I am reviewing the English version of Bandai release. This is not Fox Kids release.
Escaflowne is remembered by most anime fans who viewed the show as a great series. However if we look closely at this anime, we find that the diamond does have a lot of cracks.
Plot: Escaflowne is a typical rabbit in the hole story of animes. Hitomi, the main character of the anime, ends up on a world called Gaia with Vahn, a boy king of a country in this world. Hitomi haves a strange psychic link with her tarot cards. Whatever fortune she gets from the cards comes true. With this, Hitomi is made a target of a evil empire who wants to use her powers for their own means. To get rid of this threat, Vahn and Hitomi travel to a mystic city to get aid.
Now the bad: Escaflowne does try to add mysteries to the story to make it interesting. The main mysteries is what is Hitomi's grandmother's connection to Gaia and what happened to Allen's sister. At first, viewers think that both are connected somehow. The writers do give red herrings in order to add twists to the plot to keep the viewers guessing what wil happen next. But the results of twists are performed badly, are way left field, and make the characters look more undesirable and hypocritical to viewers than they should be (ex. Allen---daddy issues mixed with weird love affairs)
To make the flaws of the anime worse, a major plot hole was lefted to confuse the intelligent viewers even more. The hole begins with Hitomi finding a CD for sale. Gaia does not have the technology to produce a CD. Hitomi thinks (which is a good possibility) that someone else from Earth came here to Gaia. However the only two people, as revealed in the story, that came to Gaia are the grandmother and Issac Newton (the main villain!!!-Huh I am not joking. It's real <_<). However Netwon and the grandmother came from eras that didn't have CDs. The story makes us assume that Netwon, with his genius, made the CD. However if you think logically, Netwon could not be so advance in his knowledge to have produced a CD since he came fromt the 17th century. In matter of fact when you think about it, Newton couldn't have been able to develop the high technology of the empire without complex modern science and math. Some might claim magic or new learning caused Newton's knowledge to expand to that level but I think that is stenching the believability in a senseable story and makes it wackier than it should. If a fourth Earther was methods or hinted, the fatal flaw may have been ignored easily.
To top it off, Escaflowne haves some of the worst character designs in anime. "Doonsbury" noses on every character on the show!!!. It wouldn't be so bad if three characters had it but everyone seems to have one. Didn't the artist know how to draw different noses and actually make them cute besides that one!?. It becomes distracting if its ugliness and makes you less focused on the anime (if you haven't turned out from the bad plot by then). However mechas and monsters were good in design especially the dragon in the first episode. The skin was odd with its early CG skin which wasn't really not that bad. It looks impressive and fresh in design for an anime.
Music: The another good and possibly the only good thing about this anime was the music. From its Gregorian chant battle music to its poppy 90s ending music to its shojo opening, the music is actually good to listen to. Vocals were done correctly and made you feel part of the story. If only the writing should have done that for the overall anime.
Overall, Escaflowne is not good anime to me. It is watchable till the end but it made me disappointed that a highly budgeted anime of its time would allow all the flaws it did to happen, and highly intellect people (cough the director and producers) would prove the scripts and character designs when the writers and the artist would have fired on the spot for their sloppy and poor work. If you have to watch a old-school anime adventure, try SDF Macross or Outlaw Star first then try Escaflowne (but be prepared to watch a bad anime).
Escaflowne is remembered by most anime fans who viewed the show as a great series. However if we look closely at this anime, we find that the diamond does have a lot of cracks.
Plot: Escaflowne is a typical rabbit in the hole story of animes. Hitomi, the main character of the anime, ends up on a world called Gaia with Vahn, a boy king of a country in this world. Hitomi haves a strange psychic link with her tarot cards. Whatever fortune she gets from the cards comes true. With this, Hitomi is made a target of a evil empire who wants to use her powers for their own means. To get rid of this threat, Vahn and Hitomi travel to a mystic city to get aid.
Now the bad: Escaflowne does try to add mysteries to the story to make it interesting. The main mysteries is what is Hitomi's grandmother's connection to Gaia and what happened to Allen's sister. At first, viewers think that both are connected somehow. The writers do give red herrings in order to add twists to the plot to keep the viewers guessing what wil happen next. But the results of twists are performed badly, are way left field, and make the characters look more undesirable and hypocritical to viewers than they should be (ex. Allen---daddy issues mixed with weird love affairs)
To make the flaws of the anime worse, a major plot hole was lefted to confuse the intelligent viewers even more. The hole begins with Hitomi finding a CD for sale. Gaia does not have the technology to produce a CD. Hitomi thinks (which is a good possibility) that someone else from Earth came here to Gaia. However the only two people, as revealed in the story, that came to Gaia are the grandmother and Issac Newton (the main villain!!!-Huh I am not joking. It's real <_<). However Netwon and the grandmother came from eras that didn't have CDs. The story makes us assume that Netwon, with his genius, made the CD. However if you think logically, Netwon could not be so advance in his knowledge to have produced a CD since he came fromt the 17th century. In matter of fact when you think about it, Newton couldn't have been able to develop the high technology of the empire without complex modern science and math. Some might claim magic or new learning caused Newton's knowledge to expand to that level but I think that is stenching the believability in a senseable story and makes it wackier than it should. If a fourth Earther was methods or hinted, the fatal flaw may have been ignored easily.
To top it off, Escaflowne haves some of the worst character designs in anime. "Doonsbury" noses on every character on the show!!!. It wouldn't be so bad if three characters had it but everyone seems to have one. Didn't the artist know how to draw different noses and actually make them cute besides that one!?. It becomes distracting if its ugliness and makes you less focused on the anime (if you haven't turned out from the bad plot by then). However mechas and monsters were good in design especially the dragon in the first episode. The skin was odd with its early CG skin which wasn't really not that bad. It looks impressive and fresh in design for an anime.
Music: The another good and possibly the only good thing about this anime was the music. From its Gregorian chant battle music to its poppy 90s ending music to its shojo opening, the music is actually good to listen to. Vocals were done correctly and made you feel part of the story. If only the writing should have done that for the overall anime.
Overall, Escaflowne is not good anime to me. It is watchable till the end but it made me disappointed that a highly budgeted anime of its time would allow all the flaws it did to happen, and highly intellect people (cough the director and producers) would prove the scripts and character designs when the writers and the artist would have fired on the spot for their sloppy and poor work. If you have to watch a old-school anime adventure, try SDF Macross or Outlaw Star first then try Escaflowne (but be prepared to watch a bad anime).