Should Hellmaster Fibrizo / Phibrizzo from Slayers join the tumblr found family?
Yeah!
Nope!

seen from Russia

seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from Australia
seen from China

seen from Malaysia

seen from Singapore
seen from Belgium
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from Finland

seen from Finland

seen from Indonesia
seen from Belgium
seen from China

seen from United States

seen from Belgium
seen from India
seen from Russia
Should Hellmaster Fibrizo / Phibrizzo from Slayers join the tumblr found family?
Yeah!
Nope!
What I love about the demons in Slayers (the "Mazoku" in the sub or "Monster Race" if you're watching the dub, the ones who are intelligent and not just cannon fodder monsters of the day to be a nuisance) is that they're not dangerous based on power level and not even based on intelligence. The danger they pose is based way more on how mentally fucked-up they are.
Spoilers for a 90's anime that you probably never even saw the original of and instead probably saw the 2000's reboot of: the big bad for Season 2 (Slayers NEXT) is that he (she in the manga!) is a KID. That Hellmaster Fibrizo, chief of all the dead and ruler over the souls in the afterlife, human and otherwise, damned and OTHERWISE, is that he's a fucking kid. He's so little and undeveloped he could pass for either gender, and every character looks at him when they run into him in a rando little town and is like "yeah okay, regular pickpocketing little brat. Guess we'll feed him and keep an eye on him. No ridiculous cosmis powers or head-crushing psychic radius like Chaos Dragon King Gaav, and not 10 feet tall like him either, not wielding a 13-foot broadsward like him either. No, Fibrizo is a smiling, relaxed, fucked-up little kid who doesn't have anything near the level of an adult developed forebrain and prefrontal cortex and is being possessed by the absolute most powerful demon on the planet.
And he's having fun! Destroying the world. He's feeling chipper! Handing the entire blasted corpse of whatever planet Slayers is set on probably an alternate Earth tbh the planet over to his Mom, the Actual Void Everything Came From, and he's like, hey Mom! Here it is! Got you your world back that you accidentally dropped into creation! Gonna do everything you ever wanted but couldn't! Nice to see you! Look how WELL I did Mommy! Look what a GOOD JOB I did with the creation you obviously wanted to be rid of so you could place yourself centrally in the cosmos again!
And his mom is like *SPANKS YOU SO HARD YOU STOP EXISTING* *ensures the world is still somewhat there* *leaves so she doesn't destroy creation with her mere presence*.
Basically the whole season is dealing with this one over-powerful nepo brat until his Mom finally manages to get out of her own house and pop him upside the head. THAT'S THE SEASON, GUYS. That's how Slayers NEXT goes. Great demon interactions. Amazing mental issues. And this one kid who just really ought not to have had access to the things he had access to.
Watch anime! It'll learn you a thing!
Today’s trap of the day is Hellmaster Fibrizo from the anime Slayers NEXT
Weekly Anime Comic: Slayers Next - page 25
Insert line about how becoming a patron helps insure that I never have to work at one of THESE again. Speaking of which, weekly Macross comics have already started over on Patreon! You don't have to wait for the last of the Slayers comics to go public to start reading the next series!
Conventional Wisdom / Patreon
Custom 3D print model of Hellmaster Phibrizzo is finally here! So beautiful!!!!!
Mega Brand Q&A with Hajime Kanzaka, 7/2018 to 12/2018, translated
And I am just about caught up to when @kaette-kita-slayers stopped posting, I know for sure she covered 2017 but I am going to have to double check for the first part of 2018 as she started going by issue rather than date at some point to make sure I don’t redo the wonderful stuff she’s already done, and I’m not sure if this is one of those things that I worry will take forever but will be straightforward, fast and easy once I get started or if it will actually take forever. So there may still be some more or there may not.
I am also pursuing some avenues to try to get the full versions of the Blaster Interviews, but no guarantees there.
And also, I would totally be following that black cat with HK, lol.
I finished re-reading novel 7 in the new translation, and again I feel J-Novel conveys the subtleties of the original text far better than TP.
Like, the scene where Gourry asks Xellos his age is mostly played for laughs in TP, but I always did get the impression from the Japanese text that it was more than that, and I felt that too while reading it this time. My impression is that he had noticed that Lina was struggling to find a way to ease the tension and speak to Milgazia, and that he created the setting for her to do that. Lina says it herself: he is sharp in the weirdest ways (and after more than a year with her, it’s clear he’s become particularly sharp in reading her). I also have this personal theory that Gourry plays dumb a lot so that the people around him underestimate him (maybe he learned to do that in order to survive his mess of a family).
I do wish they’d left the “That made me happy, Gourry” (I think it was “ureshikatta, Gourry” in the original) instead of translating Lina’s reaction to the “He trusted me” scene as “That was nice, Gourry”. However, I am glad they got rid of all Lina’s unnecessary (and absent in the original text) inner monologue. She is at a loss of words. Let her be. It happens even to her at times, lmao.
I also think Milgazia comes across as more nuanced in this translation? But this might just be me re-reading his scenes after having gotten to know him better in the later novels. I love Milgazia a lot by the way - he is one of my favourite side characters. He is just the right mixture of goodiness and sassiness.
Side notes, not connected with the translation:
- Hellmaster is a little shit even before coming out as Hellmaster (I raged the first time I read of his “playing the poor dead kid” act in order to manipulate Lina and I am raging again upon re-read, lmao. I kind of love to hate him).
- Xellos being the grudging errand boy will never not be funny to me (and he is a little shit too, but I can’t even bring myself to be mad at him, given the circumstances).
- Gaav is one of the coolest villains ever. His “we fight for survival so we are the same” speech to Amelia? Gets to me every.single.time.
- I love so so much that Kanzaka let Zel and Amelia be on the fence on how to deal with Lina and Hellmaster’s plot here. I love that when they confront the situation rationally at first they tell themselves that they would be ready to turn against Lina and even kill her if push comes to shove, but then when all hell DOES break loose they find themselves siding with her anyway, because she is their friend and they love her and Gourry. It’s so realistic and human, and makes their friendship feel earned, and not forced.
- GOURRY IS SO DAMN SOFT AND I HATE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HIM. I love just how committed he is to Lina by this point. He used to question her and even mistrust her in the first novels, but not anymore: he isn’t even a tad self-conscious in admitting that he is going to side with her no matter how the situation evolves. It so uncharacteristic of a shonen male protagonist and I kind of love it. And it’s the perfect setup for what losing him will mean to Lina.
I do wonder what he would have done if Lina had decided to sacrifice herself to thwart Hellmaster’s plan in the end. I somehow can’t see him go along with that. Would he have tried to talk her out of it? (fic writers, I am looking at you).
- And by the way, I hadn’t caught it in previous reads, but nice foreshadowing in the scene where Lina decides to set aside her initial hesitation about LON’s spells and cast Ragna Blade because he is in danger. I wonder if Hellmaster noticed that too and came up with the kidnapping plot as a result?
Preview of my Hellmaster Phibrizzo costume I made for this year’s Colossalcon! Just a little over a week to go. I’ll be wearing this on Friday, representing my favorite anime of all time and certainly one of my favorite villains, as well! This has been a dream cosplay for at least ten years.