Next is the Nanoha A’s of its franchise and just as how some dropped StrikerS, we saw prominent fansub group Eclipse dropping it after the sixth episode (picked up by VivaLaRevolution [add: due to C&D letter]) and Omni quite uncharacteristically dropped it after the third episode (though continued by Divine). Just as how many A’s benchmarkers disliked StrikerS’s comparative lack of pace and cast bloat, Revolution’s fillers galore drove many to distraction. It seems that, even with respect to the use of fillers, Next trumped Revolution: ‘even while there are some totally filler-y episodes (like the tennis one), at least the characters think that this is relevant to their quest,’ so sayeth the jpmeyer.

I managed to finish watching the first 13 episodes of Revolution, mainly because of nostaglia and Megumi Hayashibara’s oh so catchy singing of the OP and ED. I did feel somewhat dissatisfied with it. How many episodes were, in fact, filler?

1. Amazing! The Surprising Dragon Slave!?
2. Because That’s Lina Inverse!
3. Chase! An Endless Pursuit! – - – FILLER
4. Drifter. Who [post truncated, at this point ,was due to UTF8 conversion; thank goodness for the XML export file!]‘s Chasing and Being Chased!
5. Eternal. Forest of Eternal Slumber.
6. Fall on. Strange Festival! Rare Festival? Push that Ball Up! – - – FILLER
7. Gorgeous. The Targeted Extravagant Cruise Ship!?
8. Hurry up. Plunge In! Wait, DonÂ’t Plunge In? – - – FILLER
9. Insider. Person Who Knows the Truth!
10. Judgment. The Resurrected Silver!
11. Keep out. The Evil Beast Draws Near!
12. Legacy. Decisive Battle at Seyruun!
13. Misty. The Blade Comes Swinging Down!

With hindsight, three episodes contributed next to nothing to the overall plot (Taforashia/Zanaffar) development. We got a hint that Weiser might be using his pursuit of Lina for a more righteous cause in Ep 3 but I didn’t think it needed a whole episode to do it. The egregious ball pushing of episode 6 wasn’t even that funny. Ep 8 felt like a recap of all of Lina’s ‘weaknesses’.

In contrast to Revolution’s 3 out of 13, Slayers Try’s Ep 14 to 20 were almost completely 7 agonizing episodes of filler but I’d still rate Try above Revolution. No doubt that Try’s filler eps were greatly disruptive of the pace; the process of reuniting the team after being split up by the explosion at the Dark Star gate was just too long and drawn on. They were bad for the series not just in terms of length but also their placing after the mid-point, after an important climax. But the terrible tale of the Ancient Dragons’ genocide and the cruel choice of saving one world but sacrificing the other still made for an enjoyable series that made a favourable impression on me overall.

Revolution’s filler eps were also disruptive of pace (clustered around the middle) and were not particularly humorous. But the real problem, for me, was that the ‘meat’ of the story felt repetitive and derivative of the first season (which is really two separate series masquerading as one). Hasn’t the gang defeated Zanaffar already? What, how many times do we have to find out that some form of Rezo is ‘alive’ again? Pokota lacks the grandeur of the demi-gods and semi-devils of Next and is certainly not as easy on the eye or fraught with a real inner tension about her mission like Filia in Try. Xellos’s lack of involvement seemed to parallel my own feeling about how the story hadn’t managed to draw me in.

Hopefully the next 13 episodes will appeal to me more.

Lord of Plot Thinness and Meager Story, I beseech thy fragments;
by all of the power you possess, grant the otaku’s wrath to my hand;
unleash the sword of dark, freezing meaninglessness;
by our power, our combined might, let us walk as one along the path of anime destruction together: FILLER SLAVE!

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