Trivia / Slayers

• Actor Allusion: In a possible coincidence, the anime of Lost Universe, which takes place in one of the worlds that shares greater lore with Slayers, gives the Mazoku Lord Dark Star Duradigdu a human form that bears a striking resemblance to Gourry. Topping this coincidence is the fact that Gourry famously wields the Sword of Light, which eventually was revealed to be one of the weaponized subordinates of Dark Star. The two share the same Japanese voice actor, Yasunori Matsumoto.
• Bad Export for You: Subverted with Central Park Media's DVD box set releases; their downgrade in quality was their own doing. In the first season box set, the Japanese audio is phase-inverted, meaning that no sound would play if one was viewing an episode with a mono speaker setup. In the second season box set, the picture quality was exceptionally blurred, but this is due to a bad video transfer (off of a laserdisc) rather than imported low-quality masters. At the time, one would be better off buying the individual DVDs or even old videocassette tapes. Funimation fixed all of these problems in their re-releases, but for some reason, on the DVD angle for the English track ^note  Funimation was still using alternate angles for their DVDs at this time, which no other anime distributor regularly did , the masters in the first season are darker than CPM's (especially noticeable during the openings and endings ^note  the Japanese angle however has the correct colors .
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Wil Wheaton of all people voices Hans in the second episode of Evolution-R.
• Channel Hop: The show was originally licensed in North America by Central Park Media, released to home video under its Software Sculptors label, and dubbed into English by TAJ Productions. Funimation rescued the license after it expired, and it also picked up the belated fourth and fifth seasons when they were released. ADV Films licensed the movies and OVAs.
• Creator Backlash: The creator of the Slayers franchise, Hajime Kanzaka, stated a few times in interviews that, despite working on it, he had come to dislike the third season (TRY) of the anime adaptation, which was one of the first divergences from the plot of the light novels. When the belated season 4 came out, a Discontinuity Nod noted this: on the plane chart that lists the numerous Big Bads of the verse, the two that were slain in season 2 were dented, noting their destruction, but one of the higher-level demon lord's spots on the chart was intact—this particular lord, Dark Star Dugradigdu, was slain in season 3.
  • Conflicting information suggests that Dark-Star and Vorfeed were not killed but merely separated and then banished back to their own world, which would be a different reason for the intact nature of his seal.
  • Plus the fact that Valgaav, who was introduced in TRY, went on to appear in the OP for Slayers Evolution-R
• Cross-Regional Voice Acting: The English dub for original three seasons was entirely recorded in New York, while the movies and OVAs were recorded in Houston, with Crispin Freeman traveling to reprise his role of Zelgadis for Slayers Premium. When Revolution and Evolution-R were dubbed, Freeman had moved to Los Angeles, and recording was done both there and New York.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The fourth season rumored to follow TRY in 1998 was canned due to Megumi Hayashibara having scheduling conflicts.
  • During the later 90's in the U.S. when anime was becoming more popular on the networks, Fox Kids won a bid over Cartoon Network to air the first season of the show, but ultimately decided not to due to the more mature content that would be nigh-impossible to gloss over.
• Flip-Flop of God: Hajime Kanzaka is aggravatingly vague and indecisive about how his own work works.
• Franchise Killer: The fourth and fifth seasons (Revolution and Evolution-R) had such a poor reception upon release that they both would ultimately put the entire franchise on ice. As of 2021 (twelve years since the release of the fifth season), while another arc of the light novels has been announced, only time will tell whether another anime adaptation will ever be made.
• God Never Said That: Slayers fans have a long, storied history with this thanks to canon materials and interviews going untranslated for decades. If you see the words "Kanzaka said" without a source provided, then take it with a grain of salt.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Central Park Media's original DVD releases of each season are, surprisingly, not too difficult to find. In this case, they are coveted for their extras, which are lacking on the re-releases. The same can be said for the movies and OVA series, which are now harder to come by in stores (however, as long as you look for the single individual releases, not the boxsets, they can be found at decent prices used or new online).
  • The books published by Tokyopop have long gone out of print, and have been replaced by the new translations done by J-Novel Club. The only way to read the Tokyopop books is by hunting down a copy of them.
• No Export for You: The anime is the only form of media that was released in its entirety in the states. As for everything else:
  • The first six volumes of the original Light Novel series were released in 2004; Tokyopop stopped translating them after that due to poor sales. With a little persuasion, they released a limited amount of the 7th and 8th novels four years later, completing the first arc. The remaining seven novels (and none of the prequel novels for that matter) went out of print until 2021, when J-Novel Club announced plans to release 3 in 1 omnibus editions of the light novels.
  • CPM’s manga department translated the Slayers' Medieval Mayhem manga, the Slayers: Super Explosive Demon Story manga, and the manga adaptation of Slayers Premium. All of these are out of print, and the manga that began to diverge into more alternate continuities (such as The Hourglass of Falces) were never translated.
  • Since the tie-in video games bombed in Japan, they had no hopes of being exported.
• The Other Darrin: The American dub of the first series, produced by Central Park Media, had several cases of this.
  • Partway through the series, CPM took a break from dubbing the series for about a year, and during that time period, lost contact with several of the voice actors. As a result, Crispin Freeman replaced Daniel Cronin as the voice of Zelgadis, while Veronica Taylor replaced Joan Baker as the voice of Amelia. Other characters like Zangulus (Liam O'Malley to Ted Lewis) and Prince Philionel (Matt Black to James Carter Cathcart) also changed as a result of the gap.
  • ADV Films handled all the Movies and OVAs and used their talent pool. Cynthia Martinez replaced Lisa Ortiz as Lina, and in Slayers Premium, Chris Patton replaced Eric Stuart as Gourry, Luci Christian replaced Veronica Taylor as Amelia, and Kurt Stoll replaced David Moo as Xellos; however, Crispin Freeman returned to play Zelgadis.
  • Somewhat subverted with Funimation's dub of Revolution and Evolution-R: Ortiz, Stuart, Taylor, and Freeman return to voice the four leads; however, most of the other returning characters have been recast, with the new cast including Michael Sinterniklaas as Xellos, David Brimmer as Phil, Eva Kaminsky as "Nama," Stephanie Sheh as Sylphiel, and Liam O'Brien as Rezo. Sinterniklaas (who also ADR directed) claimed replacing Moo as Xellos was a creative choice to sound closer to Akira Ishida's performance, while James Carter Cathcart claimed he was never contacted to reprise Prince Phil.
• Playing Against Type: For those used to his heroic Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass roles like Joey Wheeler and Michelangelo, it can be surprising to see Wayne Grayson playing a ruthless, sadistic monster like Phibrizzo.
• Real-Life Relative: In the Castilian Spanish dub of Slayers R, Lina and Gourry are dubbed by siblings Núria (also Padme Amidala ,Kim Possible or Princess Bubblegum between many other voices both in Castilian Spanish and Catalan (Ran Mouri, Candy White or Sayaka Yumi) languages) and Albert Trifol Segarra (Shinji Ikari in Catalan and previously also in Castilian Spanish) respectively.
• Referenced by...: The cover art of 1st Edition Ironclaw is Lina and Naga as fox and wolf girls, respectively. Yes, Naga is still dressed like a hooker.
• Role Reprise: Lisa Ortiz returns to voice Lina in the audiobooks.
• Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: Rui Araizumi draws erotic doujinshi once in a blue moon, so it's assumed that she doesn't hold any contempt towards Slayers Hentai. Weirdly, during the later halve of the Turn of the Millennium, Araizumi herself has supplied the majority of unofficial eroge for the series! It's creeped its way into actual published works, unfortunately; most of the artwork is overtly sexual and pinup-like in nature, especially of Lina, compared to older artwork that is actually fantasy-inspired and related to the story. For example, compare this older artwork from the main novel line to this◊ recent Slayers Smash novel.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Tokyopop secured the rights to English translations of the original novels. The first six were released with minimal promotion and advertising, sold relatively poorly as a result, and Tokyopop canceled further translations, with two books left to go in the Hellmaster Phibrizzo plot arc. Overwhelming fan-demand actually caused them to reverse their decision and release the last two in 2007, although with almost no announcement or promotion, once again. Tokyopop never released the other half of the novels, although bits and pieces of fan translations can be found floating around on the Internet, and J-Novel Club has released official translations of them.
  • The anime was screwed by Fox Kids, who bought the TV rights, along with Magic Knight Rayearth and The Vision of Escaflowne, solely to keep them away from Toonami, who they saw as competition. Of the three shows, only Escaflowne saw broadcast, albeit in heavily bowdlerized form, and was canceled after only a handful of episodes. According to Lisa Ortiz, Fox was trying to make Slayers work, and they had her re-record the dragon slave chant to remove the reference to blood, but it was ultimately just too difficult to make the content work for a children's block on broadcast television.
• Sequel Gap:
  • Revolution, the anime's fourth season, came out 11 years after TRY.
  • There was an 18-year long gap between books #15 and #16.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Lina Inverse was Lisa Ortiz's second big anime role, following her debut as Deedlit in Record of Lodoss War, but Lina is far more remembered today, and is really what got her serious attention among fans. However, the character was Cynthia Martinez's first voice role, and is what put her on the map in the anime community, even if her performance as the younger Lina in the movies/OVAs isn't as fondly remembered as Ortiz.
  • Eric Stuart made his anime debut as Gourry, and that was his first big role before landing iconic characters like Brock and James in Pokémon and Seto Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh!.
  • Crispin Freeman and Veronica Taylor had small roles in prior shows, but Zelgadis and Amelia were their breakout anime roles, and both are now among the most popular English voice actors in anime.
• Studio Hop:
  • The anime's first three seasons were animated by E&G Films. Beginning with Revolution, J.C. Staff (who was also responsible for animating the first four films) handled the animation.
  • At first, the anime's North American distribution rights were handled by Central Park Media, before switching to Funimation.
• Throw It In!: The first season of the anime broke the fourth wall a lot; the second season onward doesn't do it at all, and the characters are no longer as self-aware as they were before. However, in the third anime series, they try to do it again in a Filler episode (Zelgadis addresses that the absurdity of the fillers had to end for the sake of the plot), but it's so poorly forced that it isn't believable.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Naga the Serpent was originally going to appear in the fourth light novel and join Lina and Gourry in the main series, so in context there would've been no secret to the fact that she was a princess of Seyruun. However, apparently Kanzaka was too lazy and under time constraints during writing it, so he gave her a little sister, Amelia, to replace her.
  • The part of the Next opening where Lina holds up an oden skewer was originally going to have Lina Flipping the Bird, but the higher ups wouldn't allow it.
  • Lisa Ortiz was supposed to reprise her role of Lina in ADV's dub of The Motion Picture, but negotiations broke down at the last minute over demands from her agent.
  • According to Jason DeMarco, Toonami was very interested in broadcasting the series on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s before Fox Kids purchased the broadcast license (along with The Vision of Escaflowne, Case Closed, and Magic Knight Rayearth) almost solely to keep it away from Toonami, who they viewed as competition. They never ended up showing the series, despite Lisa Ortiz mentioning returning to re-record the Dragon Slave chant to remove the reference to blood. Enoki Films (who holds the North American rights) also confirmed at the time that they had a deal with Fox Kids to show the series.
  • Funimation wanted to partially redub the first 13 episodes to bring them up to par with the rest of the series' dub and have Crispin Freeman and Veronica Taylor replace Zelgadis and Amelia's first voice actors (similar to what was done with Dragon Ball Z's dub), but the proper materials to do this (such as the raw music & effects tracks and the dub's audio stems) were no longer available.
• Word of God: The creator has stated in official interviews that Gourry Gabriev is not half-elven, despite the implications of The Movie, going on to suggest that Rowdy Gabriev left Mellyroon and found himself a human girl to marry, as he aged faster then she did. He has also stated that Gourry actually has the potential to be a sorcerer of power equal to Lina's; it's just his lack of interest and memory problems effectively cripple him, as he'd never be able to remember the incantations. Finally, he confirmed that Naga really is Amelia's elder sister Gracia Ul Naga Saillune, who went adventuring under a nom de guerre after the death of their mother.