Escaflowne (Series and Movie)

I bought this series a long time ago in a Half Price Books, entranced by the collector’s edition box of the movie. Coincidentally, I also found a complete collection of the anime in an 8 disk box, and got both the same day. On the car ride back home I listened to the OST CD included with the movie and fell in love with it. However, I never actually got around to watching the series until just now.

I started by binging the anime on Saturday and watching the movie early Sunday morning. I’ll start with my thoughts on the series.

It’s a fantasy mecha isekai shoujo series where a high school girl Hitomi gets transported to Gaia, another planet where the Earth (called the Mystic Moon) is visible in the sky. She’s transported alongside Van, the lord of Fanel, and the anime follows the two and other characters that they meet along the way.

I really enjoyed the anime, the art and music were both really good. I liked ow the fantasy vibe was similar to Final Fantasy games, where there’s a mix of classic medival fantasy elements and advanced technology, like the mechs various characters pilot.

I also liked the ending song and animation. Particularly Van fading in and his glove flashing accompanied by the bass wobble. It’s great.

The characters were also pretty good and I liked the story arcs they had. Design wise, I couldn’t get past how Allen just looked like a blonde Sephiroth despite the series airing a year before the release of Final Fantasy 7. Crazy.

The fight choreography in a lot of the mech fights was really good too. I loved watching Escaflowne swing its sword around, it always looked spectacular.

Apparently the show wasn’t like a super big hit in Japan, and I can get why, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily revolutionary in anything it tries to take on, but I would still say it’s a really solid anime and definitely worth checking out if you’re interested.

The movie, on the other hand, I just felt whatever about. It’s a bit grittier than the original series. This time, Hitomi is depressed to the point of suicidal, and is swept into Gaia by her desire to just fade away from Earth, appearing inside the Escaflowne which was retrieved from the Black Dragon Clan by Van.

Since the movie has a limited runtime, it has to strip away a lot of elements from the original series, and more tries to be its own telling of the story rather than try to do a more direct adaptation of the series. In particular, Van and Allen and a lot of the other side characters are already together by the time Hitomi is taken into Gaia, and this time Folken is the primary antagonist instead of having Dornkirk above him, and Dilandau plays a much smaller part.

I also feel like the movie just doesn’t have the time to properly set up the characters and motivations and as a result the resolution just feels a bit flat and not very satisfying.

I think if the I hadn’t just watched the series the night before or if it wasn’t called Escaflowne and was presented as its own thing, I think it could be seen much more positively. I mean the movie feels like it wants to be more of its own thing, but it has to use characters from Escaflowne and as such is judged through that lens of being an Escaflowne movie.

As for what I enjoyed, I already said how it was the movie’s soundtrack that got me interested in the series, and it was great. It tied into the action happening on screen really well and certainly raised their value. The animation and art direction was also incredible, definitely a step above the anime. It has a different art style from the original series and the characters all get redesigns, but I think it works and wasn’t a negative aspect of the movie for me. They definitely take advantage of the fact that this is a movie and they don’t have to stretch their time and budget out across 26 episodes.

The one mech fight the movie has is also done really well, I certainly enjoyed it and the callback to the original series when the Escaflowne goes black and Hitomi has to dive in and help Van out of it.

I know I criticised the movie a lot but I don’t feel like watching it was a waste of my time. I think I’m just viewing it through the eyes of Escaflowne the series and as such am a bit too critical on how it’s different, when it should be seen as its own thing. If you liked the series, I would definitely recommend checking out the movie as well. It’s different, but that isn’t always a bad thing.