So I was reading this entry at ANN, specifically Enoki Films ‘presenting’ Slayers R, the imminent new Slayers show. Now, putting aside that I thought Enoki had been dead for years and the implication that this show might actually have been pre-emptively licensed, the ‘plot summary’ really grabbed me.
Part I - Episodes #1-#13
The story unfolds in the usual pattern with Lina involved in a fight with bandits in the woods. Gourry arrives to her rescue and escorts her to Atlas City. Lina and Gourry struggle to defeat Rezo the Red Monk, who has awakened as the Demon King after finding the Stone of the Wise. Lina is interested in Gourry’s sword, the “Sword of Light” and allows him to accompany her after leaving Atlas City.
Amelia and Xellos the Priest join Lina and Gourry and they encounter many weird incidents relating to the Demon Tribe. Lina realizes it’s because the weapon she used to defeat Rezo, “the Giga Slave”, is empowered by tremendous forces. Hellaster Fibrizo takes Gourry as a hostage and demands that Lina give him the Power – Giga Slave. Can Lina defeat this powerful enemy and save Gourry?
Wow. Just wow. We’ve waited what, ten whole fucking years since Slayers Try, and they’re going to piss away the first half of this by summarising the first eight novels again just so they can retcon Slayers Try out of existence? What the hell? I want to believe that I’m reading this wrong and there’s no way they’d try to condense something that took maybe 45 episodes (when you cut away the filler) into the space of only 13? For the love of god, why? Sure, they changed a few things towards the end of Next in order to fit Try in, but why can’t this just make a few small changes and continue as if Try never happened?
I hope this doesn’t mean that they’re trying to pitch Slayers at a brand new audience rather than the sizeable existing one. That could bode very, very badly for the characters - the last thing I’d want to watch would be Lina reduced to a tsundere moeblob.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see. This news knocked my interest down significantly, though.