Although it didnt fare well on Fox Kids,Escaflowne has a large, loyal following, perhaps because this sprawling fantasy offers the ingredients of classicmecha, sword-and-sorcery and magical girl adventures. After psychic teen-ager Hitomi has a vision of a man battling a dragon, Prince Van of Fanelia and a dragon materialize. He slays the monster and transports Hitomi to the mysterious world of Gaea. An odd mixture of advanced technology and medieval culture, Gaea has links to ancient Atlantis. A typical romantic triangle develops, involving Hitomi, diamond-in-the-rough Van and ideal knight Allen Schezar. The saga attains a Byzantine complexity when the trio is captured by Zaibach Emperor Dornkirk--who is actually Sir Isaac Newton. He's at work on a machine that will enable him to create alternate destinies for Gaea. At times, the story by Hajime Yatate and Shoji Kawamori seems to be careening out of control, as Hitomi whines and the supporting characters appear, disappear and undergo radical personality changes. The most serious flaw is the failure of any of the heroes to defeat the evil Dornkirk, who has dispatched murderous doppelgangers, conducted sadistic experiments on kidnapped children and attempted to subjugate an entire planet. But the combination ofteen-age romance, fantastic robot-suits ("guymelefs"), elaborate battles, hystroinic villains and a world-threatening challenge has madeEscaflownea favorite amongotaku. The feature, released theatrically in the US in 2002, repeated much of the story. Rated 13 and up for animated violence.--Charles Solomon
Just a fair warning, this review contains spoilers, and I put them in there because I want to save you from wasting your time and/or money on Escaflowne. Here we go again, folks. Here's another anime series that's loved by many yet I hate it. Yet again, I feel duped by the giant heaps of praise thrown upon this anime. I wish I never sank any money into this unbelievably overrated and underwhelming series. STORY … more
Escaflowne Complete Collection is an eight-disc DVD set that contains all twenty-six episodes of The Vision of Escaflowne. The first two discs each contain four episodes and bonus features. The remaining six discs each contain three episodes and bonus features. The bonus feature on the first disc is four music videos for The Vision of Escaflowne (a textless version of the opening theme, "Friend," "Blue Eyes," and "Into the Light"). This feature runs for about thirteen minutes. … more