Slayers: The Motion Picture (1995)

Almost in the C-cup range.

Slayers: The Motion Picture was my introduction to the sword-and-sorcery Slayers franchise. My discovery of the tape is also an embarrassing story that calls for a writ of, “I was fourteen.” I found it at a GameStop counter rack over twenty-five years ago, and I bought it because of the possibility it might be hentai. Back then, you couldn’t pull a phone out in the store and run a Google search. The “is this one porn!?” question was a roll of the dice, see. Some anime videos looked XXX enough but were as filthy as Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Others appeared to be innocent battle shonen and gave you Urotsukidoji.

In retrospect, you can’t blame young horny me for being fooled. Slayers: The Motion Picture wasn’t just my introduction to Slayers. It was also my introduction to anime distributor ADV Films. Not only did the movie’s front cover feature a leather-clad doll who looked like she seduced her way out of La Blue Girl, the back included this little hook:

“One’s Cool! One’s Hot! One’s Busting Out All Over! The Other’s Not!”

Then, on the very bottom, in fine print: “Contains violence and brief nudity” (bold emphasis mine). As I would learn many times over the next few years, ADV liked to market their tapes this way. A lot.

Anyway, I watched the video when I got home from the mall that night. I wasn’t the biggest fan of it at the time. Aside from jiggling cleavage that made ‘boing!’ noises, the ‘brief nudity’ disclaimer was a load of horse hooey. In addition, parts of the movie were cringe, or to use our parlance from back then, “gay.”

It also didn’t help that I bought the dubbed version. It was too Speed Racer motor mouthy, like the translators crammed in way too many words at once to stay closer to the original Japanese dialogue. Except ADV didn’t do that either, because they punched up the dub script with Ghostbusters and Loony Tunes references. And since this was ADV, Motion Picture included their voice actor who always did a Paul Lynde impression. Yeah, overall, there was too much gay all at once.

So I went on not liking Slayers: The Motion Picture for a while after that, despite watching the tape all the way through many times. One of my influences from the era, the now long defunct Spoony Inc, gave it a negative review. Since I was also easily influenced, I thought, “Yeah, you know what? This movie does suck!”

My perspective on Slayers: The Motion Picture has changed over the years, however. It’s not that bad. I mean, it’s not fantastic, but it isn’t awful. I’ve realized that in my old(er) age, I’ve got to stop being hateful for the sake of edginess. Otherwise, my bladder will bottleneck itself again.

And before I continue, a necessary side note: Slayers: The Motion Picture’s actual Japanese title is Slayers Perfect. For the sake of consistency, I’ll just keep calling it The Motion Picture in this review. That was an ADV thing, too. They always renamed the anime movie ‘The Motion Picture.’ Their catalog included the likes of Tekken: The Motion Picture, Legend of Crystania: The Motion Picture, and Rurouni Kenshin: The Motion Picture. This was long before their final release, Liquidation: The Motion Picture.

Motion Picture is a prequel to the Slayers anime television series, which includes five seasons. It chronicles the adventures of Lina Inverse, the redheaded “other’s not!” from the cover. Despite being a young teenager, Lina is unbelievably powerful, capable of nuking entire cities with her signature move. On normal days, she makes her living murdering bandit gangs and stealing their money. Lina is so notorious for destroying trash mobs that she is a whispered cautionary tale among trash mobs.

A running gag throughout the movie and TV series is that Lina’s breasts are too small. Never mind that at Motion Picture’s point in the Slayers timeline, Lina Inverse is, like, thirteen years old. This is because in Japan, if a girl hasn’t developed H-cup sweater cows by the time she’s nine, she is forever doomed to be an old maid who works at an Okinawa gas station. This is one of the many lessons anime taught me.

It doesn’t help whenever Lina stands next to the other character from the cover, Naga the Serpent. In case you forgot your Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, a Naga is a snake monster, so someone calling herself ‘Naga the Serpent’ is a redundancy. Naga is Lina’s polar opposite, a six-foot-tall, raven-haired beanpole with warheads for tits, who wears a leather bra and thong underwear as her outfit. She has a really annoying laugh, is arrogant and loud. She flaunts her personality, and her boobs, wherever she goes. She also loves to mog Lina in the cup size department, as if that’s supposed to slap her in the head with delayed puberty.

The series normally takes place across one big continent. But after pulverizing some bandits, Lina and Naga find tickets in the loot. This puts them aboard a ship sailing to an island called Mipross. Shrouded in mist for much of the year, Mipross allows vacationers to visit whenever the fog lifts.

Now, it’s right around the time Lina and Naga arrive on Mipross that the movie lost my teenaged self. As soon as they’re ashore, the two are accosted by legions of villains, dressed like they could be from old school fighting video games. In that typical Dragon Ball Z relying-on-Scouters fashion, the bad guys have ranked themselves according to how strong they are.“I’m the eighth strongest man on Mipross Island!” “I’m the seventh strongest!” But it never matters because Lina keeps burning them up or sending them sailing into the air. This goes on for almost half an hour.

I didn’t get the joke then, and I wondered when Slayers: The Motion Picture would stop being gay and get to that brief nudity. The joke is that Slayers is a parody of fantasy stories and tabletop RPGs. It’s also a testament to how players can break a campaign and send a DM into hysterics.

When Lina and Naga show up, their power levels are already scaled at ridiculous numbers. So Lina blows up or scatters burly dude after burly dude, as if she’s Level 99 with Ultima Weapon and her targets are hapless Dragon Quest slimes. If you’ve seen anything Slayers related before this, it’s easier to understand what’s happening. If you haven’t, the way it was with me, this can cause confusion.

When she isn’t repeating that joke, Lina visits a strange dream world in her sleep. They feature a young guy who looks like he could be from a Final Fantasy OVA. He’s in love with a young elf girl who could pass for Princess Zelda. The dreams are narrated by an old man who looks like Dr. Light from the Mega Man games, but stockier and with a bigger beard. I suppose it’s not too terrible of a spoiler to say the old man turns out to be the young guy. He is magically drawing Lina into these dreams to reveal the island’s tragic past to her.

I know I‘ve made a lot of references to other properties already, but I have a suspicion Slayers: The Motion Picture does that too. As the aforementioned RPG parody, it pulls in lots of character designs and tropes. Like an anime Super Smash Bros. Ha.

Back in the waking world, the ranked bad guys assemble, and Lina knocks them down in that goofy, anticlimactic way. Naga sometimes helps too, but with screwier results. The villains gradually get stronger, the fights last longer, and the musical score more dramatic. So, you know, like when Vegeta vaporized Cui and Dodoria, but Zarbon bodied him? Eh? Motion Picture is structured in a way where Lina and Naga work their way toward a final boss, who requires the whole third act to kill.

Like Ninja Scroll.

The movie stays true to its classification as a comedy, for the most part. Perhaps you will or won’t find it funny, but Motion Picture tries to be a comedy, nonetheless. Anticlimaxes, sight gags, and jokes about Lina’s breasts power the humor. As the film moves toward the end, similar to the show it parallels, the movie gets more serious. The First Strongest on the island is a monster, in the literal and figurative sense. He has to die so the silliness can lift itself up again before the end credits roll.

Slayers: The Motion Picture ends on a banger. I don’t mean the kind of ‘banger’ I wanted to see when I was fourteen. I&rsqo;m talking about well-storyboarded fight scenes, time travel, beam attacks, that kind of shit. It’s satisfying enough that rewatching it makes me feel good, and I like good feelings.

However, Slayers: The Motion Picture has a different flavor from the mainline show. I still maintain it’s not the best way to introduce anyone to Slayers, either. In fact, when I pitched it to people back then, my sales speech was as follows: “Most of it’s kinda boring, but the ending’s great!”

So here’s my advice. Slayers: The Motion Picture is better than I used to think it was. But if you’re interested in Slayers, watch the show first. Motion Picture is not a ‘where it all began’ prequel. Instead of serving as a narrative lead-in, it’s more like you’re dropped into the middle of a story and expected to know everybody’s name. Watch Slayers and Slayers Next, and then work your way back here.

Final Grade: ** ½