Who is Megumi Hayashibara?
Lina’s voice and Lina’s voice: she plays the sorceress and sings the openings, in every era of the show.
Megumi Hayashibara has voiced Lina Inverse in every animated Slayers production: three 1990s TV seasons, the films, the OVAs, and the 2008–09 revival. Unusually, she is also the franchise’s singer: the television themes are consistently hers, a double role that made the sound of Slayers and the voice of its heroine the same person.
The pattern starts with the first opening: “Get Along” (1995) is a duet with Masami Okui, who shares the first ending, “Kujikenai Kara!” From Next onward the signature themes are Hayashibara’s alone, and when the series returned after eleven years she returned with it, singing both themes for both revival seasons.
THE THEMES
1995–2009Get Along (1995)
Slayers opening, duet with Masami Okui. The ending, “Kujikenai Kara!”, is the same pairing: the two defining voices of 1990s anime music sharing one show.
Give a Reason (1996)
Next’s opening and the franchise’s most famous song; the ending, “Jama wa Sasenai,” is Okui’s. Next won best female character at Anime Grand Prix ’97, Hayashibara’s Lina.
Breeze (1997)
Try’s opening; the ending “Don’t Be Discouraged” is also hers. The final episode alone swaps in Houko Kuwashima’s “Somewhere.”
Plenty of Grit / Front Breaking (2008–09)
For Revolution she sings opening and ending; for Evolution-R, “Front Breaking,” “Sunadokei,” and the finale’s “Just Begun.”
THE LONG ECHO
2020–2025The anniversary album
For the novels’ 30th anniversary Hayashibara released a Slayers album on March 25, 2020, with commentary from Kanzaka. On September 10, 2025, the entire Slayers music catalogue, eighteen works, arrived on streaming services at once.
Lina in Seville
A school mural of Lina in Seville, Spain, photographed for Wikimedia Commons. Along with Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball, Slayers was one of the most popular anime in Spain in the 1990s; Hayashibara’s voice is the version a generation there grew up reading subtitles under.