Lina Inverse

Lina Inverse is a teenage sorceress and the main character of the Slayers series.

When Hajime Kanzaka was in high school, he created a story where Lina was a 10-year-old clone of her now-older sister, Luna Inverse. In this story, Lina was obsessed with machinery. When Kanzaka began writing Slayers, he made Lina five years older and obsessed with magic instead of machines. Rui Araizumi claims that Lina's design was based on a young Audrey Hepburn. This design and her in-universe description sometimes diverge slightly: for instance, Lina describes her hair as brown in the novels, but most illustrations show her with red hair. On the other hand, the illustrations can also influence the narrative: in one of her first appearances, Lina simply mentions that she is wearing a robe, but Araizumi depicts her with her well-known shoulder guards, and later on, this piece of protective gear gets actively mentioned in the story as well.

In the first part of the Slayers series, Lina informs the audience that she is 15 years old. As the series progresses, she grows older. Regarding the anime, a good rule of thumb is to remember that in the first series, she is 15, in Slayers NEXT, she is 16, in Slayers TRY, she is 17, and in Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R she is 18. Her age is more difficult to determine in the novels and manga series. She is 15 years old in the first novel, then 16 in the third novel, taking place a couple of months later. According to the official data-book Slayers Reading, the twelfth novel takes place 2 years after the first. That means she is 17-18 years old during the first part of the second story arc. She is understandably younger (around 13 or 14) in the Slayers Special series. Her height has been said to be 147 cm (4 feet 10 inches).

Lina is known as one of the most powerful and feared sorceresses in all the land. By the age of 14, she had already become famous. Despite her bad habits of eating too much (justified by her serious magic usage, a characteristic she shares with Pokota) and taking money from bad guys, she has good intentions. Most of her bad nicknames such as Dra-mata, Robbers' Killer, and The Enemy of All Who Live come from the fact that she often causes plenty of collateral damage when fighting the forces of evil. Lina is a member of the Sorcerer's Guild, and her assigned mage color is pink (Official title: Lina the Pink), much to her embarrassment. At times Lina appears to be fearless, but there are (at least) two things she is afraid of: Luna and slugs. She is also uncomfortable around fishmen, such as Noonsa and Rahanimu.

## Abilities

Lina self-dubs herself as a "Magical Genius" but she isn't at all exaggerating having created custom spells such as a fishing spell that can fish a stream to extinction and even the Giga Slave spell. She specializes in black magic, yet she is also skilled in shamanism, slightly versed in white magic, and can also hold her own with the short sword. Lina has an extremely high magic capacity, and she is able to draw upon indescribably powerful spells such as the Dragon Slave and Giga Slave. When she acquired the Demon's Blood Talismans from Xelloss, she was able to increase her magical (bucket) capacity even more, giving her the ability to cast more powerful spells such as Ragna Blade. However, even a single Ragna Blade can drain her of all energy. Lina has cast or attempted to cast the Giga Slave five times. The first time she tested it, she turned a body of water into a sea of death, where no life would grow. The second time was when she summoned it into the Sword of Light in order to defeat Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, and then in NEXT, when she intended to defeat Hellmaster Phibrizzo. However, this time, the Lord of Nightmares possessed Lina's body and used it as a medium for destruction. Lina almost cast the Giga Slave in TRY to kill Dark Star Dugradigdu, but she was stopped by Sirius and Erulogos. And finally, she used the spell once again to defeat the ghost of Shabranigdu in EVOLUTION-R.

In addition to battle skills, Lina is also a master businesswoman. This is to be expected, as she grew up in a family of merchants. She tries to get the best bargain on everything, and when she does not get her way, she gets violent, often pressuring people into selling (or even giving) her items.