#zuuma

The only thing I can say for sure is that I would change it to be more faithful to the novels. I would especially remake how Zuma is introduced. In the novels he is truly terrifying and there's a nice shipper moment for Lina and Gourry but in the anime they watered it down greatly and I resent it strongly. Giving Zuma an introduction that is similar to the one he has in the novels is a big thing for me.

I'd also like to keep the novel characterizations for the most part, though I would like to see the friendship that developed between Lina and Sylphiel in the anime kept.

Strangely, while I usually am not a big fan of slapstick, the playfulness of Prime, NEXT and TRY is something I would like to see recreated. I showed my daughter the series last year when she was 6 and it was fascinating to see how much she loved it. Kids don't have the verbal ability to process puns and wordplay, but they do understand visual slapstick and she laughed and laughed and laughed while watching it. She still comes up to me and says, "Remember when Gourry ate a bomb?! Silly Gourry! Don't eat the bomb!" Because of cultural differences we tend to think of anime as being for adults, but while I was watching it with her I could see how it was designed to keep children engaged with the storytelling and while I do get annoyed with some aspects, I also feel it lends a charm to the series.

Slayers Week, Day 6: Villains

Went with Zuuma since I was stumped and just asked RPGChick who to do. He’s a pretty simple design, but cool. Least pre demon-arms.

I was thinking about one of the significant differences between the TP and J-Novel translations of the novels being Lina’s dismissive and sarcastic attitude towards Gourry when he breaks down doors to rescue her from Zuuma, both in The Battle of Saillune and Vezendi’s Shadow. It appears that the J-Novel translation, where Lina is matter-of-fact and appreciative of Gourry during the rescues, is more accurate. Which begs the question of why the translator in the TP version added the dismissive sarcasm.

I started wondering if it was a way to appeal to English speaking American readers by emphasizing Lina’s independence. Did the translator think that having Gourry come to her rescue a few times threaten her tough and independent image and add the sarcasm to minimize Gourry’s actions? America is such an individualistic culture that we often set unrealistic expectations that if someone is strong then they never need help. And part of the appeal of Lina Inverse is that she is strong and most of the time, she doesn’t need a strong handsome man to save her. Did the TP translator add the dismissive sarcasm as a misguided attempt to make Lina seem stronger?

Let me say as a strong, independent woman and a feminist who has been wearing so many hats since the pandemic hit (raising young kids without the social supports we had before and running a business), it’s exhausting to never have help. It’s a burden. It’s not healthy to be so independent that you go through life spurning the attempts of anyone who offers to help make it a little easier. Humans are a social species and we survived for 200,000 years by collaboration, not uber independence. And I think that the Japanese, as a culture, are a lot more comfortable with that then Americans are. 

As an American, I think we need to get comfortable with the fact that needing help is okay. It’s not realistic to never need help and to never need someone to come to the rescue. Gourry needing to be rescued by Hellmaster Phibrizo did not take away from his strength. Lina needing to be rescued from Zuuma does not take away from hers. Strong women do not need the burden of never being allowed to rely on others. In fact, one of the reasons that women weather stressful events better than men is because of the social support networks they build. Which is definitely something that you see in Slayers. Lina is definitely the leader, but each member of the gang plays an important role and one of Lina’s strengths is motivating people to be at the top of their game (think Lantz vs Vizea in The Ghosts of Sairaag). 

Changing things so Lina was dismissive and sarcastic towards Gourry really took away from the both of them and allows for a rather shallow portrayal of what strength is. It is strong to know when you are in over your head and need help. It is strong to ask for help when you need it. It takes strength to rely on other people (anyone else ever had a boss who was a control freak and could not delegate, for example?) 

Having re-read and re-read the novels several times since the last time I saw Slayers Evolution-R, I’d forgotten how much more grisly things ended between Zuuma and Abel in Evo. Recently I’d gotten into a discussion that led to ways that The Slayers parallels themes in Buddhism that also form the bedrock of some therapeutic principals such as Radical Acceptance, the practice of accepting that bad things happen, and what happened between Zuuma and Abel sort of embodied a lot of that.

-Once again, the TP translation includes a lot of exaggerations and extra paragraphs. Far too many to do an exhaustive listing.

-Something that strikes me now that I have my TP translation in front of me and am comparing it to J-Novel rather than relying on memory, but in TP Lina is a lot more self-critical about her inability to take on Zuuma (ie: why do I suck?) where in J-Novel Lina is more frustrated with Zuuma’s over the top skill level.

-And TP seems to have invented another whole paragraph or two after Zuuma flees when Gourry breaks down the door and fabricated a bit about Lina and Amelia checking themselves for injuries. Interestingly in J-Novel the scene ends with Gourry asking if Lina is okay, and J-Novel says he “shouted”, and Lina responds that she is and that Amelia’s fine, too. I will say this is definitely the start of Gourry being very concerned for Lina’s safety. That is one aspect of the TP translation that does not appear to be exaggerated.

-The scene with the gossiping maidservant is also greatly exaggerated in the TP version with whole paragraphs materializing from nowhere.

-The stuff Lina and Gourry tell Zel about Radok is very different as well. In TP they say that his father was reportedly very mean and disliked and that it wouldn’t have been a surprise if someone hired an assassin for him, while in J-Novel it says that family business has been in decline since Radok took over, with only a tiny bit about Radok’s dad being disliked. It seems to me that in J-Novel there may be more of a foreshadowing of Radok turning out to be Zuuma with this, like the reason the business was in decline was because Radock was more interested in being an assassin than giving the business the attention it needed type thing.

-Lina cautioning Zel and Amelia about Xellos comes off more strong in J-Novel, and to my mind hints about his Mazoku status; J-Novel: “Listen up you two. Don’t get the wrong idea. Xellos is just along for the ride here. He’s not one of us, and he isn’t on our side.” 

In TP: “Look you two, Xellos is our traveling companion. He’s not our friend, and he’s not our ally.”

But a few paragraphs later in TP is once again exaggerated, with Lina saying that if it were up to her she wouldn’t keep him around while in J-Novel she just points out that they can’t rely on him.

I do think the point of interest here is how Lina just accepts that Xellos is not someone they can rely on him and calls out Zel and Amelia for bashing Xellos for being unreliable, basically because it means that they aren’t on guard around him like they need to be. I think this has interesting implications for when the rest of the group finds that Xellos is a Mazoku in the next novel. Lina was always guarded about Xellos and while she may not have outed him she was also always honest about the fact that they can’t trust him and that he wasn’t their ally, and I’d be willing to bet Gourry picked up on that and followed her lead. Meanwhile, despite Lina’s warning, Zel and Amelia seemed to continue to treat Xellos as someone who should be on their side but was slacking off (though, to be fair, Xellos was not slacking off), and thus felt deceived when the truth was revealed.

What this means? Despite Lina’s doubts, Gourry is the only one of the group who actually listens to her :-)

-Well, this didn’t make it into the TP translation. Apparently Eris embedded the control ruby inside her body! Yikes! Which raises some interesting questions as to how she did this. Given the context of the quote I am going to reject the uber kinky and assume surgery unless they can magically teleport gemstones inside of people. Which is interesting because surgery potentially exists in the Slayersverse. The next point of interest would be if Rezo performed the surgery (blind) or if Eris did a local anesthetic type thing and cut open her arm and put it in.

Of course, the other possibility is uber kinky so...have fun smut writers who aren’t me!

-And so much about Eris was stripped from the TP translation. In J-Novel she says she loves Rezo and Copy Rezo says that after Rezo died Eris came to cry in his arms. This did not make it into the TP translation at all and Eris’s motivation was to command her own army. I do have to admit, I like Eris wanting to command her own army better than being in love with Rezo for her motivation, but it is what it is. Anyway, it’s unknown if they were actually intimate or if it was one way on Eris’s part.

-TP also really toned down what was done to Copy Rezo, which in the J-Novel version sounds like experimental torture, which puts a lot of context to his rage and why he wanted to kill Eris.

-This does make you wonder how much about his experiments Rezo let Zel know about. Obviously Zel had no idea about Copy Rezo, which could indicate that Rezo trusted Eris more (for good reason). It is also interesting that Zel never met Eris in the novels, especially given that Eris is described as being a part of research that Rezo never shared with Zel so even if they weren’t intimate Eris was close enough to Rezo to trust her with such sensitive experiments. Were Eris and Zel in different locations? Or did Rezo severely segment his life and ensure that various people never met? Once again, it’s hard to say if Rezo returned Eris’s feelings, but you would think a grandson or great-grandson would be aware of who his grandfather was romantically involved with even if they aren’t particularly close.

-There are also significant differences between the sections on prophecies and how they work. It is also clear that Sylphiel was the one who received the prophecy in J-Novel.

-Once again, I found the afterword illuminating. It’s explained that HK likes leaving open plot threads as a way to show that the character has a life outside of what we see in his stories (examples are Lina’s sister and Gourry’s grandmother) as a way to add flavor and give the characters more complexity and to feel more real, and that with some of those threads he has backstories (Zuuma is one, and this eventually made it to Revo, but Gourry’s previous adventure in Sairaag has no backstory) and others he doesn’t but hopes it will spur the readers imagination (and it’s certainly spurred my imagination!) HK is also so self-depreciating! Wow. At anyrate, I love these afterwords and the insight they give into HK’s approach to writing The Slayers.

-No really comments on the first chapter. I’d expected the changes with Sylphiel’s uncle and I noticed some other changes but nothing that warranted a comment.

-Aww, ya’ll the scene where Zuma attacks Lina was changed. In the TP version Lina is rather sarcastic towards Gourry when he comes to rescue her. In J-Novel she’s matter of fact leaning towards appreciative. He’s not as panicked but is more soothing. It ends up being more sweet.

-Lina is on to Alfred from the beginning and pretty much pegs him as a malignant narcissist without using the term malignant narcissist, but that’s what she describes. She does buy it being Christopher though.

-In the conversation in Lina’s bedroom, Gourry is a lot less passive aggressive and more direct about how he doesn’t like how Lina’s approach has changed. Gourry just ends up coming off better than he did in the TP one.