Published: February 19th 2024, 2:17:25 am
Back in the ancient year of… 2012, I think, I recall trying to get into anime, searching desperately for anything that might be up my alley. As a Winx Club stan, a W.I.T.C.H. stan, and a Sailor Moon stan, I was looking for something with a leading lady who kicked ass, took names, and cleaned house like it was no one’s business.
And low and behold, as I scoured YouTube for recommendations, I came across a list by Anime America on their personal top 10 best English dubs. And what sat there in the Number 9 slot immediately caught my eye.
This red-haired sorceress standing atop the helm of a ship, chanting the iconic incantation (“Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows”), and blasting this dragon with what looked akin to a goddamn nuclear warhead but make it magical? I sat there in silence for a moment, then went “... SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.” Even better when I realized, “Wait, THAT’S LISA FUCKING ORTIZ.” A.k.a. Musa and Icy from the superior 4Kids dub of Winx Club. We love it when the gay stars align.
Robyn Moore, whose content I actually still really enjoy, explained the performance perfectly, and really sold me on Lisa’s character. Especially when she built a goddamn PYRAMID out of fear her older sister would murder her… to death.
Needless to say, this show’s characters and iconography became one of my high-school hyperfixations, to the point it actually inspired a lot of details in the magic system in my own book… which you could read, but I’m gonna be relaunching it soon anyway so… eh, do what you will. But I was HERE for sorcerers who could fly, throw fireballs on a whim, and battle demon lords on the regular, especially if those sorcerers were actually a sorceress with a very bad temper.
And I wasn’t alone. Apparently, Slayers was considered to be one of the most popular animes of the 1990s, featuring not just the anime and original light novels, but also manga and movie adaptations. A huge part of that is absolutely thanks to the English dub. Surprisingly for its era, Central Park Media didn’t censor Slayers at all, which was rare considering this was the same era Sailor Moon was getting butchered by DiC and Cloverway.
And the CAST? Perfection. I don’t know how they pulled this off, but the cast brings out the best qualities of the characters, taking them beyond archetypes and making them true icons. Especially when it comes to the incantations for spells. The Dragon Slave incantation is BURNED into my memory. I can’t share the whole thing cuz copyright, so I’ll have to do it in bursts. But for your entertainment, future me will recite it. Enjoy.
I recently started to fall back into a Slayers spiral when I came across long-form reviews by YouTuber KaiserBeamz. Highly recommend them, as they’ve been fun to listen to as I run errands and such. But it’s made me really appreciate the show again, and now, I wanna talk about why I came to love Slayers, and how it shapes up now with my more complex and developed relationship with media.
Slayers began not as a manga like many anime, but rather as a series of light novels by Hajime Kanzaka. Originally published as short stories in Dragon Magazine back in 1989, they were eventually re-released as light novels proper by imprint Fujimi Fantasia Bumko.
If you have no clue what the hell a light novel is (like me), it’s a type of novel in Japan marketed towards teens and young adults. They usually hover around 50,000 words, making them a tad longer than the average western novella, with some illustrations thrown in here and there.
The novels follow infamous teenage sorceress Lina Inverse, as well as her brainless bodyguard and master swordsman Gourry Gabriev. Together, they wander the world in search of money, incidentally saving the world from monsters and demons, with the help of some colorful characters along the way.
The anime is considered to be the definitive version given its popularity. Produced in 1995 by TV Tokyo and its subsidiary Softx, each season adapts several of Kanzaka’s light novels, with every season featuring its own self-contained story. Especially towards the beginning, Slayers is first and foremost a comedy.
While each season features an overarching story that gets pretty dark as it goes on, the show’s just trying to have a good time, following these dysfunctional losers going on whacky misadventures. You will get some pretty solid character writing, as well as some deeply emotional moments in NEXT and TRY, but the show assumes you’re just here for a fun romp. Oh, and if you couldn’t tell, each subsequent season has its own subtitle, which personally I love. I’m here for each season getting its own name, branding, and aesthetic.
If I had to describe the general vibe of the show, it’s basically D&D: the anime. Not the D&D you hope for, but the actual experience of D&D (or so I’m told) where you and your friends accidentally unleash a horde of ghosts upon a town, then decide to say fuck it and go grab some lunch. Deeply dysfunctional, and that’s what makes it so much fun. This is why I also tend to call it the Vox Machina of the ‘90s, since Vox Machina has a similar vibe, originating from Critical Role.
But while the show is definitely made enjoyable to casual viewers thanks to its focus on comedy and characters, the worldbuilding is surprisingly well done and complex. So much so that there’s an entire subsection of fans where that’s their main focus. Which… I mean, yeah, I was there too for a minute. Especially when it comes to how the magic works, drawing power from the Gods and Monsters, it actually makes it interesting from a story perspective.
And so today, we’re gonna dive into why I love Slayers, why I think you should give it a try (heh), and also delve into how the world and magic works. Expect me to dive into each season in-depth at some point in the future, because I am a lunatic. For the time being, this shall be your Slayers Crash Course.
Lina Inverse is one of my favorite characters in any piece of media. She’s a hotheaded, sharp-tongued sorceress who excels in black magic, and is incredibly fierce, materialistic, and… well, mean. Despite her magical prowess, she doesn’t do things because they’re the right thing to do. Rather, she’s focused on her own goals and interests, with saving the world being… incidental.
Like in the first episode, she takes down a bunch of bandits called the Dragon Fangs to… well, steal their loot, hence her title as the Bandit Killer. But what she wasn’t aware of was that they were in possession of a terrifying dragon that they used to extort the local villages. One such village thanks Lina, assuming she also slew the dragon, only for that dragon to show up and start wrecking shit.
But Lina never said she killed the dragon, and won’t actually do so until the villagers agree to compensate her. A gal’s gotta make it in this economy somehow. Ultimately, her Dragon Slave spell does the job, only to leave the village a crater, ending with her and Gourry running for their lives from angry villagers.
The whole series is like this, with Lina being routinely annoyed by everyone around her, only wanting to be paid so she can live a life of luxury, ideally with a charming prince whose castle she can chill in for the rest of her days. Even with her skills in sorcery, she’s not idealized whatsoever. The narrative acknowledges she’s often selfish, petty, and short-sighted, but that’s just kinda who Lina is. And I live for it.
But that’s not to say she’s all meanness. She does love her friends, especially the longer she travels with them—she’ll just never admit it. Not in the cold tsundere way, but more so the, “Duh, is it not clear from how I haven’t killed you yet how much you mean to me?” And when shit hits the fan, she gets serious.
What really brings Lina’s character to life is Lisa Ortiz’s performance. She elevates Lina’s sassiness and tendency to be mean-spirited, while giving you CHILLS anytime she recites a spell. There’s so much personality and power to her performance that you can’t help but just see her as the definitive voice for Lina.
Gourry, meanwhile, is the original himbo. He’s a master swordsman wielding the legendary Sword of Light, a family heirloom wielded by one of his ancestors who slew the legendary beast Zanaffar. He’s incredibly skilled in physical combat, allowing him to keep up with Lina without copying her skillset.
But really, what makes Gourry great is his personality, as well as his function in the plot. Gourry is a total sweetheart, being incredibly chivalrous and deciding on the spot to protect Lina on her journeys, even though it’s clear she can handle herself. Really, it’s clear how much he cares about Lina.
Gourry is… also a fucking idiot. There’s a running gag that the Sword of Light drains its user’s brain cells, since Gourry’s memory gets worse as the show goes on, and he doesn’t understand even the most basic things, like who the Gods and Monsters are. This allows him to be used as an excuse for Lina to give us exposition, and surprisingly… it’s actually really good.
When Lina explains the story of the battle between the God Dragon Cepheid and the dark lord, Ruby Eye Shabranigdo, I’m at the edge of my seat. We love lore told as a compelling story that’s actually relevant to the ongoing plot. But more on that later!
Also a huge fan of Eric Stuart as Gourry. He does a great job at portraying Gourry’s innocence and earnestness, endearing him to the audience without aggravating them with his incompetence. If you need a comparison, Eric also played Brock in the 4Kids dub of Pokemon.
I’m also a big fan of Lina and Gourry’s relationship. It’s one of those anime things where they’re lowkey dating, but they never outright say it. We do get close with the storyline in Slayers NEXT, but that quickly gets forgotten in TRY, mostly cuz Kanzaka has apparently gone on record to say he’s not confident in writing romance. Well, at least he admits it.
Still, I love the way Gourry calls out Lina for her antics regularly, while Lina is constantly fed up with Gourry’s incompetence. It only works because you can see how much they come to respect and care for each other. Even in the first few episodes, it’s nice to see how Gourry actually does show interest in learning how Lina’s magic works… even if he doesn’t understand any of it whatsoever.
Zelgadis is the mysterious rogue who begins as an antagonist. He’s very angsty and very much a loner, but for good reason. He’s a chimera, which is a fusion of different creatures, in his case human, demon, and golem. He was forcibly transformed by his grandfather, Rezo the Red Priest, in an attempt to make his magic stronger. As such, Zelgadis loathes Rezo and pursues a cure to his chimerism at any cost. As far as I know, he doesn’t find one in the anime, but he might in the light novels.
In the group dynamic, Zel is the straightman. He’s the relatively normal, broody guy who considers himself to be the sanest member of the gang. Really, he exists to have his sanity broken every five minutes, especially in later seasons. He’s a very sad boi who needs hugs, but only if you know it’s going to be a very cold hug.
Zelgadis was first voiced by Daniel Cornin when he’s introduced, lasting the first story arc. And he’s… fine. He has this raspy, unemotional voice that works when Zelgadis is a mysterious antagonist, but when Zel has to emote… it falls flat.
Thankfully, Crispin Freeman was recast as Zel when he returns, and Crispin does a much better job at capturing Zel’s broody, guarded vibe, while highlighting the sorrow underneath.
And last in our holy quarter is Amelia Wil Tesla Seirune, princess of Seirune, and justice-seeking fanatic. Her entire gag is obsessing over punishing evildoers, with her comically announcing herself as a champion of justice everywhere she goes.
Surprisingly, I didn’t hate Jodie Baker as Amelia in her first three episodes, but she did get on my nerves fairly quickly. But Veronica Taylor is a MUCH better fit for her. Ya know, Ash Ketchum.
She’s kinda… annoying at first, but I think once she starts becoming an actual character, especially in Slayers NEXT, she really starts growing on you. Plus she does provide a nice contrast with Lina and Gourry, being fixated on moral purity and virtue to a cataclysmic fault.
Some other important characters I love include Xelloss, a rogue priest who actually turns out to be a high-level member of the Monster race. Essentially, he’s a trickster demon who occasionally works with the protagonists, but only when their goal aligns with his own cryptic agenda. Otherwise, he’ll openly fawn at the idea of violently killing them all for funzies.
Then there’s Sylphiel, a shrine maiden who occasionally joins the group, and is madly in love with Gourry. I enjoy her when she’s around, but she’s not as interesting or engaging as the other characters, which is probably why she isn’t a constant presence like the main four. Also her original voice is… she sounds like she’s sleep talking. She just doesn’t sound like she cares at all about her performance, which makes any scene she’s in accidentally hilarious.
Filia joins the group during Slayers TRY, and she is absolutely one of my favorites. She’s actually a Golden Dragon, and a priestess of the Fire Dragon King, who’s tasked with convincing Lina to follow a prophecy to save the world. She’s literally just trying to do her godly duties, and having nervous breakdowns because Lina and the others drive her up the goddamn wall.
Filia’s not a straightman like Zel, but rather someone who thinks she’s a straightman, only to lose her mind as she hyperfixates on jars. There’s also this dark storyline where she learns her people are… well, basically they’re the Fire Nation of the all the dragon races, and it’s some of the most fucked shit I’ve ever witnessed. And then she tells her bigoted, self-aggrandizing boss to go fuck himself. It’s great, 11 out of 10.
And then there’s… Pokota. Look, I don’t hate Pokota. At least, I can tolerate him, but I used to not be able to stand this little furball. He joins the party during the anniversary seasons, and he’s this prince of a lost kingdom who’s had his soul transferred into a stuffed doll. His whole deal is trying to save his kingdom while looking like a plushie. Good luck, kid.
Really, what sold me on Pokota with my rewatches is realizing… he’s basically Lina’s bratty little brother. Seeing these two bicker and insult each other, only to eventually come to respect each other, really warms my corrupted little heart. Especially given Pokota’s black magic is about on par with Lina’s, to the point they can both cast ten Dragon Slaves in a row without dying.
There’s plenty of other great characters to love, especially when it comes to villains of the Monster Race, but we’ll talk about them more when we get to the worldbuilding. Suffice to say, you’re gonna LOVE the cast of this show no questions asked. They’re relatable, dysfunctional, and all-around dumpster fires. And I love them with all my heart.
God, I miss physical cel animation. There’s something so charming about the colors and lighting in classic Slayers, that even with its lower budget, it completely pulls you into its fantastical world in the way only animation can. Especially when it comes to the magic.
The world itself is meant to resemble your typical fantasy setting based on medieval Europe. The part of the world Slayers is set in specifically is inspired by European culture. While villages, forests, and shrines tend to look pretty standard, they actually help to the ground the wackier, brighter characters.
And honestly? One of the best parts of physical, hand-painted backgrounds is noticing the brush strokes in backgrounds. It tells me, “Oh yeah, another person did in fact create this,” and I’m immediately gobsmacked with the beauty I’m beholding.
Lina’s design immediately tells you she’s a sorceress (unless you’re Gourry). You’ve got the usual signs: the flowing black cape, the chonky shoulder pads, the gems all across the outfit, and the wizard socks. Thankfully those get replaced with fashionable white boots next season, thank Cepheid.
I don’t know why, but the ‘90s and early 2000s were obsessed with red-haired protagonists, and I’m here for it. Red is just such a compelling, stand-out color that works well in drawing your eye to the most important character, and in Lina’s case, fits her fiery personality. But the fact they managed to make that work with a fuschia outfit with matching eyes? Excellent.
I think what really makes me love the design is how unique it makes Lina look by virtue of her being a young woman. By throwing these heavy, chonky elements you’d expect from an older, male sorcerer onto her, she immediately grabs your attention because she stands out in her genre.
Also, the yellow top and shorts overtop the outfit, combined with the headband, just scream ‘80s and ‘90s to me. I’m not sure why exactly, but they feel unashamedly cheesy and colorful to me, and it makes me miss an era of design where we didn’t need to remove colorful trunks to make a design feel more “serious.” Is this a dig at DC trying to remove Superman’s red trunks? Maybe!
Gourry has a much simpler design, with his signature color being blue, which goes well with his blonde hair. Seriously, blue and yellow were made for each other. I ADORE his long, flowing hair and bangs. Seeing his hair swish around with his sword slashes is always satisfying.
When it comes to the magic, the classic seasons NAILED how to animate their spells. Seeing the way Lina moves her hands in such a meticulous, calculated way whenever she’s casting makes it feel like she’s actually taking raw magical energy, and handcrafting it into whatever spell she’s trying to pull off.
Especially when it comes to the Dragon Slave in NEXT and TRY, I love the way it turns the atmosphere red, and how it gives you a few seconds to watch the energy gather in her hands before it fires off, destroying whatever lies in its path.
And surprisingly, the Arrow spells in particular look so much better in Classic, because they’re actual longbows with arrows. Just look at how Flare Arrow is pulled off here, and even Freeze Arrow manifesting as a lance of ice. Even one-off spells, like where Zelgadis turns the ground to lava, launching it into the sky before it crashes down on Shabranigdo, are so much more than generic energy beams.
By having to work with a presumably minimal budget, the animators were forced to use repeating frames to emphasize action and impact, and it works so well even now. The animation has so much personality that makes it utterly timeless.
And when it comes to conveying character and comedy, the show excels here too. It’s not afraid to deform the characters to add to the zany, whimsical vibes, really selling you on the fact these are flawed characters going through the wringer.
The animation only continues to get better with NEXT and TRY. TRY specifically has some gorgeous shots that, has KaiserBeamz points out, have a bloom that look like they’re from camera exposure, which would no doubt be difficult to pull off with physical animation cels.
Revolution and Evolution-R, the anniversary seasons, look great, but the digital animation just doesn’t have the same charm to me as the original hand-drawn animation. I think for me, while I appreciate how colorful these seasons are, the colors are just… too perfect. The natural variation you get from physically painting cels just looks so much more soulful, and beautifully imperfect.
And also, the magic is… just not the same. Spells feel like the generic energy beams I bemoaned before, with way less focus on dynamic gestures while casting them. The new Dragon Slave is fine and all, but it’s got nothing on the ones from NEXT and TRY.
Now, I have to give Kanzaka props for the worldbuilding of Slayers, cuz there’s a reason people fall into a hyperfixation vortex with it. It isn’t a major focus of the series, instead always used to provide structure for whatever plotline we’re in at the moment. The rest sorta looms just out of sight, which helps you to feel anchored in a fleshed out, fully developed world. So I’m going to use this next section to vomit said worldbuilding at you in the most entertaining way I can manage, because I refuse to spiral alone.
The world of Slayers is marked by the eternal battle between good and evil, through the clash between the Gods and Monsters. In this case, the Gods are mostly dragons, while the Monsters are basically demons. Gods wanna protect and preserve the world, while Monsters wanna destroy it. Simple, effective, and immediately creates engaging conflict you can easily build upon.
At the dawn of the world, the leaders of the Gods fought an epic battle at its center. On the side of the Gods was the Red Dragon Cepheid, and for the Monsters, it was Ruby Eye Shabranigdo. Because their powers were equal, one couldn’t destroy the other.
Instead, Shabranigdo’s soul was split into seven shards, destined to reincarnate through human souls across the world. Cepheid, meanwhile, was divided into four elemental Dragon Kings, each residing in a corner of the world. This battle also destroyed the center of the supercontinent, hence why the world’s center is a massive ocean.
Despite this backdrop, it’s not the main thrust of the plot. The first story arc focuses on one of the shards of Shabranigdo reincarnating, but the rest of the show isn’t all that concerned with the Demon King, save for one of the anniversary seasons. There’s no, “Hunt down all seven shards and save the world.” No. The Demon King is just a permanent fixture in this world. Likewise, the Gods don’t really meddle in the affairs of men, save for the story of TRY, where they have mankind do their work for them.
1,000 years before the story began, one of the shards manifested in the form of Lei Magnus: a powerful sorcerer, and the man who created the Dragon Slave spell. When Shabranigdo possessed him, he rallied the Monster Race and began the War of the Monster’s Fall.
See, the Gods and Monster Race both work on a hierarchy. For the Monsters, you have Shabranigdo as the Demon King, and below him are his five generals: The Demon Lords, each with their own set of minions below them. Think MLMs, but demonic… wait actually, no, MLMs are pretty fucked themselves - YOU GET WHAT I’M SAYING.
First, you have Chaos Dragon Gaav, also known as the Demon Dragon King, who wields fire. Not all dragons in this world are divine. A lot of them are just normal creatures, but because all the Gods are dragons, Gaav is this sort of this bastardization of the Gods.
Then you have Hellmaster Phibrizzo, the lord of the dead with power over darkness and souls. He is a twisted son of a bitch, able to raise the dead as his puppets, and even kill a person in seconds by doing something as measly as crushing a glass ball. He and Gaav are the only ones who show up in the anime as actual antagonists, with the others either not appearing, or just remaining as cameos.
The others are the Supreme King Dynast Grausherra, with power over ice, Greater Beast Zelas Metallium, who presides over the beasts and lower monsters, and… Deep Sea Dolphin. Yes, her name is Dolphin, and yes, she has power over water. Don’t be mean to her. She’s adorable, and if Phibrizzo’s anything to go by, she’ll ruthlessly kill you for fun. Not too different from most dolphins I guess.
When the War of the Monster’s Fall began, Shabranigdo recruited Gaav to help kill the Water Dragon King, who resided in the part of the world Slayers is set in. To ensure the other Dragon Kings didn’t interfere, the other Demon Lords set themselves up around this part of the continent, in the north, south, east, and west, creating the Monster’s Barrier.
This barrier prevented the Gods from entering, but it also prevented humans within from leaving. This barrier is still in place when Slayers begin, isolating it from the rest of the world, which also has some fun implications later on.
The Water Dragon King managed to seal this fragment of Shabranigdo in ice, and trap Gaav in a human body, weakening him greatly and putting him into conflict with the rest of the Monster Race. Unfortunately, the Water Dragon King died as a result, though apparently part of his spirit reincarnated. According to the anime, one was as an anime-exclusive character we meet in NEXT, and another is as the Eternal Queen who rules over Lina’s home country of Zephilia. As far as I know, we never meet her, but it’s sounds cool as fuck.
And that’s one of the things I love about Slayers’ worldbuilding. So much of the world is shrouded in mystery, keeping us on the edge of our seats, wondering what else is out there. Keeping us in this one part of the world is a great way to make its own culture feel complex and rich without worrying about doing the same for an entire globe.
And so many elements - from different Dragon Kings to Demon Lords, to even relatives of our main characters - are never brought up in the story, but it’s done intentionally. Kanzaka believed that if you were to show your reader everything there is to see in your world, you’d wind up making it feel small. Keeping certain things a mystery, especially ones that aren’t plot-relevant, stimulates the viewer’s imagination.
And I also went into depth with the Monsters because they play into the magic system. In Slayers, sorcerers draw their power from the world around them, as well as from higher-level entities. Shamanistic magic is broken into the usual elements of water, fire, earth, and wind, along with astral shamanistic magic for your spirit-y attacks.
The names of these spells are kinda ridiculous, but phonetically, they have a certain punch to them I just can’t explain. Diem Wing, Mega Brand, Ra Tilt. Whenever you hear the characters yell out the spell names, you can’t help but feel their impact.
Then you’ve got white magic, which is reserved for healing and purification, and black magic, which is used for offense, and draws its power from the Monster Race. Certain spells will source their power from specific Dark Lords, like the Gaav Flare getting power from the Demon Dragon King himself, or the Dragon Slave sourcing its power… from Shabranigdo. Yep. Lina’s signature spell is powered by Satan. What a Satanic Panic icon.
But just because these spells source their magic from Dark Lords doesn’t mean they’re inherently evil. They’re very destructive, yes, but they can still be used for good. And moreover, these spells won’t work against the person they get their power from. Don’t ever try a Dragon Slave on Shabranigdo. He’ll literally just eat it and then vomit it right back at you. It adds interesting rules to the spells that force characters to use their magic intelligently.
Holy Magic is also one of those mysterious elements given no one can perform it. Because of the Monster’s Barrier, it’s impossible to call upon the power of the Dragon Kings, meaning Holy Magic has been lost in this part of the world since the War of the Monster’s Fall. It really adds to this level of hopelessness whenever the characters are up against a Dark Lord who’s resistant to the Dragon Slave, cuz you go “... How the FUCK do we kill him?!”
But best of all is the Lord of Nightmares. She’s a rather enigmatic character. The creator of all things, who is both everything and nothing all at once, also known as the Mother of All Things, the Golden Dark Lord, and the Sea of Chaos. Her powers act as a neutral third party of sorts, beyond both the Gods and Monsters, because she herself is a neutral third party.
Lina’s actually the one to develop spells deriving power from her. Firstly is the iconic Giga Slave, which is basically the Dragon Slave on steroids. The Giga Slave boils down to a black hole with the power to eradicate a Demon King entirely. However, you can’t just use it whenever you want. If you cast it incorrectly, the spell will go haywire, and basically consume the entire world.
The whole “The world will end” thing is kind of a false sense of tension, because 9 times outta 10, you’re not really gonna end the world, and savvy viewers understand that. But it’s still a great spectacle to behold, and winds up being a source of great drama in Slayers NEXT when an enemy tries to force Lina into casting the Giga Slave.
Fun fact: Lina apparently created the Giga Slave as a child, altering the Dragon Slave incantation to describe the Lord of Nightmares instead of Shabranigdo. Unless the Wiki is lying to me, the first attempt at 10 years old drained an entire lake, and to this day, nothing can grow or live there anymore. Wild shit.
Then you have my personal favorite: the Ragna Blade. It’s this huge sword or lance made of purple and black lightning, with the power to—in Lina’s words—“cut down the Gods themselves.” It’s a rather short-range spell, and it can’t quite kill a Dark Lord or Demon King like the Giga Slave, but it’s still an incredibly impressive spell.
What makes all of this work for me is the fact that the worldbuilding is always being used as a tool to make the story more interesting. It isn’t worldbuilding just for the sake of worldbuilding. What we do directly learn about always informs the direction of the plot, and explains the conflicts and dynamics between characters.
I was gonna dive into summarizing the seasons… but honestly, I think I’ll save that for another time. Mostly cuz the wordcount on this script is already insane, and I think I would actually like to save this for dedicated reviews of each season. If you’d like something of that in the meantime, again recommend KaiserBeamz’s videos.
So Slayers is great. It’s a fun series with great, memorable characters, surprisingly complex worldbuilding, and plenty of laughs and thrills for any lover of fantasy. Especially for people who love messy, sassy leading ladies who can level entire cities with the snap of just a finger.
Funimation is apparently on its deathbed and about to be consumed by Crunchyroll, because monopolies, so odds are it’ll be available there once Funi’s gone. In any case, I highly recommend it, especially dubbed.