Slayers Next Vol. 4

If there's one lesson to be learned from the adventures of Lina Inverse, it's probably "choose your enemies carefully", as our favourite sorceress seems to have something of a penchant for getting on the wrong side of the world's most powerful demons, monsters and the like.

Certainly, Slayers Next has been no different in this regard, as this fourth and final volume of the series sees Lina finally complete her journey to discover the Claire Bible, and the powerful secrets that it holds within.  Are those pearls of wisdom enough to allow her to take on the might of the hugely powerful Gaav?  Regardless of her new-found knowledge, it seems that her list of powerful opponents is stacking up by the episode, while a combination of said enemies and her own personal feelings lead Lina towards a road which she never wished to tread again under any circumstances.

As per usual for the Slayers franchise, these final episodes are played out with a mixture of comedy and all-out action (with the spells and explosions coming thick and fast this time around in contrast to the more sedate pace of volume three), together with a surprising amount of emotion in places towards the end of the series, which perhaps goes to show how this unlikely band of misfit characters has managed to worm its way into the viewer's heart.  In fact, speaking of characters, fans of the first series will doubtless be more than a little happy to see a couple of old friends from that season pop up again here to lend a hand to proceedings.

Once again, on a technical level this disc does as well as can be expected - Some of the soft-focus segments used in this volume really show up the limitations of the source media, but that simply can't be helped, and the subtitles are pretty solid overall with only one very minor missing line for me to gripe about.

So, come the end of another adventure, we're left feeling pretty entertained and satisfied overall - I'd be the first to admit that some of the plot progression required to bring us to this final hurdle is faintly ridiculous (and I'd wager that some of it actually makes no sense at all if I thought about it too seriously) but hey - This is Slayers, what were you expecting?  This final volume serves us a big dollop of action, garnishes it with some humour, and delivers a knowing wink to its audience as the cherry on top.  It's no classic, but as pure and simple fun it does its job pretty admirably, and in this regard I'd probably argue that Slayers Next delivers more consistently that its predecessor.