One of three OAVs released as part of the VHS and subsequently DVD collection Slayers: EXCELLENT.
Lina-Chan's Lovely Makeover Operation opens with Lina enjoying a lobster dinner in the peaceful village of Richard, before she is approached by a well-dressed woman who introduces herself as Tatjana Dayward, a fashion designer specialized in formal attire. Though she gets off to a bad start by insulting Lina's dress, Lina is willing to give her a chance to explain herself when she hears that Tatjana is offering to hire Lina for fifty gold coins. Tatjana explains that she is having problems with a rival fashion designer with a completely opposing taste in design, and she wants Lina's help to drive this rival out of business... unfortunately, Tatjana works herself into a fury as she explains this, wrecking furniture and screaming at the top of her lungs, alienating Lina so badly that Lina tells her to get lost.
Congratulating herself on being smart enough to not get involved with such an obviously crazy woman, Lina makes plans to leave Richard whilst the getting's good. She finds herself interrupted by Naga, and is horrified to see that Naga is accompanied by several young women (and even a young man) all dressed similarly to herself, which makes her reflect in horror on Naga's "disciples" Sirine and Alphonse. Oblivious to Lina's reaction, Naga explains she found a job for them, and introduces one of the women as Marty Lenford — Tatyana Dayward's rival, who has decided that Naga is the start of the next big fashion craze. This probably would have alienated Lina already, but Marty's continual insulting of Lina's fashion sense and offer to give her a "makeover" just seals the deal. Lina blows Marty and Naga away with an Explosion Array and then goes off in search of Tatjana's atelier.
Tatjana is surprised when Lina approaches her about taking the job after all, but doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Moments later, Marty and Naga bust in through the wall and challenge Tatjana and Lina to a duel at sundown, which is of course accepted.
At the appointed time, Lina accompanies Tatjana and her apprentice seamstresses as they make their way to the dueling ground... except that's not quite what Tatjana has planned. She leads them to Marty's atelier, and commands Lina to blow it up. A shocked Lina refuses, pointing out that it's illegal, but is cut off by an explosion from the direction of Tatjana's atelier; evidently, the two designers thought alike, and Naga had fewer moral scruples than Lina. Marty and Naga soon arrive on the scene and the designers exchange verbal barbs before Tatjana's seamstresses blow up Marty's atelier; Lina is less than surprised to discover the two designers have been vandalizing each other's shops for some time now.
The designers call their respective sorceresses to fight a Wizard Duel, but it goes horribly right when their attack spells merge and detonate with an even bigger blast, sending both sides scurrying away in retreat.
At Tatjana's second-to-last atelier, she mournfully observes that maybe she should bury the hatchet with Marty after all, but Lina's injured pride causes her to rouse Tatjana's fighting spirit once more. And justifiably so, it turns out in hindsight; Marty and Naga are approaching in Marty's last atelier, which is a bizarre-looking tower that has been converted into an enormous golem, with which the rival designer is intent on finishing the fight once and for all. Lina attempts to defeat the golem with a Vibration Blast spell, but it snatches up a roof in a mechanical tentacle and uses it as a shield to block Lina's attack. By this point, it has gotten within reach of Tatjana's atelier, and Lina is forced to join Tatjana and her seamstresses in fleeing through an underground tunnel.
The tunnel emerges in the nearby forest, close to Tatjana's final atelier... which has also been converted into a giant golem. Discovering that Tatjana's seamstresses are all sorceresses who have mastered several non-offensive spells, Lina comes up with a plan, and the team activates the golem for a final attack.
Back in Richard, Naga is perched atop Marty's tower-golem and laughing her head off at her apparent triumph. So much so that she completely fails to notice the approach of Tatjana's golem until it punches the tower and sends her plummeting to the ground. Tatjana smashes off the top of Marty's tower-golem, but rather than stand and fight, she defers to Lina's plan; the seamstresses use a combined Levitation spell to lift Tatjana's golem high into the air above Marty's tower-golem... and then transfer the spell from the golem to themselves, Lina and Tatjana, flying to safety whilst the giant golem drops onto Marty's tower-golem and smashes it into rubble.
As dawn rises, Tatjana gloats over her victory and makes plans to expand her fashion empire... only to be interrupted by the arrival of the local army. The townsfolk have had their fill of Tatjana and Marty's antics and the two fashion designers are arrested, with Naga and Lina being quick to run away lest they share the same fate.
This OAV includes examples of:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: At the end, Lina Inverse pulls the "crying, innocent damsel in distress" routine to distract the guards and make them hesitate to take her in as Tatjana's accomplice long enough to cast a Raywing spell and fly off.
- Call-Back: After meeting Marty, Naga and Marty's followers, Lina refers to her nightmare of a world filled with people sharing Naga's fashion sense and Noblewoman's Laugh from A Frightening Future.
- Combat Tentacles: The Marty IX compensates for its distinctly nonhuman shape by having side towers that can extend into giant stone pincer-claws on metallic tentacles.
- Failed a Spot Check: Naga fails to see or hear the giant stone golem charging into battle because she is too busy posing on the top of her own giant stone golem and laughing like a lunatic.
- Humongous Mecha: Parodied with the Marty IX and Couture V, which are ateliers that have been transformed into giant golems and which are piloted into battle like mecha.
- Golem: Marty's tower, the Marty IX, and Tatjana's atelier-on-a-humanoid-body, the Couture V.
- Know When to Fold 'Em:
- Zigzagged at the start of the OAV, when Lina attempts to flee Richard at the first opportunity after seeing what kind of a nutjob Tatjana is, only to be coaxed to stay by her sheer horror at the idea of somebody turning Naga into a fashion icon.
- Played straight at the OAV's end, when Naga and Lina both flee town as fast as they can in order to avoid going to jail for their involvement in the whole fiasco.
- Magitek: As in several other appearances in Slayers canon, the giant golems in this OAV are a combination of stone and machinery animated by magical incantation.
- Only Sane Man: Zigzagged. Lina is the only voice of reason for most of the OAV; she initially refuses to get involved with someone as obviously unhinged as Tatjana, and only agrees when Naga and Marty push her Berserk Button. She also tries to talk Tatjana out of committing criminal acts like blowing up Marty's atelier. But then subverted when Naga gets Lina mad enough to take things personally.
- Serious Business: Tatyana takes formal-style and traditional fashion with the seriousness that The Fundamentalist regards religion. She actively refers to Marty as a "heathen" and a "heretic" at various points, and gets so worked up trying to explain her situation to Lina at the OAV's start, smashing the furniture and screaming at the top of her lungs, that Lina calls her a lunatic and tells her get lost.
- Too Dumb to Live: Zigzagged with Naga. Whilst she shows her usual obliviousness to danger by provoking Lina, she's also the first of the two sorceresses to flee when the guards show up to arrest everyone.
