Slayers

"Where monsters rampage, I'm there to take them down! Where treasure glitters, I'm there to claim it! Where an enemy rises to face me, victory will be mine!"
—Lina's opening-credits Catch Phrase from the first anime season

A series of sword-and-sorcery light novels with equal parts comedy and drama that was adapted into an anime series. Has five TV seasons, six OVAs, five movies, six video games and a whole lot of manga made. Became extremely popular in the West, in part because of its quirk of having a female as the lead in a Shounen series.

Slayers (marketed as The Slayers in the U.S.) started as a serialized novel in the Japanese "Dragon" Magazine (no relation to the American one of the same name). Originally it was supposed to follow the adventures of the Cephied Knight, a champion for good named Luna Inverse. However, when filling out her background the writer found her little sister Lina far more interesting.

Lina is a young and very powerful sorceress. She wanders the world looking for treasure to steal and magic to learn. Unfortunately (from her point of view), she tends to end up in situations where she's got to save the world instead of just make a fast buck. She will attempt to wring money out of most situations, such as once extorting gold from a town that was actively being ravaged by a dragon. She's also got an amazing temper, having destroyed both the dragon and the town she was protecting with one spell because the dragon embarrassed her by not stepping on her. She still expected to get paid, too. She has earned the titles "Bandit Slayer" (it's not stealing if they've already stolen it!), "Dragon Spooker", and "Enemy Of All That Live" in a few short years.

Much to Lina's chagrin, she ends up with a group of people following her around, usually because they're all trying not to get killed by something. In the OVAs, set before the TV show, this is the deranged sorceress Naga, who believes Lina is following her around as her rival. In the TV series, this is the dumb-as-a-jellyfish swordsman Gourry Gabriev, the justice-obsessed princess Amelia, the taciturn chimera Zelgadis, the self-proclaimed "mysterious priest" Xellos, and occasionally the shrine maiden Sylphiel.

She eventually comes to like them, and is beginning to fall for Gourry by the end of Next. She'll deny it if asked, and insists she's only after Gourry's sword.

The series alternates between serious fights and quests to save the world and silly slapstick humor. There is one Cross Dressing episode per season, and they will sometimes take breaks in the middle of serious story arcs or fights for semi-plot-related silliness. It manages to find a nice balance, and is one of the must-see series for Medieval European Fantasy.

This show has the first two seasons up legally on hulu, Funimation's video portal, and YouTube (though Hulu and Funimation's site can't stream these outside the US, their YouTube channel may be under the same restriction). All five seasons are currently available on DVD. The English translations of the first eight novels are out of print, but still relatively easy to find used. The manga are slightly harder to come by outside of Japan: while seven volumes of the manga following the main TV series arc were translated, they've been largely neglected, although fan translations have covered a lot of ground on the various manga miniseries, including Knight Of Aqua Lord and Hourglass of Falces.

Not to be confused with the band Slayer or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Has a Character Sheet.

Tropes used in Slayers include:

A

  • Above Good and Evil: The Golden Lord/Lord of Nightmares was the original creator of both the Mazoku and the Gods, but seems to side with neither. When a powerful Mazoku gets the bright idea to use her power for his particular purpose (destroying the world), she just blasts him into nothingness. After making world-destroyers and world-protectors, she's mostly absent, but sometimes meddles anyway. If she has an agenda besides just sitting back and watching what happens, we never find out what it is.
  • The Abridged Series: projectshadow99's The Slayers Abridged.
  • Absolute Cleavage: Naga, Martina, Eris, Mazenda - in each case leading to A-Cup Angst for Lina.
  • Abuse Is Okay When Its Female On Male: This is exactly how Lina and Gourry's relationship works a lot of the time.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: In the finale of Next, when The Lord of Nightmares is floating away in Lina's body, Gourry goes after her in an attempt to get Lina back. Exactly what Gourry intended to do when he caught up with her is a mystery, as he can't exactly stab the creator of all things out of Lina. Fortunately, the Lord of Nightmares decides to give Lina back after witnessing this.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Blast Sword, from the second arc of the novels, is so sharp that it can actually cut through astral beings like Mazoku, who can't ordinarily be harmed by physical attacks.
  • Action Girl: Lina, Amelia and several others.
  • Adaptation Dye Job: Lina's hair color has shifted over the years: she began as a brunette (older novels), transitioning to a coppery red color (older anime seasons and later main novels), and finally to bright red (newer anime and Special novels). Amelia and Xellos both have black hair in the novels which are stylized purple, while both of their hair is straight-up purple in the anime. Finally, Zelgadis' skin in the older books is a greenish color, his hair is silver, and his eyes are purple. In the anime, his eyes and skin are blue and his hair is purple. Art Evolution in the novels now has his novel design more resemble his anime design. His one unique trait in the novels, however, is a bridge of stone stuck between his left eyelids.
  • Aerith and Bob
  • All Love Is Unrequited:
    • Novels only: Luke, a former assassin, is in love with his partner (and the one who convinced him to change his ways) Milina; Milina does not acknowledge his feelings at all. In the Hourglass of Falces manga (in which both of them are regular members of the group), however, it's shown that she somewhat reciporacates them.
    • Eris and Ozzel to Rezo.
    • Sylphiel to Gourry.
  • Aloof Big Sister: Luna Inverse hasn't even actually appeared in the series, yet just the implication of her is enough to strike mortal terror in Lina. In all fairness, she brought it on herself.
    • Lina is capable of defeating gods, and even summoning the creator of all things. Yet when a servant of the gods comes looking for someone to save the world, they contact Luna first. Think about that for a moment.
    • Well, to be fair, Lina's pretty destructive, so they probably think she's a last resort WMD.
  • Alternate Continuity: Numerous.
    • The main series of novels (Slayers) serves as the first. It is split into two arcs (1-8, 9-15), with the former storyline also existing in anime and manga form.
    • The anime (Slayers, Next, Try, Revolution, Evolution-R, as well as the Premium movie), serves as the second, based on the first arc of the novels. Directly contradicts the novels in places (and itself).
    • The Knight of the Aqua Lord manga is officially recognized as a third continuity (splitting from the novel verse after volume 8), and exists as another alternate second arc, standing alongside novels 9-15 and Try as an original story directly following the first arc.
    • The Lina and Naga adventures (the Special novels, Special and Excellent OVAs, and first four movies) are canon back story to all three.
    • Additionally, manga adaptations exist for the first two anime seasons, Revolution, and Evolution-R, as well as two other manga series, Slayers: Light-Magic and Neo-Slayers: The Hourglass of Falces, with Hourglass of Falces as possibly the first entry in a new ongoing fourth continuity.
    • Additionally additionally, five video games, two named just Slayers, then Royal, Royal 2 for Sega Saturn/PlayStation, and Wonderful for the PlayStation, none of which are considered canon.
  • Affably Evil: Rezo is a bishonen who is unsettlingly calm and polite.
    • Xellos, particularly the anime incarnation, is generally polite, well-mannered and charming... until he decides to remind the viewers that he's part of a race of Chaotic Evil Omnicidal Maniacs.
  • All There in the Manual: Interviews with the author of the novels are found in the back of every Slayers novel. They're one of the few sources of info in regards to how the world works, because most of the media do not elaborate about how magic works, character backgrounds, and overarching stories (such as both the war between Shabranigdo and Ciefeed and the Mazoku war that made the Inner World barrier) beyond some basic facts. For example, everything about Gourry's backstory is in interviews only. There are several guidebooks out now as well, but they're hardly elaborate - one of them has profiles for Satellite Characters Luke and Millina, but they have no established backgrounds given.
  • Exclusively Evil: The Mazoku/Monsters.

Shabranigdu: The power of the Monster race flows from [...] terror, anger, sorrow, despair.

  • Always Save the Girl: In this case it's Always Save The Boy. Lina uses a spell that might well destroy the world if cast incorrectly, simply because there's no other way to save Gourry. In the anime, she does so more than once.
  • Anachronism Stew: Quite a few, all Played for Laughs. The most prominent would be clothing, ranging from typical fantasy armors and robes, to modern-looking sun dresses and t-shirt/pants combos. Zelgadis wears a hooded sweatshirt of all things in an episode of Revolution.
  • Ancient Keeper: Auntie Aqua in Slayers Next.
  • And I Must Scream: The original fate of Daymia in the novels is... not pretty.
  • Animated Adaptation: Originally a serialized set of novels.
  • Animated Armor: Nama and the Dullahan, both in Evolution-R.
  • Anime Theme Song, sung by Megumi Hayashibara. And not just one; all 14 of the anime theme songs have been sung by her.
  • Anti-Magic:
    • The Spell "Flow Break" dispels everything but White Magic and causes animation spells (such as armor and Golem) to stop working.
    • There was a Magitek train in Try that ran on magic; the power source absorbed all magic, making attack spells about as useful as throwing toy squibs and defence spells almost as effective as a tin garbage-can lid.
  • Apocalypse How: Across three of the five seasons of the anime and in a few novels, the Big Bad usually shoots for Class X (obliteration of the planet), irregardless of their reasons why.
  • Ars Goetia: The series borrows the symbols in the Ars Goetia for use to symbolize the higher level Mazoku: http://kanzaka.wikia.com/wiki/Ars_Goetia
  • Art Evolution: It's obvious there would be some of this, considering that the first anime season aired in 1995 and the most recent came out in 2009, but even watching the third season (Try) and going back to the first is pretty jarring. Gourry and Lina's character designs in particular have changed quite a bit over the years, to the point that Lina's hair has even changed color from reddish-brown to bright red over time.
    • This also occurs in the original novels' artwork. Older drawings of the characters and the first five novels or so are much more detailed in regards to the characters' clothing and the backgrounds, and the eyes and faces of the females are very rounded. Later novels and art overall are less detailed, the eyes (such as Lina's, Gourry's, and Amelia's) are sharper, and faces are a bit more deformed. Gourry in particular looks much, much different in the early years of the franchise, and in the final novel he almost looks like a different person.
    • It's also worth nothing that, when the covers of the novels were re-drawn, Rui Araizumi drew Zelgadis a bit more in the likeness of his anime design, even making his skin blue (in the novels his skin is greenish).
    • And the art of the Super Explosive Demon Story manga starts off similar to the novels (highly detailed, fluid poses, rounded figures) and deteriorates overtime (stiff poses, no conservation of detail, etc.).
  • Ascended Extra: Technically Amelia and Zelgadis, considering the fact that they do not appear in the second arc of the novels at all, whereas they are major characters in the anime and most of the manga and games.
    • By contrast, Luke and Milina, Lina and Gourry's two other party members from the second arc, only appear outside the novels in the Hourglass of Falces manga, where they are part of a six-man band instead.
    • Xellos only appears in five of the novels (cameoing in the last one), so technically he could be this, especially considering his role and given relationship with Filia in TRY.
    • And because of his role in the fourth and fifth seasons, Rezo also qualifies.
  • Audible Sharpness: Most of the swordsmen, especially Gourry and Zangulus.
  • Audio Adaptation: Ten, all of them made well after the three early anime seasons aired. Among them is a crossover with the cast of the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen series.
  • Autobots Rock Out: The whole cast in the end of Evolution-R fighting to the tune of "Give a Reason".
  • Avenging the Villain: Eris, Valgaav, Jillas.
  • Ax Crazy: Many characters have occasions of this, but Lina tops them all by a long shot.

B

  • Badass Adorable: Amelia and Pokota.
  • Badass Cape: All the main characters have these, along with most other fighters and magicians.
  • Badass Longcoat: Gaav.
  • Badass Normal: Gourry, helped slightly by a legendary magical sword.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Brought to you by Ship Tease courtesy of Filia and Xellos.
  • Beta Baddie: Copy Rezo.
  • Berserk Button: Lina has lots of these. Particularly involving interrupting (or stealing) her meals, her appearance, her 1,001 nicknames, or her status as a Pettanko.
    • Filia herself has a Xellos-shaped berserk button. Well justified since Xellos has murdered thousands of other dragons.
    • Zelgadis has a much more subtle one and it's not played for laughs most of the time: his chimeric body. The only times he ever loses his cool is when he thinks he's found a way to be human again, then finds out he's wrong.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Amelia's normally a sweet girl, but if you endanger someone she cares about, watch out!
  • Beyond the Impossible: The magic of the series is theurgic magic (meaning it draws from faith in Gods or Demons). Martina uses a curse, on raw willpower, drawing from the energy of a spirit that doesn't actually exist, since she made it up. Granted, it isn't nearly as impressive as nearly anyone's magic, but that she can use this at all, even for minor curses or dowsing, is, well... a bit insane.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Prince Phil does this at the end of the first season to help Lina and the others. Subverted, as it only leads to the rest of them having to save him.
  • Big Eater: Lina, Gourry, Amelia and Zelgadis at least. Amelia is just politer about it. This is actually justified in Lina's case due to her use of high level spells like Dragon Slave taking a lot of energy and burning a lot of calories in the process, which raises her hunger substantially.
  • Big Little Man: The first episode doesn't give any way of determining Lina's height until she meets up with Gourry.
  • Big Screwed-Up Family: Word of God states that Gourry came from one, and this is why he became a lone mercenary in the first place. His entire family screwed itself over in who would possess the Sword of Light, and it's implied that most of his immediate family is dead because of it.
  • Bilingual Bonus/Meaningful Name: In Spanish, Rezo's name means "prayer." In the Latin American dub, Lina is known as Rina. Her name is similar to riña, which means "quarrel."
  • Bishounen: This show may actually beat out Yu-Gi-Oh for the sheer amount of girly-looking men in it. Gourry, Xellos, Zangulus, Rezo, Gaav, the list goes on.
    • Really, Prince Phil is the only exception, and jokes are made about him NOT being Bishounen. Apparently in the Slayers universe, being strong and not bishounen makes you a bandit.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lina, despite her cute and petite appearance, qualifies for this so much.
  • Bittersweet Ending: As of the ending of Evolution-R Pokota has got his kingdom and father back, but he's still stuck as a stuffed toy, his real body destroyed in the fight against Shabranigdu.
  • Black and Gray Morality: The villains are more villainous than the heroes are heroic.
  • Black Comedy Rape:
    • Only in the Japanese version of the first light novel, in regards to Noonsa and the "mating joke" (See Crowning Moment of Funny above); Zolf suggested raping Lina when Zelgadis captures her in that version. When it was translated by Tokyopop, the kiss joke was inserted instead; the Japanese version of the anime carried the "kiss" notion as well.
    • In the third volume of Super Explosive Demon Story Slayers, when Zelgadis' pack captures Lina. Even though she's in trouble, she mocks Zolf ("Mr Mummy"), and the guy gets so pissed he tries to convince his comrades to rape her.
  • Blinding Bangs: Luna.
  • Blood From the Mouth: Happens during the rougher battles regularly, but it happens to Zelgadis the most. Reasonably, it notifies when his invulnerability is waning, thus signifying that shit will hit the fan.
    • It randomly happens to him in The Reveal of episode 10 of Evolution-R when Rezo tells him that he cannot become a human again; of course, it's presumably symbolic.
  • Bloodless Carnage: In all of the anime adaptations, this is played straight until roughly the final third of each season, when the plot finally sets into its climax and the battles become more intense.
  • Bodyguard Crush: Gourry towards Lina, in the anime.
    • Also Jillas towards Filia at the end of Try, though it seems to be less romantic then simple devotion for her kindness.
  • Body Horror: The Ragunut Rushavna spell, only seen in the novels, turns the victim into a fleshy piece of meat that is repeatedly eaten by snakes for eternity; the victim suffers from this pain endlessly until the caster - usually a Monster - is destroyed. Daymia, a minor character, suffers this fate in the novels (whereas in the anime, he was merely turned to stone).
  • Book Ends: Rezo-Shabranigdu is the first major enemy that Lina and her crew battle in the first season and he comes back as the final villain at the end of Evolution-R.
  • Bottle Fairy: Naga the Serpent.
  • Boring Invincible Hero: Regularly quite subverted when things get serious. Multiple times Lina and co. have defeated their massively more potent adversaries purely through sheer luck. To make a list, Shabranigdo was killed the first time using a spell that had an equal chance of ending the entire world as it did just being the ultimate offensive spell, and Lina wasn't even sure if the spell would work in the first place, and even then she only had the time to do it because Rezo held back his defenses. Gaarv was heavily wounded by Lina's Ragna Blade, but it STILL wasn't enough to kill them and would have slaughtered them if Fibrizio hadn't intervened. Fibrizio obviously massively outclassed the group when he demonstrated that he could pretty much kill them at will without any real effort on his part while effortlessly shrugging off all of their attacks, and only won because L-sama didn't really give much of a toss about what was going on either way. So far the only Big Bad's in the series that Lina has killed without casting an incredibly risky spell that has a fifty percent chance of ending reality are Copy Rezo and Dark Star Dugradigdu. At the end of Evolution-R, Lina casts successful Giga Slave for exactly the second time ever to kill Shabranigdo yet again, and though he was massively weakened from the form she encountered originally, the team STILL couldn't really kill him without Pokota's act of self-sacrifice doing the same thing Rezo did the first time.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Pokota definitely had his moments of this.
  • Breath Weapon: Most dragons seem to have one. Golden Dragons in particular have laser breath, which they're shown to be able to use even in human form -- Filia's tendency to use hers when she's aggravated with Xellos is frequently played for comedic effect.
  • Broken Pedestal: Zelgadis once fought on Rezo's behalf, believing he was the generous healer most people believe (and also because Rezo is his guardian and great-grandfather). This all changed when he found out how far Rezo was willing to go to cure his blindness, including experimenting on Zelgadis, and worse, willing to risk the destruction of the entire world.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Literally, with Amelia in Evolution-R breaking her arm trying to hold back one of the Big Bad's attacks with her bare fists.
  • But Your Wings Are Beautiful: Not even stone-studded green-blue skin can deter Amelia's (nor the fangirls') interest in Zelgadis.

C

  • Calling Your Attacks: Every magic spell. Justified in non-anime material -- mastery of magic in the Slayers setting is accomplished by skill with "Chaos Words", the incantations. The more powerful a sorcerer is, the less words they need; simply invoking the name is all the good wizards actually need to cast a spell. And if they use more Chaos Words than they actually need, the power of the spell is amplified further. This also means that only the very best wizards in the world can actually cast a spell without even speaking its name.
    • Also subverted: Lina once called Fireball, causing her opponents to flee in terror, but cast only a simple Light spell.
    • Amelia's dad Phil also likes doing this ("Pacifist Crush!", "Kindness to All Creatures Kick!", "Good Will Towards Men Smash!", "Joyful Reunion Bearhug!", "Benevolent Giant Swing!", "Brothers Unite Hand Slap!").
  • Canon Foreigner: Any of the original characters from the video games, which are officially non-canon.
  • Care Bear Stare: In one episode of Try, Amelia, Gourry and Zelgadis incapacitated Xellos by singing songs of love and joy.
  • Catch Phrase: Xellos's "Sore wa himitsu desu" or "That... is a secret".
  • Cerebus Syndrome: By roughly the eighteenth episode of all of the anime seasons, the battles suddenly get more violent, with the plot reaching its height and bloodier battles creating a rather scary twist. The most jarring example may be by the 20th episode and beyond of NEXT, when, after nearly three episodes of hilarious slapstick, a mazoku nearly kills Amelia, Zelgadis is severely wounded (for the first time) protecting Amelia from the Mazoku Lord Gaav, and Gourry is kidnapped and brainwashed to kill Lina and the others.
  • Chef of Iron: There's such thing as Dragon Cuisine.
  • The Chessmaster: Hureika from Knight of the Aqua Lord fancies herself one of these, even treating the entire thing as her "game."
    • Hellmaster Phibrizzo definitely qualifies as one of these too, manipulating almost the entire list of events of season two, be it through Xellos or directly.
  • Chick Magnet: Gourry, so very much. He attracts Lina, Sylphiel, Martina, Nama a.k.a. Naga, Kuppi, Gioconda, and almost every main female character in the show.
  • The Chosen One: Lina's sister Luna is the Knight of Ciefeed and is able to wield his strength; alledgedly it can rival that of high-level Mazoku such as Xellos. Lei Magnus, Rezo, and Luke are the known holders of the seven split pieces of Shabranigdo (the other four are unknown). And in the third season of the anime, Lina is chosen by Filia to take on Dark Star Dugradigdu; it is revealed by the final episode that she was an ideal choice over Luna because of her ability to wield the Lord of Nightmares' power, and, unlike Luna, who is affiliated with the gods,(mainly specializing in White/Holy power), Lina has affiliation with neither side, and could easily combine Black and Holy magic to create the magical power needed to defeat Dugradigdu.
  • Cloning Blues: Vrumugun, Copy Rezo.
  • Close-Call Haircut: Lina gets a magic suppressing circlet latched onto her head. Gourry throws a surprised Lina up into the air and slashes at her face with his sword. A small piece of hair falls off, but the circlet is successfully sliced off her head. She repays him by bashing him over the head with her own SWEATDROP for doing something so dangerous.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Gourry, Amelia, and Nama.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: Lampshaded; Amelia thinks things really works this way.

"Everyone knows the bad guy always wears black!"

  • Comedic Sociopathy: One of Lina's major traits.
  • Comically Serious: Zelgadis, poor guy.
  • Conspicuous CGI: Slayers Premium (the jars the octopi carry and the water) and both Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R (some spells, water, and structures in the opening sequences).
  • Continuity Lock Out: The belated Revolution and Evolution-R seasons of the anime attempted to avoid this by conveniently not mention the fact that the four leads had defeated an incarnation of Zanaffar before. It would've worked, had it not been for the fact that both seasons played this painfully straight in the first place - absolutely no prior establishment of what had happened before both seasons - and the end result was most of the viewers being those who had seen the first three seasons from eleven years back. Along with the issue with Zanaffar, there is also the fact that why Lina and Gourry are seeking a new sword (and the importance of the Sword of Light), and they also don't mention directly that Zelgadis and Rezo are related by blood, getting rid of some of the depth that Zelgadis' emotional turmoil against Rezo.
    • This is also a massive problem with the Slayers Special/Smash novels. There are over fifty of those versus the fifteen "main" novels. Mind you, those fifty are supposed to serve as a prequel to the fifteen, and they're still going, whereas the last of the main books came out in 2000. It also doesn't help that both series began around the same time, in the early 90's.
  • Continuity Nod: The ending for Revolution features the plane chart that notes the hierarchy of the five Mazoku generals, the four Dark Lords, and the Lord of Nightmares suspended in the background. The two spots on the chart reserved for Fibrizzo and Gaav are destroyed (as they were Killed Off for Real in Slayers NEXT).
    • In an odd meta-version of this, it is revealed that Gourry's Sword of Light's true name is "Gorun Nova" which in the Lost Universe series takes the form of one of the Five Lost Ships created by the ubervillain of that world, Dark Star Dugradigdu. In the Slayers part of the multiverse (which only exists in the series, and not the Slayers novels) Dark Star Dugradigdu's five generals became the Weapons of Light instead of spaceships.
    • Vurumugun (the real one) is in attendance at Zangulus's wedding at the end of NEXT.
  • Converging Stream Weapon: The Dark Star Weapons in Slayers Try. At the end of the season, all five weapons are combined with a Yin-Yang Bomb into a Wave Motion Gun.
  • Conveniently an Orphan: Word of God states that both Zelgadis and Gourry also lack parental figures.
  • Cool Big Sis: Averted with Luna Inverse who scares Lina more than anything else in the world, but played straight with Martina who unknowingly looks after the child form of Hellmaster Fibrizzo while Lina and the others fight Gaav.
    • Also averted with Naga, who is actually Amelia's sister; her time with the group as "Nama" proves it so. Also, when they did actually meet (in a radio drama taking place after Slayers Premium, Naga disguised herself in front of Amelia and claimed she was a friend of Lina's.
  • Cool Helmet: Filia wears a helmet with gigantic Christmas ornaments stuck to the sides.
  • Cool Old Lady: Auntie Aqua.
  • Creepy Child: Hellmaster Fibrizzo in Slayers Next, and Rezo-Shabranigdu in Pokota's human body in Evolution-R. Technically, neither of them are really children at all, but the fact that they take the forms of same makes everything they do that much creepier.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Gourry. Normally he comes across as dimwitted and scatterbrained, sometimes to the point of seeming completely incompetent (although he was more competent in the novels, to be fair, and underwent more Flanderization in the anime than any other character did), and his memory is so bad that he frequently can't remember past enemies they've fought or even what happened a few days ago. However, when he senses a threat, his fighting skills push Badass Normal about as far as it can go in this series.
  • Crystal Prison
  • Cultural Cross-Reference: One bandit dresses up as Colonel Sanders while trying to lure Lina with chicken.
  • Curse Cut Short: Episode 11 of Slayers TRY -- Just as Amelia was about to say "piece of shit" (referring to a fecal matter-shaped mountain they were about to scale), Lina cuts her off, noting how improper it is for royalty to swear.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Why hello there, Zelgadis...
  • Curtains Match the Window: Xellos, who has purple hair, also has purple eyes.
    • Lina has red eyes and red hair.
  • Cute Little Fang: Lina sometimes has one. It was pretty much permanent by Revolution.

D

  • Daddy's Girl: Amelia practically defines this trope.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Giga Slave, if miscast, destroys the entire universe. Several episodes are devoted solely to Lina attempting to find ways to NOT cast the Giga Slave, because it's basically the worst solution to any problem. Unlike many series, however, the Giga Slave is successfully avoided on a number of occasions. In the third season, for example, it's use is repeatedly mentioned as a last resort, but it is never actually used.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Three of the prequel light novels each have one-shot stories featuring Amelia (set before the series proper, where she takes down a shady drug dealer and his gang), Zelgadis (a story of him fighting against a fellow chimera with the same sense of pessimism he has), and Gourry (more or less a backstory of what he did before he met Lina). All three stories were eventually compiled into one novel later on.
  • Death by Adaptation: The anime, in spite of its lighter tone, tends to be a lot more bloodthirsty than the novels where side characters are concerned. Noonsa and Dilgear on the comical side; Rubia and Abel on the less so; to name a few. Duclis from Revolution inverts this precedent, however.
  • Deal with the Devil: Rezo with Shabranigdu.
  • Deus Ex Machina: The Blessed Blade at the end of the first series. It comes out of nowhere with very little explanation behind it in the second to last episode, and can somehow hurt the merged Copy Rezo/Zanaffar, which contradicts what we've heard several times about Gourry's Sword of Light being able to hurt it. This is further made strange when in Slayers Evolution and Evolution R it is shown that the Sword of Light CAN destroy it as a major plot point.
  • Destructive Saviour: Lina
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Xellos, and it was designated-idiot Gourry who noticed; he didn't say anything because he thought it was so obvious.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Lina is slowly murdering her way up the Mazoku hierarchy.
  • Did you just form an adventuring party with Cthulu: Xellos, as a monster, wants to destroy all things, and has in the past, committed several acts of genocide. This doesn't stop him from adventuring with Lina. To be fair, it's just as much Lina accepting that she can't get rid of him (As Xellos is for most intents and purposes a god), than her actually wanting him around.
  • Disc One Final Boss: Rezo and Shabranigdo, Gaav.
    • Also, if you count Revolution and Evolution-R as the same season due to each only having 13 episodes, Zanaffar.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Lina is a queen of this trope. Her most famous example may be in the first episode, where she blows up a town she was trying to save while attempting to kill a dragon... because it had deliberately stepped over her rather then crushing her.
    • Over sausages, of all things.

Gourry: You were just staring off into space, so I figured you didn't want any.
Lina: Well, I did! So if you can take my food, I can take yours! (Eats about five) And I hope that taught you a lesson.
Gourry: Yeah, that you eat more than me.

  • Dissonant Serenity: Rezo (but not his replica) and most Mazoku are quite calm or even mildly amused when fighting. Shabranigdo even explained to the party why and how much Resistance Is Futile and almost rolled his eyes seeing how they just don't get it.
    • Xellos almost never gets angry, even when reminding the audience that he is a Complete Monster. When his cool does dissipate, it's downright disturbing.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: In the video games, Gourry actually meets Naga. This happens to him with her a few times, especially in the Slayers Wonderful game, where he actually gets a Nosebleed.
  • The Ditz: Gourry.
    • Naga as Nama, mostly due to memory loss... though, to be fair, she was pretty ditzy in the movies and OAVs too.
    • Amelia in earlier seasons of the anime.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Rather obscure, but in episode 4 of the first season, Zelgadis attacks and knocks out Lina with a Mono Bolt spell by forcefully grabbing her shoulder and shocking her while she's on the ground. If you have a perverse mind and observe the frames during the sequence, note that Zel is smiling rather sinisterly as Lina is shouting in pain...hmmm...
  • Dope Slap: It's pretty common in this series.
    • Lina gives Gourry these on a normal basis.
    • Zelgadis gave one to Amelia after she said that all villains have to wear black.
    • Gourry gave one to Zelgadis after he mentioned Amelia's lost sister and upset her.
    • Lina once slapped Zelgadis, but immediately regretted it.
  • Dragged Into Drag/Crossdresser: Once per season (usually in episode 17) the party needs a disguise, so Lina and Amelia happily dress up the male members of the cast.
    • Only NEXT shows Zelgadis and Xellos doing it, but poor Gourry is always involved when it happens. Xelloss has the time of his life.
  • Dumbass No More: In Evolution-R, Gourry is still an idiot, but he's much more alert, intuitive, and all around competent than he is in previous seasons when it comes to non-combat situations. He even manages to correctly assert most situations, much to Lina's surprise and praise.

E

  • Eldritch Abomination: Darkstar has the look and feel of one, as does Shabranigdo in the flashback story in the first season where Lina explains his origins, but the best example is the Lord of Nightmares, who is extremely alien, even by mazoku standards.
  • Emotion Eater: All Mazoku are said to be this, feeding off the negative emotions of other beings.
    • Shinzoku/Gods feed off positive emotions.
  • Enemy Civil War: Chaos Dragon vs. Hellmaster is the most obvious example. It's not like Gaav just allied with mortals, while Fibrizo plainly wants The End of the World as We Know It. It also seems to be the main reason behind the actions of Xellos.
    • The minor one happens at the end of the second arc of the novels. Luke-Shabranigdo wants to face Lina and Gourry (the two people who can possibly kill him) while another part of Shabranigdo who is imprisoned does not wish to see that (and would have Luke-Shabranigdo free him). This causes the Mazoku to divide into two factions.
  • Evil Counterpart: Zangulus and Vrumugun. They even have elementally opposing magics and weapons, witness The Sword of Darkness vs the Sword of Light, both legendary weapons wielded by mercenary swordsman with Peek-a-Bangs to drive the point home.
  • Evil Minions: Subverted. Zelgadis's henchmen Zolf and Rodimus are actually good guys, as is Zel himself. Villain with Good Publicity Rezo misleads Lina into thinking they're evil.
  • Evil Plan: The entirety of the Knight of the Aqua Lord manga is an extremely intricate (but not unreasonable) scenario planned by Hureika.
    • Put as simply as possible: getting Deep Sea Dolphin to lead an army against the gods specifically for the purpose of driving Lina to obtain the Wind Lord's power to use against it, thus destabilizing Lyos's power allowing her to take control, in effect becoming a Mazoku with the power of the gods. And it worked. Chessmaster, indeed.
  • Evil Redhead: Gaav.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Rezo.
  • Excalibur in the Rust: Gourry wields a normal-looking sword that suits him just fine. However, the blade on the sword is actually just attached to the hilt of the Sword of Light.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • The fourth season rumored to follow TRY in 1998 was canned due to Megumi Hayashibara having scheduling conflicts.
    • During the later 90's in the U.S. when anime was becoming more popular on the networks, Fox Kids won a bid over Cartoon Network to air the first season of the show, but ultimately decided not to due to the more mature content that would be nigh-impossible to gloss over.
  • Expy: Amelia for Naga in the novels (only at first), according to Word of God.
  • Eyes Always Shut:
    • Xellos in his friendly mode.
    • Rezo, the blind priest, who can't open his eyes due to the shard of the greatest evil in the world sealed in them.
  • Eyecatch: The second and third seasons feature these with the characters in pairs, and there are also a few special ones for the final episodes. The fourth and fifth seasons had a different eye catch for each episode, and it often correlated with whatever was happening in the episode. Strangely, the first season had no eyecatches at all.

F

  • Face Fault
  • Fairytale Wedding Dress: Martina's dress at the end of Next.
  • Fantastic Nuke: The Dragon Slave.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink
  • Fantasy Pantheon: The gods and dragons vs the demons and Mazoku. Somewhat tweaked by the fact that there is a power above those two factions.
  • Fiery Redhead: Lina Inverse has the personality down pat, even though it takes until about Slayers TRY for her to get the hair color right (it starts off as more of a coppery brown).
  • Filler: This series is noteworthy for pulling it off beautifully. The filler episodes were stand-alone comedies that never got in the way of the main plot and were entertaining in their own right.
  • Five-Bad Band: The Mazoku Lords:
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Flanderization: All the characters have suffered from a little of it over the years but it's gotten pretty bad for Lina and Gourry, especially in Slayers Revolution.
    • Lina's vindictiveness and temper have been played up to the point that she's on a hair trigger (although it has to be granted that Pokota really does push all the wrong buttons with her) whereas in the first ever episode a comment about her bust only elicited a scowl.
    • Nowadays, Gourry tends to act like such an Idiot Savant that you wonder how on earth he puts his armor on in the morning or remembers who Lina is (as opposed to the fairly competent, if rather tactless, swordsman we see in the first episode). This is finally somewhat reversed come Evolution-R, where he appears to have been given back shades of his former competency.
    • Amelia was flanderized from the novels to the anime in general; her justice-loving ways were more of a quirk in the novels, but in the anime, they became a defining trait. By the end of Revolution, her flaunting is toned down.
    • Zelgadis is far more of a Jerkass in the novels than in the anime. The same can be said for Xellos, who is far more malevolent in the books.
      • Xellos is just as malevolent in either media (He DOES want to destroy the world, remember), it's just that in the anime he comes off as goofier and mildly annoying when not actively engaging in atrocities.
  • Flashback Nightmare: Zelgadis has one about being turned into a demon/golem chimera. Which helped his Heel Face Turn.
  • Flat Chest Complex: Lina's not exactly flat as a board, but spending so much time with Naga and Amelia has made her rather sensitive about the fact that she lacks large breasts.
  • Flip-Flop of God / Shrug of God: Hajime Kanzaka is aggrivatingly vague and indecisive about how his own work works.
  • Flying Brick: Zelgadis. Not his only powers.
  • Foe Yay: A flashback in season four of the anime shows Rezo putting a hand on human!Zel's cheek, making him do a Luminescent Blush.
  • Forgets to Eat: In Slayers Try, Lina and the group decide to immediately set sail for adventure... only to remember later, after they're stranded at sea, that they forgot to bring food. Cue them pretending to be dead so they can catch seagulls.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Lord of Nightmares usually appears as a slender woman with golden blond hair and a long black dress. When she's not possessing other bodies, this is.
  • Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Zelgadis is the Cynic, Amelia is the Optimist, Gourry is the Apathetic, and Lina is the Realist, but shows shades of the Apathetic herself. As for their secondary allies, Pokota is also an Optimist, while Sylphiel, Martina, and Filia are all the Conflicted.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: Zelgadis is Melancholic, Amelia is Sanguine, Gourry is Phlegmatic, and Lina is most certainly Choleric. Xellos, meanwhile, is Supine.
  • Freaky Is Cool: The reaction of Amelia, and most of his fans, to Zelgadis's appearance. That it comes with Super Strength, Super Speed, and being Nigh Invulnerable just adds to the coolness.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Used in the form of subliminal frames in the earlier seasons of the anime: a gag frame, usually of a super-deformed version of a character, would appear as someone gets hit. There are some nifty sight gags as well, such as when Gourry rips off the dress he's forced to wear in the first season, the viewer can spot a stuffed bra full of fruit and what appears to be a Zelgadis plush doll.
  • Full-Name Basis: Several villains always call Lina Inverse by her full name. Amelia also introduces herself with her full (and ridiculously long) name when she wants to wow someone.
    • Also averted with Zelgadis, as outside of one mention by Filia in episode one of TRY, Zel's last name (Graywords) is NEVER said at any point in the anime.
  • Functional Magic

G

  • Gag Boobs: Naga, queen of Gainaxing! Literally in one of the movies; as she and Lina are edging along a narrow ledge halfway up a cliff, faces (and other things) to the rock, they go 'bwoing' and toss her off.
    • And Amelia is catching up rather quickly in Hourglass of Falces
  • Game Master: The Lord of Nightmares, to the point where Fibrizo actually tries arguing with her and she bitchslaps him out of existence.
    • It's implied that the reason Dark Star and Volfeed merged in Try is because they are aware of her game to pit the two against each other and are absolutely sick of it.
  • Genius Ditz: Despite his stupidity, Gourry is still quite a formidable swordsman
  • Genki Girl: Amelia.
  • Genre Blindness: Amelia seems to actively cultivate it... at least in the first season.
  • Genre Busting: Have fun listing it as a single genre of anime. Set in a fantasy world, it includes Comedy, action, and large amounts of drama...often into a single episode!
  • Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Amelia does this a lot, and gets called on it several times in the final episode of the first series.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Anything that justifies asking Lina Inverse for help necessarily has be something that poses a risk of absolute annihilation, otherwise... just let bandits and/or rampaging dragon do whatever they want, they're liable to cause significantly less of a mess.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: At least once a season Lina is usually forced into participating in some tedious competition either with or against someone who's spent much of the season trying to kill her. Also, Lina goes on whole adventures with Xellos, who could, at any moment, turn around and kill her without a word... And she's okay with that.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: What are the gods in this world doing while the Mazoku are busy manipulating people into destroying the world?
  • Good Is Dumb: Gourry constantly proves this all on his own.
  • Good Is Impotent: In one OAV, Lina and Naga are on the trail of a villain searching for a McGuffin called the "Shadow Reflector" that creates copies which are the opposite of those who look into it. Predictably, they look into it, resulting in a hopelessly pacifistic and nice Lina and a painfully shy Naga. Cue horror from the villain realising what this makes the real Lina.
  • Good Is Not Nice: With the exception of Gourry, Amelia (whose Genre Blindness just about makes up for it) and Sylphiel, all of the main characters are fundamentally self-centered jerks, especially Lina. Lina's sister Luna is the avatar of Ceipheed, one of the world's most powerful gods, but is arguably worse. Xellos is perhaps a case of Nice Is Not Good taken to extremes. He's by far the most charming, affable, and pleasant of the group... and also an elemental being of pure Chaotic Evil -- the sole reason for the existence of his creator's creator is to annihilate everything.
  • Gotta Catch Em All: Amazingly averted. In the first season Lina destroys one of the seven shards of Shabrinigdo, and the rest never come up. The same applies for the two of Shabranigdo's five generals that she kills.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: The Claire Bible, though partially subverted in that their attempts to find it are as much a plot device as the information within it.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Being a fantasy series, you'd expect a lot of these.
  • Gray and Gray Morality: Moreso in Slayers TRY than in any other season, with the questioning of the battles between Mazoku and Shinzoku coming into question and the cowardliness of the Golden Dragons among other things. Even the main party is affected from this.
  • Gratuitous English: Many spell names, though this is handwaved with a short explanation that the names had been corrupted over the years. Lina's most powerful attack used to be known as the "Dragon Slayer" before it became what it was.
  • Gratuitous Japanese/Non-Singing Voice: (Dub only) The spell song. After Lina and Amelia's acapella rendition in English, Lina yells that they're going to do the fully orchestrated reprise in Japanese.
  • Guardian of the Multiverse: The Lord of Nightmares.
    • Although he was a bad guy in the first season, Zangulus would technically count in NEXT.
  • The Gunslinger: Parodied with Jillas.

H

  • Hair-Trigger Temper: As stated above, Lina has so many Berserk Buttons, it's hard to keep track of them all. Pokota practically presses all of them by the time EVOLUTION-R is over with.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Various humanoid animals, officially lumped together under the name "Beastmen" (or "Manbeasts", if one wants to insult them), are common enemies. The main villain of TRY is a hybrid of Ancient Dragon and Mazoku. Zelgadis is a human being who has been mystically merged with a brow demon and a rock golem.
  • Hannibal Lecture: In NEXT, Gaav gives one to Amelia (who had just delivered a sermon on JUSTICE), pointing out that Hellmaster's plans would be void if he killed Lina and that, by defending her, she was acting against the cause of JUSTICE. Cue Heroic BSOD.
    • Considering that Hellmaster's plan was to manipulate Lina to cast the Giga Slave, potentially destroying all of reality, and that Lina actually does it to save Gourry, Gaav was 100% correct.
  • Hand Behind Head: Gourry does this a lot.
  • Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: "It's not too late!", sure. A rare case when even Gourry is too astonished to Face Palm.
  • Heel Face Turn: Zelgadis.
  • Hermetic Magic: Actually a hybrid between Hermetic and a typical Mana-based RPG models of magic, with summonings, enchantments and protections done with Hermetic-style magic circles, while fireballs and arrows thrown via almost vancian-style spells.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Gourry for Lina.
  • Heroic BSOD: Several.
    • Slayers NEXT: Lina's begins when she learns the true nature of the Giga Slave: drawing power from The Lord of Nightmares is the exact same thing as summoning Her directly, and miscasting it can cause the entire universe to be consumed, making her friends die horrible deaths. Cue her being in a conundrum on how to defeat Chaos Dragon Gaav. It gets worse when Hellmaster Fibrizo reveals himself and kidnaps and brainwashes Gourry, just as she was falling for him as he did for her. She is able to snap out of her funk, but The Stinger culminates when she casts the Giga Slave during the finale anyway.
    • Same season above: Amelia has a brief one when Gaav gives her a Hannibal Lecture about her feeble notions of justice; he then proceeds to brutally wound her. Milgazia is able to heal her, but the screen of death comes back when Gaav tries to attack her again and the normally Nigh Invulnerable Zelgadis is severely wounded for the first time protecting her from his blade. Pure horror for her and the viewers.
    • Finally, Slayers Evolution-R has both Pokota and Zelgadis in the same episode: Rezo, with his soul trapped in a jar, explains that he only helped and sealed away the people of Pokota's kingdom in order to experiment in gaining his sight back, and that he never intended to follow through with helping them. The normally cocky Pokota cries and loses it. Zelgadis loses it big when Rezo confesses that it is impossible for Zelgadis to ever become human again, and he might've known that it wasn't possible. Cue a crying Zelgadis to nearly go berserk until Pokota intervenes.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Pokota sacrifices his real body at the end of Evolution-R to save everyone else.
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Lina.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Luna Inverse and the remaining three Mazoku lords -- Zelas Metallium, Deep Sea Dolphin, and Grausherra -- have yet to appear in the anime. Zelas and Dolphin appear in person in the novels, but there's yet to be any decent graphical depiction of Dynast Grausherra; however, Grausherra did play a major role in the second arc of the novels.
    • Zelas Metallium's ass has had a couple of cameos in the series, however, and her beast form (an armored, anthropomorphic wolf with wings) appears in one of the games for the Super Famicom. Dolphin's beast form is still unknown.
    • And Luna gets cameos in a couple of the opening songs and eyecatches. It's even Lampshaded in the opening of TRY, when she has a little arrow saying "Sorry, opening only" pointing at her.
    • On the gods' side of things, between Ciefeed's four guardians, Earthlord Rangort has made absolutely no appearances in any part of the franchise. Aqualord Ragradia and Firelord Vrabrazard have been mentioned in passing and share importance in the anime and novels (Ragradia made the Claire Bible, and Filia served Vrabrazard), but otherwise do not appear, and Airlord Valwin only appears in the Knight of the Aqualord manga.
    • It is implied (if not flat-out stated) that "Auntie Aqua" is actually Aqualord Ragardia, or at least what's left of the god. Therefore being the only one of the gods that makes any sort of actual "appearance" in the anime.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Hellmaster's plan goes exactly as he wishes, except for the fact that he does not fully understand the nature of Lina's magic spell that is supposed to destroy the world. So when Lina is taken over by the Lord of Nightmares, the Hellmaster fails to recognize the Lord of Nightmare in Lina and attacks her. The Lord of Nightmare responds by destroying Hellmaster utterly, saving the world in process.
  • Holy Hand Grenade: The Holy Magic of the golden dragons.
  • Hotter and Sexier: While every form of media has its share of mild fanservice, it's taken Up to Eleven in the Hourglass of Falces continuity:
    • Gag Boobs (Amelia, Millina, and Noa, the Guest Star Party Member)
    • Excessive crotch shots (Lina to compensate for her Pettanko status, and Amelia in the form of panty shots)
    • Skimpified outfits (Amelia and Millina)
    • Bring My Brown Pants (Noa)
    • Walking Shirtless Scene (The antagonist of the story, Gourry and Luke at certain points)
    • Skinship Grope (Amelia gets subjugated to this by Lina for no apparent reason)
    • And in the Super Explosive Demon Story manga, Zelgadis is frequently without a shirt. There's even a color splash page of him removing it.
    • Later artwork of Lina, namely in later Slayers Special/Slayers Smash. They feature her in more sensual poses, and every other drawing of her flaunts her nipples, irregardless of how modest she's dressed.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Amelia and her father. Lina and Gourry to a lesser degree.
  • Human Doorstop: Zelgadis and Gourry get used as an anchor and dragon-bait at the end of a giant fishhook respectively in the course of the same Next episode.
  • Humanity Is Infectious: Though not too much, being "tainted" with humanity can cause distinctly unnatural behavior in Mazoku. The most famous example of this, in-series, is Chaos Dragon Gaav.

I

  • I Call It Vera: Filia's mace is named "Mace-sama".
  • Idiot Hero: Gourry.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming, coupled with Excited Episode Title. The first and fourth seasons do so alphabetically!
  • Idol Singer: Spoofed. Lina and Amelia put on skimpy dresses and sing, thinking it's an ancient attack spell. It turned out to just be costumes and a regular song. Well, a regular song that summons pretty lights and a petals rain on a decent scale.
  • Image Song: They exist, but the theme songs sung by Megumi Hayashibara greatly outnumber them. Lina, Sylphiel, Filia, and Valgaav have one, Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry, Xellos, and Martina have two, and Naga has three. There is also the "Maiden's Prayer" duet sung by Amelia and Lina's actresses, and finally, one song where the four leads all sing together.
  • I Have the High Ground: Amelia does this several times, including during her introduction.
  • Implausible Fencing Powers: Gourry, type 3,5, and 7.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Lina, Sylphiel, Eris, Martina, Naga, Gourry, and Naga again, just because.
    • Hellmaster Fibrizo. Figuring out the layering makes cosplaying him quite difficult.
  • Infallible Babble: In the first episode, a village elder calls Lina the "Dragon Spooker", which means that dragons step past her out of clear revulsion. Later in the episode a dragon does exactly this.
  • Informed Ability: Lina occasionally brags about being an accomplished swordsman as well as a sorceress, but she doesn't do much to back it up. Most of the time the sword gets knocked out of her hand before she can make much use of it, and one of the few times she didn't lose it she was was wounded early on and had to leave the rest to Gourry. To make matters worse, from season 2 onward, Lina's sword is replaced with a dagger inexplicably. Good thing she's usually dishing out heavy duty magic since she's by far the strongest sorcerer on the team and Gourry is usually around to handle the swordsmanship.
    • She does get a good moment here and there, but Lina is, at best, an accomplished swordswoman, but a god-level magic user. Any situation where Lina's mere swordplay could handle things wouldn't even qualify as an episode.
  • Insistent Terminology: Even though Filia is a dragon, don't ever refer to her as a mere reptile.
  • Interspecies Romance: In Slayers Try, one of the filler episodes involves a love between a fish-girl (as in, a female fish with humanish arms and legs) and a male human... which ends up with the two taking a "cure" that simply turns her into a human and him into a fish-man, leaving them in exactly the same mess they were in before. They do consider it something of an improvement at least, as they now also find each other physically attractive.
  • In the Name of the Moon: Amelia likes to smite (perceived) villains "in the name of Justice!".
  • I Surrender, Suckers: Zangulus wouldn't do that just to prevail over a man, but in such circumstances...
  • It May Help You on Your Quest: Lina's treasure, specifically the Orihalcon statue, in the first season.

J

K

  • Kiss of Life: Episode 7 of Slayers NEXT -- During a meal hunt for a dragon on a boat, Zelgadis almost drowns. Amelia suggests giving him mouth-to-mouth, in which he promptly blushes, expecting her to do it. Unfortunately for him, the (male) captain gives it to him. And to make matters squicky, the captain licks his lips after doing so. It accumulates even further when, at the end of the episode, it's revealed that Zel himself resembles the captain's late wife...
  • Knight in Shining Armor/The White Prince: Parodied. Both Lina and Sylphiel has an image of a prince -- noble, heroic, handsome, blond, clad in white, riding on a white charger. Then they meet Amelia's father, Philionel el di Seyruun. He's the Crown Prince. Very impressive looking and quite Badass. Peace- and justice-loving. Merciful. Minor user of White Magic. He even sometimes rides on a white horse. Problems? He looks like a bandit who just climbed down the mountain, and is slightly nuts.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Rezo (after we find out about him), Gaav, and Valgaav are really the only ones that qualify. Most of the other Gods/Monsters don't have this profound an effect on the tone of the show since they have comic relief/lighter moments (even Phibrizzo).
  • Konami Code: Played for Laughs, one of Amelia's famous finger pointing moments that she usually gives with her all-empowering support speeches actually prompts the code to activate on screen.

L

  • Lady Land: Played with in Slayers Next episode 17 where a city of only women, which does not allow men to even enter. It is shown to have many men crossdressing as women (presumably sons of women of the city who did not wish to part with their children) in order to stay within the walls.
  • Large Ham: Amelia and her father.
  • Laser Blade: Gourry's Sword of Light.
  • The Last Horse Crosses the Finish Line: Gourry can take episodes to figure out someone's villainy.
  • Last Of Their Kind: Sylphiel, after Sairaag is destroyed.
    • Also Valgaav, after the other Ancient Dragons are killed by the Golden Dragons.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Happens a lot throughout the series and OVAs. The dub for Slayers Return has a particularly notable example.

Lina: "Hey, wait a second! You're being too faithful to the rules of basic plot advancement! Wake up!"

  • Lethal Joke Character: Jillas. For someone with no magic and physically weaker than everyone else, he still managed to be mildly dangerous. Even Zelgadis was impressed with Jillas by the end of Try. In Revolution he even has a cannon named after him, if you notice the soldier ordering them to fire the Jillas Cannon.
  • Leitmotif: Rezo has a particularly impressive one.
  • Licking the Blade: The shopkeeper in Season 1, Episode 2 does this after he becomes possessed by a cursed knife Lina tries to sell to him.
  • Like Cannot Cut Like: Gourry's sword to any other weapon made by the same people.
  • Literal Genie: When Zelgadis first met Rezo, the latter put on an affable facade and agreed to grant Zelgadis' wish for power, promising to make him "completely different" -- he gave him the power but transformed him into a monster.
  • Living Doll Collector: Episode 15 of Next has one of these, who also turns Lina's friends into dolls and attempts to kill her, for a filler related reason (re: None). It turns out that the collector is actually a doll himself being manipulated by a doll-like Mazoku that he carried around.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Word of God states that Naga is actually Amelia's elder sister, though neither Lina nor Amelia appear to be aware of this. (Naga never told Lina her real name.) Naga's identity was concealed all three times she met Amelia in continuity -- once intentionally.
  • Long Runner: Began in 1989 as a serialized set of novels that are still running today; the anime aired from 1995-1997 (And was Uncancelled in 2008), and two OVAs and five movies were made across 1995 to 2001; numerous manga and games have also been made. Most of the products were released in the 1990's; the bulk of the series' longevity after that was in the novels until Slayers Revolution aired.
  • Long Speech Tea Time: When Dilgear is ranting about punishing Zelgadis for his treachery and the death of the fishman Noonsa, the other henchmonsters are eating Noonsa.
  • Loophole Abuse: Mazokus are fond of these.
    • Alfred, the true culprit behind the assassination attempt of Prince Phil, had Kanzel under contract to work under him. Kanzel no longer wanted to due to seeing Lina perform the Ragna Blade and sought to recruit her power for Gaav. Alfred angrily tells Kanzel that he can't back out since he was under contract and therefore can't act against him. Kanzel agrees that he was indeed under contract to follow Alfred. His partner Mazenda, however, was NOT, so she was able to kill Alfred on the spot.
  • Lovable Traitor: Xellos is the contemporary epitome of this trope.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Halcyform in Next, also Duclis in the manga version of Revolution.
  • Lord Error-Prone: Amelia.
    • Gourry, again for exposition purposes.
  • Love Freak: Ditzy Cute Clumsy Girl Amelia is a rather satirical example.

M

  • The Magic Touch: Astral Vine to enchant anything sharp including corporeal spell effects to damage targets immune to normal weapons. Amelia eventually creates the Visfarank spell to apply the same sort of general effect to her fists.
  • Market-Based Title: The TV series was marketed as "The Slayers" outside of Japan. When ADV Films licensed the OAV and films, they retained the original name.
  • Martial Pacifist: Parodied by Prince Phil, Amelia's father.
    • Amelia herself, especially in the Hourglass of Falces.
  • Mask Power: Xellos' eyes are almost always hidden by his hair or closed. If they ever open, bad things are happening.
  • May-December Romance: Of the "in terms of maturity" variety: In the first season and the start of the novels, Lina is 15 and Gourry is 22. Amelia and Zelgadis have a very scant amount of chemistry in the novels, but they're 15 and 19 in those mediums if the very mild Ship Tease means anything. Their ages in the anime are bumped down (13 and 16), and the differences in maturity apply to this trope.
  • Mayfly-December Romance: Any possibilities of either Eris or Ozzel getting together with Rezo (as both were in love with him) is more or less this, because they're a normal-aging human and a puppet respectively, and he's at least a century old.
    • Gourry's ancestor Rowdy allegedly got together with a female elf, as addressed in one of the movies, Slayers The Motion Picture; Rowdy is a human; elves age at half the speed humans do (similar to chimeras). Kanzaka Jossed the pairing, though, because of this trope.
    • Zelgadis, being a chimera, ages slower than his friends (a Word of God fact), so he and Amelia could plausibly fall into the Mayfly-December Romance trope.
  • Medieval European Fantasy
  • Misplaced Retribution: Happens at least a couple of times in the series, and is even a driving force in the plot:
    • Eris in the original series tries to kill Lina in revenge for killing Rezo, the man she loved. Technically, Rezo was killed by Shabranigdu, who had been possessing him up until then, and emerged when he was summoned (Rezo not knowing the demon was sealed inside of him). Then Lina killed Shabranigdu. So maybe Lina sort of killed Rezo, From a Certain Point of View.
    • In TRY, Valgaav has a vendetta against Lina for allegedly killing his master Gaav. This one makes even less sense, since Gaav was killed by Hellmaster, not Lina.
  • Model Couple: Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia have similar clothes and hairstyles.
    • Xellos and Filia, who are foils (with some Ship Tease), have hair with complementary colors, and wear the complementary colors to each other. In the later novels, Luke and Millina also follow the complementary color theme (Luke wears red, Millina wears green, and they have those respective eye colors also), and even have black (Luke) and white (Millina) hair.
  • Mood Whiplash: Mostly applies to the anime (See Bloodless Carnage above), but can happen in the other mediums as well.
    • Xellos can be silly, goofy and whimsical. Then he opens his eyes. At this point, something absolutely horrible happens. To put things into perspective, the least horrible thing he's done with his eyes open is gleefully torture someone with the intent to kill him. The shift in personality between his 'casual' and serious moods is about as extreme as can be.
  • Morality Pet: Gourry at times, especially useful for moments when Lina can act genuinely cutesy without it imposing on her badassness.
  • Mr. Vice Guy: Lina.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Naga's standard outfit is a very low-cut bikini.
  • Munchkin: All of the 'big five' (Lina, Gourry, Amelia, Zelgadis, and Naga) qualify as munchkins for any RPG system.
  • Mundane Solution
  • Mysterious Watcher: Xellos.

N

  • Naive Newcomer: Gourry.
  • Neutral Female: Parodied in the first episode, when Lina is attacked by bandits and Gourry comes to her aid. Lina is preparing to just blast the bandits into oblivion, but then realizes that she's supposed to be all passive and girly in these situations.
  • Nice Hat: Zangulus wears a cool old Pointy Hat that he never takes off, ever. Probably because the one time it was off, in episode 21, he realized how ridiculous his hair looked without it.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played with, for the first 3 seasons the Big Bad ultimately just wants Lina dead, if she just let herself be killed many of the destruction would be averted... though not all of it.
  • Nigh Invulnerable: Zelgadis has the combined traits and resiliences of a brow demon and a stone golem, making him virtually indestructible amongst humans. Dragons, high-level Mazoku, and the higher levels of magic are the only things that can actually hurt him seriously.
    • Mazoku also count; not only are they effectively Made of Iron and able to regenerate, but their real bodies actually exist on a separate plane of existence, with their material form merely being a projection of their psyche. They're also immune to varying levels of Black Magic (as monsters are the power source of Black Magic). The more higher-ranked the Mazoku is, the harder it is to kill it, which leads rather nicely into Authority Equals Asskicking.
  • Noble Demon: Zelgadis. He's even one-third demon, making this more literal than most.
    • Averted with Xellos.
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Naga, who emptied an entire town with it. Lina also does this in one of the final episodes of Slayers Try, which scares Amelia.
    • And in one of the movies, "Slayers Gorgeous," a villain appears with one of her own. Naga decides it's not good enough and tries to give her lessons.
    • Martina had a pretty good one also.
  • No Fourth Wall: Well, not quite, but they break it on occasion, usually when the show has been serious for too long. Also, the Pretty Miss Lina's Magic Lessons segments.
  • No Hugging, No Kissing: Hajime Kanzaka wrote the novels this way, explicitly stating that there would be no romance. Official Couples Lina/Gourry and Zelgadis/Amelia are a product of the anime. He later admitted that, although he hadn't planned on romance, Lina and Gourry wound up developing feelings for each other anyway. The Amelia/Zelgadis pairing was wholly unintentional by the author, but later artwork by Rui Araizumi features the two together in mildly romantic situations.
  • No Kill Like Overkill: This is proven every time Lina does a high-level spell like Dragon Slave for a comedic effect.
  • Non-Serial Movie: Of the five Slayers movies produced, the first four (which includes The Movie for Slayers) are set some time before the series, during the "Lina and Naga" period, and the fifth one could be set after either the second or first season.
  • No Periods, Period: Averted: Lina loses her magic powers for a brief period in Season 1, Episode 4, being able to only conjure a weak light spell. Gourry asks her whether it's "that time of the month", because the same thing happened to a fortuneteller he once knew.
    • Used afterwards, as in 5 TV seasons, and a dozen movies and OVAs, it hasn't come up again, ever.
    • The first novel has a scene where the conversation is basically the same, but we get to see Lina fuming at him because she thinks it's a sign that he's cannier than he lets on, and is actively mocking her. In a later scene a villain catches on, and Lina in the narration rages, "Do I have a big sign on my forehead that says, 'I'm on my period. Let's discuss'?!"
    • In the second volume of Super Explosive Demon Story Slayers, the scene goes exactly as in the anime. The subject is mentioned briefly in the third volume, where Zelgadis, after capturing Lina, wonders why her spells were so weak... "Oh, I know! You're in THESE days!"
  • Not So Harmless: Jillas from above. Despite being comic relief for the first quarter of Try, he manages to separated the gang from Filia and Xellos, get the others into a situation where they could't use magic, all through tactical and psychological manipulation. And he later outdoes himself by creating an explosive rocket, that is as powerful as a dragon slave.

O

  • OAV: Six of these were produced, each of them set before the events of the TV series and covering the adventures of Lina Inverse and a solitary companion, a ridiculously buxom and extremely flaky sorceress called "Naga the Serpent", who served more or less as a one-woman Goldfish Poop Gang and Unknown Rival to Lina.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Inspector Wizer Freyon. He shows up and immediately tries to arrest Lina for the hideous crime of being herself. Also has a bad habit of interpreting/ignoring everything to suit his theories and conveniently passing out just as a critical piece of evidence presents itself. It's all just an act so he can conduct a real investigation under the guise of trying to bring in Lina, have her storm the bad guy's fortress and take him out by herself. Since the villain was being backed up by royalty, not to mention having hordes of monsters at his command, he couldn't act openly.
  • Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Slayers was followed by Slayers NEXT, Slayers TRY, Slayers REVOLUTION and now Slayers EVOLUTION-R. The movies/OVAs are Slayers Perfect (or Slayers: The Motion Picture) Slayers Return, Slayers Special (or Slayers: The Book of Spells), Slayers Great, Slayers Gorgeous, Slayers Excellent and Slayers Premium. Most of the movies had alternate titles of the form "The Motion Picture R/S/G/GO".
  • Ojou: Sylphiel.
    • Amelia's sister Gracia Ul Naga Seyruun.
  • Offing the Offspring: Zuuma and Abel in Evolution-R. The family that dies together,, stays together?
    • Christopher to Alfred in the original novels; Christopher is forced to stab him for treason, whereas in the anime, Alfred is killed off by Mazenda.
    • On a technical level (and accidentally), Amelia to her uncle Randionel in the anime. This is averted in the novels, since Randy appears (and dies) in the first Slayers Special novel (i.e the prequel series).
    • Averted in the original light novel version of this storyline, where Abel actually succeeds in reaching his father's humanity long enough for Lina to finish him off, and survives to eulogize him afterward.
  • Off-Model: In episode 1, we see the right side of the Dragon Fangs. Instead of his eye patch covering his eye, it is between his ear and his eye.
  • Older Is Better: Played with, when an ancient golem activates, takes a few steps forward, fires a superweapon into the distance that seems to dwarf the Dragon Slave, aims said weapon at Lina ... and falls apart.
  • Once Killed a Man with A Noodle Implement: Lina's sister Luna Inverse is often said to have slain a dragon with a butter knife.
  • Only Sane Man: Zelgadis is usually this, but Gourry of all people was actually this when he and Amelia went to the "Village Of Justice".
  • Orichalcum: Used as an Anti-Magic metal
  • Orphan's Ordeal: Sylphiel loses her one remaining parent when Copy Rezo destroys her entire homeland; beforehand, Lina and her group did meet her father. As if that weren't enough, and just in case anyone thought he might have survived, he's brought back and then lost again in the last few episodes of NEXT.
  • The Other Darrin: The American dub of the first series, produced by Central Park Media, had several cases of this.
    • Partway through the series, CPM took a break from dubbing the series for about a year, and during that time period, lost contact with several of the voice actors. As a result, Crispin Freeman replaced Daniel Cronin as the voice of Zelgadis, while Veronica Taylor replaced Joani Baker as the voice of Amelia. Other characters like Zangulus and Prince Philionel also changed as a result of the gap.
    • ADV Films handled all the Movies and OVAs and used their talent pool. Cynthia Martinez replaced Lisa Ortiz as Lina, and in Slayers Premium, Chris Patton replaced Eric Stuart as Gourry, Luci Christian replaced Veronica Taylor as Amelia, and Kurt Stoll replaced David Moo as Xellos; however, Crispin Freeman returned to play Zelgadis.
    • Somewhat Subverted with Funimation's dub of Revolution and Evolution-R: Ortiz, Stuart, Taylor, and Freeman return to voice the four leads; however, all the other returning characters have been recast, with the new cast including Michael Sinterniklaas as Xellos, David Brimmer as Phil, Stephanie Sheh as Sylphiel, and Liam O'Brien as Rezo.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: Lina suffers what's supposed to be a fatal wound that goes straight through her chest at the end of episode 24.
    • Lampshaded by Lina herself: "How could this happen?! I'm the star of the show!"
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: In the OAV "Explosion Array", werewolves can take on the forms of either humans or humanoid wolves, whenever they want. In the first season, Dilgear is a werewolf/troll hybrid; he never changes out of his (green furred) wolfman form and he can regenerate his wounds to a certain degree. In fact, canonically, his last words aren't an idle boast; he really does come back to life in the non-anime continuities and becomes "Spot", Luna Inverse's pet -- the only hint of this in the anime is an eyecatch showing her walking him in Try.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Gourry, between giving up the Sword of Light and getting the Blast Sword.

P

  • Papa Wolf: Prince Phil would do anything to protect his daughter Amelia, even if it means charging headfirst into obvious danger.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Kanzel and Mazenda in NEXT. Literally the first time they appear, they don't even try to hide the fact that they're evil.
    • Josephine in an episode of the OVA. Josephine is a proud mother who has hired Lina and Naga to make her son a successful military leader. They're initially skeptical as Jeffrey is skinny, sickly, poorly trained, and hilariously overconfident. It turns out that these aren't problems, because the instant someone says something disparaging about him, Josephine comes charging onto the scene, wearing a mask, to smash them with an oversized warhammer. Jeffrey is the only one who sees nothing odd about this, and the only one who buys her claims that she's an anonymous tourist passing by (it happens to him that often).
  • Parental Abandonment: Amelia's mother is dead, Naga's mother is dead, and Zelgadis is an orphan. Lina's parents are alive but Luna did have a major role in her upbringing.
  • Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: Copy Rezo's death scene.
  • Percussive Pickpocket: A little boy does this to Lina.
  • Perpetual Poverty: After Lina obliterates her kingdom, Martina sets off on a revenge quest but since she's now broke she's got to bankroll all her schemes by doing odd jobs. This continues even after she pulls a Heel Face Turn and joins Lina.
  • Peek-a-Bangs: Gourry, Zelgadis, and Zangulus.
  • Petting Zoo People
  • Pieces of God
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Amelia and Martina wear a couple.
  • Playboy Bunny: A cafe in the first season had bunnies serving the food. The costumes were even Easter colored (pink and yellow), with fur necklines the matched their bunny tails.
    • Subverted in episode 15 with poor Zelgadis.
  • Player Archetypes: All of the main four characters fit the Munchkin File 'four types of role players'
  • Pollyanna: Amelia.
  • Pre-Explosion Glow
  • "Previously On..."
  • Primordial Chaos: The Sea of Chaos, from which the four worlds arose at the beginning of time.
  • Princesses Prefer Pink: Amelia's outfit has some pink touches, but she wore an actual pink dress in the first episode of Next.
  • Puppy Dog Eyes: Lina when she's trying to con someone, often Gourry.
    • Amelia at times.
  • Pure Magic Being: The Mazoku.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Xellos.
  • Put Off Their Food: In the light novel The Battle of Saillune, Lina and Gourry are attacked by a number of lesser demons that possessed items of food, including a nasty tentacle monster that emerges from their squid stew. After the fight, they order more food, and Gourry requests they skip the squid stew — though Lina disagrees, saying it'll take more than that to make her lose her appetite.
  • Put on a Bus: Several cases. Zelgadis does not appear at all in the Knight of Aqualord manga. Also, while he does leave for eight episodes after the tenth episode of season 1, he is one of the three with bounties on his head two episodes later, but this is never mentioned when he returns. Finally, he, Amelia, and Xellos are bussed off when the first arc of novels ended; Luke and Milina replace the former two, and Xellos doesn't reappear until the final novel.
    • Sylphiel is put on a bus after Slayers NEXT and is only mentioned once in Slayers TRY; Filia replaces her for that season. Sylphiel does return at the end of Revolution, though. Zangulus and Martina are also sent off when NEXT ends.
    • Finally, Filia herself is bussed once TRY is over, and any other characters exclusive to that season (Jillas, Valgaav, the "Overworld" inhabitants) go with her. None of them are ever mentioned again -- unless one counts the reference to "Jillas cannons" in Revolution.

R

  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: "Ruby Eye" Shabranigdu.
    • Lina herself, what with being Enemy Of All That Live, and all.
  • Redheaded Hero: Lina...though 'hero' is a bit strong of a word, and she starts off more of a brunette, her hair turning coppery as the anime progresses.
  • The Reveal: Numerous instances where a character turns out to be a Mazoku or in cahoots with a Mazoku.
    • The Lord of Nightmares' attitude and her statement that her power is inseparable from her personal attention and even presence, which shows her relationship with Lina in a new light.
    • Eris created Copy Rezo and went after Rezo's legacy so she could get revenge on Lina for Rezo's death. Too bad we learned three seasons later that he was never dead to begin with and the entire second half of season one's events, which included the destruction of Sairaag as well as Eris' death, could've been avoided entirely if Rezo had only told her about the Hellmaster's Jar.
  • The Rival: Zangulus to Gourry, and Naga (and later in the novels, Luke) to Lina.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Happens several times, but the most notable case actually occurs in the novels, in which Luke goes batshit crazy when his partner Milina is poisoned and denied of any medical care, thus having her die. The destruction of the shrines in the area he, Lina, and Gourry are in at the time is extreme, and it allows the fragment of Shabranigdu in his soul to awaken in the next novel.
  • Robot Maid: Ozzel counts for this, although she is actually a doll.
  • Roof Hopping

S

  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Slayers Gorgeous the dragon army flees from Lina after being ordered to attack.
    • Zelgadis also tries to do this a couple of times, but never succeeds.
    • Zangulus feigns one of these at the end of NEXT to try and land a hit on Hellmaster. It doesn't work.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Prince Phil, Amelia, Pokota, and Naga.
  • Schrodingers Cat: Dilgear never actually dies in the novels, and makes later appearances just to harass Lina. The anime just uses random Mooks where needed.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Shabranigdu, who is defeated by a power his sealer didn't have access to, and Zanaffar, who was just resealed.
    • To be fair, Lina and company never actually fight Shabranigdu at his full strength, just the fragments sealed in humans.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: As commented by other characters, Amelia always looks beautiful in a nice dress, and Lina and Martina looked great while wearing wedding dresses.
  • Shell Game: Zelgadis with his band played "which bauble we need to collect?" with Lina for some time. This didn't work well, though.
  • Ship Tease: At the end of NEXT and Slayers Premium. In the former, Gourry chases Lina, possessed by the Lord of Nightmares, into a dimension beyond his own and begs for Lina back, the two kissing and then being sent back to their world. When they wake up, neither of them seems to remember in the slightest what happened. In the latter, after being placed under the Octopese Curse, Gourry tells Lina "I love you" at several points -- but Octopese is basically saying lots of random words that have an entirely different meaning for octopi ("flatchested", for example, is an expression of great dismay). When things clear up, Lina asks Gourry what "I love you" means in Octopese. "I'm broke, so you'll have to pay for the hotel." This revelation causes Lina to explode, angrily chase Gourry across the beach and beat him senseless.
    • Filia and Xellos are positively rife with this, mostly in the form of Belligerent Sexual Tension topped with the fact that they're from the god and demon races respectively. They've actually become one of the most popular One True Pairings in the show.
    • Zelgadis and Amelia have a good deal of chemistry and moments together, especially in Next, but most of the teasing is near-gone by Revolution. Pokota also acts flustered around Amelia at times.
  • Shock Collar: A captive Lina was restrained by a circlet that zapped her when she tried to use magic. They really haven't a slightest idea what her big sister used to put her through, however...
  • Shout-Out: Amelia is at least in part a parody of Sailor Moon, and Gourry's disguise in the first season's cross dressing episode has Usagi's distinctive hair style. Furthermore, an episode of NEXT has Amelia and Lina dressing up in what look like Sailor Senshi fuku for a humiliating musical number. Furthermore, most of Zel's initial appearances have him looking like Tuxedo Kamen's OTHER identity crisis, Moonlight Knight.
    • The magic doctor Lina goes to when her powers are sealed looks exactly like a slightly older Chibiusa, right down to the pink Odango hair.
    • The aforementioned episode of NEXT also has a pair of Single-Minded Twins who look exactly like Shampoo from Ranma ½.
    • There's episode 18 of TRY where Amelia visits the Village of Justice becomes either a Power Ranger or a member of G-Force. Visually, though, they resemble the Ronin Warriors.
    • The whole story of TRY is that beings from the "Overworld" (one of the other worlds seen in Lina's explanation of the War of the Monster's Fall) come to the Slayers world to try and destroy the Big Bad; a fusion of their Arch God (Night Dragon Vorfeed) and Arch Lord (Dark Star Dugradigdu). For many years, fans thought that this meant that Hajime Kanzaka's sci-fi series Lost Universe and Slayers were part of the same multiverse, though Word of God was that he merely chose to reuse the names.
    • Episode 3 of TRY has Jawas. Right down to an unintelligible Con Lang.
    • This troper's isn't sure if they were in the original, but in the English dub of the first movie, the Demon Joyrock introduces himself as "Joyrock, Michigan J." (for reference, it strongly resembles a frog). Later, as Lina unleashes the Dragon Slave on him he says "Sufferin' Succotash" (complete with lisp) as he realises just what he was about to get hit with.
    • Pokota is apparently a Pokémon parody, but he looks more like a Digimon (namely Terriermon).
    • In Evolution-R, the relationship between Amelia and Nama/Naga brings to mind Fullmetal Alchemist.
    • Sherra, the second general of Dynast Grausherra, in the Slayers novels looks like Ranma's female form, from Ranma ½, this probably isn't a coincidence since Rui Araizumi also drew Ranma Hentai Doujinshi.
  • Signature Spell: "Dragon Slaaaaave!"
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Although most of that is because of the attention they get for offing the previous Big Bad.
  • Soul Jar: In Next, the sorcerer Halcyform makes a pledge to the Mazoku (Monster Race) which makes him unkillable while the pledge stone is intact.
    • Taken literally in Revolution and Evolution-R -- Rezo's getting another sequel by having his soul in an actual jar.
    • Also from Evolution-R, Naga got her soul literally trapped in a jar at some point while adventuring solo, then it somehow got stuck in a suit of armour and became "Nama".
    • An episode of Try has a ghost ship captained by the spirit of Captain Jarlov, a drowned pottery fanatic whose spirit has been sealed inside a jar until someone breaks the curse keeping him from going to the afterlife.
    • Mazoku in a pot in Slayers Premium.
  • Sphere of Destruction: A lot of the most destructive spells in the series, including the Dragon Slave, work like this. The Giga Slave is powerful enough to potentially absorb the Universe.
  • Spike Shooter: Noonsa shoots her spines.
  • Spirited Competitor: Zangulus followed Gourry just to test who's the best swordsman.
  • Stealth Parody: Lina's group is rumored to be based on D&D campaigns; Zelgadis being a 'serious' role-player who's epic backstory and angst is somewhat made silly by the antics of the rest of the group, Amelia an overdone Lawful Good type, Gourry is the guy playing for a good time who's only half playing attention, and Lina is the Min-Maxing spellcaster, and Xellos is the annoying, completely unkillable, and most definitely the overpowered GMPC who largely exists to re-rail the plot when the rest of the party derails it.
  • Stepford Smiler: Amelia - noted more often in the novels, but the few times it's shown, her family's constant death threats and arguments have had their emotional toll on her. It also explains why she's so close to her father. In this case, she always tries to keep her head up.
    • Also, by Word of God, Gourry. His family's more or less dead because of the Sword of Light, save a grandmother and a brother who he hates. Combine this with having gone through wars and mercenary jobs, and you have one embittered individual. If it weren't for Lina's father telling him to find a purpose in life, he'd probably be a Byronic Hero.
  • Stern Chase: Chasers -- Zangulus and Vrumugun in season 1, Gaav and his minions in Next.
  • Stone Wall: Zelgadis, to a literal extent.
  • Stripperiffic: Naga's outfit has a remarkable gap-to-fabric ratio.
    • According to Amelia in Slayers: The Hourglass of Falces, their mother made it a tradition that the women of the royal family "are expected to wear a sort of dress that evokes a 'bondage' image when they reach a certain age." Therefore, she abandoned her regulation pants for a very-mini-skirt, so she would be used to that sort of exposure when the time came. Word of God states that Naga found her Memetic Outfit in their mother's closet after her funeral.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Zelgadis and Gourry when Lina and Amelia have access to surplus women's clothing.
  • Super-Deformed: In some of the No Fourth Wall segments of the manga, and the mini-Gourrys and mini-Linas the cloning machine made in the anime.
  • Sword and Sorcerer
  • Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Wizer Freyon pursues Lina throughout the better part of Revolution for all of the destructive acts she's committed in the past. At some point in the series, he obviously realizes she's innocent and just keeps playing up the chase as Obfuscating Stupidity to use Lina to catch the real criminals, but it's not clear exactly when that point is.

T

  • Take Our Word for It: Considering all the things Lina has faced, her sister Luna would have to be pretty tough to intimidate her. It helps that Luna is The Chosen One.
  • Talking Animal: There's a ton of these throughout the show, although most are just one-liners.
    • Noonsa and Dilgear in season one.
    • Jillas in Try.
    • Pokota in Revolution.
  • The Sweat Drop: In one memorable episode, Lina becomes more exasperated than usual with Gourry's antics and actually takes her sweatdrop and beats him with it.
  • The Team Normal: Gourry.
  • Team Shot
  • Technical Pacifist: Amelia and Prince Phil; especially Phil.
  • Teen Genius: Zelgadis displays a good deal of scientific knowledge and both quick-paced analytical and mathematical skills in the anime and a few of the games; while he does show some high intelligence in the novels, Lina's narration makes it less prominent.
  • Theme Naming/Punny Name: Rowdy Gabriev, Gourry Gabriev.
  • They Fight Crime: Parodied. If you have a bandit problem, Lina will solve it. Eventually bandits become endangered, so Lina switches to pirates.
  • Thirteen Episode Anime: Slayers's fourth season ended up getting split into two seasons with thirteen episode, instead of one whole 26-episode season. Well, Revolution has a tendancy to leaving a ton of plot threads just for Evolution-R. But Season Five got a new OP and ED.
  • Those Two Bad Guys: Gravos and Jillas.
  • Through His Stomach: Sylphiel is quite happy to hear "Gourry dear" really likes her cooking. Though, being Gourry, he fails to notice her demure but obvious advances.
  • Time Travel: The first movie.
  • Title Drop: In the very last episode of Evolution-R, Xellos comments after the latest bout of Serial Escalation that the heroes truly are "Slayers", having just offed a god for the second time.
  • Token Evil Teammate: If ordered to, Xellos would gladly kill Lina and her friends, but he still likes hanging around them because 1) they're endlessly amusing, and 2) Lina is a Person of Mass Destruction and bloody mayhem is like crack to Mazoku. Besides, he's not a glutton and is satisfied with suffering humans cause to themselves, what with his fancy for sports, pranks, and Martina.
    • Jillas at the end of Slayers Try.
  • Too Dumb to Fool: Gourry, regarding Xellos' nature.
  • Trickster: Who else but Xellos?
  • Tsundere: Lina is a tsun-tsun subtype, but she definitely has a few dere-dere moments. The reverse is Filia, ignorance-based holier-than-thou attitude aside, with her Berserk Button (which Xellos has a talent for finding and pushing).

U

  • Unbuilt Trope: Both older and current critics of the show argue that Amelia is a Trope Codifier of the Moe character archaetype, alongside Rei Ayanami of Neon Genesis Evangelion; Amelia has the energetic and innocent aspects of the character, complete with a short yet bodacious body, whereas Rei has the more demure and shy aspects (ironically, Rei was meant to be a Creepy Child). Now, though, with the craze in full swing, Amelia is arguably a subversion; she's no powerhouse, but she's far from useless (a trait that built overtime), has a go-getter attitude (most moe characters are unable to speak out for themselves), and has deep and harrowing issues that arguably created her energetic and positive ideals in the first place.
  • Uncancelled: The third season of the TV series (Try) aired in 1997, the fourth (Revolution) in 2008. A fourth season was originally going to air right after TRY (AGAIN) in 1998, but production issues and various commitments the cast had made it dissipate.
  • Underwear of Power: Lina wears what looks like yellow bra and panties over her tunic and leggings. Martina also wears a thong over leggings.
  • Unholy Nuke: Lina's Dragon Slave spell (when it is not Played for Laughs). Just listen to the incantation.
  • Unknown Rival: Naga thinks Lina is her rival. Lina tries her best to forget Naga exists.

V

  • Vanilla Edition: FUNimation's digitially-remastered re-release of the series lacks all of the outtakes, commentary, and other extras that Central Park Media's DVDs had. Stranger still, when the first three seasons were released in one box set, the washed-out video quality from CPM's release was used instead of the restored version.
  • Villain Teleportation
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Red Priest Rezo, of course! Justified, as Rezo genuinely strived to help people... when he was not busy with increasingly extreme and amoral forms of magical research, meant to find the way of curing his blindness.
  • Visible Sigh: Lina and Zelgadis do this most often, but Amelia, Filia, and even Gourry have been known to occasionally.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Alfred was mistranslated as Amelia's uncle when he's actually her cousin. This resulted in him sounding much older than he actually is in the dub.
  • Vocal Evolution: Lina's voice is noticeably deeper now than it was when the anime began.
    • Zelgadis also has gone quite a bit lower, while Gourry and Amelia's voices may have actually become a bit higher.

W

  • The Wall Around the World: The magical barrier in seasons one and two.
  • Walking the Earth
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Valgaav in Try is allergic to shirts. Lyos much, much more so in Knight of The Aqua Lord.
  • The Watson: Gourry.
  • Weddings in Japan
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Valgaav from Slayers Try, after he merged with Darkstar (and apparently Vorfeed), wants to remake the world into a peaceful place where no one will get hurt or feel pain ever again. The problem is of course, that first everyone and everything has to be destroyed...
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Lina's actions sometimes go overboard in the eyes of one or more other characters.
    • In episode 26 of Try, it's Lina's turn to call someone out; specifically, Filia for being indecisive as to whether or not to kill Valgaav when they all know full well he's on the verge of bringing about The End of the World as We Know It.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Lina becomes one of these temporarily after she casts the Giga Slave.
    • According to a description in the ninth novel and color illustrations, Milina is this.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Miwan, a one-shot character from the crossdressing episode of Next, is forced to dress like this due to him being born to the royal family of a strictly-run Lady Land. Humorously, Zelgadis winds up falling for "her" until he reveals himself as a man.
    • A lesser known one is a character from Zelgadis' side story in one of the Slayers Special novels: a female named Miranda who dresses as a man in order to bounty hunt.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Amelia, and to a lesser degree, Filia.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Lina is terrified of her sister. And slugs, because of her sister.
  • Whole-Episode Flashback: A noteworthy aversion, given that many shonen series have at least one. The closest one we get is Episode 10 of Evolution-R, which expands a little on Zelgadis' time as a human, following up to his transformation.
  • Wild Card: Xellos. He switches from helpful to bullying and from saving the heroes butts to crossing them and back without as much as blinking, when it advances his plans. He's also loyal only to his creator and instrumental in the demise of two other Dark Lords, without participating directly.
  • World of Buxom: Many, many females in the series are quite stacked, minus Lina.
  • The World Tree: Holy Flagoon, which is Zanafar's prison.
  • Worthy Opponent: Zangulus and Gourry.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Zelgadis has no problems hitting Lina when they first met as enemies, and he even gave Amelia a Dope Slap when she said that all villains wear black.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Gourry is hesitant about fighting Gioconda in Slayers Revolution because he says he wouldn't feel right about striking down a woman.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Amelia, the self-proclaimed hero of justice in a show full of otherwise morally ambiguous characters. She's usually convinced her group are the good guys, even when they're clearly only in it to turn a profit, and often marks others as villains simply because they oppose her.
    • In one episode, she can't decide which side are the heroes: either Lina, or a pair of bounty hunters out to arrest her. Confused about who to help, she sits on the sidelines of the battle agonizing over it until she has an epiphany: "Of course! Justice always triumphs! So whoever loses will be the bad guy!" She then attacks BOTH groups at once, figuring whoever crawls out of the rubble was the hero.

X

  • Xanatos Gambit: Hellmaster traps Lina with one during NEXT. He wants to force her to use Giga Slave because it can destroy the world, which he thinks is the purpose of the Mazoku race. To do this he sets her against Chaos Dragon Gaav, who has rebelled against the Mazoku race. If Lina uses the Giga Slave, he wins. If she uses some other spell, such as the Ragna Blade, he can goad her himself. If Gaav survives the attack, then he finishes off Gaav. Since he's the Hellmaster, he can control her death to prevent her from dying until then. All outcomes work for him. Lina does eventually cast the Giga Slave and summons Lord of Nightmares, but the latter "politely refuses" to cooperate with Hellmaster's plan.

Y

  • You and What Army?: In the first episode of Revolution, Wizer brings a small army along to help him arrest Lina. It's not enough.
  • You Gotta Have Purple Hair: Xellos, Phibrizo, Amelia, Naga, Rezo, and Sylphiel all have dark purple hair, and Zelgadis' hair is a light lavender color. Pokota has pinkish-purple hair. Many minor characters also have purple hair.
    • If you count it as canon, Luna Inverse is shown to have purplish hair in her cameos, although one manga makes it a more crimson red color.
    • For more variety: Martina and Valgaav have light teal hair, and a minor character from NEXT, Miwan, has dark green hair.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Eris created Copy Rezo so that they could kill Lina and her group in revenge for Rezo's death. Once Eris unleashed Rezo's Legacy, the Demon Beast Zanifar, she laughs believing she has won, but then gets shot from behind by Copy Rezo, who says that now that he has the power of Zanifar backing him, he no longer needs Eris. She dies pitifully.
  • You Look Familiar: In Slayers Evolution-R, the characters meet an enchanted armor whose looks and voice reminds Lina of someone she met before and she's right: the enchanted armor is Naga!
  • You Shall Not Pass: Amelia says this to Shabranigdo while punching him! "I won't let you! You shall not go one step further!"
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