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This is *so* frustrating. I have books #1-3 of Slayers: Super-Explosive Demon Story. I saw more online recently, so I grabbed them. They were delivered the other day and it turns out they are books 5 & 6. O.o Okay, oddness. So, I figure I missed a book and search online for book #4. I searched the official publishing company's site ( http://www.centralparkmedia.com ) and don't see it. #1-3 are there and #4-8 are there, though. O.o There is a comic for 4, but not a graphic novel. More oddness. So, I checked Amazon.com and BN.com (Barnes & Noble). They are missing book 4 as well. Then I went eBay and looked. Someone there had book 4, but they said book four was Slayers Return which features Naga, who doesn't come into the manga until a following series called Slayers Special. I thought this was odd, so I searched around a little more. In a Google search, another place said this book was #4 and there wasn't any other mention of a fourth book. I went back to Amazon and looked up the book. There was a review there that said Slayers Return was a stand alone, one-shot story in addition to the Slayers Special series, which makes a lot more sense. Now I am totally confused, though. Where and what is Slayers: Super-Explosive Demon Story book 4 and why does no one have it? Also, why are some places saying this other book, which is most definitely from the later series, is book 4? Can anyone help or give any advice where to look further?

I emailed Central Park Media and got this response:



That doesn't help much. You'd think they would have hired someone to answer email by now, seeing as it's mid-November.

The fourth volume of the Slayers "Choubaku Mahouden (Mega-Explosive Magical Legend)" manga, is in fact the manga version of Slayers Return, the second movie. Volume five ("The City of the Dead") continues the story from volume three ("Legend of Darkness"), which are based on the first Slayers TV series.

Why this was done - most likely because volume four was released in 1997, around when Slayers Return was released in theaters in Japan. (ADV brought it over to the US about a year ago.) That, or it was used as a sort of side-work for the author, Shoko Yoshinaka, who started work around this time on Lost Universe, a sister-series to Slayers. You'll notice that the manga started coming out in one/two-year intervals at this time, rather than her earlier three/seven-month intervals.

So, to answer your question, the Slayers Return volume that you've found online is the fourth volume you're looking for. If you're not that interested in reading up on a Lina and Naga adventure and would rather finish volumes 5-8, I wouldn't suggest buying it at this point.

Also, small note: the Slayers Special manga series and movies, while (mostly) released after Shoko Yoshinaka's manga series and the TV series, do come first in the Slayers timeline. Lina and Naga teamed up well before Lina met Gourry and the rest of the gang, so techincally, it'd be fine to pick up the Special series and Slayers Return without having finished the Choubaku Mahouden line of manga or TV series. Not sure if you were aware of this.

Might I suggest picking up the three TV series if you haven't seen it already, along with the novels? Both are even better than either manga series and the movies, and if you want the full Slayers experience, they are essential.

For more information, Inverse.org is *the* Slayers info site.

Hope this helps!

Ah, now I see. Thank you very much! It was really confusing when they threw the Slayers Return book in the middle of the Lina and Guorry story and continues the previous story in the fifth book. Thank you for clearing that up.

I have all of the manga (that's translated) so far, except the most recent and I'm looking into getting the novels. I have some of the anime as well, but I haven't found a chance to watch any of it yet. It's one of those many wonderful series on my to-watch list.