution-R. Technically, neither of them are really children at all, but the fact that they take the forms of same makes everything they do that much creepier.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Gourry. Normally he comes across as dimwitted and scatterbrained, sometimes to the point of seeming completely incompetent (although he was more competent in the novels, to be fair, and underwent more Flanderization in the anime than any other character did), and his memory is so bad that he frequently can't remember past enemies they've fought or even what happened a few days ago. However, when he senses a threat, his fighting skills push Badass Normal about as far as it can go in this series.
• Crystal Prison: One of Phibrizzo's abilities is to create a crystal gem around a person to slowly drain their life energy.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: One bandit dresses up as Colonel Sanders while trying to lure Lina with chicken.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In TRY the destruction of all golden dragons of the Temple -except Filia and their leader- by Valgaav alone, without causing him so much as a scratch. In the last episode, the leader of said dragons is also very easily defeated by Valgaav and vaporized with just Filia remaining.
• Curse Cut Short: Episode 11 of TRY — Just as Amelia was about to say "piece of shit" (referring to a dropping-shaped mountain they were about to scale), Lina cuts her off, noting how improper it is for royalty to swear.
• Cursed Item: Near the beginning of the anime adaption Lina sells a magic dagger to a curio shop. The dagger curses whoever draws it into a Berserker Rage. When the shop keeper drew the dagger he began attacking Lina and Gourry who were forced to knock him out to stop the curse.
• Cursed with Awesome: Zelgadis is part golem due to Rezo, meaning that some attacks can't phase him (most apparent when trying to choke him) and on rare occasion will beaming him with a rock work. It was also because of this transformation that Zelgadis became a great sorcerer, but even with all the positives, Zelgadis wants to be fully human again.
• Curtains Match the Window:
  • Xellos, who has purple hair, also has purple eyes.
  • Lina has red eyes and red hair.
• Cute Little Fang: Lina sometimes has one. It was permanent by Revolution.

D

• Daddy's Girl: Amelia adores her father.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Giga Slave, if miscast, destroys the entire universe. Several episodes are devoted solely to Lina attempting to find ways to NOT cast the Giga Slave, because it's basically the worst solution to any problem. Unlike many series, however, the Giga Slave is successfully avoided on a number of occasions. In the third season, for example, it's use is repeatedly mentioned as a last resort, but it is never actually used.
• Darker and Edgier: Slayers TRY to the earlier series. It really pushes the Grey-and-Gray Morality to the maximum, featuring, among other things, a clan of Shinzoku (which are Physical Gods in the shape of dragons and which are devoted to the Forced of Light) who are willing to let some other world be destroyed if it assures the protection of their own and who committed genocide against another tribe of Shinzoku because they envied their power, and the revelation that the Creator Deity basically started the battle between good and evil simply to amuse "herself", a fact that pushed the Mazoku Lord Dark Star Dugradigdu and his Shinzoku Lord counterpart Night Dragon Volpheed over the Despair Event Horizon and convinced them to fuse into a single creature in hopes of destroying the world and remaking it on their terms, beyond the interference of the Lord of Nightmares.
• A Day in the Limelight: Three of the prequel light novels each have one-shot stories featuring Amelia (set before the series proper, where she takes down a shady drug dealer and his gang), Zelgadis (a story of him fighting against a fellow chimera with the same sense of pessimism he has), and Gourry (more or less a backstory of what he did before he met Lina). All three stories were eventually compiled into one novel later on.
• Death by Adaptation: The anime, in spite of its lighter tone, tends to be a lot more bloodthirsty than the novels where side characters are concerned. Noonsa and Dilgear on the comical side; Rubia and Abel on the less so; to name a few. Duclis from Revolution inverts this precedent.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Played with on Rezo towards Shabranigdo; as he planned to kill Shabranigdo after having his blindness cured.
  • Alfred makes one with Kanzel in order to gain control of Seiyrun. It didn't end well due to Kanzel's Loophole Abuse.
• Deus ex Machina:
  • The Blessed Blade at the end of the first series. It comes out of nowhere with very little explanation behind it in the second to last episode, and can somehow hurt the merged Copy Rezo/Zanaffar, which contradicts what we've heard several times about Gourry's Sword of Light being able to hurt it. This is further made strange when in Revolution and Evolution-R it is shown that the Sword of Light CAN destroy it as a major plot point.
• Destructive Saviour: Lina will blow up your village in the process of saving it.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Xellos, and it was designated-idiot Gourry who noticed; he didn't say anything because he thought it was so obvious.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Lina is slowly murdering her way up the Mazoku hierarchy and she started with Shabranigdo himself.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Xellos, as a monster, wants to destroy all things, and has in the past, committed several acts of genocide. This doesn't stop him from adventuring with Lina... though, granted, this wasn't revealed until near the end of NEXT where it showed him wiping out a whole clan of dragons with a flick of a wrist. To be fair, it's just as much Lina accepting that she can't get rid of him (As Xellos is for most intents and purposes a god), than her actually wanting him around.
• Disc-One Final Boss:
  • Rezo and Shabranigdo, Gaav.
  • Also, if you count Revolution and Evolution-R as the same season due to each only having 13 episodes, Zanaffar.
• Disciplines of Magic: Magic is divided between Black, White, and Shaman magic. It combines Religion is Magic with Personality Powers. Black magic comes from Mazokou (anglicized to "monsters" in the English dub), White magic comes from the gods, and Shamanism comes from neutral nature spirits. To harness it, one needs a mindset similar to one's patrons. Hot-Blooded and ill-tempered Lina has an easy time using black magic but can't use white. Amelia specializes in white due to her fierce and all-encompassing belief in truth and justice, and there's an episode of season 1 showing how difficult it is for her to use black magic. Calculating, grim Zelgadis specializes in Shaman magic but dabbles in black. Outside of the main party, white mages are peaceful, kind, priestly sorts while black mages are boisterous and arrogant (and have a penchant to zap first and wonder why a mazokou-lord can No-Sell a spell they themself power).
• Dispel Magic: The Spell "Flow Break" causes all long-term spells (for example, "animate golem" or whatever it's called) to stop working and the Golem or Animated Armor will collapse. If used on a mage, it causes harm.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Lina's most famous example may be in the first episode, where she blows up a town she was trying to save while attempting to kill a dragon... because it had deliberately stepped over her rather then crushing her.
  • Happened once over sausages, of all things.
  Gourry: You were just staring off into space, so I figured you didn't want any.
  Lina: Well, I did! So if you can take my food, I can take yours! (Eats about five) And I hope that taught you a lesson.
  Gourry: Yeah, that you eat more than me.
  • In NEXT when Lina unleashed a Dragon Slave on all opposing parties when she found out the treasure she found was not a divine spell of ultimate protection, but rather lost festival dances, and she embarrassed herself for nothing. Did it again moments later when Martina mocked Lina about the musical number she did.
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • Rezo (but not his replica) and most Mazoku are quite calm or even mildly amused when fighting. Shabranigdo even explained to the party why and how much Resistance Is Futile and almost rolled his eyes seeing how they just don't get it.
  • Xellos almost never gets angry, even when reminding the audience that he is a monster. When his cool does dissipate, it's downright disturbing.
• Distracted by the Sexy: In the video games, Gourry actually meets Naga. This happens to him with her a few times, especially in the Slayers Wonderful game, where he actually gets a Nosebleed.
• The Ditz:
  • Naga as Nama, mostly due to memory loss... though, to be fair, she was pretty ditzy in the movies and OAVs too.
  • Amelia in earlier seasons of the anime.
• Divine Conflict: It is explained that countless millenia ago, the universe was nearly destroyed in a war between the forces of Flare Dragon Cifeed and Lord Shabranigdo. Cifeed just barely managed to defeat Shabranigdo, and save what was left of the universe in the process.
• Dope Slap: It's pretty common in this series.
  • Lina gives Gourry these on a normal basis.
  • Zelgadis gave one to Amelia after she said that all villains have to wear black.
  • Gourry gave one to Zelgadis after he mentioned Amelia's lost sister and upset her.
  • Lina once slapped Zelgadis, but immediately regretted it, being made of stone and all.
• Double Entendre: Lots of jokes about the townsfolk's balls in Revolution episode 6, which involves a town festival dedicated to rolling a giant stone sphere up a mountain.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: This is exactly how Lina and Gourry's relationship works a lot of the time.
• Dragged into Drag/Cross Dresser: Once per season, sans (R)evolution-R, (and always in episode 17) the party ends up needing to be in a disguise for some reason or another. Lina and Amelia happily dress up the male members of the cast as pretty girls. Only NEXT shows Zelgadis and Xellos doing it, but poor Gourry is always involved when it happens. Xellos has the time of his life.
• Dramatic High Perching: Amelia does this several times, including during her introduction.
• Dub Name Change: An alternate kanji reading of "Chaos Dragon Gaav" is Maryu-ou Gaav. Somehow this reading found a place in the Latin American Spanish dub as Mario Garv.
• Dumbass No More: In Evolution-R, Gourry is still an idiot, but he's much more alert, intuitive, and all around competent than he is in most of the previous anime seasons (the first being the only exception) when it comes to non-combat situations. He even manages to correctly assert most situations, much to Lina's surprise and praise.
• Dungeon-Based Economy: Whenever Lina's strapped for cash, she'll sell merchants whatever she's looted from local bandits, or any treasure she's carrying, but doesn't have a need for.
• Dying as Yourself:
  • Played with for Rezo's first death in the anime—it is implied that, however desperate he was to find a way to open his eyes, in the end even he did not want to truly destroy the world and that his whole gambit was actually encouraged if not outright caused by Shabranigdo possessing him; during the final battle he is able to hold back enough of his power (and by extension Shabrangido's) to give Lina a chance to win with the Giga Slave, implying that when he dies, he does so as himself. However, events in later seasons cast doubt on what Rezo's character was truly like, and it is also likely it was the Lord of Nightmares, not Rezo himself, holding back his power so the Giga Slave would work, since her presence had surely been summoned just as it had when she possessed Lina in the second season finale.
  • Played a little more straight for Duclis in Revolution, since it's implied by Zanaffar's taunts when he is dying and in danger of turning into a second Zanaffar that much of his actions, or at least his increasingly insane and obsessive search for Revenge, had been caused or influenced by Zanaffar working through his armor; he certainly seems more like his old self in that moment. Ends up being subverted however, since he doesn't actually die thanks to Pokota—but it is still his ability to resist Zanaffar and remain himself that gives Lina the distraction she needs to win, and later allows him to have his life spared.
• Dying Deal Upgrade: Valgaav originally was an Ancient Dragon named Valteria. He was mortally wounded in a civil war between dragons, in which the Golden Dragons slaughtered the Ancients. When he was dying, Gaav (a demon lord and archdevil) appeared and offered Valteria to be reborn as a half-demon and Gaav's apprentice. He took the offer and became the demon-dragon Valgaav.

E-F

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Most of the novels tend to be very episodic in narrative, moreso in the Slayers Special novels. While the second arc of the main novels was like this, the first arc is one long narrative.
  • The series as a whole began as a self-aware parody of High Fantasy and various Tabletop RPG tropes, albeit with a dogma of its own - the novels and manga, for example, poke fun at various stereotypes, like greasy, dumb bandits, and the anime broke the fourth wall quite a bit. As Cerebus Syndrome kicked in, moreso in the anime, the self-awareness angle was dropped, and the fourth wall was no longer addressed.
  • In the older anime series, the characters were far more cooperative than they were later on. Also, one nice novelty from older episodes that were dropped later on was that new magic or world-related trivia were given an explanation for the viewer; new seasons dropped this.
• Eldritch Abomination: Darkstar has the look and feel of one, as does Shabranigdo in the flashback story in the first season where Lina explains his origins, but the best example is the Lord of Nightmares, who is extremely alien, even by mazoku standards.
• Elemental Powers: Shamanism calls upon the powers of elemental spirits and the Astral Plane. This makes it a good all-rounder lore, as it can mimic the effects of black and white magic, as well as having spells unique to it, with its only weakness being that it's really not very good at facing off against Mazoku.
• Emotion Eater:
  • All Mazoku are said to be this, feeding off the negative emotions of other beings.
  • Shinzoku/Gods feed off positive emotions.
• Empty Eyes: The Mazoku, as well as any humans affiliated with them, have flat eyes devoid of shine or reflections.
• Enemy Civil War:
  • Chaos Dragon vs. Hellmaster is the most obvious example. It's not like Gaav just allied with mortals, while Phibrizzo plainly wants The End of the World as We Know It. It also seems to be the main reason behind the actions of Xellos.
  • The minor one happens at the end of the second arc of the novels. Luke-Shabranigdo wants to face Lina and Gourry (the two people who can possibly kill him) while another part of Shabranigdo who is imprisoned does not wish to see that (and would have Luke-Shabranigdo free him). This causes the Mazoku to divide into two factions.
• Evil Counterpart: Zangulus and Vrumugun. They even have elementally opposing magics and weapons; witness The Sword of Darkness vs the Sword of Light, both legendary weapons wielded by mercenary swordsman with bangs to drive the point home.
• Evil Minions: Inverted. Zelgadis's henchmen Zolf and Rodimus are actually good guys, as is Zel himself. Villain with Good Publicity Rezo misleads Lina into thinking they're evil.
• Evil Plan: The entirety of the Knight of the Aqua Lord manga is an extremely intricate (but not unreasonable) scenario planned by Hureika. Put as simply as possible: getting Deep Sea Dolphin to lead an army against the gods specifically for the purpose of driving Lina to obtain the Wind Lord's power to use against it, thus destabilizing Lyos's power allowing her to take control, in effect becoming a Mazoku with the power of the gods. And it worked. Chessmaster, indeed.
• Excalibur in the Rust: Gourry wields a normal-looking sword that suits him just fine. However, the blade on the sword is actually just attached to the hilt of the Sword of Light.
• Expy: Amelia for Naga in the novels (only at first), according to Word of God.
• Eyes Always Shut:
  • Xellos in his friendly mode.
  • Rezo, the blind priest, who can't open his eyes due to the shard of the greatest evil in the world sealed in them.
• Eye Catch: The second and third seasons feature these with the characters in pairs, and there are also a few special ones for the final episodes. The fourth and fifth seasons had a different eye catch for each episode, and it often correlated with whatever was happening in the episode. Strangely, the first season had no eyecatches at all.
• Failure Gambit: While his defeat in the first season was not necessarily intentional or foreseen, in Evolution-R, the Red Priest Rezo reveals that he intentionally set up a situation in which he would be defeated by Lina and the evil lord Shabranigdo sealed inside of him would be released. In true Heroic Sacrifice style, he realized that this was the only way for the mighty demon lord to be erased from existence once and for all, making Rezo less of a villain at the end of the day.
• Fairytale Wedding Dress: Martina's dress at the end of NEXT.
• Fantasy Gun Control:
  • Played straight and justified, sort of. In short, the backstory of the setting is that the peninsula where the story mostly takes place was the site of a great battle against the Mazoku long ago, a war that drew magically gifted individuals from all over the continent; when the war ended, one of the Demon Lords And Arch Devils, Hellmaster Phibrizzo, cast a spell that sealed the entire peninsula away from the outside world. As a result, magic remained strong, even flourished inside the barrier, but outside magical skill and lore was lost, forcing them to turn to technology instead. This causes an issue when the gunner Jillas appears in TRY, as he seemingly uses muskets, but all of their bullets are non-fatal.
  • The beginning of Revolution shows that Outer World technology is at least being exported to the Old, as a ship in the first episode and Saillune's army in the twelfth both use cannons.
• Fantastic Nuke:
  • The Dragon Slave.
  • Also Jillas build an ICBM that was "as powerful as a dragonslave" from barrels and blackpowder, and much like the dragon slave wrecked a whole town but also made the surroundings visibily into a wasteland.
• Fantasy Pantheon: The gods and dragons vs the demons and Mazoku. Somewhat tweaked by the fact that there is a power above those two factions.
• Fatal Reward: In the first season, the Tragic Villain Erisiel Vrumugun does everything to bring her beloved master Copy Rezo back to power. But when her task if finally complete, her master promptly kills her off to concentrate on defeating the heroes.
• Fight for the Last Bite: The first episode of NEXT has Gourry and Lina literally Fork Fencing at super speed over the last bits of food on the table. Neither of them end up getting it, as a fight breaks out in the tavern and their table is knocked over. This is justified two-fold: First, both of them are notorious Big Eaters. Second, the party has a tradition where the person who eats the least has to pick up the tab.
• Fiery Redhead: Lina Inverse has the personality down pat, even though it takes until about TRY for her to get the hair color right (it starts off as more of a coppery brown).
• Filler: This series is noteworthy for pulling it off beautifully. The filler episodes were stand-alone comedies that never got in the way of the main plot and always managed to be entertaining in their own right.
• Five-Man Band Concert: The main characters are pictured in official art◊ as a band. Probably because the voice actors sing Image Songs about their respective characters for the soundtracks. We have Anti-Hero Lina and The Lancer Amelia providing the vocals, The Smart Guy Zegaldis playing an ax-guitar, The Big Guy Gourry ramming the drums, Token Evil Teammate Xellos on the electric bass, and Guest-Star Party Member Filia on the keyboard.
• Flanderization: Most of the characters have suffered from a little of it over the years:
  • Lina's vindictiveness and temper have been played up to the point that she's on a hair trigger (although it has to be granted that Pokota really does push all the wrong buttons with her) whereas in the first ever episode a comment about her bust only elicited a scowl.
  • Nowadays, Gourry tends to act like such an Idiot Savant that you wonder how on earth he puts his armor on in the morning or remembers who Lina is (as opposed to the fairly competent, if rather tactless and sometimes absent-minded, swordsman we see in the first episode) - and if it's at all possible the English dubs take it even further. This is finally somewhat reversed come Evolution-R, where he appears to have been given back shades of his former competency.
  • Amelia was flanderized from the novels to the anime in general; her justice-loving ways were more of a quirk in the novels, but in the anime, they became a defining trait. By the end of Revolution, her flaunting is toned down.
  • Xellos comes off as much more brutal and unnerving in the novels. In the anime, his lighthearted trickster personality is played up and Lina finds him more annoying than anything.
• Flashback Nightmare: Zelgadis has one about being turned into a demon/golem chimera. Which helped his Heel–Face Turn.
• Flying Brick: Zelgadis. Not his only powers.
• Forgets to Eat: In TRY, Lina and the group decide to immediately set sail for adventure... only to remember later, after they're stranded at sea, that they forgot to bring food. Cue them pretending to be dead so they can catch seagulls.
• Fork Fencing: The Trope Namer. The first episode of NEXT has Gourry and Lina literally fork-fencing at super speed over the last bits of food on the table. Neither of them end up getting it, as a fight breaks out in the tavern and their table is knocked over. Lina's response? Well... This is justified two-fold: First, both of them are notorious Big Eaters. Second, the party has a tradition where the person who eats the least has to pick up the tab.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Lord of Nightmares usually appears as a slender woman with golden blond hair and a long black dress.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Zelgadis is the Cynic, Amelia is the Optimist, Gourry is the Apathetic, and Lina is the Realist, but shows shades of the Apathetic herself. As for their secondary allies, Pokota is also an Optimist, while Sylphiel, Martina, and Filia are all the Conflicted.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Lina (Supine) - temperamental, insecure, impulsive and selfish
  • Gourry (Sanguine) - absent-minded, easy-going, calm and sarcastic
  • Zelgadis (Melancholic) - brooding, serious, observant and cynical
  • Amelia (Choleric) - optimistic, excitable, immature and naive
• Freakiness Shame: Not even stone-studded green-blue skin can deter Amelia's (nor the fangirls') interest in Zelgadis.
• Freaky Is Cool: The reaction of Amelia, and most of his fans, to Zelgadis's appearance. That it comes with Super-Strength, Super-Speed, and being Nigh-Invulnerable just adds to the coolness.
  Amelia: (after hearing how Zelgadis still wants to restore his human form) What? You're still thinking about that? But you look so cool now!
  Zelgadis: Well I don't like it!
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Used in the form of subliminal frames in the earlier seasons of the anime: a gag frame, usually of a super-deformed version of a character, would appear as someone gets hit. There are some nifty sight gags as well, such as when Gourry rips off the dress he's forced to wear in the first season, the viewer can spot a stuffed bra full of fruit and what appears to be a Zelgadis plush doll.
• Full-Name Basis:
  • Several villains always call Lina Inverse by her full name. Amelia also introduces herself with her full (and ridiculously long) name when she wants to wow someone.
  • Also averted with Zelgadis, as outside of one mention by Filia in episode one of TRY, Zel's last name (Graywords) is NEVER said at any point in the anime.

G-H

• Game Master:
  • The Lord of Nightmares. Phibrizzo tries arguing with her and she bitchslaps him out of existence.
  • It's implied that the reason Dark Star and Volfeed merged in TRY is because they are aware of her game to pit the two against each other and are absolutely sick of it.
• Genius Ditz: Despite his stupidity, Gourry is still quite a formidable swordsman
• Genre Blindness: Amelia seems to actively cultivate it in the first season.
• Genre-Busting: Have fun listing it as a single genre of anime. Set in a fantasy world, it includes Comedy, action, and large amounts of drama...often into a single episode!
• Ghostly Glide: Copy Rezo begins exhibiting eerie symptoms, including this trope. Later melds with Power Floats when its revealed he merged himself with Zanaffar's spirit.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Amelia does this a lot, and gets called on it several times in the final episode of the first series.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Being a fantasy series, you'd expect a lot of these.
• Godzilla Threshold: Anything that justifies asking Lina Inverse for help has to be something that poses a risk of absolute annihilation, otherwise... just let bandits and/or rampaging dragon do whatever they want, they're liable to cause significantly less of a mess.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: At least once a season Lina is usually forced into participating in some tedious competition either with or against someone who's spent much of the season trying to kill her. Also, Lina goes on whole adventures with Xellos, who could, at any moment, turn around and kill her without a word... And she's okay with that.
• Good Is Dumb: Gourry constantly proves this all on his own.
• Good Is Impotent: In one OAV, Lina and Naga are on the trail of a villain searching for a McGuffin called the "Shadow Reflector" that creates copies which are the opposite of those who look into it. Predictably, they look into it, resulting in a hopelessly pacifistic and nice Lina and a painfully shy Naga. Cue horror from the villain realising what this makes the real Lina.
• Good Is Not Nice: With the exception of Gourry, Amelia, and Sylphiel, all of the main characters are fundamentally self-centered jerks, especially Lina. Lina's sister Luna is the avatar of Ceipheed, one of the world's most powerful gods, but is arguably worse. Xellos is perhaps a case of Nice Is Not Good taken to extremes. He's by far the most charming, affable, and pleasant of the group... and also an elemental being of pure Chaotic Evil — the sole reason for the existence of his creator's creator is to annihilate everything.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Amazingly averted. In the first season Lina destroys one of the seven shards of Shabrinigdo, and the rest never come up. The same applies for the two of Shabranigdo's five generals that she kills.
• Gratuitous English: Many spell names, though this is handwaved with a short explanation that the names had been corrupted over the years. Lina's most powerful attack used to be known as the "Dragon Slayer" before it became what it was.
• Gratuitous Japanese/Non-Singing Voice: (Dub only) The spell song. After Lina and Amelia's acapella rendition in English, Lina yells that they're going to do the fully orchestrated reprise in Japanese.
• Gray-and-Gray Morality: More so in TRY than in any other season, with the questioning of the battles between Mazoku and Shinzoku coming into question and the cowardliness of the Golden Dragons among other things. Even the main party is affected from this.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The Claire Bible is the physical manifestation of all the Water Dragon's knowledge, which is a lot to say the least. It's an example of what happens when you try to make one of these without access to magic or super-science: the manuscripts are compact but the physical copy spans an entire pocket dimension of giant stone slabs.
• Groin Attack: In Episode 6 of NEXT, Martina had placed a curse on Lina, in which any pain she inflicts on others is magnified and directed back at her. Naturally, she ends up kicking Gourry in the groin after he had accidentally grabbed her breasts (courtesy of Xellos) and made a remark about how small they are and...well, Hilarity Ensues.
• Guardian of the Multiverse:
  • The Lord of Nightmares.
  • Although he was a bad guy in the first season, Zangulus would technically count in NEXT.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: As stated above, Lina has so many Berserk Buttons, it's hard to keep track of them all. Pokota practically presses all of them by the time Evolution-R is over with.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Various humanoid animals, officially lumped together under the name "Beastmen" (or "Manbeasts", if one wants to insult them), are common enemies. The main villain of TRY is a hybrid of Ancient Dragon and Mazoku. Zelgadis is a human being who has been mystically merged with a brow demon and a rock golem.
• Hannibal Lecture: In NEXT, Gaav gives one to Amelia (who had just delivered a sermon on JUSTICE), pointing out that Hellmaster's plans would be void if he killed Lina and that, by defending her, she was acting against the cause of JUSTICE. Cue Heroic BSoD. Considering that Hellmaster's plan was to manipulate Lina to cast the Giga Slave, potentially destroying all of reality, and that Lina actually does it to save Gourry, Gaav was 100% correct.
• Hand Behind Head: Gourry does this a lot.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: "It's not too late!", sure. A rare case when even Gourry is too astonished to facepalm.
• Heartbroken Badass:
  • Lina herself of all people becomes this in the closing episodes of NEXT when Hellmaster kidnaps Gourry and she is uncertain of his fate. She even breaks down crying over it in private.
  • Also, in the manga counterpart of the fifth season, Amelia is totally upset after Zelgadis´s supposed Face–Heel Turn. She cries and yells him to come back, with no response. After she hears about Zuuma´s threatening, she tearfully begs Lina to follow Zelgadis to protect him. And she cries again after Lina orders her to leave because she is going to fight Zelgadis. She is heartbroken the whole volume until Zelgadis comes back.
• Hermetic Magic: Actually a hybrid between Hermetic and a typical Mana-based RPG models of magic, with summonings, enchantments and protections done with Hermetic-style magic circles, while fireballs and arrows thrown via almost vancian-style spells.
• Heroic BSoD: Several.
  • Slayers NEXT: Lina's begins when she learns the true nature of the Giga Slave: drawing power from The Lord of Nightmares is the exact same thing as summoning Her directly, and miscasting it can cause the entire universe to be consumed, making her friends die horrible deaths. Cue her being in a conundrum on how to defeat Chaos Dragon Gaav. It gets worse when Hellmaster Phibrizzo reveals himself and kidnaps and brainwashes Gourry, just as she began to realize she was falling for him as he did for her. She is able to snap out of her funk, but The Stinger culminates when she casts the Giga Slave during the finale anyway.
  • Same season above: Amelia has a brief one when Gaav gives her a Hannibal Lecture about her feeble notions of justice; he then proceeds to brutally wound her. Milgazia is able to heal her, but the screen of death comes back when Gaav tries to attack her again and the normally Nigh-Invulnerable Zelgadis is severely wounded for the first time protecting her from his blade. Pure horror for her and the viewers.
  • Finally, Evolution-R has both Pokota and Zelgadis in the same episode: Rezo, with his soul trapped in a jar, explains that he only helped and sealed away the people of Pokota's kingdom in order to experiment in gaining his sight back, and that he never intended to follow through with helping them. The normally cocky Pokota cries and loses it. Zelgadis loses it big when Rezo confesses that it is impossible for Zelgadis to ever become human again, and he might've known that it wasn't possible. Cue a crying Zelgadis to nearly go berserk until Pokota intervenes.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Pokota sacrifices his real body at the end of Evolution-R to save everyone else.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen:
  • Luna Inverse and the remaining three Mazoku lords — Zelas Metallium, Deep Sea Dolphin, and Grausherra — have yet to appear in the anime. Zelas and Dolphin appear in person in the novels, but there's yet to be any decent graphical depiction of Dynast Grausherra; however, Grausherra did play a major role in the second arc of the novels.
  • Zelas Metallium's ass has had a couple of cameos in the series, however, and her beast form (an armored, anthropomorphic wolf with wings) appears in one of the games for the Platform/Super Famicom. Dolphin's beast form is still unknown.
  • And Luna gets cameos in a couple of the opening songs and Eye Catches. It's even Lampshaded in the opening of TRY, when she has a little arrow saying "Sorry! opening only" pointing at her.
  • On the gods' side of things, between Ciefeed's four guardians, Earthlord Rangort has made absolutely no appearances in any part of the franchise. Aqualord Ragradia and Firelord Vrabrazard have been mentioned in passing and share importance in the anime and novels (Ragradia made the Claire Bible, and Filia served Vrabrazard), but otherwise do not appear, and Airlord Valwin only appears in the Knight of the Aqualord manga.
  • It is implied (if not flat-out stated) that "Auntie Aqua" is actually Aqualord Ragardia, or at least what's left of the god. Therefore being the only one of the gods that makes any sort of actual "appearance" in the anime.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Hellmaster's plan goes exactly as he wishes, except for the fact that he does not fully understand the nature of Lina's magic spell that is supposed to destroy the world. So when Lina is taken over by the Lord of Nightmares, the Hellmaster fails to recognize the Lord of Nightmare in Lina and attacks her. The Lord of Nightmare responds by destroying Hellmaster utterly, saving the world in the process.
• Hotter and Sexier: While every form of media has its share of mild fanservice, it's taken up to eleven in the Hourglass of Falces continuity:
  • Excessive crotch shots (Lina to compensate for her Pettanko status, and Amelia in the form of panty shots)
  • Skimpified outfits (Amelia and Millina)
  • Bring My Brown Pants (Noa)
  • Walking Shirtless Scene (The antagonist of the story, Gourry and Luke at certain points)
  • Skinship Grope (Amelia gets subjugated to this by Lina for no apparent reason)
  • And in the Super Explosive Demon Story manga, Zelgadis is frequently without a shirt. There's even a color splash page of him removing it.
  • Later artwork of Lina, namely in later Slayers Special/Slayers Smash. They feature her in more sensual poses, and every other drawing of her flaunts her nipples, irregardless of how modest she's dressed.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Amelia and her father. Lina and Gourry to a lesser degree.
• Human Doorstop: Zelgadis and Gourry get used as an anchor and dragon-bait at the end of a giant fishhook respectively in the course of the same NEXT episode.
• Humanity Is Infectious: Though not too much, being "tainted" with humanity can cause distinctly unnatural behavior in Mazoku. The most famous example of this, in-series, is Chaos Dragon Gaav.

I-L

• I Call It "Vera": Filia's mace is named "Mace-sama".
• Ice-Cream Koan: when the heroes find Rezo's Soul Jar in Evolution-R, it starts dispensing these, along with exotic and supernaturally effective recipes for very mundane things like hangover cures and talismans against quarrels.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The first and fourth seasons do so alphabetically!
• Idol Singer: Spoofed. Lina and Amelia put on skimpy dresses and sing, thinking it's an ancient attack spell. It turned out to just be costumes and a regular song. Well, a regular song that summons pretty lights and a petals rain on a decent scale.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: Eris to Copy Rezo.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: In one of the videogames, the gang barely manages to rescue Amelia, but when they do, she says "I feel...so cold..."
• Image Song: They exist, but the theme songs sung by Megumi Hayashibara greatly outnumber them. Lina, Sylphiel, Filia, and Valgaav have one, Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry, Xellos, and Martina have two, and Naga has three. There is also the "Maiden's Prayer" duet sung by Amelia and Lina's actresses, and finally, one song where the four leads all sing together.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Gourry, type 3,5, and 7.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes:
  • Lina, Sylphiel, Eris, Martina, Naga, Gourry, and Naga again, just because.
  • Hellmaster Phibrizzo. Figuring out the layering makes cosplaying him quite difficult.
• Infallible Babble: In the first episode, a village elder calls Lina the "Dragon Spooker", which means that dragons step past her out of clear revulsion. Later in the episode a dragon does exactly this.
• Insistent Terminology: Even though Filia is a dragon, don't ever refer to her as a mere reptile.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • In TRY, one of the filler episodes involves a love between a fish-girl (as in, a female fish with humanish arms and legs) and a male human... which ends up with the two taking a "cure" that simply turns her into a human and him into a fish-man, leaving them in exactly the same mess they were in before. They do consider it something of an improvement at least, as they now also find each other physically attractive.
  • In the post 2000 series there's an episode where a fish-girl tries to flirt with Gourry, due to a mania that's coming over the locals.
  • A ghost possessing Lina's body comes on to Gourry in one of the early episodes of the first season.
  • The Amelia/Zelgadis relationship kind of falls into this as well, given Zelgadis is technically only 1/3rd human.
• In the Name of the Moon: Amelia likes to smite (perceived) villains "in the name of Justice!".
• I Surrender, Suckers: Zangulus wouldn't do that just to prevail over a man, but in such circumstances...
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: Lina Inverse is hardly an everygirl, being one of the most powerful magic-users of her world. However, her usual modus vivendi is just being a wandering mercenary and treasure hunter; all that unwanted saving the world stuff happens to her due to seemingly insignificant choices, such as not agreeing to sell a particular statuette for cheap.
• It May Help You on Your Quest: Lina's treasure, specifically the Orihalcon statue, in the first season.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Lina and Zelgadis are jerkier versions of the trope.
• Kiss of Life: Episode 7 of NEXT — During a meal hunt for a dragon on a boat, Zelgadis almost drowns. Amelia suggests giving him mouth-to-mouth, in which he promptly blushes, expecting her to do it. Unfortunately for him, the (male) captain gives it to him. And to make matters squicky, the captain licks his lips after doing so. It accumulates even further when, at the end of the episode, it's revealed that Zel himself resembles the captain's late wife...
• Knight in Shining Armor: Parodied. Both Lina and Sylphiel has an image of a prince — noble, heroic, handsome, blond, clad in white, riding on a white charger. Then they meet Amelia's father, Philionel el di Seyruun. He's the Crown Prince. Very impressive looking and quite badass. Peace- and justice-loving. Merciful. Minor user of White Magic. He even sometimes rides on a white horse. Problems? He looks like a bandit who just climbed down the mountain, and is slightly nuts.
• Knight of Cerebus: Rezo (after we find out about him), Gaav, and Valgaav are really the only ones that qualify. Most of the other Gods/Monsters don't have this profound an effect on the tone of the show since they have comic relief/lighter moments (even Phibrizzo).
• Konami Code: Played for Laughs, one of Amelia's famous finger pointing moments that she usually gives with her all-empowering support speeches actually prompts the code to activate on screen.
• Lady Land: Played with in NEXT episode 17 where a city of only women, which does not allow men to even enter. It is shown to have many men crossdressing as women (presumably all the sons of women of the city who did not wish to part with their children or move someplace else) in order to stay within the walls.
• Large Ham: Amelia and her father.
• Laser Blade: Gourry's Sword of Light.
• Last of His Kind:
  • Sylphiel, after Sairaag is destroyed.
  • Also Valgaav, after the other Ancient Dragons are killed by the Golden Dragons.
• Late to the Realization: Gourry can take episodes to figure out someone's villainy.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Happens a lot throughout the series and OVAs. The dub for Slayers Return has a particularly notable example.
  Lina: "Hey, wait a second! You're being too faithful to the rules of basic plot advancement! Wake up!"
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Jillas. For someone with no magic and physically weaker than everyone else, he still managed to be mildly dangerous. Even Zelgadis was impressed with Jillas by the end of TRY. In Revolution he even has a cannon named after him, if you notice the soldier ordering them to fire the Jillas Cannon.
  • On the heroes's side is Sylphiel, the group's on-again-off-again white mage. She knows exactly two non-white magic spells: Flare Carrot, and the Dragon Slave (which she casts better than Lina does).
• Leitmotif: Rezo has a particularly impressive one.
• Licking the Blade: The shopkeeper in Season 1, Episode 2 does this after he becomes possessed by a cursed knife Lina tries to sell to him.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: Gourry's sword to any other weapon made by the same people.
• Literal Genie: When Zelgadis first met Rezo, the latter put on an affable facade and agreed to grant Zelgadis' wish for power, promising to make him "completely different" — he gave him the power but transformed him into a monster.
• Living Doll Collector: Episode 15 of NEXT has one of these, who also turns Lina's friends into dolls and attempts to kill her, for a filler related reason (re: None). It turns out that the collector is actually a doll himself being manipulated by a doll-like Mazoku that he carried around.
• Long-Lost Relative: Word of God states that Naga is actually Amelia's elder sister, though neither Lina nor Amelia appear to be aware of this. (Naga never told Lina her real name.) Naga's identity was concealed all three times she met Amelia in continuity — once intentionally.
• Long Runner: Began in 1989 as a serialized set of novels that are still running today; the anime aired from 1995-1997 (And was Un-Cancelled in 2008), and two OVAs and five movies were made across 1995 to 2001; numerous manga and games have also been made. Most of the products were released in the 1990's. As of May 2019, Hajime Kanzaka has started writing a new arc continuing the mainline series of novels, 30 years after the series was born and nearly 20 years since the last mainline novel.
• Long Speech Tea Time: When Dilgear is ranting about punishing Zelgadis for his treachery and the death of the fishman Noonsa, the other henchmonsters are eating Noonsa.
• Loophole Abuse: Mazokus are fond of these.
  • Alfred, the true culprit behind the assassination attempt of Prince Phil, had Kanzel under contract to work under him. Kanzel no longer wanted to due to seeing Lina perform the Ragna Blade and sought to recruit her power for Gaav. Alfred angrily tells Kanzel that he can't back out since he was under contract and therefore can't act against him. Kanzel agrees that he was indeed under contract to follow Alfred. His partner Mazenda, however, was NOT, so she was able to kill Alfred on the spot.
• Lovable Traitor: Xellos is the contemporary epitome of this trope.
• Love Makes You Evil: Halcyform in NEXT, also Duclis in the manga version of Revolution.
• Lord Error-Prone:
  • Amelia.
  • Gourry, again for exposition purposes.
• Love Freak: Ditzy Cute Clumsy Girl Amelia is a rather satirical example.

M-O

• The Magic Touch: Astral Vine to enchant anything sharp including corporeal spell effects to damage targets immune to normal weapons. Amelia eventually creates the Visfarank spell to apply the same sort of general effect to her fists.
• Market-Based Title:
  • The TV series was marketed as "The Slayers" outside of Japan. When ADV Films licensed the OAV and films, they retained the original name.
  • The first book was titled The Ruby Eye outside of Japan. The new translation by J-Novel Club retains its original title.
• Martial Pacifist:
  • Parodied by Prince Phil, Amelia's father.
  • Amelia herself, especially in the Hourglass of Falces.
• Magic and Powers:
  • Black Magic: Referred to by that name, this is magic that draws from the Mazoku. Spells of this kind range from attack magic to summoning to curses, like the kinds that Martina uses.
  • White Magic: Also titled that way, most of these are healing and defensive spells, but can also be used for small things like putting out fires. Its source is ambiguous, but Word of God has stated that it has similarities to Astral Shamanistic magic.
  • Shamanistic Magic: Elemental magic, consisting of the classic elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind, along with a fifth element, Astral magic. Attack spells for the four elements are physical in nature, while Astral magic consists of unconventional spells and attacks that target one's astral body (similar to one's "spirit" or soul). The Ra Tilt spell is the most well-known example for the latter.
  • Holy Magic: The polar opposite of Black Magic, drawing from the Shinzoku. Because of the barrier that covers the peninsula where the story takes place, Shinzoku are unable to either go in or escape, so Holy Magic is not accessible to humans during the course of the series. Golden Dragons are the main practitioners of this form of magic.
  • There is also a form of Wild Magic that draws from the creator, the Lord of Nightmares. Due to its chaotic nature (as the Lord of Nightmares is Chaos itself), almost no one knows about it, and devastating results can happen if it is misused. Lina is the only one known to wield this form of magic.
• Magic Knight: There's nothing stopping a person from being both a skilled sorcerer and a skilled swordsman. Zelgadis himself is equally good in both areas, and even Lina can swing a sword or use a dagger for her self-defense.
• Magic Missile Storm: The spells Burst Rondo (weak) and Rune Flare (strong) do this.
• Magnus Means Mage: Ley Magnus is a great mage of the past.
• Mask Power: Xellos' eyes are almost always hidden by his hair or closed. If they ever open, bad things are happening.
• Medieval European Fantasy
• Menstrual Menace: When "that time of the month" rolls around, women who can cast magic lose the ability to do so. This happens to Lina early in the story, which gets Played for Laughs, because Gourry doesn't quite know what "that time of the month" is.
• Misplaced Retribution: Happens at least a couple of times in the series, and is even a driving force in the plot:
  • Eris in the original series tries to kill Lina in revenge for killing Rezo, the man she loved. Technically, Rezo was killed by Shabranigdo, who had been possessing him up until then, and emerged when he was summoned (Rezo not knowing the demon was sealed inside of him). Then Lina killed Shabranigdo. So maybe Lina sort of killed Rezo, From a Certain Point of View.
  • In TRY, Valgaav has a vendetta against Lina for allegedly killing his master Gaav. This one makes even less sense, since Gaav was killed by Hellmaster, not Lina.
• Model Couple:
  • Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia have similar clothes and hairstyles.
  • Xellos and Filia, who are foils (with some Ship Tease), have hair with complementary colors, and wear the complementary colors to each other. In the later novels, Luke and Millina also follow the complementary color theme (Luke wears red, Millina wears green, and they have those respective eye colors also), and even have black (Luke) and white (Millina) hair.
• Mood Whiplash: Mostly applies to the anime (See Bloodless Carnage above), but can happen in the other mediums as well.
  • Xellos can be silly, goofy and whimsical. Then he opens his eyes. At this point, something absolutely horrible happens. To put things into perspective, the least horrible thing he's done with his eyes open is gleefully torture someone with the intent to kill him. The shift in personality between his 'casual' and serious moods is about as extreme as can be.
• Morality Pet: Gourry at times, especially useful for moments when Lina can act genuinely cutesy without it imposing on her badassness.
• More Deadly Than the Male: No one is more deadly than Lina Inverse, except maybe Luna. And in general, women are stronger magic users than men.
• Ms. Fanservice: Naga's standard outfit is a very low-cut bikini.
• Munchkin: All of the 'big five' (Lina, Gourry, Amelia, Zelgadis, and Naga) qualify as munchkins for any RPG system.
• Mystical City Planning: Saillune's capital city is built with a series of defensive walls in the shape of a hexagram (Bowdlerised to a pentagram in the Revolution season), which boosts the power of White Magic while weakening spells of other types.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Lina's reputation is THAT bad.
• Neutral Female: Parodied in the first episode, when Lina is attacked by bandits and Gourry comes to her aid. Lina is preparing to just blast the bandits into oblivion, but then realizes that she's supposed to be all passive and girly in these situations.
• Never Bareheaded: Zangulus wears a cool old Pointy Hat that he never takes off, ever. Probably because the one time it was off, in episode 21, he realized how ridiculous his hair looked without it.
• Never Gets Fat: Justified in-universe, where practically half the cast consists of big eaters, as spellcasting requires high caloric intake.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played with, for the first 3 seasons the Big Bad ultimately just wants Lina dead, if she just let herself be killed many of the destruction would be averted... though not all of it.
• Nigh-Invulnerable:
  • Zelgadis has the combined traits and resiliences of a brow demon and a stone golem, making him virtually indestructible amongst humans. Dragons, high-level Mazoku, and the higher levels of magic are the only things that can actually hurt him seriously.
  • Mazoku also count; not only are they effectively Made of Iron and able to regenerate, but their real bodies actually exist on a separate plane of existence, with their material form merely being a projection of their psyche. They're also immune to varying levels of Black Magic (as monsters are the power source of Black Magic). The more higher-ranked the Mazoku is, the harder it is to kill it, which leads rather nicely into Authority Equals Asskicking.
• Noble Demon: Zelgadis. He's even one-third demon, making this more literal than most.
• Noblewoman's Laugh:
  • Naga, who emptied an entire town with it. Lina also does this in one of the final episodes of TRY, which scares Amelia.
  • And in one of the movies, "Slayers Gorgeous," a villain appears with one of her own. Naga decides it's not good enough and tries to give her lessons.
  • Martina had a pretty good one also.
• No Fourth Wall: Well, not quite, but they break it on occasion, usually when the show has been serious for too long. Also, the Pretty Miss Lina's Magic Lessons segments.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Hajime Kanzaka wrote the novels this way, explicitly stating that there would be no romance. Official Couples Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia are a product of the anime. He later admitted that, although he hadn't planned on romance, Lina and Gourry wound up developing feelings for each other anyway. In fact, at the end of the original novels, Lina thinks Gourry wants to propose to her (and becomes disappointed when it seems like it's not the case) after he asks her if they can visit her parents. When the novels were re-released in Japan, the final volume also features new art that has Lina and Gourry wearing matching bracelets. The Amelia/Zelgadis pairing on the other hand was wholly unintentional by the author, but later artwork by Rui Araizumi features the two together in mildly romantic situations.
• No Kill like Overkill: This is proven every time Lina does a high-level spell-like Dragon Slave for a comedic effect.
• Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: In one episode, Lina uses a Light spell to blind Zelgadis to get away from him.
• Non-Serial Movie: Of the five Slayers movies produced, the first four (which includes The Movie for Slayers) are set sometime before the series, during the "Lina and Naga" period, and the fifth one could be set after either the second or first season.
• No Periods, Period:
  • Averted: Lina loses her magic powers for a brief period in Season 1, Episode 4, being able to only conjure a weak light spell. Gourry asks her whether it's "that time of the month", because the same thing happened to a fortuneteller he once knew.
  • Used afterwards, as in 5 TV seasons, and a dozen movies and OVAs, it hasn't come up again, ever.
  • The first novel has a scene where the conversation is basically the same, but we get to see Lina fuming at him because she thinks it's a sign that he's cannier than he lets on, and is actively mocking her. In a later scene a villain catches on, and Lina in the narration rages, "Do I have a big sign on my forehead that says, 'I'm on my period. Let's discuss'?!"
  • In the second volume of Super Explosive Demon Story Slayers, the scene goes exactly as in the anime. The subject is mentioned briefly in the third volume, where Zelgadis, after capturing Lina, wonders why her spells were so weak... "Oh, I know! You're in THESE days!"
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Jillas from above. Despite being comic relief for the first quarter of TRY, he manages to separate the gang from Filia and Xellos, get the others into a situation where they couldn't use magic, all through tactical and psychological manipulation. And he later outdoes himself by creating an explosive rocket, that is as powerful as a dragon slave.
• OAV: Six of these were produced, each of them set before the events of the TV series and covering the adventures of Lina Inverse and a solitary companion, a ridiculously buxom and extremely flaky sorceress called "Naga the Serpent", who served more or less as a one-woman Goldfish Poop Gang and Unknown Rival to Lina.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Inspector Wizer Freyon. He shows up and immediately tries to arrest Lina for the hideous crime of being herself. Also has a bad habit of interpreting/ignoring everything to suit his theories and conveniently passing out just as a critical piece of evidence presents itself. It's all just an act so he can conduct a real investigation under the guise of trying to bring in Lina, have her storm the bad guy's fortress and take him out by herself. Since the villain was being backed up by royalty, not to mention having hordes of monsters at his command, he couldn't act openly.
• Oddly Named Sequel: Slayers was followed by Slayers NEXT, Slayers TRY, Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R. The movies/OVAs are Slayers Perfect (or Slayers: The Motion Picture) Slayers Return, Slayers Special (or Slayers: The Book of Spells), Slayers Great, Slayers Gorgeous, Slayers Excellent and Slayers Premium. Most of the movies had alternate titles of the form "The Motion Picture R/S/G/GO".
• Offing the Offspring:
  • Zuuma and Abel in Evolution-R. The family that dies together, stays together?
  • Christopher to Alfred in the original novels; Christopher is forced to stab him for treason, whereas in the anime, Alfred is killed off by Mazenda.
  • On a technical level (and accidentally), Amelia to her uncle Randionel in the anime. This is averted in the novels, since Randy appears (and dies) in the first Slayers Special novel (i.e the prequel series).
  • Averted in the original light novel version of this storyline, where Abel actually succeeds in reaching his father's humanity long enough for Lina to finish him off, and survives to eulogize him afterward.
• Older Is Better: Played with, when an ancient golem activates, takes a few steps forward, fires a superweapon into the distance that seems to dwarf the Dragon Slave, aims said weapon at Lina ... and falls apart.
• Old-Fashioned Fruit Stomping: In the first anime film, Lina gets hypnotized by an illusionist into thinking that she's back in her home country of Zephilia, and it's the harvest festival. Lina is then forced to pretend that she's engaged in one of the main activities of the festival: stomping on the newest grape harvest to make wine.
• Once Killed a Man with a Noodle Implement: It's said that Lina's sister Luna was able to slay a powerful plasma dragon with a kitchen knife.
• Only Sane Man: Zelgadis is usually this, but Gourry of all people was actually this when he and Amelia went to the "Village Of Justice".
• Orichalcum: Used as an Anti-Magic metal
• Orphan's Ordeal: Sylphiel loses her one remaining parent when Copy Rezo destroys her entire homeland; beforehand, Lina and her group did meet her father. As if that weren't enough, and just in case anyone thought he might have survived, he's brought back and then lost again in the last few episodes of NEXT.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Lina suffers what's supposed to be a fatal wound that goes straight through her chest at the end of episode 24. Lampshaded by Lina herself: "How could this happen?! I'm the star of the show!"
• Our Dragons Are Different: For starters, there seem to be at least two different general species of dragon; those which are basically giant monsters, and those which are capable of human-like intelligence, such as Golden Dragons, Ancient Dragons, and Black Dragons — what makes it more confusing is that there are also Black Dragons which seem to be just beasts, one of which appears in the first anime episode. There are also Sea Serpent-like Sea and Lake Dragons as well, with the latter being known for incredibly delicious food that can be made from their flesh.
• Our Monsters Are Different: Even without the monsters/mazoku split, many of the creatures in the Slayersverse are pretty weird.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: In the OAV "Explosion Array", werewolves can take on the forms of either humans or humanoid wolves, whenever they want. In the first season, Dilgear is a werewolf/troll hybrid; he never changes out of his (green-furred) wolfman form and he can regenerate his wounds to a certain degree. In fact, canonically, his last words aren't an idle boast; he really does come back to life in the non-anime continuities and becomes "Spot", Luna Inverse's pet — the only hint of this in the anime is an eyecatch showing her walking him in TRY.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Gourry, between giving up the Sword of Light and getting the Blast Sword.

P-R

• Papa Wolf: Prince Phil would do anything to protect his daughter Amelia, even if it means charging headfirst into obvious danger.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Kanzel and Mazenda in NEXT. Literally the first time they appear, they don't even try to hide the fact that they're evil.
  • Josephine in an episode of the OVA. Josephine is a proud mother who has hired Lina and Naga to make her son a successful military leader. They're initially skeptical as Jeffrey is skinny, sickly, poorly trained, and hilariously overconfident. It turns out that these aren't problems, because the instant someone says something disparaging about him, Josephine comes charging onto the scene, wearing a mask, to smash them with an oversized warhammer. Jeffrey is the only one who sees nothing odd about this, and the only one who buys her claims that she's an anonymous tourist passing by (it happens to him that often).
• Parental Abandonment: Amelia's mother is dead, Naga's mother is dead, and Zelgadis is an orphan. Lina's parents are alive but Luna did have a major role in her upbringing.
• Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: Copy Rezo's death scene.
• Percussive Pickpocket: A little boy does this to Lina.
• Performer Guise: Lina and her friends joined a troupe of wandering actors to hide from bounty hunters in Season 1.
• Perpetual Poverty: After Lina obliterates her kingdom, Martina sets off on a revenge quest but since she's now broke she's got to bankroll all her schemes by doing odd jobs. This continues even after she pulls a Heel–Face Turn and joins Lina.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Amelia and Martina wear a couple.
• Playboy Bunny: A cafe in the first season had bunnies serving the food. The costumes were even Easter colored (pink and yellow), with fur necklines the matched their bunny tails.
• Player Archetypes: All of the main four characters fit the Munchkin File 'four types of role players'
  • The Real Man: Gourry
  • The Roleplayer: Zelgadis
  • The Loonie: Amelia
  • The Munchkin: Lina
• Playing Up the Stereotype: Happens when Lina first met Gourri. She was attacked by bandits but Gauri decided to save her. Lina wanted to help at first but then decided to play Damsel in Distress and Neutral Female for fun.
• Poking Dead Things with a Stick: Played With in the anime adaptation. When Amelia faceplants hard into the ground during her introduction, her butt up in the air, Gourry pokes her with a stick and asks if she's alive. She is.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Lina's hair temporarily turns white after she casts the Giga Slave. Explained in-universe as being because she completely drained all of her magical power doing so; once it refills, she's back to normal.
• Primordial Chaos: The Sea of Chaos, from which the four worlds arose at the beginning of time.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: Amelia's outfit has some pink touches, but she wore an actual pink dress in the first episode of NEXT.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes:
  • Lina when she's trying to con someone, often Gourry.
• Put Off Their Food: In the light novel The Battle of Saillune, Lina and Gourry are attacked by a number of lesser demons that possessed items of food, including a nasty tentacle monster that emerges from their squid stew. After the fight, they order more food, and Gourry requests they skip the squid stew — though Lina disagrees, saying it'll take more than that to make her lose her appetite.
• Put on a Bus: Several cases.
  • Zelgadis does not appear at all in the Knight of Aqualord manga. Also, while he does leave for eight episodes after the tenth episode of season 1, he is one of the three with bounties on his head two episodes later, but this is never mentioned when he returns. Finally, he, Amelia, and Xellos are bussed off when the first arc of novels ended; Luke and Milina replace the former two, and Xellos doesn't reappear until the final novel.
  • Sylphiel is put on a bus after NEXT and is only mentioned once in TRY; Filia replaces her for that season. Sylphiel does return at the end of Revolution. Zangulus and Martina are also sent off when NEXT ends.
  • Finally, Filia herself is bussed once TRY is over, and any other characters exclusive to that season (Jillas, Valgaav, the "Overworld" inhabitants) go with her. None of them are ever mentioned again — unless one counts the reference to "Jillas cannons" in Revolution.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: "Ruby Eye" Shabranigdo.
  • Lina herself, what with being Enemy Of All That Live, and all.
• Red Mage: Shamanism is literally about this, as it combines defensive spells, offensive spells, and utility spells that neither Black Magic nor White Magic can replicate, such as flight and water-breathing. Its only weakness is that it is pretty bad at facing off against Mazoku, as only Astral Shamanism spells can really hurt them and most of those are far weaker than comparative Black Magic or "Holy Magic" spells.
• Retraux: The art style for the series, courtesy of Rui Araizumi, has not changed much since around the time the first TV anime aired, so the artwork for newer Slayers media has a very distinctly 90s feel that's consistent with the earlier installments.
• The Reveal:
  • Numerous instances where a character turns out to be a Mazoku or in cahoots with a Mazoku.
  • The Lord of Nightmares' attitude and her statement that her power is inseparable from her personal attention and even presence, which shows her relationship with Lina in a new light.
  • Eris created Copy Rezo and went after Rezo's legacy so she could get revenge on Lina for Rezo's death. Too bad we learned three seasons later that he was never dead to begin with and the entire second half of season one's events, which included the destruction of Sairaag as well as Eris' death, could've been avoided entirely if Rezo had only told her about the Hellmaster's Jar.
• Rewrite: In the first series Rezo-Shabranigdo is fought before the group meets Amelia. In all references and flashbacks from later series she's shown to have been present.
• The Rival: Zangulus to Gourry, and Naga (and later in the novels, Luke) to Lina.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Happens several times, but the most notable case actually occurs in the novels, in which Luke goes batshit crazy when his partner Milina is poisoned and denied of any medical care, thus having her die. The destruction of the shrines in the area he, Lina, and Gourry are in at the time is extreme, and it allows the fragment of Shabranigdo in his soul to awaken in the next novel.
• Sealed Evil in Another World: The plan of the Overworlders is to dump Dark Star in Lina's world and let him be someone else's problem.
• Robot Maid: Ozzel counts for this, although she is actually a doll.
• Rump Roast: Amelia suffers from this in episode 20 of the 1st season.
• Running Gag: The first episode of each anime series usually ends with somebody getting a Dragon Slave to the face.
• Sapient Tank: Present in Revolution, the "magic tanks" are apparently an offshoot of the Zanaffar Armor artifact created from animals, and thus do not need crew.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • In Slayers Gorgeous the dragon army flees from Lina after being ordered to attack.
  • Zelgadis also tries to do this a couple of times, but never succeeds.
  • Zangulus feigns one of these at the end of NEXT to try and land a hit on Hellmaster. It doesn't work.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Prince Phil, Amelia, Pokota, and Naga.

S-T

• Sealed Evil in a Can: Shabranigdo, who is defeated by a power his sealer didn't have access to, and Zanaffar, who was just resealed.
  • To be fair, Lina and company never actually fight Shabranigdo at his full strength, just the fragments sealed in humans.
• Sealed Evil in a Six Pack: Shabranigdo and his seven parts.
• Share the Male Pain: Through the manipulations of Martina and Xellos in the sixth episode of NEXT, Lina is forced to feel Gourry's pain when she kicked him between the legs.
• Shared Fate Ultimatum: In Next, Martina puts a curse on Lina that anything she did to anyone else would be visited back on her. It becomes truly absurd when Lina executes a Groin Attack on Gourry and gets to literally experience Share the Male Pain. However, while stopping to gloat, Martina manages to accidentally inflict the curse on herself. The only way to undo the curse on herself, which involves putting a cursed knife through an item belonging to the victim, would also free Lina.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: As commented by other characters, Amelia always looks beautiful in a nice dress, and Lina and Martina looked great while wearing wedding dresses.
• Shell Game: Zelgadis with his band played "which bauble we need to collect?" with Lina for some time. This didn't work well.
• Ship Tease:
  • At the end of NEXT and Slayers Premium. In the former, Gourry chases Lina, possessed by the Lord of Nightmares, into a dimension beyond his own and begs for Lina back, the two kissing and then being sent back to their world. When they wake up, neither of them seems to remember in the slightest what happened. In the latter, after being placed under the Octopese Curse, Gourry tells Lina "I love you" at several points — but Octopese is basically saying lots of random words that have an entirely different meaning for octopi ("flatchested", for example, is an expression of great dismay). When things clear up, Lina asks Gourry what "I love you" means in Octopese. "I'm broke, so you'll have to pay for the hotel." This revelation causes Lina to explode, angrily chase Gourry across the beach and beat him senseless.
  • Filia and Xellos are positively rife with this, mostly in the form of Belligerent Sexual Tension topped with the fact that they're from the god and demon races respectively. They've actually become one of the most popular One True Pairings in the show.
  • Zelgadis and Amelia have a good deal of chemistry and moments together, especially in NEXT. In the final credits of TRY, it is left ambiguous whether they confessed anything to each other, as Zelgadis is seen with a reminder of Amelia: one of her characteristic bracelets. Meanwhile, she is shown looking through the window and thinking, clearly not devoted to her duties. Though most of the teasing is near - gone by Revolution (leaving aside the fact that Zelgadis has become Amelia´s bodyguard and that they spend a lot of time together), the manga counterpart of Evolution - R has some of the most important evidence of feelings for this ship.
  • Xellos is well known for frequently hitting on Lina throughout anime and manga. In novels she even asked him if he was hitting on her, though he didn't answer it. His song "Butbutbut" also has suggestive lyrics about somebody who is a gambler, loves delicious food and whose life is always adventurous.
• Shock Collar: A captive Lina was restrained by a circlet that zapped her when she tried to use magic. They really haven't a slightest idea what her big sister used to put her through...
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The dragon cuisine episode; after much whacky hijinks, Lina finally catches and kills herself a Lake Dragon... and is then told that even the simplest meal will require weeks to months of preparation, as it takes around a year of cooking to remove the lethal poisons from the dragon's meat.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of Lina's go-to spells is "Dio Brando" translated variously as "Dil Brand" (Central Park media) or "Explosion Array" (AD Vision), but it is a shout out to a Big Bad in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
  • Amelia is at least in part a parody of Sailor Moon, and Gourry's disguise in the first season's cross dressing episode has Usagi's distinctive hair style and when he crossdresses again in NEXT, his hairstyle resembles that of Minako's. Furthermore, an episode of NEXT has Amelia and Lina dressing up in what look like Sailor Senshi fuku for a humiliating musical number. Furthermore, most of Zel's initial appearances have him looking like Tuxedo Kamen's OTHER identity crisis, Moonlight Knight.
  • In episode 11, Lina Inverse uses the spell Balus Rod to summon a Whip of Dominance and attacks a monster while shouting "Call me queen!". This is an Actor Allusion and reference to the Sorcerer Hunters anime as "Call me queen!" was the Catchphrase the Dominatrix Tira Misu (who like Lina is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara) yelled when using her whip on the monster forms of her Love Interest.
  • The magic doctor Lina goes to when her powers are sealed looks exactly like a slightly older Chibiusa, right down to the pink Odango hair.
  • The aforementioned episode of NEXT also has a pair of Single-Minded Twins who look exactly like Shampoo from Ranma ½.
  • In episode 16 of NEXT, when Xellos explains what "brass rackets" are, there's a background with two characters looking suspiciously like Hiromi Oka and Reika Ryuzaki; Martina's tennis coach in that episode also somewhat resembles Jin Munakata.
  • There's episode 18 of TRY where Amelia visits the Village of Justice becomes either a Power Ranger or a member of G-Force. Visually, though, they resemble the Ronin Warriors.
  • The whole story of TRY is that beings from the "Overworld" (one of the other worlds seen in Lina's explanation of the War of the Monster's Fall) come to the Slayers world to try and destroy the Big Bad; a fusion of their Arch God (Night Dragon Vorfeed) and Arch Lord (Dark Star Dugradigdu). For many years, fans thought that this meant that Hajime Kanzaka's sci-fi series Lost Universe and Slayers were part of the same multiverse, though Word of God was that he merely chose to reuse the names. This is not helped by the fact that the Translation Notes for the anime of the former do explicitly say that the two animes are part of the same multiverse.
  • Episode 3 of TRY has Jawas. Right down to an unintelligible Conlang.
  • In the English dub of the first movie, the Demon Joyrock introduces himself as "Joyrock, Michigan J." (for reference, it strongly resembles a frog). Later, as Lina unleashes the Dragon Slave on him he says "Sufferin' Succotash" (complete with lisp) as he realises just what he was about to get hit with.
  • In episode 14 of the original anime series, Lina and Gourry are lured by the smell of freshly cooked chicken prepared by a bounty hunter whose disguise looked an awful lot like◊ a certain fast-food mascot...
  • Pokota is apparently a Pokémon parody, but he looks more like a Digimon (namely Terriermon).
  • In Evolution-R, the relationship between Amelia and Nama/Naga brings to mind Fullmetal Alchemist.
  • Sherra, the second general of Dynast Grausherra, in the Slayers novels looks like Ranma's female form, from Ranma ½, this probably isn't a coincidence since Rui Araizumi also drew Ranma Hentai Doujinshi.
  • One two-episode arc in TRY has a virtually identical plot to the Silly Symphony "Music Land," even to the point of musical Theme Naming for the two feuding kingdoms.
• Signature Move: "Dragon Slaaaaave!"
• Simple, yet Opulent: In the first season, Lina wears a grand, simple dress in an Imagine Spot.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Averted in that the first Big Bad was a fragment of Shabranigdo, the most powerful of the mazoku, and no villain until Dark Star (the most powerful mazoku of another world, as powerful as the whole Shabranigdo) ever came even near his level of power.
• Soul Jar:
  • In NEXT, the sorcerer Halcyform makes a pledge to the Mazoku (Monster Race) which makes him unkillable while the pledge stone is intact.
  • Taken literally in Revolution and Evolution-R — Rezo's getting another sequel by having his soul in an actual jar.
  • Also from Evolution-R, Naga got her soul literally trapped in a jar at some point while adventuring solo, then it somehow got stuck in a suit of armour and became "Nama".
  • An episode of TRY has a ghost ship captained by the spirit of Captain Jarlov, a drowned pottery fanatic whose spirit has been sealed inside a jar until someone breaks the curse keeping him from going to the afterlife.
  • Mazoku in a pot in Slayers Premium.
• Sphere of Destruction: A lot of the most destructive spells in the series, including the Dragon Slave, work like this. The Giga Slave is powerful enough to potentially absorb the Universe.
• Spike Shooter: Noonsa shoots his spines (in the anime) or scales (in the novels and manga).
• Spirited Competitor: Zangulus followed Gourry just to test who's the best swordsman.
• Stealing from Thieves: Lina Inverse only steals from bandits, feeling it is more moral than to steal from honest people.
• Stealth Parody: Lina's group is rumored to be based on D&D campaigns; Zelgadis being a 'serious' role-player whose epic backstory and angst is somewhat made silly by the antics of the rest of the group, Amelia an overdone goody two-shoes type, Gourry is the guy playing for a good time who's only half playing attention, and Lina is the min-maxing spellcaster, and Xellos is the annoying, completely unkillable, and most definitely the overpowered GMPC who largely exists to re-rail the plot when the rest of the party derails it.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • Amelia — noted more often in the novels, but the few times it's shown, her family's constant death threats and arguments have had their emotional toll on her. It also explains why she's so close to her father. In this case, she always tries to keep her head up.
  • Also, by Word of God, Gourry. His family's more or less dead because of the Sword of Light, save a grandmother and a brother who he hates. Combine this with having gone through wars and mercenary jobs, and you have one embittered individual. If it weren't for Lina's father telling him to find a purpose in life, he'd probably be a Byronic Hero.
• Stern Chase: Chasers — Zangulus and Vrumugun in season 1, Gaav and his minions in NEXT.
• Stock Sound Effects: Fizz Sound Creation did the sound effects for the first three seasons, so expect to hear sound effects from Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, Gundam, City Hunter, Crayon Shin-chan, One Piece and many, many others.
  • This actually goes for Revolution as well as Premium, both were handled by Swara Productions, ^note  Founded by former Fizz employee Katsumi Ito and as a result, Swara uses many of the same sound effects as Fizz so it's no surprise that you'll hear Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon sound effects being used.
  • The usual sound effect for charging up certain spells before firing them off also happens to be the same as in Mega Man X.
  • The trolls present in the first season all use roars from The Godzilla Power Hour.
• Stock Footage: Used for Gourry activating the Sword of Light, and Lina casting some commonly used spell incantations (most notably Fireball and Dragon Slave).
• Stock Medieval Meal: Averted where the heroes may visit a place simply to try their local cuisine and tear through several plates of it. An entire episode was devoted to the killing of a large dragon as the main ingredient of a local specialty, although the characters don't actually get to eat it because the flesh is very poisonous and takes months to make it edible.
• Stripperiffic:
  • Naga's outfit has a remarkable gap-to-fabric ratio.
  • According to Amelia in Slayers: The Hourglass of Falces, their mother made it a tradition that the women of the royal family "are expected to wear a sort of dress that evokes a 'bondage' image when they reach a certain age." Therefore, she abandoned her regulation pants for a very-mini-skirt, so she would be used to that sort of exposure when the time came. Word of God states that Naga found her Iconic Outfit in their mother's closet after her funeral.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Inverted and frequently lampshaded (to the point of being a Running Gag) for the Saillune royal family. None of them look anything like any of the others.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Zelgadis and Gourry when Lina and Amelia have access to surplus women's clothing.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Of a sort. Because black magic in this setting draws on the power of various Mazoku, there's a bit of a hierarchy to its spells; they can't harm a being of equal or greater rank than their source, so to fight a Mazoku with black magic you need to draw on one of its superiors. Lina can generally get around this since the Dragon Slave calls on their king and progenitor.
  • This is also what makes the Giga Slave and Ragna Blade so powerful. Their source, the Lord of Nightmares, is an embodiment of primordial chaos responsible for creating the known multiverse. Good luck finding a bigger fish than that.
• Super-Deformed: In some of the No Fourth Wall segments of the manga, and the mini-Gourrys and mini-Linas the cloning machine made in the anime.
• The Sweat Drop: In one memorable episode, Lina becomes more exasperated than usual with Gourry's antics and actually takes her sweatdrop and beats him with it.
• Sword and Sorcerer: Gourry and Lina respectively.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Wizer Freyon pursues Lina throughout the better part of Revolution for all of the destructive acts she's committed in the past. At some point in the series, he obviously realizes she's innocent and just keeps playing up the chase as Obfuscating Stupidity to use Lina to catch the real criminals, but it's not clear exactly when that point is.
• Tactical Superweapon Unit: Parodied with the Great Golem from Slayers Next, which was a Magitek Humongous Mecha armed with a powerful laser beam cannon. The royal family of the nation who discovered it (in one of their castle turrets) certainly thought it was one of these, but due to centuries of neglect, its first test-firing tore it to peices.
• Take Our Word for It: Considering all the things Lina has faced, her sister Luna would have to be pretty tough to intimidate her. It helps that Luna is The Chosen One.
• Talking Animal: There's a ton of these throughout the show, although most are just one-liners.
  • Noonsa and Dilgear in season one.
  • Jillas in TRY.
  • Pokota and Duclis in Revolution.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Hellmaster Febrizo wants Lina Inverse to cast the Giga-Slave, a spell that has the potential to return all of creation to primordial darkness. When Lina refuses, he starts killing her friends, one by one, in front of her, until she's furious enough to cast the spell. It ends up being a case of Be Careful What You Wish For.
• Technical Pacifist: Amelia and Prince Phil; especially Phil.
  Amelia and Phil: "PACIFIST CRUSH!"
• Teen Genius: Zelgadis displays a good deal of scientific knowledge and both quick-paced analytical and mathematical skills in the anime and a few of the games; while he does show some high intelligence in the novels, Lina's narration makes it less prominent.
• Theme Naming/Punny Name: Rowdy Gabriev, Gourry Gabriev.
• Through His Stomach: Sylphiel is quite happy to hear "Gourry dear" really likes her cooking. Though, being Gourry, he fails to notice her demure but obvious advances.
• Time Travel: The first movie.
• Title Drop: In the very last episode of Evolution-R, Xellos comments after the latest bout of Serial Escalation that the heroes truly are "Slayers", having just offed a god for the second time.
• Token Evil Teammate:
  • If ordered to, Xellos would gladly kill Lina and her friends, but he still likes hanging around them because 1) they're endlessly amusing, 2) they can easily be manipulated into killing Mazoku opposed to his personal agenda for him, and 3) Lina is a Person of Mass Destruction and bloody mayhem is like crack to Mazoku. Besides, he's not a glutton and is satisfied with suffering humans cause to themselves, what with his fancy for sports, pranks, and Martina.
  • Jillas at the end of TRY.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Gourry, regarding Xellos' nature.
• Training the Gift of Magic: The magical gift comes in two measurable parts: "bucket capacity" and "pool capacity". High levels of either attribute are an in-born gift, but if you have those, you also need to study and learn magical lore. Gourry Gabriev, for example, has magical gifts but lacks the intelligence and memory to learn magical skill.
• Training from Hell: Lina puts Amelia through this in one episode. Subverted in that Lina had no intention of teaching Amelia any magic at all (she and Gourry have an Imagine Spot of her casting Dragon Slave on people as punishment for petty crimes), she was just doing her best to make Amelia miserable in the increasingly vain hope that she would give up and go away.
• Tranquil Fury: Lina in the brass rackets episode of NEXT. She was already running on Unstoppable Rage when Martina taunts Lina about her flat chest, prompting Lina to enter the brass racket tournament in order to take Martina down for the insult. In the final match between Lina and Martina, Lina discovers to her shock that her racket was replaced by a fake (courtesy of Xellos), which prevented her from hitting the magic-induced ball back and therefor suffered from many cheap shots from Martina. Once Lina gets her racket back, she goes into this trope, taking on an eerily calm and hollow expression while glowing red. Lina proceeds to serve out highly destructive serves at a now terrified Martina while still having an expressionless look, determined to nail the arrogant princess with all the rage she has accumulated. The one that hits destroyed the entire stadium.
• Trope Trigger: Gourry Gabriev allows Lina Inverse to be Mr. Exposition just by being an average person.
• Tsundere: Lina is a tsun-tsun subtype, but she definitely has a few dere-dere moments. The reverse is Filia, ignorance-based holier-than-thou attitude aside, with her Berserk Button (which Xellos has a talent for finding and pushing).

U-Y

• Unbuilt Trope: Both older and current critics of the show argue that Amelia is a Trope Codifier of the Moe character archetype, alongside Rei Ayanami of Neon Genesis Evangelion; Amelia has the energetic and innocent aspects of the character, complete with a short yet bodacious body, whereas Rei has the more demure and shy aspects (ironically, Rei was meant to be a Creepy Child).
• Un-Cancelled: The third season of the TV series (TRY) aired in 1997, the fourth (Revolution) in 2008. A fourth season was originally going to air right after TRY (AGAIN) in 1998, but production issues and various commitments the cast had made it dissipate.
• Underwear of Power: Lina wears what looks like yellow bra and panties over her tunic and leggings. Martina also wears a thong over pantyhose.
• Undressing the Unconscious: In TRY Episode 15, after Lina is knocked her out she awakens to find herself in a strange land and changed into clothing to simulate Alice from the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland story. She actively dwells on the fact someone must have undressed her to change her into those clothes and has a delayed Naked Freak-Out.
• Unholy Nuke: Lina's Dragon Slave spell (when it is not Played for Laughs). Just listen to the incantation.
• Unknown Rival: Naga thinks Lina is her rival. Lina tries her best to forget Naga exists.
• Vanilla Edition: Funimation's digitally-remastered re-release of the series lacks all of the outtakes, commentary, and other extras that Central Park Media's DVDs had. Stranger still, when the first three seasons were released in one box set, the washed-out video quality from CPM's release was used instead of the restored version.
• Villainous Rescue Late in NEXT, when Gaav the Demon Dragon King appears to be dead, they're home free. Well, the celebratory music screeched to a halt when he burst into the open again, they're done for- and promptly dies in screaming agony as Hellmaster Phibrizzo intervenes.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Red Priest Rezo, of course! Justified, as Rezo genuinely strived to help people... when he was not busy with increasingly extreme and amoral forms of magical research, meant to find the way of curing his blindness.
• Visible Sigh: Lina and Zelgadis do this most often, but Amelia, Filia, and even Gourry have been known to occasionally.
• Vocal Dissonance: Alfred was mistranslated as Amelia's uncle when he's actually her cousin. This resulted in him sounding much older than he actually is in the dub.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • Lina's voice is noticeably deeper now than it was when the anime began.
  • Zelgadis also has gone quite a bit lower, while Gourry and Amelia's voices may have actually become a bit higher.
• The Wall Around the World: The magical barrier in seasons one and two.
• Walk, Don't Swim: Zelgadis, due to being part golem, is pretty much forced to walk on the bottom whenever he ends up in water.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Valgaav in TRY is allergic to shirts. Lyos much, much more so in Knight of The Aqua Lord.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Valgaav from TRY, after he merged with Darkstar (and apparently Vorfeed), wants to remake the world into a peaceful place where no one will get hurt or feel pain ever again. The problem is of course, that first everyone and everything has to be destroyed...
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Lina's actions sometimes go overboard in the eyes of one or more other characters.
  • In episode 26 of TRY, it's Lina's turn to call someone out; specifically, Filia for being indecisive as to whether or not to kill Valgaav when they all know full well he's on the verge of bringing about The End of the World as We Know It.
• Wholesome Crossdresser:
  • Miwan, a one-shot character from the crossdressing episode of NEXT, is forced to dress like this due to him being born to the royal family of a strictly-run Lady Land. Humorously, Zelgadis winds up falling for "her" until he reveals himself as a man.
  • A lesser known one is a character from Zelgadis' side story in one of the Slayers Special novels: a female named Miranda who dresses as a man in order to bounty hunt.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Amelia, and to a lesser degree, Filia.
• Widely-Spaced Jail Bars: In Revolution, Zelgadis caught Pokota in a cage with bars so far apart, the little guy had to spread his arms in order to hold onto two bars at once. But he still couldn't get out.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Lina is terrified of her sister. And slugs, because of her sister.
• Whole Episode Flashback: A noteworthy aversion, given that many shonen series have at least one. The closest one we get is Episode 10 of Evolution-R, which expands a little on Zelgadis' time as a human, following up to his transformation.
• Wild Card: Xellos. He switches from helpful to bullying and from saving the heroes butts to crossing them and back without as much as blinking, when it advances his plans. He's also loyal only to his creator and instrumental in the demise of two other Dark Lords, without participating directly.
• The Worf Effect: Ra-Tilt is supposed to be a shamanistic attack spell as powerful as Lina's Dragon Slave, but it never works against the BBEG, who just shrugs it off. It always falls upon Lina's Dragon Slave/Giga Slave/Ragna Blade or Gourry's Sword of Light to finish the job.
• World of Buxom: Many, many females in the series are quite stacked, minus Lina.
• The World Tree: Holy Flagoon, which is Zanafar's prison.
• Would Hit a Girl: Zelgadis has no problems hitting Lina when they first met as enemies, and he even gave Amelia a Dope Slap when she said that all villains wear black.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Gourry is hesitant about fighting Gioconda in Revolution because he says he wouldn't feel right about striking down a woman.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Amelia, the self-proclaimed hero of justice in a show full of otherwise morally ambiguous characters. She's usually convinced her group are the good guys, even when they're clearly only in it to turn a profit, and often marks others as villains simply because they oppose her. In one episode, she can't decide which side are the heroes: either Lina, or a pair of bounty hunters out to arrest her. Confused about who to help, she sits on the sidelines of the battle agonizing over it until she has an epiphany: "Of course! Justice always triumphs! So whoever loses will be the bad guy!" She then attacks BOTH groups at once, figuring whoever crawls out of the rubble was the hero.
• Xanatos Gambit: Hellmaster traps Lina with one during NEXT. He wants to force her to use Giga Slave because it can destroy the world, which he thinks is the purpose of the Mazoku race. To do this he sets her against Chaos Dragon Gaav, who has rebelled against the Mazoku race. If Lina uses the Giga Slave, he wins. If she uses some other spell, such as the Ragna Blade, he can goad her himself. If Gaav survives the attack, then he finishes off Gaav. Since he's the Hellmaster, he can control her death to prevent her from dying until then. All outcomes work for him. Lina does eventually cast the Giga Slave and summons the Lord of Nightmares, but the latter "politely refuses" to cooperate with Hellmaster's plan.
• You and What Army?: In the first episode of Revolution, Wizer brings a small army along to help him arrest Lina. It's not enough.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Eris created Copy Rezo so that they could kill Lina and her group in revenge for Rezo's death. Once Eris unleashed Rezo's Legacy, the Demon Beast Zanifar, she laughs believing she has won, but then gets shot from behind by Copy Rezo, who says that now that he has the power of Zanifar backing him, he no longer needs Eris. She dies pitifully.
• You Look Familiar: In Evolution-R, the characters meet an enchanted armor whose looks and voice reminds Lina of someone she met before and she's right: the enchanted armor is Naga!
• You Shall Not Pass!: Amelia says this to Shabranigdo while punching him! "I won't let you! You shall not go one step further!"

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