Slayers The Motion Picture (1995) Anime OVA Review

Slayers The Motion Picture, also known as Slayers Perfect, is a 1995 adventure fantasy comedy anime OVA directed by Hiroshi Watanabe, who would be in charge of directing all of the Slayers OVA specials and movies from this point on. It was written by Kazuo Yamazaki (who is known for directing several episodes of Urusei Yatsura), this would be his first and only writing credit in the Slayers franchise. The cast features the great Megumi Hayashibara, Maria Kawamura, Osamu Saka, Tessho Genda, Yuri Shiratori and Mahito Tsujimura. Perfect was one of the very first animated entries in the Slayers franchise created by Hajime Kanzaka, as it was released on July 29, 1995, three months after the TV series started airing.

Strange nightmares haunt sorceress Lina Inverse who, along with her companion and adversary, Naga the Serpent, travels to the hot springs of Mipross. When the magical waters turn out to be fake, the girls realize a bunch of bandits own them, under the command of the Great Master, who is involved with the elves seen in Lina's visions.

These early Slayer stories in the timeline are among my favorites, that's mostly because of the inclusion of fan-favorite sexy sorceress Naga the serpent, whose chemistry and constant clashes with Lina create some of the funniest moments in the franchise because of the very evident contrast (physical, moral, personality-wise) between the two girls. This first OVA really takes advantage of that by pretty much establishing how much Lina can't stand her but has to team up with her in cleverly conceptualized situations to face a bigger enemy.

The storyline I felt was well handled, what's initially just a mystery eventually is explained to the audience in small doses with very good pace and rhythm. Having Lina and Naga encounter several quirky secondary characters as their journey is either interrupted or disrupted by imaginative enemies and fun obstacles was a good way to structure the film. It's not really as streamlined as one might think, and there's a tendency towards a more fragmentary type of narrative, making some of the events feel slightly disjointed but the script is decent enough to tie everything together even if it's to a small degree in order for the plot to make sense feel cohesive, it never feels like it's just random scenarios strung together.

There are also some differences with the anime series that are established in this first movie, things that will become recurrent in the OVA franchise. First up is Lina being more hardcore with her magic, she's slightly less joyful than in her introductory scene in the show and she also doesn't mind killing or hurting bandits and doesn't think twice about things like that. Another thing is that the sexual jokes and raunchy jokes based on Lina's body are also more prominent and emphasized in these OVA's overall. Some more graphic bits of imagery are also present here. 

By now you can tell that since the market is for direct-to-video consumers the sensibility is a bit more edgy and daring. Not to a weird degree but enough to realize the tone isn't exactly the same as the series, a divergence that helps to make these OVA's stand out.  

If you wanna start with the OVA movies instead of the shows this is a good place to begin, you don't need any real knowledge of the lore and most of the important things you need to know are introduced here anyway. If you are a Slayers fan but somehow you haven't seen it, then I would recommend you to give it a go!

Supergirl (2026) Movie Review

Supergirl is a 2026 superhero sci-fi movie directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira. It's based on the DC comic book Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and stars Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, David Corenswet, and Jason Momoa as Lobo. It's the second film in the second attempt by DC at creating an extended universe, this time held by James Gunn, who is also a producer for the film.

Kara Zor-El is a dead beat kryptonian, she celebrates her birthday by getting drunk on a planet with a red sun and has very little going on in her life. A teen named Ruthye enters the bar she is in, the young girl is looking for revenge as her parents were murdered by a group of evil ravagers led by a man named Krem. Supergirl takes the girl under her mantle and helps her defeat the attackers when Krem injects her dog, Krypto, with a poisonous dart.

Without anything particularly new to offer, this latest Supergirl movie seems to be an amalgamation of the typical pop culture hodgepodge with their borrowed arcs, stereotypes and ways of creating stories based on recurring themes like redemption, vengeance and learning how to overcome your trauma that you usually see in these movies. The result is a derivative version of the template already established by most of the comedic comic book movies that were released around the 2010's and 2020's. The script itself is cobbled together from scenes from other movies put in the right place for maximum impact or at least to fit accordingly. The scene that introduces the villain, from example, has echoes from both The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Inglourious Basterds (2009) but without any of the suspense due to the lack of time and skill to create tension, instead opting for the most hurried tricks to gain a cheap sense of intensity.

The villain himself seems to be a tired attempt at making a Mad Max goon mixed with a dull MCU bad guy that's meant to be disposable. His actions are horrid but never in any effective way and his puny personality can't even be glimpsed when the actor tries to give him some sort of quirk or attitude. The world this film creates fares better as the variety of exotic creatures and factions is slightly interesting. And finally, Lobo is fun when he is on the screen but he seems superfluous. As some have mentioned the needle drops are gratuitous and empty, no energy or any sense of relevance to the scene but it only happens once or twice, so it's not any worse or any better than any other blockbuster with music of this kind. I also have trouble with how modern movies use lighting, a lot of scenes are dark and devoid of strong colors in favor of a murky CGI lighting and post-production modification that makes everything look fake.

Getting the negative out of the way I can now move onto the best parts of the movie, the main shining light being Milly Alcock as Supergirl, who delivers a wonderful performance. Always believable and managing to deliver the otherwise routine lines of dialogue with conviction and honest emotion. The character herself is interesting because it shows us another facet of the Superman lore with her personal ties to Kryptonian culture and life in some very solid flashbacks. Kara's disheveled and drunken state is a refreshing sight when it comes to superheroines in media and opens up a new path female heroes can go to as they no longer have to be the sexy badasses or the idealized superwomen that are spotless, this interpretation of Kara is both funny and engaging with enough flaws to make her feel relatable to the average audience member but who knows how to do the right thing. Some people don't like how this wasn't faithful to the comic but one can easily set the two apart and enjoy this movie for what it is.

I gotta say, I wish the movie had more to say other than "revenge is bad" because it kind of feels flimsy and undecided when it comes to its message. A message that never gains any weight and feels like an afterthought, only somewhat aided by the emotional connection Kara has with Ruthye, which could have been deeper and more concrete as far as I am concerned but that still existed in a technically functioning manner nonetheless. 

I can recommend the movie for superhero film fans because it is a good step forward considering my lack of excitement over Gunn's Superman but I have some reservations. The storytelling is flawed and the lesser moments do stick out, however, the core of the film works quite nicely and is above the average MCU or DCEU experience, even if by a limited margin.