New Slayers TV Anime Announced
God, talk about old shows coming back from the dead. First Trigun, then School Rumble, & now this. (There's also strong rumors of the a new Gurren Lagann season, but that's not quite as old & definitely not confirmed.) But as much as I LOVED both those series, this one probably means the most to me & has me the most excited. It has now been confirmed that a brand new Slayers series will be coming to Japanese TV. No official start date has been confirmed, but rumor has it it'll be this May (which is an odd month to start a new anime series; quite rare if true).
The new series will be split across two cours. A typical anime season is 2 cours long (~24-26 eps), so this new Slayers series will be split into 2 groups of 12-13 eps each. So a break in between seems likely, similar to what Gundam 00 is doing in Japan now. Takashi Watanabe, who directed the first three seasons, is confirmed to be returning for this one. Studio J.C.STAFF is looking to get all the old seiyuu back to reprise their roles as well, but nothing can be confirmed yet. Of course having anyone but the vastly talented Megumi Hayashibara (Faye in Cowboy Bebop, Rei in Evangelion, Musashi in Pokemon, female Ranma in Ranma) to play Lina Inverse would be a crime against god, causing the show to automatically fail (I have similar feelings if this ever gets licensed & they get someone other than Lisa Ortiz to dub her as well).
I LOVE Slayers. & I LOVE Lina as well. Definitely very high up on my list of Anime-Girls-I-Wish-Were-Real-So-I-Could-Marry-Them-List (not to mention Amelia's on that list too). I have heard a lot of people say that Slayers was such a 1990s anime that they wonder if the art-style would work with modern animation. While I agree the old-style look of Slayers was part of its charm, this video below is a special 10th anniversary AMV that came out in 2005 (with Megumi of course singing), & I think it looks great:
Click to viewSource: http://www.moetron.com/2008/02/27/new-slayers-tv-announced/