Slayers Super Explosive Demon Story Book 3: Red Priest 2001 CPM Press   Buy It Now

Coming into a manga series right at the end is a little like walking into a movie half way through, or even watching the final volume of a six disc anime set. We only recently started to cover manga on the site, so there are times where a series may already be in progress. Furthermore, it wasn't until the last month that I made the decision to help ease up the burden on everyone else, but fortunately, we're not too swamped with manga just yet. That will come in due time I imagine. My first experience with Slayer was the third in a series of one-shots, something where you really don't need to pay too much attention or know too much about the story to be able to read and enjoy the story. But, Slayers: Super-Explosive Demon Story, that's a whole different situation.

Red Priest marks the third and final installment into the Super-Explosive Demon storyline. Lina has found herself captured, her guardian is lost somewhere out in the wilds, and the priest/sorcerer Rezo is after the Stone of Sages, an item that she ran across while attempting to locate a healthy supply of Orihalcon. Lina of course is never one to be kept down for too long, but this certainly isn't going her usual easy, especially after Rezo gets his hands on the legendary Stone and summons up one of the most fearsome demons Lina has ever faced.

A lot of this really gives me the impression of Lord of the Rings, but then again, the chances of finding any sort of title in the fantasy genre that doesn't pay homage to Tolkin in some way is extremely rare. As a matter of fact, it actually might secretly be required before being published and such. The reason for this feeling though could also be due to having watched far too much of Peter Jackson's trilogy over the past few days, but that's besides the point. The real difference here though is that Slayers mixes that whole fantasy feel with humor, something that the series can't be without.

Much of what you have here though is fighting, and plenty of it. Lina takes on undead; she fights trolls, wizards, werewolves, and again, demons. At this point, most of the characters have already been established, although there is a slight bit of background information with one of Rezo's henchmen, Zelgadis, but just enough to give you his true motives behind what he's doing. And of course, there's the usual amount of spell casting that you have come to appreciate and expect.

The artwork isn't bad, but in my opinion, tends to have too much of a cartoon-type feel. On one hand, I really don't expect Slayers to have a dramatic look or feel about it, but on the other hand, the artwork just isn't something that leaps right out and memorable either, and in fact, is just a little too commonplace. And the story, again, while I'm right at the end on this one, is a just a touch too thin.

I really feel like I've missed out on quite a bit here. The story itself is rather easy to pick up on, but there really feels like there was much more that would have added into the overall feel of things. I did enjoy Slayers in its shorter version, but here I'm going to say that you really should pick up all of them in order to get the full feel of the story. It's not bad, and fans of course will truly appreciate it, but it's not the sort of thing that you want to come into during the last act.

- mike -