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108-461: In the first episode, " The Scary Chimera Plan " ( 恐怖のリメラ計画 , Kyōfu no rimera keikaku ) , Lina Inverse refuses to take place in a chimera experiment so the wizard scientist makes clones to force Lina; however, he clones Naga the Serpent instead, which leads to his downfall. In the second episode, " Jeffrey's Knighthood " ( ジェフリー君の騎士道 , Jefurī-kun no kishidō ) , Lina and Naga are hired to train

216-663: A TV set with a VHS mechanism, were also once available for purchase. Combo units containing both a VHS mechanism and a DVD player were introduced in the late 1990s, and at least one combo unit, the Panasonic DMP-BD70V, included a Blu-ray player. VHS has been standardized in IEC 60774–1. The VHS cassette is a 187  mm wide, 103 mm deep, and 25 mm thick (7 3 ⁄ 8 × 4 1 ⁄ 16 × 1 inch) plastic shell held together with five Phillips-head screws . The flip-up cover, which allows players and recorders to access

324-934: A cameo appearance in French comic book series Les Légendaires Origines in 2014. A Slayers -inspired player character Lina is part of the Dota video game series: in the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients , she shares the name of "Lina Inverse", while simply going by "Lina" in Dota 2 and is referred to as "Lina the Slayer" in the games lore; in both games, she is a redhead whose spells' names reference these in Slayers : "Dragon Slave", "Light Strike Array" (Explosion Array), and "Laguna Blade" (Ragna Blade). Lina and her "Dragon Slave" are also parodied in

432-557: A disadvantage. Matsushita's backing of JVC persuaded Hitachi , Mitsubishi , and Sharp to back the VHS standard as well. Sony's release of its Betamax unit to the Japanese market in 1975 placed further pressure on the MITI to side with the company. However, the collaboration of JVC and its partners was much stronger, which eventually led the MITI to drop its push for an industry standard. JVC released

540-419: A fight, Lina is horrified to discover that her copy, while still having her magical abilities, has a complete opposite personality to hers - a simpering, nonviolent, charitable person who does not want to fight. The Shadow Naga is about the same as the original Naga, only overly modest and also peaceful. Recovering from her adverse reaction to her copy, Lina then surmises that Rigandi, while brilliant in creating

648-427: A flying erase head for erasing individual video fields, and one was a dummy used for balancing the head drum. The high tape-to-head speed created by the rotating head results in a far higher bandwidth than could be practically achieved with a stationary head. VHS machines record up to 3  MHz of baseband video bandwidth and 300 kHz of baseband chroma bandwidth. The luminance (black and white) portion of

756-586: A functional prototype of the Betamax format, and was very close to releasing a finished product. With this prototype, Sony persuaded the MITI to adopt Betamax as the standard, and allow it to license the technology to other companies. JVC believed that an open standard , with the format shared among competitors without licensing the technology, was better for the consumer. To prevent the MITI from adopting Betamax, JVC worked to convince other companies, in particular Matsushita (Japan's largest electronics manufacturer at

864-470: A genial, dignified, and beautiful sorceress. Adding to her mental instability, she is also selfish, short-tempered and gluttonous, and suffers an inferiority complex over her chest size, especially when alongside the very busty Naga who likes to taunt Lina over this. Lina's accomplishments include the destruction of a piece of the Mazoku Lord Shabranigdo and having a hand in the destruction of

972-577: A mage in a scientifically advanced futuristic world. Lina Inverse has become a popular and critically praised character both in Japan and overseas; writing in 1999, Dave Halverson called Slayers' Lina and Naga "two of anime [medium]'s brightest stars in both Japan and the U.S." Lina won Animage magazine's Anime Grand Prix 1998 award for the best female character of 1997, also placing second in 1997 (after Rei Ayanami , also voiced by Megumi Hayashibara), fourth in 1996, and eight in 1999. In 2000, she won

1080-555: A maximum of about 430 m (1,410 ft) of tape at the lowest acceptable tape thickness, giving a maximum playing time of about four hours in a T-240/DF480 for NTSC and five hours in an E-300 for PAL at "standard play" (SP) quality. More frequently, however, VHS tapes are thicker than the required minimum to avoid complications such as jams or tears in the tape. Other speeds include "long play" (LP), "extended play" (EP) or "super long play" (SLP) (standard on NTSC; rarely found on PAL machines ). For NTSC, LP and EP/SLP double and triple

1188-453: A panic, they abandon the lab, leaving beyond Lina under the influence of a sleep spell. Naga finds and revives Lina and accuses her of leaving her behind to make an alliance with Diol. Lina claims that Diol had broken their agreement and took the money all to themselves. Together, the two then catch up to Diol and Vista and capture them. Lina, with Naga, then collects the reward money for their capture and wonders how to deal with ten more Nagas in

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1296-478: A part of Shabranigdo with her ultimate Giga Slave spell, which draws power from the Lord of Nightmares, the highest deity of the Slayers universe, but has no plans to ever use it again after almost ending the world. She befriends a princess named Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun and the priestess Sylphiel Nels Lahda. She later meets a mysterious priest Xellos and gets caught between Chaos Dragon Gaav and Hellmaster Phibrizzo. In

1404-518: A part of their 2006 collection Slayers OVA Collection . It was also distributed by Yamato Video in Italy (in a dubbed version made by DEA Digital Editing Audio, written by Benedetta Brugia and directed by Federico Danti) and by OVA Films in Germany. The original soundtrack Slayers Special: The Motion Picture "S" was composed by Takayuki Hattori and released in Japan by Starchild Records on July 24, 1997. It

1512-457: A pathetic yet overconfident young man by his mother, who follows him around and beats up anyone who talks negatively about her son. In the third episode, " Mirror, Mirror " ( 鏡よ鏡 , Kagami yo, kagami ) , Lina and Naga are hired to find and destroy a magic mirror that makes clones of whoever is reflected; the only difference is the clones have the opposite personality of the original, as Lina and Naga personally find out. Sorceress Lina Inverse

1620-437: A perfume line, another perfume, and even an augmented and virtual reality compatible digital figure. Several different versions of Lina populate the world of Slayers due to various plots. In one story from the prequels, Lina and Naga are exposed to a mirror that creates an exact opposite of whoever looks in it. The wizard using it expects this to produce dark and violent version of the two that would side with him and destroy

1728-448: A petite body type and is 147 cm (4 feet 10 inches) tall. She has two moles on her forehead, which are usually covered by her headband. Despite her supposed to be having a very flat chest, so much she can be confused for a boy, Lina is often depicted by Araizumi with larger breasts due to his personal preferences, which would be then carried over to much of other media too. Lina's appearance whilst wearing her homeland's folk clothing in

1836-426: A pseudo-closure to the entire Slayers saga (since it was made before Slayers Evolution-R ), features the retired Lina and Naga, both now elderly in their eighties (with almost all other characters already deceased) and vacationing together while still quarreling and fighting each other. Lina is also the main protagonists through the entire official series of the non-canonical Slayers role-playing video games from

1944-419: A score of B+, "if you're a Slayers fan, you'll be happy. If you want fan service , you'll be exceptionally happy." Beveridge later also gave a positive review for the collection re-release, writing that "both shows are still pretty much exactly what they were then and they still entertain pretty well, depending on what you're looking for." Lina Inverse Lina Inverse ( リナ・インバース , Rina Inbāsu )

2052-486: A second VCR. The first version of Macrovision introduces high signal levels during the vertical blanking interval , which occurs between the video fields. These high levels confuse the automatic gain control circuit in most VHS VCRs, leading to varying brightness levels in an output video, but are ignored by the TV as they are out of the frame-display period. "Level II" Macrovision uses a process called "colorstriping", which inverts

2160-408: A soldier - he is skinny, clumsy, not to mention his bad habit of blundering headstrong into any battle to show off. However, whenever Naga tries to point out his deficiencies, she is met with an angry masked Josephine who clobbers her with a huge mallet. Apparently this sort of thing happens quite often, but Jeffrey is completely oblivious to her actions, despite them being obvious to everyone else. When

2268-505: A spell. However, when she corners the last enemy, she finds that it is Diol, who has ten cloaked figures with him and says he created them from a single strand of hair found in his wrecked lab. Lina thinks that the copies are of her and challenges Diol, knowing that the copies will be unable to use her magic. However, when Diol unveils the copies, they are all copies of Naga, whose sight and sound (ten Nagas laughing together) frightens Lina so much that she faints. Diol then spirits Lina away and

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2376-458: A vintage film with the actress Audrey Hepburn on TV. According to the NTUT 's John Lance Griffith, "To the extent that Lina is an independent, powerful woman ('a girl today' in contrast to the traditional Japanese woman ), she follows in the tradition of Western lady knights and sorceresses: the tradition of Spenser's Britomart , of Tolkien's Arwen and Eowyn ." As envisioned by Kanzaka, Lina has

2484-817: Is "Lina the Pink", which is her official title amongst the Guild. In the light novel, manga, film and OVA prequel stories, Lina meets an unhinged and secretive sorceress calling herself Naga the Serpent and maniacally obsessed with Lina as her "greatest and strongest rival", with whom Lina then both travels with and often ends up fighting against during their adventures. During that time, Lina earns her reputation of someone who tracks and destroys numerous bandits for fun and profit, stealing their ill-gotten gains for their own use. In Slayers Revolution , Lina embarks on pirate hunting after bandits have become an "endangered species". According to Kanzaka, Lina and her self-proclaimed rival Naga are

2592-627: Is "only mildly humorous. Only for die-hard fans, as it's not a great value for money." Adam 'OMEGA' Arnold from Animefringe awarded The Book of Spells an overall rating of B+ and noted that the English dub was, in his opinion, "one of ADV's finest." Marc 'Makosuke' Marshall of AAW awarded this "good, stupid, low-brow Slayers fun" three-and-half stars out of five, writing that "with three classic fantasy plots gone horribly wrong, these stories are silly, pointless, and as with all things Slayers , hilarious." According to Chris Beveridge of Mania.com, who gave it

2700-559: Is 3.335  cm / s (1.313 ips) for NTSC , 2.339 cm/s (0.921 ips) for PAL —or just over 2.0 and 1.4 metres (6 ft 6.7 in and 4 ft 7.2 in) per minute respectively. The tape length for a T-120 VHS cassette is 247.5 metres (812 ft). As with almost all cassette-based videotape systems, VHS machines pull the tape out of the cassette shell and wrap it around the inclined head drum, which rotates at 1,800 rpm in NTSC machines and at 1,500  rpm for PAL , one complete rotation of

2808-449: Is a collection of Takayuki Hattori's background music (BGM) from Slayers Special that was later also used for the second OVA series, Slayers Excellent . Besides these, it contains the full versions of the opening themes (opening) and closing (ending) as well as a special version of the opening theme. The vocal songs including the ending theme "Kagirinai Yokubou no Naka ni" were performed by Megumi Hayashibara . They were later included in

2916-407: Is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the comic fantasy -themed light novel , manga and anime series Slayers . Lina Inverse is a young yet very powerful sorceress travelling the world in search of adventure and treasure. Lina has been consistently voiced by Megumi Hayashibara in Japanese, dubbed by Lisa Ortiz in the English version of the TV series and by Cynthia Martinez in

3024-466: Is also featured in the video game Slayers Royal 2 . In the science fiction themed Lost Universe , Hajime Kanzaka's another media franchise set in a universe parallel to that of Slayers , the traits and personas of Lina and Gourry were mixed together to create its male protagonist, Kain Blueriver. The manga miniseries Slayers Light Magic features a young boy named Light Inverse who dreams to become

3132-424: Is applied to over 550 million videocassettes annually and is used by every MPAA movie studio on some or all of their videocassette releases. Over 220 commercial duplication facilities around the world are equipped to supply Macrovision videocassette copy protection to rights owners...The study found that over 30% of VCR households admit to having unauthorized copies, and that the total annual revenue loss due to copying

3240-464: Is contacted by an alchemist Diol, who had requested her help in one of his experiments. She then finds out that Diol plans to use her in creating a super chimera which would combine her with a lesser demon and a sea serpent. Lina turns him down, and after Lina's on-and-off companion and rival Naga the Serpent arrives and agrees to the plan, destroys Diol's lab in anger. A month later, Lina and Naga are attacked and Lina accidentally knocks out Naga with

3348-450: Is estimated at $ 370,000,000 annually. The system was first used in copyrighted movies beginning with the 1984 film The Cotton Club . Macrovision copy protection saw refinement throughout its years, but has always worked by essentially introducing deliberate errors into a protected VHS tape's output video stream. These errors in the output video stream are ignored by most televisions, but will interfere with re-recording of programming by

Slayers Special (OVA) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3456-419: Is extended/super long play ( 1 ⁄ 3 speed) which was primarily released into the NTSC market. As VHS was designed to facilitate recording from various sources, including television broadcasts or other VCR units, content producers quickly found that home users were able to use the devices to copy videos from one tape to another. Despite generation loss in quality when a tape was copied, this practice

3564-422: Is magnified by the narrower tracks. The heads for linear audio are not on the spinning drum, so for them, the tape speed from one reel to the other is the same as the speed of the heads across the tape. This speed is quite slow: for SP it is about 2/3s that of an audio cassette, and for EP it is slower than the slowest microcassette speed. This is widely considered inadequate for anything but basic voice playback, and

3672-408: Is met by Vista, a brigand with a grudge against Lina, who sponsored Diol's experiments. They find out that Naga was looking for Lina and Diol sends his Naga clones to confront the sorceress. However, instead of defeating Naga, the clones bond with her. Realizing the mistake he made, Diol ran back to Vista, where the both of them find that Naga and her clones (all laughing maniacally) are on their way. In

3780-526: Is then met by Lina and Naga—and is horrified to find that his shadow copies (especially Shadow Lina) are pleading with him to turn himself in. Thinking that the doubles would disappear when the Shadow Reflector is destroyed, Lina and Naga attack Lagan, and the mirror is destroyed. However, the copies of Lina and Naga do not disappear and wander off, later seen at a "Save the Dragons" concert. Each Special OVA

3888-523: The Explosion Array release for four-and-half stars out of five as well, calling it "the joy to behold from beginning to end." Aleksandra Janusz from Polish magazine Kawaii stated that, in her personal opinion, this "obligatory" series was the best extra-television adaptation of Slayers . On the other hand, video game magazine Hyper gave the Dragon Slave release an overall score of 6/10, opining it

3996-465: The NTSC television standard were able to record one hour of programming at their standard tape speed of 1.5  inches per second  (ips). The first VHS machines could record for two hours, due to both a slightly slower tape speed (1.31 ips) and significantly longer tape. Betamax's smaller cassette limited the size of the reel of tape, and could not compete with VHS's two-hour capability by extending

4104-644: The SBS PopAsia 's Jamaica dela Cruz named her as number one "baddest anime female". Anime News Network 's Lynzee Loveridge put "Lina Inverse and Company" at second spot in "Traditional Fantasy Parties", while Gia Manry from the same website ranked her first among all anime's "Easiest Good Guys to Make Angry", as well as placing Lina second on her lists of "Destroyers of the Fourth Wall " and "Most Destructive Heroes". The character's enduring popularity led to several cameo appearances in various other media, including

4212-582: The Victor Company of Japan (JVC) . It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period in the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Magnetic tape video recording was adopted by the television industry in the 1950s in the form of the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs), but the devices were expensive and used only in professional environments. In the 1970s, videotape technology became affordable for home use, and widespread adoption of videocassette recorders (VCRs) began;

4320-450: The omega transport system) in a helical fashion, assisted by the slanted tape guides. The head rotates constantly at 1798.2 rpm in NTSC machines, exactly 1500 in PAL, each complete rotation corresponding to one frame of video. Two tape heads are mounted on the cylindrical surface of the drum, 180 degrees apart from each other, so that the two heads "take turns" in recording. The rotation of

4428-522: The 1990s, and further appears as a player character or an avatar option in the role-playing video games Elemental Story , Heroes Phantasia , Fantasia Re:Build , and Toram Online , with Naga in the action video game Magical Battle Arena and in the role-playing video game Valkyrie Anatomia: The Origin , with Gourry in the role-playing video games La Tale and Langrisser and again in Valkyrie Anatomia , with both Naga and Gourry in

Slayers Special (OVA) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4536-526: The 2000s. In 1956, after several attempts by other companies, the first commercially successful VTR, the Ampex VRX-1000 , was introduced by Ampex Corporation . At a price of US$ 50,000 in 1956 (equivalent to $ 560,343 in 2023) and US$ 300 (equivalent to $ 3,362 in 2023) for a 90-minute reel of tape, it was intended only for the professional market. Kenjiro Takayanagi , a television broadcasting pioneer then working for JVC as its vice president, saw

4644-505: The 2012 anime series Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions (in the episode "Regret of... the Scriptures of Darkness (Mabinogion)") and in the 2015 American animated series Star vs. the Forces of Evil (in the episode "The Battle for Mewni"). VHS The VHS ( Video Home System ) is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes , introduced in 1976 by

4752-559: The Best of Dragon Magazine popular vote in two categories, including Best Heroine. In 2004, readers of the Japanese magazine Animedia voted her the seventh most popular female character in the Animedia 23rd Anniversary Anime Awards. Retrospectively, Japanese magazine Famitsu declared her the 15th top anime heroine of the 1990s. In 2020, from Anthony Gramuglia from Comic Book Resources ranked her and Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon as

4860-716: The CD collection The Best of Slayers Vol. 2 (From OVA, Movie & Game) . Slayers Special was well received by anime critics. Dave Halverson awarded its Dragon Slave version four-and-half stars out five in 1999, hailing its "excellent" animation as "the best you'll find this side of a major theatrical release" and "simply the highest standards" soundtrack as well as "surprisingly high quality" dubbing, ranking it and Slayers: The Motion Picture among North America's best anime releases in 1999. He wrote Dragon Slave comes highly recommended - it's funny, action packed, and splendidly written, acted, and animated. Do not miss it." He also reviewed

4968-494: The DVD titled Slayers: The Book of Spells , containing all three episodes, digitally-remastered and with two audio tracks; Book of Spells was later re-released by ADV in 2005 in their "Essential Anime" series ADV later included it in their Slayers - OVA DVD Collection in 2007, and finally as part of their DVD box set Slayers - Movies & OVAs in 2008. In Australia and New Zealand, Madman Entertainment released Slayers special as

5076-425: The English version of the films and original video animation episodes. Slayers novels are narrated by Lina herself from her point of view. Lina was one of the most popular anime characters of the late 1990s and has since retained a sizable fan following. There have been also characters based on or inspired by her in both Slayers and in other works. The Slayers creator Hajime Kanzaka had originally created

5184-843: The HR-3300EK in the United Kingdom. The United States received its first VHS-based VCR, the RCA VBT200, on August 23, 1977. The RCA unit was designed by Matsushita and was the first VHS-based VCR manufactured by a company other than JVC. It was also capable of recording four hours in LP (long play) mode. The UK received its first VHS-based VCR, the Victor HR-3300EK, in 1978. Quasar and General Electric followed-up with VHS-based VCRs – all designed by Matsushita. By 1999, Matsushita alone produced just over half of all Japanese VCRs. TV/VCR combos , combining

5292-497: The Reflector, was embarrassed to discover that it worked too well and hid the defective mirror rather than having his blunder revealed to the world. Lagan, not caring about the obvious defects in the mirror, flees with the remainder of his army. Lina takes off after him, even as her copy pleads with her not to harm Lagan. Lagan's flight from justice is interrupted by other magicians looking for the bounty, but Lagan soundly defeats them. He

5400-780: The Sorcerer's Guild school. Her older sister, the Knight of Shiphied Luna Inverse, was the darling of both her parents and the town, excelling in martial studies and quickly beginning to make a name for herself. Although Lina has faced down dragons, monsters, and even dark lords with little fear, the mere mention of Luna's name sends her into terrified hysterics. When Lina was a child, she sold images of Luna naked in order to earn money and, in turn, Luna punished Lina so severely that Lina has feared her ever since. Lina has many different nicknames, including "Bandit Killer" and "Dragon Spooker", neither of which she likes. To her, her most embarrassing nickname

5508-472: The U-matic format. In 1971, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano put together a team to develop a VTR for consumers. By the end of 1971, they created an internal diagram, "VHS Development Matrix", which established twelve objectives for JVC's new VTR: In early 1972, the commercial video recording industry in Japan took a financial hit. JVC cut its budgets and restructured its video division, shelving

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5616-536: The VHS became the most popular media format for VCRs as it would win the "format war" against Betamax (backed by Sony ) and a number of other competing tape standards. The cassettes themselves use a 0.5-inch magnetic tape between two spools and typically offer a capacity of at least two hours. The popularity of VHS was intertwined with the rise of the video rental market, with films being released on pre-recorded videotapes for home viewing. Newer improved tape formats such as S-VHS were later developed, as well as

5724-483: The VHS project. However, despite the lack of funding, Takano and Shiraishi continued to work on the project in secret. By 1973, the two engineers had produced a functional prototype. In 1974, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), desiring to avoid consumer confusion , attempted to force the Japanese video industry to standardize on just one home video recording format. Later, Sony had

5832-454: The analog signal's colorburst period and causes off-color bands to appear in the picture. Level III protection added additional colorstriping techniques to further degrade the image. These protection methods worked well to defeat analog-to-analog copying by VCRs of the time. Consumer products capable of digital video recording are mandated by law to include features which detect Macrovision encoding of input analog streams, and disrupt copying of

5940-463: The anime and manga (but not the light novels), Lina recklessly uses overly destructive magic, often with little provocation (though depicted lightheartedly). As such, she is widely reputed to be an evil and calamitous "Enemy of All Who Live", among many other similar monikers (such as "Empress of Destruction", "Natural Disaster Mage", "Raven-Black Witch" and "No-Breasts Demon"). In spite of her infamy and an underdeveloped body, Lina likes to see herself as

6048-640: The anime-exclusive series Slayers Try , Lina is recruited by the dragoness Filia Ul Copt to save the world. In Slayers Revolution , Lina gets arrested on false pretense which later comes leading her on a journey against another incarnation of the Demon Beast Zannafar. She also meets an odd little creature named Pokota, who too has the ability to use the Dragon Slave. Lina and Gourry have traveled with each other ever since they met, and they have been featured in every form of Slayers media that takes place in

6156-422: The armor army and is surprised to find that she dispelled the magic animating the armor. It is at that point that Jeffrey stupidly charges Goldias, tripping and falling over the fallen armor. Then a surprising thing happens - Goldias backpedals away from Jeffrey, calling him by name. It turns out that Goldias is Jeffrey's father, after which Josephine shows up and mallets her errand husband. Lina, Naga and Galda leave

6264-454: The bandwidth to over 5 megahertz, yielding 420 analog horizontal (560 pixels left-to-right). Most Super VHS recorders can play back standard VHS tapes, but not vice versa. S-VHS was designed for higher resolution, but failed to gain popularity outside Japan because of the high costs of the machines and tapes. Because of the limited user base, Super VHS was never picked up to any significant degree by manufacturers of pre-recorded tapes, although it

6372-542: The best anime heroines of the 1990s, describing them as "two fantastic characters who have remained popular and iconic for decades." The voice of Lina Inverse has since remained one of Hayashibara's best known roles. Lina's local dubbing also became one of the most popular roles of Emanuela Pacotto in Italy. Lina has been also included in many top lists by various websites. For example, The Mary Sue 's Citlin Donovan included her among "Six Leading Ladies of Shonen Anime" and

6480-409: The cassette through the circular hole in the center of the underside, and two photodiodes are on the left and right sides of where the tape exits the cassette. When the clear tape reaches one of these, enough light will pass through the tape to the photodiode to trigger the stop function; some VCRs automatically rewind the tape when the trailing end is detected. Early VCRs used an incandescent bulb as

6588-458: The castle, abandoning Jeffrey's family to their reunion. Over 400 years ago, there lived a famous magician named Shizaal Rigandi, whose greatest talent was in the creation of magical items. One of these was the Shadow Reflector, a mirror capable of making an exact copy of whoever's image is captured on its surface. The copy that would be created would have the same knowledge and skills as the original, but would be opposite in personality and loyal to

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6696-455: The characters of Lina and Luna (the name of Lina's unseen sister in Slayers ) as the heroines of his science-fiction story that he had written when he was in high school and in which Luna was the protagonist and Lina was her clone. Years later, when Kanzaka began writing Slayers as a Western-style fantasy saga of Lina Inverse, his friend and the series' illustrator Rui Araizumi took an inspiration for her visual design when he by chance came upon

6804-399: The drum moving across the tape at (a writing speed of) 4.86 or 6.096 meters per second. To maximize the use of the tape, the video tracks are recorded very close together. To reduce crosstalk between adjacent tracks on playback, an azimuth recording method is used: The gaps of the two heads are not aligned exactly with the track path. Instead, one head is angled at plus six degrees from

6912-576: The earliest optical disc format, LaserDisc ; the lack of global adoption of these formats increased VHS's lifetime, which eventually peaked and started to decline in the late 1990s after the introduction of DVD , a digital optical disc format. VHS rentals were surpassed by DVD in the United States in 2003, which eventually became the preferred low-end method of movie distribution. For home recording purposes, VHS and VCRs were surpassed by (typically hard disk –based) digital video recorders (DVR) in

7020-456: The edge label. The tapes are made, pre-recorded, and inserted into the cassettes in cleanrooms , to ensure quality and to keep dust from getting embedded in the tape and interfering with recording (both of which could cause signal dropouts) There is a clear tape leader at both ends of the tape to provide an optical auto-stop for the VCR transport mechanism. In the VCR, a light source is inserted into

7128-449: The entire world. Lina and Naga are in pursuit of Lagan, mainly for the reward the Society promised for his capture. The girls have a difficult time tracking him down and are forced to fight off Lagan's werewolf army. In time, however, they are able find Lagan, but it is too late. Lagan has found the Shadow Reflector and as a test, uses it to create "shadow" copies of Lina and Naga. Bracing for

7236-425: The film Slayers: The Motion Picture is a nod to Ranma Saotome , the titular character from Ranma ½ , who too (like Lina) is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara in Japanese. Lina Inverse was born in the fictional country of Zephilia. Since her mother used to be a mercenary magic user, Lina, suffering from inferiority complex to her sister, decided she would like to be a sorceress and coaxed her parents to send her to

7344-415: The first VHS machines in Japan in late 1976, and in the United States in mid-1977. Sony's Betamax competed with VHS throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s (see Videotape format war ). Betamax's major advantages were its smaller cassette size, theoretical higher video quality, and earlier availability, but its shorter recording time proved to be a major shortcoming. Originally, Beta I machines using

7452-419: The following steps, in this order: The erase head is fed by a high-level, high-frequency AC signal that overwrites any previous recording on the tape. Without this step, the new recording cannot be guaranteed to completely replace any old recording that might have been on the tape. The tape path then carries the tape around the spinning video-head drum, wrapping it around a little more than 180 degrees (called

7560-414: The head corresponding to one video frame. VHS uses an "M-loading" system, also known as M-lacing, where the tape is drawn out by two threading posts and wrapped around more than 180 degrees of the head drum (and also other tape transport components) in a shape roughly approximating the letter M . The heads in the rotating drum get their signal wirelessly using a rotary transformer . A VHS cassette holds

7668-435: The holder of the mirror. However, just as the mirror was created, Rigandi had mysteriously hid it and it had become an object of legend. The Professional Magic-users Society discovers maps and papers related to the Shadow Reflector, but the society's vice president Lagan steals these documents, hoping to find the mirror for himself and use it to create an army of sorcerers that would be loyal only to him - and with that, take over

7776-409: The inclined head drum, combined with the relatively slow movement of the tape, results in each head recording a track oriented at a diagonal with respect to the length of the tape, with the heads moving across the tape at speeds higher than what would otherwise be possible. This is referred to as helical scan recording. A tape speed of 1 + 5 ⁄ 16 inches per second corresponds to the heads on

7884-511: The lesser demon overlords such as Gaav and Hellmaster Phibrizzo, as well as defeating Dark Star, Shabranigdo's counterpart from another universe. Due to these accomplishments, she is increasingly piquing the interest of the Mazoku demonkind and has become a frequent target of their schemes and attacks. At the beginning of the main series, Lina meets a swordsman named Gourry Gabriev and a chimera boy named Zelgadis Greywords. Lina encounters and destroys

7992-446: The light source: when the bulb failed, the VCR would act as if a tape were present when the machine was empty, or would detect the blown bulb and completely stop functioning. Later designs use an infrared LED , which has a much longer life. The recording medium is a Mylar magnetic tape , 12.7 mm ( 1 ⁄ 2 inch) wide, coated with metal oxide , and wound on two spools . The tape speed for "Standard Play" mode (see below)

8100-497: The majority stockholder of JVC until 2011) to build a video recording standard for the Japanese consumer. The effort produced the U-matic format in 1971, which was the first cassette format to become a unified standard for different companies. It was preceded by the reel-to-reel 1 ⁄ 2 " EIAJ format. The U-matic format was successful in businesses and some broadcast television applications, such as electronic news-gathering, and

8208-552: The men Josephine hired were as weak, if not weaker, that Jeffrey is, and prone to panic. Lina and Naga defeat the monsters but are stymied by the warlord Galda, wearing a magical armor. But when Galda insults Jeffrey, he is quickly defeated by Josephine, who comes out of nowhere and mallets him into submission. Galda then leads Lina and Naga to his patron, the evil baron Goldias. While Galda and Goldias fight each other, Lina and Naga are forced to fight an army of living armor. Knowing that Galda would need her help, Lina then kicks Naga into

8316-429: The mightiest human magic users in the world of Slayers ; while Naga has a larger potential magical capacity, Lina knows the ultimate black magic spells, notably the devastating Dragon Slave, which is her famed signature attack. Although she is an adolescent (between 15 and 17 years old in most stories), she is an extremely powerful mage, with a great love for money, treasure (especially the magical sort) and food. In

8424-414: The miniaturized drum required twice as many heads to complete any given task. This almost always meant four heads on the miniaturized drum with performance similar to a two head VCR with a full sized drum. No attempt was made to record Hi-Fi audio with such devices, as this would require an additional four heads to work. W-VHS decks could have up to 12 heads in the head drum, of which 11 were active including

8532-632: The mirror being destroyed without creating more than the initial copies, served as the basis of the Slayers Special OAV episode "Mirror Mirror". In the Slayers TV series, Gourry and Lina are both the subject of an attempt at cloning, which spawns a number of miniature, super deformed versions of them both; the tiny clones fight to humorous effect, and after the mini Linas win, they all disintegrate. Even more, in this case mostly lifelike, clones of Lina were created by Xellos' master Zellas Metallium in

8640-447: The need for his company to produce VTRs for the Japanese market at a more affordable price. In 1959, JVC developed a two-head video tape recorder and, by 1960, a color version for professional broadcasting. In 1964, JVC released the DV220, which would be the company's standard VTR until the mid-1970s. In 1969, JVC collaborated with Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric (Matsushita was

8748-413: The originals, but the mirror copies turn out sweet, kind, generous, and extremely concerned about the feelings of each other and everyone around them. In their attempts to break the spell, Lina and Naga actually wind up creating dozens of such doppelgängers of themselves, which go on to found an entire village full of philanthropic Linas and Nagas. A slightly adapted version of this story, which resulted in

8856-470: The playing time for an E-XXX tape in an NTSC machine, this formula is used: Since the recording/playback time for PAL/SECAM is roughly 1/3 longer than the recording/playback time for NTSC, some tape manufacturers label their cassettes with both T-XXX and E-XXX marks, like T60/E90, T90/E120 and T120/E180. SP is standard play, LP is long play ( 1 ⁄ 2 speed, equal to recording time in DVHS "HS" mode), EP/SLP

8964-419: The playing time for any given cassette will vary between the systems. To avoid confusion, manufacturers indicate the playing time in minutes that can be expected for the market the tape is sold in: E-XXX indicates playing time in minutes for PAL or SECAM. T-XXX indicates playing time in minutes for NTSC or PAL-M. To calculate the playing time for a T-XXX tape in a PAL machine, this formula is used: To calculate

9072-526: The quality of the SP speed, and dramatically lowered the quality of freeze frame and high speed search. Later models implemented both wide and narrow heads, and could use all four during pause and shuttle modes to further improve quality although machines later combined both pairs into one. In machines supporting VHS HiFi (described later), yet another pair of heads was added to handle the VHS HiFi signal. Camcorders using

9180-612: The recording time accordingly, but these speed reductions cause a reduction in horizontal resolution – from the normal equivalent of 250 vertical lines in SP, to the equivalent of 230 in LP and even less in EP/SLP. Due to the nature of recording diagonally from a spinning drum, the actual write speed of the video heads does not get slower when the tape speed is reduced. Instead, the video tracks become narrower and are packed closer together. This results in noisier playback that can be more difficult to track correctly: The effect of subtle misalignment

9288-509: The respective analog TV standard (625 for PAL or 525 for NTSC ; somewhat fewer scan lines are actually visible due to overscan and the VBI ). In modern-day digital terminology, NTSC VHS resolution is roughly equivalent to 333×480 pixels for luma and 40×480 pixels for chroma. 333×480=159,840 pixels or 0.16 MP (1/6 of a megapixel). PAL VHS resolution is roughly 333×576 pixels for luma and 40×576 pixels for chroma (although when decoded PAL and SECAM half

9396-499: The role-playing game Ironclaw (a fangame furry style homage on the First Edition cover, along with Naga), the video game Shadow Warrior (in an in-game poster), and in the first episode of the anime series Full Metal Panic! (shown on a cover of Dragon Magazine ). The protagonists of the 2002 anime miniseries Cosplay Complex , Chako and Reika, dress up as Naga and Lina in the third episode, and Lina and Naga themselves made

9504-770: The role-playing video game Granblue Fantasy , and with them as well as other Slayers main characters in LINE Rangers , Puzzle & Dragons , Tales of the Rays , Overlord: Mass for the Dead , Ragnarok M (only in China), Guardian Tales , and Elemental Story . Her character has been also featured in a range of Slayers merchandise, such as food in the Slayers theme cafe in Tokyo, many various figurines and dolls, including Nendoroid and Dollfie among others, licensed cosplay outfits,

9612-419: The second season of the Slayers TV series, the two characters share a kiss, though they cannot later recall the incident. However, both Gourry and Lina remember that something important had happened between them. In any media taking place after the two met, they have been featured together and should they ever get separated, are never apart for too long. The audio drama Slayers Kita Kaette EX #4 , which provides

9720-449: The second tape head, is another 1 ⁄ 60 or 1 ⁄ 50 of a second TV picture field, and so on. Thus one complete head rotation records an entire NTSC or PAL frame of two fields. The original VHS specification had only two video heads. When the EP recording speed was introduced, the thickness of these heads was reduced to accommodate the narrower tracks. However, this subtly reduced

9828-517: The tape length. Instead, Sony had to slow the tape down to 0.787 ips (Beta II) in order to achieve two hours of recording in the same cassette size. Sony eventually created a Beta III speed of 0.524 ips, which allowed NTSC Betamax to break the two-hour limit, but by then VHS had already won the format battle. Additionally, VHS had a "far less complex tape transport mechanism" than Betamax, and VHS machines were faster at rewinding and fast-forwarding than their Sony counterparts. VHS eventually won

9936-441: The tape, has a latch on the right side, with a push-in toggle to release it (bottom view image). The cassette has an anti-despooling mechanism, consisting of several plastic parts between the spools, near the front of the cassette (white and black in the top view). The spool latches are released by a push-in lever within a 6.35 mm ( 1 ⁄ 4 inch) hole at the bottom of the cassette, 19 mm ( 3 ⁄ 4 inch) in from

10044-460: The three arrived at the brigands' hideout, Lina and Naga are shocked to find that the real bandits had captured the actors, but they are able to defeat them using their magic. Later, Lina and Naga are asked by Jeffrey to aid him in defeating a warlord's army of beast men. He informs them that Josephine had contracted an army for her son, for which he named "the Flaming Knights". It turns out that

10152-611: The time, marketing its products under the National brand in most territories and the Panasonic brand in North America, and JVC's majority stockholder), to accept VHS, and thereby work against Sony and the MITI. Matsushita agreed, primarily out of concern that Sony might become the leader in the field if its proprietary Betamax format was the only one allowed to be manufactured. Matsushita also regarded Betamax's one-hour recording time limit as

10260-400: The timeline after they meet. Lina appears to fall in love with Gourry, once even risking the destruction of the universe in order to save him. There is a distinct lack of romantic development in the series, even after it is affirmed that Lina and Gourry love each other. Kanzaka addressed this by jokingly stating that he is not adept in writing romantic scenes. The final climax of Slayers Next ,

10368-409: The track, and the other at minus six degrees. This results, during playback, in destructive interference of the signal from the tracks on either side of the one being played. Each of the diagonal-angled tracks is a complete TV picture field , lasting 1 ⁄ 60 of a second ( 1 ⁄ 50 on PAL) on the display. One tape head records an entire picture field. The adjacent track, recorded by

10476-444: The vertical color resolution). JVC countered 1985's SuperBeta with VHS HQ, or High Quality. The frequency modulation of the VHS luminance signal is limited to 3 megahertz, which makes higher resolutions technically impossible even with the highest-quality recording heads and tape materials, but an HQ branded deck includes luminance noise reduction, chroma noise reduction, white clip extension, and improved sharpness circuitry. The effect

10584-505: The video game Slayers in which one of them, who believes herself to be the real Lina, is a playable character and the game's initial protagonist. Furthermore, a super deformed, giant, toylike fighting golem named "Piko-Piko Lina-chan" is constructed in the film Slayers Great in a distorted image of Lina's that emphasises her kawaii (cute) attributes, much to Lina's dismay and anger as she believed she had been chosen to model for its creation because of her (self-imagined) great beauty; it

10692-404: The video is frequency modulated and combined with a down-converted " color under " chroma (color) signal that is encoded using quadrature amplitude modulation . Including side bands , the signal on a VHS tape can use up to 10 MHz of RF bandwidth. VHS horizontal resolution is 240 TVL , or about 320 lines across a scan line. The vertical resolution (number of scan lines) is the same as

10800-411: The video. Both intentional and false-positive detection of Macrovision protection has frustrated archivists who wish to copy now-fragile VHS tapes to a digital format for preservation. As of the 2020s, modern software decoding ignores Macrovison as software is not limited to the fixed standards that Macrovision was intended to disrupt in hardware based systems. The recording process in VHS consists of

10908-718: The war, gaining 60% of the North American market by 1980. The first VCR to use VHS was the Victor HR-3300 , and was introduced by the president of JVC in Japan on September 9, 1976. JVC started selling the HR-3300 in Akihabara , Tokyo, Japan, on October 31, 1976. Region-specific versions of the JVC HR-3300 were also distributed later on, such as the HR-3300U in the United States, and

11016-407: The world. Lina and Naga are contracted by Josephine, a woman who is seeking to have the girls tutor her son Jeffrey in a quest of be a member of the royal guard. To accomplish this, Josephine told them that she has hired actors to pose as brigands so that the boy could easily defeat them and gain confidence in his abilities. They meet Jeffrey and are disappointed to find the boy was a sorry excuse for

11124-509: Was a major liability for VHS-C camcorders that encouraged the use of the EP speed. Color depth deteriorates significantly at lower speeds in PAL: often, a color image on a PAL tape recorded at low speed is displayed only in monochrome, or with intermittent color, when playback is paused. VHS cassettes for NTSC and PAL/SECAM systems are physically identical, although the signals recorded on the tape are incompatible. The tape speeds are different too, so

11232-418: Was initially released on as two separate titles, Slayers Dragon Slave (first two episodes) and Slayers Explosion Array (the third). On January 12, 1999, ADV Films released Slayers: Explosion Array! on VHS in a choice of subtitled and dubbed options. The English dubbing version from Industrial Smoke & Mirrors was written, directed and produced by Matt Greenfield . On January 9, 2001, ADV Films released

11340-512: Was produced by all three companies until the late 1980s, but because of cost and limited recording time, very few of the machines were sold for home use. Therefore, soon after the U-Matic release, all three companies started working on new consumer-grade video recording formats of their own. Sony started working on Betamax , Matsushita started working on VX , and JVC released the CR-6060 in 1975, based on

11448-523: Was regarded as a widespread problem, which members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) claimed caused them great financial losses. In response, several companies developed technologies to protect copyrighted VHS tapes from casual duplication by home users. The most popular method was Analog Protection System , better known simply as Macrovision , produced by a company of the same name. According to Macrovision: The technology

11556-498: Was released on VHS and LaserDisc between July 25, 1996, and May 25, 1997, before being released together on DVD in 2000. After that, both OVA series were released, along with the five Slayers , in a DVD pack in 2006. In 2010, the two series were released again on DVD in the "EMOTION the best" collection. It will be included in the collection of digitally remastered Slayers films and OAV series, toreleased on Blu-ray in Japan on October 30, 2015. In North America, Slayers Special

11664-528: Was to increase the apparent horizontal resolution of a VHS recording from 240 to 250 analog (equivalent to 333 pixels from left-to-right, in digital terminology). The major VHS OEMs resisted HQ due to cost concerns, eventually resulting in JVC reducing the requirements for the HQ brand to white clip extension plus one other improvement. In 1987, JVC introduced a new format called Super VHS (often known as S-VHS) which extended

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