The Slayers Next Volume 3   Starring (voice): Hikaru Midorikawa, Masami Suzuki, Megumi Hayashibara and Yasunori Matsumoto MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2263 Certificate: 12 Available 13 July 2009

Lina Inverse is your average sorceress and bane of bandits, putting them down wherever she finds them. Okay, so she keeps a little of the loot rather than returning it - a girl’s got to make a living. On one particular sortie against bandits, a small, seemingly innocuous, statue comes into her possession which will change her world forever and place her on a path that may save the planet...

The Slayers Next: Vol 3 and we are into the penultimate disc of this second series. When we left our heroic travellers Lina, Amelia, Gowry and Zelgadis they were on a quest to find the Calire Bible - the only object with a spell powerful enough to defeat The Dragon Lord, Garp. Read on...

Episode forty: The Forbidden Dance. Where is the Strongest Spell?: Mi-mi and ni-ni try to stop Lena and her party from retrieving a powerful spell book, which they believe to be the Claire Bible. Undeterred the group enter an underground temple, where they find the book. When they are attacked Amelia and Lina have to dress in skimpy outfits and perform a musical number, only to discover that the book isn’t all that they thought. I honestly didn’t think that this show could get any sillier until I watched this episode where the comedy has been pushed way beyond anything I was expecting

Episode forty-one: A Big Crash! The Battle at Artemay Tower and the gang head out on another dead end quest for the Claire Bible. This time they think that they will find it in the Tower of Artemay. The tower is not unguarded, Joe the monster lurks waiting for unwary travellers so he can attack them with dolls. The party decide to disguise themselves as various stuffed toys and enter the tower. The dolls attack, Amelia gets involved in a cooking challenge, but eventually their tests are overcome and the party finally face Joe. What can I say? Silly, Silly, Silly.

Episode forty-two: Bitter Curve Balls! Gutsy Fast Balls and the search continues. This time Lina is convinced that the prize for an enchanted brass rackets contest is the Bible. Lina isn’t the only one who has entered the competition and Lina faces off against Amelia and Zerros, who she beats easily. But the final match is against Martina. Lina wins out but the Bible turns out to have been another dead ed.

Episode forty-three: They’re Talking About A Girl Called Zelgais and the party is off to an all female city, where men are banned on pain of death. So, of course, Gowry and Zelgadis have to dress as females, which allows the boys to get in touch with their softer sides. There is a little side story about Zelgadis meeting Mivan, who by the close of the story also turns out to be a boy. Of course there is a monster to battle and another dead end in their search for the bible. Cross dressing and sexually ambiguity crop up a lot in Japanese anime, must be a cultural thing. Another silly episode, but with no progress in the plot the shows, so far, feels like, a lame monster of the week show.

The next three stories can be considered as a single entity. Episode forty-four: The Temple of Sand! The Secret of the Giga Slave; Episode forty-five: Disclosure at last! Xellos’s True Form and Episode forty-six: Set Course for the Dragon Valley. The party finally seem to have reliable information as to where a Claire Bible can be found so they make for a nearby castle. Although there are numerous copies, the librarian, Aqua, tells them that he can help them find a real copy, but Garp is still on their tail and without the Bible they have little chance of standing up to him let alone winning. Before Lina is prepared Garp attacks and nearly defeats the party. Aqua intervenes, defending them from Garp, and finally sending them to safety with the knowledge of where the real Bible can be found. In the Dragon Valley Lina is close to the object of her quest, when Garp attacks again...

Setup is fairly straightforward with the selection limited to either an English or Japanese 2.0 audio track, with subtitles. Both tracks give a good response for the vocals with a little bit more bass punch for the fight scenes. Extras, well there are none unless you consider trailers - Shakugan no SHANA (1 min, 30 sec), Starship Operators (2 min, 19 sec) - and the DVD credits. The show is presented in its original aspect ratio of 4:3.

The animation remains a little on the crude side for my personal tastes, but the jokes come thick and fast. The first couple of the episodes are too similar, but the pace picks up with the last third.

5

Charles Packer