Friday, May 15, 2009

Rhymes with "Bitch": Naga the Serpent.



Anime tends to be kind of hit-or-miss for me.
It seems like a great deal of it is not really aimed at my demographic, what with all the schoolgirls in short skirts, and people in big fighty robot-suits firing rockets at each other.
And don't even get me started on the snoozefest that is Akira.

But when Japanese animation is good, it's very, very good.
Miyazaki is a genius, and if you have never seen Spirited Away, or Castle in the Sky, or My Neighbor Totoro, do yourselves a favor, Crickets, and try them out. Even BlackDeathUnicorn, who would typically rather clean the gutters than watch fantasy-themed animation, was spellbound by Howl's Moving Castle.

I'll get to his genius another time, though.



Today is about another amazing and hilarious anime fantasy creation: Slayers.
Slayers is essentially about a powerful red-headed sorceress, Lina Inverse, and her many adventures. She tends to attract trouble wherever she goes. This could have something to do with her Hobbit-short temper, or the nutty people who tend to fall in with her crowd.

Lina's greatest rival is the beautiful and confident Naga the White Serpent. Naga may be a fraction less talented at magic than Lina, but she has one thing that Lina does not: Big boobies. Okay, actually, that's two things.
Also, Naga has the most marvellous laugh in the history of larynxes. Her signature laugh conveys her confidence and power to all who hear it, and the sound of it can often carry as far as a neighbouring village.

Naga is actually, despite her appearance, adept at using white magic.

She is also a princess, whose mother was cruelly murdered, but she keeps this under wraps. The outfit she wears (if a few tiny strips of leather can be called an outfit) is one she found in her mother's closet after her death. The big spikes and sword are for show. In fact, she has been known to poke herself in the head with the shoulder spikes when she raises her arms up too high, and she grows faint at the sight of blood.

Although Naga is dressed like a fanboy's wettest dream, she and Lina are both, in my opinion, pretty positive feminist characters. They never defer to men, are never tied up, or abused, and they give every bit as good as they get. They are confident, enterprising, wily, tough, their characters have layers and nuances, and they are absolutely hilarious.

Watch and listen for her laugh, and fall in love.

1 comment:

  1. It has been a rough year for you. Carry their legacy and fulfill your callings!!

    ReplyDelete