[4][5] Using powerful magic and swordsmanship they battle overreaching wizards, demons seeking to destroy the world, and an occasional hapless gang of bandits.

An artifact known as the Claire Bible contains information about the Lord of Nightmares' task to regain its "true form",[7] which is only attainable by destroying these worlds and returning them to the chaos (sea of darkness) that it itself is.

In the world where the Slayers takes place, Flare Dragon Ceifeed and the Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu are, respectively, the supreme god and demon.

Long ago, their war ended more or less in a stalemate, when Ceifeed was able to split Shabranigdu's existence into seven pieces in order to prevent him from coming back to life, then seal them within human souls.

Ultimately, the piece of Shabranigdu won, but Aqualord, using the last remnants of her power, sealed him into a block of magical ice within the Kataart Mountains.

Black magic spells, such as the famous Dragon Slave, call directly on the powers of the demons and are capable of causing enormous damage.

Shamanistic magic is focused on manipulation and alteration of the basic elements of the natural world (earth, wind, fire, water and spirit) and contains spells for both offense and convenience, such as Lei Wing, Fireball, or Elemekia Lance.

Holy magic uses the power of the gods, but the aforementioned barrier made its usage impossible for anyone inside before the death of the demon Hellmaster Phibrizzo.

The protagonist of Slayers is Lina Inverse, a teenage wandering genius sorceress with many nicknames and much infamy attached to her that she refuses to acknowledge.

Lina narrates (within the novels) the history of her various adventures, ranging from whimsical and silly to dramatic to even outright world-threatening crises, in which she becomes involved along with her traveling companions everywhere she goes.

[10] In the afterward of the fifteenth novel, the original final installment of the series, Kanzaka said he wanted to end the story in an open-ended way in order to allow readers to imagine what happens next to Lina and Gourry.

Zuma's backstory was omitted because the novels are told from Lina's first-person perspective, but Kanzaka gave some of the material to the staff of Slayers Revolution so it could be included in the anime.

[9] Slayers began serialization in Dragon Magazine in 1989 as a short story series written by Hajime Kanzaka and with artwork by Rui Araizumi.

[14] The author described this as "Rather than an official history, the third arc is going to be more like one of the possibilities, a parallel existence to the TRY TV anime and the Water Dragon King manga, I guess.

[20][21] Between July 26, 2008 and March 2009, a new manga series entitled Slayers Light Magic (スレイヤーズ ライト・マジック) was serialised in Kadokawa Shoten's Kerokero Ace.

However, a fourth season, Slayers AGAIN, was rumored following the success of Try, but early scheduling conflicts caused interest in the project to dissipate.

[33] Megumi Hayashibara, the voice actress for main character Lina Inverse, performed both the opening and ending theme songs.

[36] Central Park Media licensed and distributed the anime in North America under the Software Sculptors label on VHS and Laserdisc between 1996 and 1998, collected in eight volumes.

[41] The first bilingual DVD box set after Funimation's rescue of the license was released on August 21, 2007, retaining the Software Sculptors-produced English dub.

[43] Fox Kids won the rights to broadcast Slayers but eventually did not air the anime since it would be too heavy to edit it for content.

[45] Episodes have also been made available on the streaming video sites Hulu, YouTube, Crackle, Anime News Network, Netflix, and Funimation's website.

[47] Funimation contracted NYAV Post to produce the English version of the series, with dialogue being recorded in both New York City and Los Angeles.

[13] Writing in 2020, Iyane Agossah from DualShockers opined Slayers "is still rarely equaled 30 years later, with an incredible mix of comedy and tragedy, an intricate amount of world-building, great story developments and iconic characters.

"[62] Of the various media which make up the Slayers franchise, the anime has by far reached the largest audience and is considered to be one of the most popular series of the 1990s, both in Japan and abroad.

In Anime Essentials: Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know, Gilles Poitras wrote: "More humorous and less serious looking than the characters in the Lodoss War series, the stars of Slayers provide action and laughs.

(...) Ridiculing its own shortcomings, Slayers has successfully kept a strong following that watches for what some might call biting satire, and others bad workmen blaming their tools.