How was the Slayers anime made?

The television Slayers premiered on TV Tokyo on April 7, 1995, animated by E&G Films under director Takashi Watanabe. It does not adapt the novels in order: the first season draws on volumes 1 and 3, while Slayers Next (1996) adapts volumes 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8, effectively stitching the whole first novel arc together across two series. Slayers Try (1997) is an original story written for television. The second novel arc, volumes 9–15, was never adapted at all.

In North America the series became a word-of-mouth VHS phenomenon under Central Park Media’s Software Sculptors label from 1996, successful enough that CPM licensed Next and Try on the strength of it. Fox Kids won the US broadcast rights and then declined to air the show, judging it too heavy to edit for children; the first actual American television broadcast came on the International Channel on February 17, 2002.