The Slayers Try Volume 4   Starring (voice): Hikaru Midorikawa, Masami Suzuki, Megumi Hayashibara and Yasunori Matsumoto MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2269 Certificate: 12 Available 04 January 2010

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. Through her adventures, Lina has collected together a motley crew of friends to fight against the rising evil in the world. With their greatest battle behind them, a new era of exploration has opened when the magic barrier disappears from the kingdom opening up the outer lands for an enterprising sorceress and her motley crew...

Slayers Try: Volume 4 is the ultimate disc for this series and opens with episode 73, History Sealed Away! For fans of the pint-sized minx it has to be said that the last quarter of the series moves away from the central characters to let the peripheral characters take the narrative lead. This actually turns out to be a good thing and supplies the most satisfying ending of a Slayers series so far. In this episode Lina and her motley crew are still seeking the weapons they will need to seal the hole to the Overworld and thwart the evil machinations of Darkstar. Finally it seems that they are within reach of the final Darkstar weapon found in a desolate Dragon temple, but even the deadest area may be more alive than Lina would wish for.

Episode 74, A Cry To The Fallen!, and Lina is in a real fight with an honest to goodness dragon. In truth her plan almost succeeds until the betrayal of Xellos. Episode 75, Head For The Showdown!, and with Xellos holding the light bow, Lina and crew have to race back down the mountain before he can use it to open the portal to the Overworld. But will they be in time?

Episode 76, The Forbidden Gateway Is Open!, and episode 77, He Who Emerges from the Dark Star!, makes it only too clear that Lina is indeed too late as the dark lord moves into the world. Heading straight to the Dragon Temple, in the form of Valgaav, his only intent is the total destruction of all life so that he can mould the world into his own image. Against this the mortals stand unwilling to so easily give up their existence. With all the pieces in place the show heads for the inevitable showdown between good and evil in episode 78, Try Again.

The disc comes with a soundtrack choice of English or Japanese 2.0 with subtitles. I still remain less than impressed with the hand drawn cell animation, which makes the show look cheaper than it is. The disc has no extras.

This season has been a real mixture with some good story elements; some annoying filler side quests, but the whole thing redeems itself with a cracking ending. I'll not even mention the humour, by now it’s either the reason your buying the series or the reason you have stopped.

7

Charles Packer