In case you were curious from the previous post below, yes, I did finish Slayers: Excellent and yes, I enjoyed it very much, too. The best part(s) were in the extras, the actual interviews with voice actresses Cynthia Martinez (young Lina) and Kelly Manison (Naga).
The unique thing about Slayers: Excellent is we're treated (in flashback) to the very first moment of Lina and Naga meeting each other and deciding to team up. The OVAs themselves are amusingly ridiculous, like much else in the Slayers franchise.
I very much enjoyed the interview with Cynthia Martinez, though of course I also listened to her on the commentary track for the original Slayers: The Motion Picture. More interesting for me was the interview with Kelly Manison, on how she developed Naga's voice and more specifically that unforgettable haughty laugh!
Looking back, I have thoroughly enjoyed my trip through the Slayers universe. I couldn't possibly pick between Lisa Ortiz or Cynthia Martinez as the voice of series Lina and young Lina respectively. Both performances are brilliant, though I guess if I think of Lina Inverse, I tend to hear Lisa's voice in my head first. I think it comes down to the strengths and weaknesses of the ADR script, which are not the fault of the actresses. I think the spell incantations in the television series are more poetic and memorable, while in the prequel movies they're more elaborate but don't have the same flow and cadence as they do in the regular tv show. I'm going to think of Lisa narrating the Dragon Slave incantation more often than I can recall to mind the version Cynthia had to say. Plus with Gourry in the mix for the television show, and in only one of the prequel films, Lina has more emotional range by default. Does she love Gourry or is he "just a friend"? Will they or won't they? Slayers teases this romantic tension constantly. Season Three does reward us with their first on screen kiss, only to steal it back by blanking both their memories of it as a product of being in altered existential states. Lina doesn't exactly deny it when Amelia and others ask her point blank of Gourry, "You love him, don't you?"; She just blushes hotly and changes the subject. I think Lina likes Gourry just as he is....big, dumb and handsome. In other words, he's totally her type. She knows she's smarter than him and wants to keep it that way.
