Escaflowne (TV) Review

[Zephie-chan]

Another round of The Zeph Corner? So soon?! You guys must hate me... But, it must be done!

Escaflowne (TV)...
... is a twenty six episode creation of Hajime Yatate (Gundam series, Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star) and Shoji Kawamori (Arjuna, Macross).

STORYLINE
Hitomi Kanzaki is a normal high school girl on a normal high school track team. Training for the upcoming race league against their rival high school, their star track member, Amano Susumu must move to America to pursue his own dreams of a track racer.

Before he leaves, however, Hitomi confronts Amano wanting him to give her her first kiss... if she can run the short track in thirteen seconds (I forget what the short spurt track is formally named. Fifty meters, I think).

As she nears the end, the vision that hit her earlier, that was trying to warn her, came true: A boy came down from a giant pillar of blue light, and introduces himself as Van Fanal. Afterwards, Van, Hitomi, Amano, and Hitomi's best friend, Yukari Uchida, must run from an attacking Earth Dragon that, apparently, had followed Van from another world!

After the dragon's defeat and Van takes the dragon's heart (formally known as a drag-energist), the blue pillar of light appears again to take him away.

Hitomi is caught up in the transportation rift and ends up following Van back to his world, Gaea, and she becomes the Girl from the Mystic Moon, a girl who can tell the future and past with astonishing accuracy. With this gift she is both hunted and wanted by the Zaibach Empire to complete their evil plans to change Gaea to their own twisted image...

ANIMATION
Hmm... This one was hard for me to judge without being too harsh or positive of it. There were a few things that bothered me through the series and one of the big things were their noses... Those things are long, pointy, and extremely dangerous; designated as lethal weapons.

One of the other bad things being that, at least to me, the animators for the characters and mecha were totally different and the constant shift between them in battle was kinda disorienting. Some people asked me what I was smoking when I told them this... It could very well just be me but I think it's my duty to inform you of this maledy when reviewing something.

Other than that, the character and mecha designs were astonishing. While the characters were kept simple (if you catch my drift), the mecha added the well deserved detail to the series. My particular interest was the hair; the hair for the characters was eye catching and the highlight of the animation.

MUSIC
The various background musics in the series were well choreographed (I think that's the right word) and matched well with most of the scenes. One or two of them, particularly the one played around Falken and the Zaibach Empire stood out, but in a good way...

Yakusoku wa Iranai ( Promises Not Necessary ) by Maaya Sakamoto (OP)
I watched the opening animation on each and every episode. To me this song set the mood for the anime. When I stopped between episodes to go fish for something to drink or eat, bathroom, etc., the overall effect of the series dissapated. After watching the opening, it all comes back in full force.

Mystic Eyes by Hiroki Wada (ED)
To be honest... I watched this once and recall almost nothing about it. It was good, I like most of Wada's songs, but for some reason I guess it just didn't click enough for me to wanna watch/listen to it again. I just popped it a disc into my DVD player and am listening to it now... It's an alright melody. It blends, err... relativly well with the series. But it's not something you'd be jumping for joy over.

FINAL COMMENTS
Right off the bat and the worst part of the entire series: The pros and cons of the ending. I personally loved the ending, I like all endings that happen like this one does (I'm not gonna spoil it for ya, don't worry), but most people hate ending like this. They say the writers were too lazy to make a more intimate ending and they just wanna quit... I think they're flaming idiots (no direct offense intended). And here's why:

People that say stuff like that don't take into account the full nature. When a writer creates something, he goes to that world, he imagines the emotions, the situations, the sun, moon, nights, air, cold, and everything else as if he or she were there. They picture themselves on this adventure and take into account the characters' feelings as well as the overall physics that they have places upon their work.

If, to those of you whom have seen it (code approaching, could be breakable to unbreakable: spoilers possible), Hitomi's G appeared on Gaea and met A's F, and they had a wonderful R. But, then her G had to leave because of the N's effect on Gaea. Of course, the same physics have to apply to Hitomi (again, for those of you whom have seen it might understand this if you understood the meaning of the whole series) because of the physics the writers had earlier placed on their world.

Okay. I'm finished with my incohearint rambelings...

OVERALL SCORE: 8
There were one too many things that I had to complain about. More than I usually do for the anime that I review. The character and mecha animation changes, the noses (I swear, they're LETHAL!), and, from another's view, the ending. For those reasons it couldn't score a high mark.

However, the good things that the series possessed kept the score high. That being the story (good, very good), the hair (I became mezmerized; again, people asked what kind of weed I was on), and the, from my view, the ending. The characters were portrayed well in such a fantasy-filled enviroment. The English voices were incredible as were the original Japanese voices (Sakamoto plays the voice of Hitomi and she's got a beautiful voice).

I suggest you pick it up if you were a fan of the movie (go out and rent the movie), if not... check it out if you're able to. Even though I don't condone doing it, there is a rip of the DVDs available online for those who don't want to spend the money.

[Archibald]

This has got to be one of my top five anime series in all the land. Tycho puts it best in the second frame of They Possess a Startling Array of Features. I agree with Zephyris about the ending and the critics can shove it in their asses, all up in thier asses (no offense to the critics of the series). That's my piece, see ya.

[Richie]

Did a little fixing for ya, Zeph.