And that was how it all began. "What began?" you might ask. The answer would probably be: "a long and passionate love affair between me and the awesome series, Slayers." My boyfriend hates it, thinks it's silly, and I must admit I agreed with him when I saw an orange-haired girl steal from this gang of thieves (such poetic justice, don't you think?) and waltz off to pig out on some kind of unrecognizable, medieval, anime-conjured snack. But I fell in love with it when I realized that this wasn't going to be a typical cutesy fantasy, where a cute, gung-ho, voluptuous girl-woman with unbelievable powers just blows everyone out of the water. And I knew Slayers would be different from the typical-cutesy-fantasy-where-etc-happens (see above) the minute I realized that the heroine was decidedly not voluptuous....

To tell the truth, Lina is very painfully aware of the fact that not only is she short and young-looking, but that her body is very boyish-looking too, as her arch-rival (yet apparent buddy) Naga just loves to point out. Naga is everything (well almost everything) that Lina wants so desperately to become. She is beautiful, has a wonderful "Oh ho ho ho hohohohohoho!" laugh (not!), and, most importantly, has the kind of body that would make any man itch. And Lina is quite literally prepared to go through hell and high water to make her body as curvaceous.

The movie Slayers starts out with Lina (as usual) stealing from a bunch of bandits. After totally creaming them and leaving them destitute, she goes off to find some yummies to eat and finds herself confronted by none other than Naga. Apparently, Naga, who is a tad soft in the head, was hired by the bandits to catch and punish the fearsome thief. Once Naga is made to understand that "No! They are the bad guys!" she turns tail on the poor bandits and fries them herself. The story from then on chronicles as they roam the world, fighting fearsome opponents, the likes of which, believe me, you will never see again. There is that mysterious bald shorty who attacks them on a pier and has apparently bewitched the entire island into thinking of nothing but jellyfish. Then there is that evil flunky with the twirly mustache who tries to fry them in a hot spring.

In the world in which Lina lives, there are three kinds of magic: black magic, white magic, and spirit magic. Black magic is what Lina is most powerful in. She takes power from the negative things in this world and from the evil gods and uses it to cast powerful spells. The most powerful of her spells is Dragon Slave, originally known as Dragon Slayer because it could kill dragons. Spirit magic uses power from the astral plane, and not much is known of it. Lina has knowledge of spirit magic but can't use it herself. The last kind is white magic, in which Lina has a very small skill. Naga, on the other hand, is a powerful sorceress in her own right, but she is not nearly as powerful as Lina. Together, the two form a formidable team, combining their knowledge and power to solve the puzzle of the mysterious island.

[seiyuu note: Lina's voice is none other than the omnipresent Megumi Hayashibara, and Naga is performed by Maria Kawamura.]