Slayers vs. Slayers Next

The entire Three seasons of slayers have been very good.

If you get the first slayers, you will not be disappointed. It has all the fun and great story development of the later two.

The first season is just as good as the second one. It will also explain a lot of stuff for you, since a lot of things such as the Giga Slave and Shabranigdo are revealed in the first season. And of course, lets not forget how all the slayers team people met up. You'll like it.

I'll probably end up being the most rude person here, as I'm actually criticizing the 3 series, not including the movies.

In my opinion, and in those who would seem to agree with my viewpoint on inverse.org boards, Slayers Next would be the best of the three seasons. Second would be Slayers Original, and last would be Slayers Try. To answer your question, I would say Slayers Original will not disappoint you if you enjoyed Next. But the poor animation, and the poor sound quality may bother you. The voices may sound a bit weird at first, but that's just the actors beginning to grasp their characters. You may also not get use to the other Zelgadis at first if you watch the dubbed version, but he's bearable, and soon good old Mr Crispin Freeman will take over.

Their seem to be more laughs, and actions in the first series compared to the other two series. The action scenes are intense and at times fun, and there's only a little bit of drama in the last few episode. That's all fine and dandy if you don't mind, but there should have been a little more character development and drama, like the way they did it in Next. But too much of that, and concentrated poorly in throw-away characters like they did in Try seemed to really fail.

My problem with Try is that they completely ignored developing the characters of the past in Gourry, Amelia and Zelgadis. They focused too much attention on Try characters, like Filia, Val-Gav and lesser villains like the Fox. They also took away Gourry's sword of light half way through, which killed his usefulness in the series. He's become the absolute male bimbo. The episodes also weren't as humorous as the series before it. Although, may be that's just me not enjoying Lina rebuilding the Dragon Shrine or their joyride on the train. I also didn't enjoy the 2 castles at war with each other, or Gourry becoming a hero, and, well lets say I didn't enjoy half the episodes in Try. Although I have to admit, the fighting and action were pretty good, though there wasn't much of it.

To conclude, I just want to say The Slayers collection seemed to be right on track, from the Original Series right thru Next. But halfway after Try, the Slayers for some reason fell apart.

For some reason I feel like I'll get flamed for this post, but that and more that I left out is how I feel about the show. I've watched nearly all the episodes from series to series, and movie to movie. The only episodes I'd missed was the introduction of Amelia in the first season. I'd tried to take a rational viewpoint in this post, so I hope any replies or flames will also include rational thinking, and not just, "if you have nothing good to say, don't say anthing at all" arguments. Although, I think I was rather lite on it.

I first came across Slayers via Netflix when I rented Slayers Next. I was intrigued by that I rarely laughed out loud, or saw much depth in the series, but enjoyed it immensly nonetheless. I have since seen Try and then the first season. I have re-watched Next and saw a great deal that I missed. I would say the Next was the best season of the three, but that's just my opinion.

All the Slayers seasons were good. Slayers didn't seem all too sure of some of the characters and the direction they wanted to portray them, and their appearance changed a bit throughout, but still maintained an interesting story and fun characters. The English actor for Zelgadis does change about halfway through the season, but I liked the new voice of Zel.

For Next, they seemed to have the characters figured out and their look. It starts more solidly than the first season and maintains that integrety by introducing Xellos, a mysterious wise-ass who becomes one of the most beloved characters of Slayers.

Try, the third and final season of the series, took a much darker turn than the previous seasons. There weren't as many advances in characters as before, and when the story became "too dark," the creator added a few gag episodes to lighten the mood, however these severely detract from the pace of the series. I, generally being a fan of darker animes, enjoyed this season almost as much as Next. Filia, a dragon, being introduced as a quasi-romantic foil of Xellos, a monster and sworn enemy of dragons.

The Japanese acting was supurb with Megumi Hayashibara as Lina. And the English dub was excelent, Lisa Ortiz does a brilliant job as Lina, and all the other characters were likable. Some did have trouble with David Moo's Xellos, but it isn't a bad portrayal, just very different from Akira Ishida's Xellos.

The OVAs that take place before the series are good in their own right, but the English voice for Lina is different that the series(Lisa Ortiz for the series', Cynthia Martinez for the movies.) Naga the Serpant,(rumored older sister to Amelia) was an interesting character to say the least... Incredibly irritating, but then she's supposed to be that way.

slayers: next is clearly the superior series out of all 3, however without the lead in of the first season it loses the impact of the ending. slayers: try sucks