So far as I noticed, no one really said much about this when it happened, but a new Slayers series premiered this past summer. Oh my goodness was that awesome.
Slayers isn’t for everyone, I suppose. Because some people suck. Really, though, I love comic fantasy, and Slayers is where it’s at for that. The first anime DVD I ever bought was Slayers: The Motion Picture. It’s one of the series I have to thank for my interest in anime at all, I believe.
Slayers has actually been there for me sometimes when life just sucked. That first anime DVD purchase I was talking about happened a few weeks into my freshman year of college. I was miserable. I’m only just now, seven years later, moving into a place where I could consider not living at home when I’m not attending school, so back then? Suck. I went home every weekend and didn’t miss anything, because the campus I went to was terrible. People who weren’t as tied to home as I was went home every weekend, because they had more to do there.
I was planning to transfer, which was its own wrench: near the end of my second semester I finally started hanging out with some of my high school friends who were at the same school, and my best friend was about to start there in the fall. Of course, I was also worried I wouldn’t be able to transfer, due to financial issues, so I was afraid I’d be stuck at the same terrible place for another year, maybe three more. I spent the weekends at home at that time watching Slayers Try a lot. The local video place in my hometown had all of it (as well as Dragon Half and some really shitty stuff, like Maze).
So move all the way to 2008 from 2001. I’d come a long way. Summer. I could drive on interstates without panicking. I’d had two girlfriends, one serious (or, perhaps, srs bns). I was halfway through my second graduate-level degree. And, lo, again there was Slayers. I spent several days at a friend’s place, playing DnD, Rock Band, and generally being a huge nerd with a bunch of huge nerds, a few days after my girlfriend broke up with me (yes, I know I mentioned this already. It’s important moments of 2008 and that’s when this happened, what do you think’s going to dominate my thinking? I’m not retconning my emotional state for your convenience). Checking some websites on my friend’s computer, I saw a new Slayers series was airing. My mindset is important here. Depressed — fuck yes. However, I had also basically assumed I would never see another full series. They (whoever “they” are in this case) seemed content to release OVAs every so often. One of the first things I did when I got back home was to download the first episode of Slayers Revolution, and it was great. It was also the first episode of anime I watched after the dumping, as I couldn’t stand to sit alone in front of a computer for a little while. I was so excited about it all that I broke out the seventh Slayers novel, which I hadn’t read yet, and read that, marking the first book I’d managed to sit down and read. Again, alone with whatever recriminations I might manage to find = bad times.
The thing about Slayers, I think, is that it might not be the most brilliant, artistic work ever done, but it seems to have stayed precisely consistent over the years. Obviously one has to agree that Slayers Try is good to agree with that statement. And Revolution delivered. The ED song, with its shouted beginning “This isn’t the end!” was obviously a balm to me — at a time when all I could think about were endings, the song reminded me that something good that’s threaded through my life for a very long time is still going. And that’s great.
Of course, I haven’t finished watching the new series yet. . . But if you keep up at all you know I’m terrible about stopping halfway through, usually because, subconsciously, I’m enjoying it too much to let it end. Oops.
[...] dont get it. Whats with those constant post about Twelve Moments in Anime or Twelve Days of Christmas or whatever it [...]
[...] Chuchlann: Slayers [...]
Let me just try to wrap my mind around this. Your breakup was so bad that you couldn’t read? I mean, shit. And I thought my last one was pretty bad.
Speaking of which, I suppose anime helped me out during my situation, too, but it was too long ago to work into the twelve moments. You may hear more about it, though, if I find something in your posts that sounds similar. I’m not one to pass up an opportunity to sympathize with fellow shaftees. Which are, you know, people who got the shaft.
And not people who work for Shaft? Or women who understand Shaft?
Yeah. I did read a bit — specifically, a collection of all Purcell’s Sam & Max comics, but anything else was too taxing.
Of course, this may have more to do with how it was my first real relationship, and I was 24, so it was either going to whimper or bang — and managed to do both, sorta.
[...] very hard to transfer to another school and the decision was, by that point, out of my hands. Slayers has a habit of turning up when I’m feeling [...]