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lead=yes is a Japanese light novel series written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. The novels have been serialized in Dragon Magazine since 1989, before being published into individual volumes. They follow the adventures of teenage sorceress Lina Inverse and her companions as they journey through their world. Using powerful magic and swordsmanship they battle overreaching wizards, demons seeking to destroy the world, and an occasional hapless gang of bandits.
Slayers inspired several spin-off novel series and has been adapted into numerous manga titles, anime television series, anime films, OVA series, role-playing video games, and other media. Including the spin-off series and digital copies, the novels have sold over 22 million copies. The anime series is considered to be one of the most popular of the 1990s.
In the world where the Slayers takes place, Flare Dragon Ceifeed and the Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu are, respectively, the supreme god and demon. Long ago, their war ended more or less in a stalemate, when Ceifeed was able to split Shabranigdu's existence into seven pieces in order to prevent him from coming back to life, then seal them within human souls. As the souls are reincarnated, the individual fragments would wear down until Shabranigdu himself would be destroyed. However, Ceifeed was so exhausted by this that he himself sank into the Sea of Chaos, leaving behind four parts of himself in the world. A millennium before the events in Slayers, one of Ruby-Eye's fragments (which was sealed in the body of Lei Magnus, a very powerful sorcerer) revived and began the alternately "War of Demon Conquering" against one of the parts of Ceifeed, the Water Dragon King, also known as Aqualord Ragradia. Ultimately, the piece of Shabranigdu won, but Aqualord, using the last remnants of her power, sealed him into a block of magical ice within the Kataart Mountains. Nevertheless, Shabranigdu's lieutenants remained at liberty, sealing a part of the world within a magical barrier, through which only demons could pass. Slayers novel 7, Tokyopop translation, pp. 137–138.
There are four types of magic within the Slayers universe: Black, White, Shamanistic, and Holy. Black magic spells, such as the famous Dragon Slave, call directly on the powers of the demons and are capable of causing enormous damage. White magic spells are of an obscure origin and are used for healing or protection. Shamanistic magic is focused on manipulation and alteration of the basic elements of the natural world (earth, wind, fire, water and spirit) and contains spells for both offense and convenience, such as Lei Wing, Fireball, or Elemekia Lance. Holy magic uses the power of the gods, but the aforementioned barrier made its usage impossible for anyone inside before the death of the demon Hellmaster Phibrizzo. As a rule, demons can only be harmed by astral shamanistic magic, holy magic, or black magic which draws power from another demon with greater might than the target.
Above all other magic, however, are the immensely destructive spells drawing power from the Lord of Nightmares. The two spells of this class are the Ragna Blade, capable of cutting through any obstacle or being, and the Giga Slave, which can kill any opponent, but which could also destroy the world itself if the spell is miscast. Some have claimed that these terrible spells, drawing their power directly from the Lord of Nightmares, constitute a fifth form of magic: Chaos magic.
Kanzaka described his writing process as like trying to put together puzzle pieces that have been scattered about, figuring stuff out as he goes instead of following an outline written beforehand. As a new author, he said he was not good at submitting plot summaries to his supervisor, who wanted them before he started writing. When the supervisor passively accepted the plot summary of the third Slayers novel, but was then ecstatic with the finished book, he stopped asking for plot summaries. Kanzaka assumed that he had finally realized that the finished story was always going to widely diverge from the initial summary. The first three books were written as the author thought up stories, but volume four on tell a grander epic. Because the first novel was written as a one-off before evolving into a series, there are some inconsistencies with the later installments. A few of these inconsistencies were corrected in the 2008 reprints.
Kanzaka stated the reason Zelgadis and Amelia do not appear in "part 2" is because of the plot point concerning a character's death. Although he speculated he could have written around the healing spells, it would have taken a lot of extra steps to get there and dragged everything out a lot longer than necessary. In the afterward of the fifteenth novel, the original final installment of the series, Kanzaka said he wanted to end the story in an open-ended way in order to allow readers to imagine what happens next to Lina and Gourry. He also described the Slayers video games, television shows, and comics as "parallel part 3 stories".
Kanzaka makes references to people and events not depicted in the novels, such as Lina's older sister and Gourry Gabriev's first visit to Sairaag, which he referred to as "flavor" to stimulate the reader's imagination and clarified that they are not foreshadowing. He explained that the fictional world would feel smaller if everything that appears in the story is explained; something he learned from a teacher's comment in design school. Although some of these he has not even thought about, like Gourry's visit to Sairaag, others he has created a backstory to, such as Lina's sister. Zuma's backstory was omitted because the novels are told from Lina's first-person perspective, but Kanzaka gave some of the material to the staff of Slayers Revolution so it could be included in the anime.
On September 7, 2004, Tokyopop began publishing the novels in English, (2004). 9781595320940, TokyoPop. ISBN 9781595320940 ending with the release of volume 8 on January 2, 2008. (2008). 9781427805058, TokyoPop. ISBN 9781427805058 On July 3, 2020, J-Novel Club announced their rescue license of the series at Anime Expo Lite. They first release the novels digitally, with the first chapter uploaded to their website that day. Their physical release of Slayers began in July 2021 and is a 3-1 hardcover omnibus edition based on Japan's 2008 revised edition that featured new illustrations and covers.
Between July 26, 2008, and March 2009, a new manga series entitled スレイヤーズ ライト・マジック was serialised in Kadokawa Shoten's Kerokero Ace. The series was written by Yoshijirō Muramatsu and illustrated Shin Sasaki, and set in a technological world instead of a fantasy world.
In July 1998, Central Park Media announced they had licensed the manga for distribution in North America. On June 15, 1999, Slayers: Medieval Mayhem was released. (1999). 9781562199135, CPM Manga. ISBN 9781562199135 The four-volume series Slayers Special was published between October 12, 2002, and June 25, 2003. (2002). 9781586648657, CPM Manga. ISBN 9781586648657 (2026). 9781586649029, CPM Manga. ISBN 9781586649029 A seven-volume series Super-Explosive Demon Story followed between July 9, 2002, and December 1, 2004. (2026). 9781586648664, CPM Manga. ISBN 9781586648664 (2026). 158664937X, CPM Manga. 158664937X Finally, Slayers Premium was published in North America on July 5, 2005. (2005). 9781586649739, CPM Manga. ISBN 9781586649739
A fourth anime series, Slayers Revolution, premiered in Japan on July 2, 2008. Megumi Hayashibara, the voice actress for main character Lina Inverse, performed both the opening and ending theme songs. The new plot is told across two 13-episode arcs and follows an original storyline that has subplots based on events in the novels, with series director Takashi Watanabe and production studio J.C.Staff reprising their duties from the three original TV series. A fifth Slayers series titled Slayers Evolution-R is the second 13-episode arc of Slayers Revolution and was aired on AT-X starting on January 12, 2009, in Japan.
Central Park Media licensed and distributed the anime in North America under the Software Sculptors label on VHS and Laserdisc between 1996 and 1998, collected in eight volumes. It was a commercial success for Central Park, which led them to license Slayers Next and Slayers Try; Next was first shipped from April 1999 in a similar format; a box set of the first four volumes was released in July of that same year, and a box set of the second four volumes in October. Slayers Try was released later in 2000. The first three seasons were subsequently re-released on DVD (in season box sets). Months before Central Park's license for the anime properties expired, Funimation Entertainment was able to obtain the license and it aired as part of the new owner's programming block on CoLours TV, as well as the Funimation Channel. The first bilingual DVD box set after Funimation's rescue of the license was released on August 21, 2007, retaining the Software Sculptors-produced English dub. A boxset of Slayers, Next and Try was released by Funimation on August 4, 2009.
Fox Kids won the rights to broadcast Slayers but eventually did not air the anime since it would be too heavy to edit it for content. The first North American television broadcast of The Slayers was February 17, 2002 on the AZN Television. In 2009, MVM Films began releasing the series in the United Kingdom on a monthly basis. The first series was released on four DVDs between January 5, and April 6, 2009. The first volume of Slayers Next was released on May 11, 2009. Episodes have also been made available on the streaming video sites Hulu, YouTube, Crackle, Anime News Network, Netflix, and Funimation's website.
Funimation licensed both Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R for American release; the episodes in Japanese with English subtitles were uploaded to YouTube, as well as Funimation's website in July 2009. Funimation contracted NYAV Post to produce the English version of the series, with dialogue being recorded in both New York City and Los Angeles. NYAV Post was able to reunite most of the original Central Park Media main character cast for the new season. However, Michael Sinterniklaas replaced David Moo as Xellos. Other notable characters, such as Sylphiel, Prince Phil, and Naga the Serpent were also recast with new voice actors. Funimation released the first Slayers Revolution boxset on March 16, 2010. Funimation released the first four English-dubbed episodes of Slayers Revolution to YouTube on January 19, 2010. They have also uploaded the first two English-dubbed episodes of Evolution-R to YouTube and released Evolution-R on DVD in June 2010. Funimation released both Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R on Blu-ray on October 26, 2010. Both Revolution and Evolution-R made their North American television debut when they began airing on the Funimation Channel on September 6, 2010.
Most of the films were produced by J.C.Staff and licensed for home video release in North America by ADV Films. Slayers Premium was animated by Hal Film Maker.
In North America, Slayers Special was initially sold as two separate titles, Slayers: Dragon Slave and Slayers: Explosion Array on VHS by licensee ADV Films. All three episodes were later compiled into Slayers: The Book of Spells, shipped on November 21, 2000.
The entire discography of Slayers was made available for digital streaming on September 10, 2025.
Of the various media which make up the Slayers franchise, the anime has by far reached the largest audience and is considered to be one of the most popular series of the 1990s, both in Japan and abroad. As it is a parody of the high fantasy genre, the series' driving force lies in comic scenarios alluding to other specific anime, or more general genre tropes and clichés. Its focus on humor and entertainment and "old school" anime feel make it a nostalgic classic to many. According to Anime News Network's Daryl Surat, 1996 was the best year of Slayers anime with the releases of Next and Return. Slayers Next took the third place as the overall best anime of 1996 in the Anime Grand Prix '97 awards (in addition to winning in the category best female character), while the next year's series Slayers Try placed second but technically also third (the first place was a tie between the films Mononoke Hime and The End of Evangelion) in 1998.
Slayers was sometimes compared with Record of Lodoss War, another hit Japanese fantasy franchise that began around the same time. In Anime Essentials: Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know, Gilles Poitras wrote: "More humorous and less serious looking than the characters in the Lodoss War series, the stars of Slayers provide action and laughs." In , Helen McCarthy similarly called it "the antidote to the deadly serious Record of Lodoss War, with a cynical cast modeled on argumentative role-players. (...) Ridiculing its own shortcomings, Slayers has successfully kept a strong following that watches for what some might call biting satire, and others bad workmen blaming their tools."Helen McCarthy, , p. 591. Joseph Luster of Otaku USA called it "the very definition of an all-encompassing media franchise. (...) Slayers certainly has that in its memorable lineup, and they'll likely cast some sort of spell on you, regardless of age." Paul Thomas Chapman from the same magazine voiced a more reserved opinion on the "franchise whose remarkable longevity and popularity is matched only by its remarkable averageness," especially regarding various aspects of the TV series, to which nevertheless he returned for "light entertainment".
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