Letters

OK, since there's no way in hell for me to answer Last Exit mail, I thought I'd fill this section out with a few letters generated off my own page.

What sucked about Violence Jack?

- the luthers
luther@quiknet.com

1st group: Let's all fight over resources since we're stuck underground!

2nd group: OK!

3rd group: We found a way out! We don't have to fight anymore!

1st group: Yay! A way out! Let's go kill a bunch of women for no discernable reason!

Violence Jack: You guys do that! Meanwhile, even though I've refused to help so far, and watched coutless people get killed when I could have prevented it, I'll go stop your leader.

Evil Leader Guy: You killed my girlfriend Violence Jack! For that you must pay! So, for no apparent reason, I'll eat my girlfriend's corpse and then, for yet again no apparent reason, mutate into a demon.

Violence Jack: that's OK, because I'll kick your ass anyways.

And the gratuitous sex, violence, and crap drones on and on and on and on and on...

I mean, what was there to LIKE about it? It blew chunks and then some!

I'm kind of new to animes and what really turns me on is mechs/mechas/robots (call them how u like) and lots of violence. The animes I've seen until now are: Night warriors, Akira, Evengelion, ninja scroll and a couple others. I've been searching all over the net for good mecha titles but I found that anime watchers seem to dislike mecha animes in general except for Evangelion. The titles I've gathered are these (those I wanna see): Hades Project Zeorymer, Power D.O.L.L.S. and Gundam. Are they good Mecha animes? and what other titles do you recommend me?

- Etienne Labonte
phoenix95@hotmail.com

DAMN THE GIANT ROBOT HATING INFIDELS TO A FIERY PIT OF ETERNAL DAMNATION! THEY INCURE MY WRATH AND SO SHALL THEIR SUFFERING BE LEGENDARY!

I know what you mean, for a fairly large part of the anime community, Giant Robots don't seem to have a lot of love. Oh well.

Hades Project Zeorhymer is WICKED! If all you want to see is giant robots stomping each other over Japan, this is it! It has EVERYTHING! Cheesey special moves, crappy dialogue, and MORE DESTRUCTION THAN POSSIBLE OUTSIDE A DIRTY PAIR MOVIE! Power DOLLS you want to stay away from. Far away. It's that bad. Gundam rules, and if you like it, check out Robotech. You might also be interested in checking out these titles:

Giant Robo ("Giant Robo! Rocket Fist Punch!")
Iczer-1
Patlabor (series and movies)
Dangiaoh: Spiral Knuckles In Tears
Kishin Corps.

Also, if you EVER see a copy of Mazinger around, SEE IT! It's what hooked me onto Giant Robots.

Ryan, were you on crack when you wrote the review for Metal Skin Panic Madox?

- Supafly
supaf@hotmail.com

No, I was on Mescaline. Next question. ^_-

I noticed that you're a little confused about the absence of a lot of the Slayers characters from the movies. It's because of different time streams. The original Slayers manga on which everything else was based comprised only 5 volumes. The first three are actually Slayers itself; they follow the adventure up until the defeat of the Dark Lord Shabrinigdo. That was supposed to be it. But just as with all popular series, when it was a hit, the author was prompted to do more. Volume #4 took place *before* the original three, and chronicled Lina's adventures with the whacky rival Naga. Volume #5 took us back to the present, with Ameria and Sypheel showing up and joining the group. As you can see, Volumes # 1-3 were stuck together with #5 to make the first TV series, Slayers. Then, volume #4 became the inspiration for the first movie.

Ok so far? Following that, the whole gang came back in Slayers NEXT, the second TV series. This takes place after the first TV series, and so has all of the characters except Naga (since she's obviously gone by the time the first TV series begins). Then, Slayers Return took us back in time to after the first Slayers movie. Got it? Basically, the movies occur before the TV series do. The movies follow Lina's adventures with Naga, who leaves at some point and the two go their seperate ways (however, we don't know why she leaves or how...it's not been shown yet). After Naga leaves, Lina supposedly hangs around for a while killing bandits to amuse herself, and then the first TV series begins.

There are a couple of problems that you've probably already noticed. First of all, in each consecutive series Lina's outfit is upgraded. However, her kick-ass gear in Slayers - Gorgeous, the newest movie, at some point's gonna have to be chucked for her drab garb in original Slayers TV. Also, taking into account all her adventures, she'd be about 10 years old in the first movie. Obviously, the passage of time has to be ignored for the Slayers universe to make sense.

In case I've babbled and not been too clear, the chronology of Slayers runs like this:

Slayers Perfect
Slayers Return
-Slayers Special- ? not sure
Slayers Great
Slayers Gorgeous
----------------
Slayers
Slayers NEXT
Slayers TRY
----------------
Slayers Royal
Slayers Royal 2

Ok? Hope you found some of this useful. I haven't seen all of NEXT, or Gorgeous, yet, but aside from that and a few missing magazines, I pretty much have all the Slayers-related material available. If you wanna talk about it some more (Lina's my fav character, so I'm partial to Slayers out of all anime) or just have questions or whatever, e-mail me sometime.

- Andrew Dyche
adyche@compmore.net

Thanks for the info Andrew! Actually, I wasn't confused about the Slayers chronology, just miffed that my favorite characters weren't in any of the movies. ^_- Also, for everyone wondering where Slayers: The Motion Picture fits in there, it's just the North Americain title for Slayers: Perfect.