I realized that I have not yet talked much anime in my posts. So let's start with my favorite anime ever: Slayers.
When my family moved to Korea in '93, there was only the one English channel, the military-owned station with shows brought over from the US. They were a little behind, but I'd watch stuff like Seinfeld and all. And of course, I'd watch some Korean TV. My sisters and I would have to watch the TV in my parents' room while my dad watched sports and we caught the last episodes of Sailor Moon and Rayearth season 2 along with some other stuff and we were like, "Huh, animated stuff other than the Disney and Looney Tunes we've been watching; interesting." It was all in Korean and we didn't understand it though so it was kind of underwhelming. Though sometimes we'd have fun making up English dialogue for the soap operas. Then the first season of Slayers started and we got into it. Still didn't know what they were saying, but we could more or less figure out what was going on; a Korean-American friend who also watched it would translate if there was anything we didn't understand why they'd reacted to what was said. And we liked the characters and the plot was really cool. We got so into it that by Slayers Next, if our parents called us to dinner, we would try to put them off until the end credits were over.
Slayers is to blame for several things in my life: why I've spent so much money on anime, why I don't take Star Wars as seriously as I once did, my deep and abiding love of Crispin Freeman (which is a whole 'nother post for another day.) The storyline is great, classic sword-and-sorcery stuff that sometimes makes fun of the genre, namely in the first episode when Lina taunts a bandit out for revenge because he's using stock dialogue and being very cliche. And later in the first season, when it looks like Lina's going to die but then she comes back, Gourry says that he was thinking the series was gonna be over and Zelgadis reminds him that they're really not taking the story seriously. Sometimes the filler episodes get a little stupid, especially in the new seasons that came out a few years ago, but they're pretty funny mostly. And unlike some other series(Bleach, FMA, ETC), there're only a few; it's like 3 per season.
And now for a brief rundown of the main cast:
Lina Inverse: main female, a 16-year-old sorceress who is incredibly strong. She learns some new spells in the first two seasons, but does so by trial-and-error; she doesn't have to go off and train for a whole episode or so which would bog down the story. Of course she's famous for her attitude, physical appearance, and appetite; a friend once told me that I'm like her mentally, physically I'm her opposite.
Gourry Gabriev: Lord, you made him so cute and so talented, but so dumb. I mean, he knows some stuff, but if it wasn't that he's Lina's best guy (he is, okay; I don't wanna hear any different) and he can totally kick butt with any sword under the sun, I don't know that he'd last long.
Zelgadis Graywords: chimera, has an attitude, and an amazing sorcerer. I'll get more into him when I cover my Crispin Freeman characters because I could say a lot more about him.
Amelia Seyruun: a lot of people think she's annoying, but I love her. She's also a lot like me: she wants everything to go according to ideals and sometimes does dumb stuff trying to make it so. And people forget that she's not too bad at magic. And she's so cute; she's the total little sister-type.
