If you're a fan of Mecha odds are you've heard of Shouji Kawamori. The man has done mechanical design for movies like Patlabor and Ghost in the Shell to a few Gundam Wing OVAs and even Eureka Seven. He's been in the industry, working on robots, for over 40 years now. And in that time he's come up with a few original series of his own! But of those only a few can truly be said to have been written by him. One is Aquarion. Another is Arjuna. And the last, and very first he ever did full composition for himself, is what we are here to talk about today. Directed by Kazuki Akane of Noein fame and animated by the studio defined by Mecha, Sunrise, I bring to you: The Vision of Escaflowne. Lets dive in.
Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for The Vision of Escaflowne. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents.
Visuals
As always I want to start with the visual/production side of things, since it's the most, well... visible. Right off the bat I can say that, overall, Escaflowne looks pretty good. I've always loved the cel-animation aesthetic. The saturated color palettes with their bold blacks, vibrant reds and dark blues. Sharp, lean body types and character designs that look like actual people instead of the dolls we often get today. I also have to mention the beautiful painted backgrounds of mountains, fields and forests. Even the 4:3 aspect ratio, changing how everything is shot and storyboarded, brings a smile to my face. It's a style we don't see much anymore after the industry switched to digital production. That can good look, a lot of modern effects work is stunning. But I miss this. And Escaflowne does it really well.
Getting into specifics, at its best Escaflowne has some truly gorgeous animation. It's been a long time since I've had an anime sell me on the weight and power of a mech like Escaflowne does. You can see the momentum travel through the mechs body in their swings. Feel the weight of their blows as you hear the crunch of metal and the pilot inside, their capes flapping in the wind and moving with their bodies. Of course there's also some gear-porn for the mechanically inclined out there as well. Plenty of great shots of spinning gears and perfectly fitting latches. Suffice to say when Escaflowne is at its best, when animators like Yasuhiro Irie, Yutaka Nakamura and Shigeki Kuhara are on top of their game, its hard not to be hype as hell. I definitely was. But the sad truth is they don't animate every episode. And it shows.
Outside of it's more spectacular scenes Escaflowne can look a bit rough. I'm talking about coloring issues, such as many nighttime scenes feeling washed out. Reused animation in a few places such as the same crumbling cliff, falling or background cut, though nothing to egregious. In a few down-time episodes I even saw a noticeable decrease in overall character detail and design quality. Things like their hair becoming poofier and oversized, clothing not fitting right or characters not being comped in very well. None of these are deal breakers of course. This is a 26 episode show and you want to focus your best work where it has the greatest impact. And it's not like every scene of every episode was ugly and unappealing either. In fact it's quite the opposite. These only stand out to me precisely because of how rare they are. They do, however, appear.
Luckily even when this drastic decrease in quality does appear, Escaflowne often has the storyboarding to save it. There are a lot of really interesting shots and angles to be found throughout Escaflowne's 2 cour run. So much so in fact that many of my favorite scenes aren't even animated at all! It's just fitting music over a well drawn and framed scene as a voice over plays. And yet I love it just as much as when I'm watching giant robots beat the shit out of each other! I'm talking stuff like a romantic meeting on a bridge. Or all the ridiculous faces Escaflowne has Dilandau make. Why does he need to have all of the best faces in the show, each one its own reaction image? I don't know, but I love them!
Long story short, Escaflowne looks pretty nice. So long as you don't go in expecting the best animation the 90's have to offer and are content with a big mech battle every 3-4 episodes, you'll enjoy it. No... the problems don't start to appear until the narrative. So lets jump to that shall we?
Narrative
Narratively I would call Escaflowne a mixed bag. And the easiest way I can explain this is by splitting it up into two different sections: Moment to moment, episode to episode, scene to scene storytelling and the larger, overarching narrative of the entire show.
I believe that Escaflowne does the first, the moment to moment story telling, very well. I'm talking about the immediate experience of the show. The way characters behave in each scene, the way those scenes flow into each other and how they convey emotion. A few examples of this are things like the love triangle, Hitomi's homesickness and Van's arc throughout the series. This is all really good! Despite my issues with the overarching narrative, and we will get to those, I found myself invested in these characters. Engaged with every episode. And its because of that, if nothing else in the narrative, that I found myself looking forward to the next episode. Sadly however, its once each episode ended that I started to notice problems.
This brings me to the overarching narrative issues I mentioned before. Simply put: Escaflowne wanted more episodes. It feels incomplete, like it wanted to be a grand epic akin to Twelve Kingdoms or Legend of the Galactic Heroes. But where those episodes had 45 and 110 episodes respectively, Escaflowne only has 26. And as a result of this the entire narrative feels... compressed. A number of larger plot threads are either left hanging or rushed to their conclusion by the end. Take the Zaibach plot for instance. The counter attack against this great empire, with its massive army and resources, begins and ends in roughly 2 episodes, 3 if you're being generous. Dornkirk, its leader, gets resolved in even less. And thats not to mention the dragons, energists, origin of the Guymelefs (mecha) and the situation in Gaea at large, just to name a few more.
In theory Escaflowne's overarching story works. It has all the beats, there was clearly thought put into it, everything is roughly planned out. But they took so much time telling the story in the beginning, in setting everything up, that they had no time left for the finale. I remember thinking at one point "Alright, we're finally done with the intro prologue" only to look down and realize I had just finished episode 18. Of a 26 episode series. You can imagine how rushed parts of the ending must have felt because of this.
The long story short is that Escaflowne's overarching narrative is not why I like this show. At any point if you stop and really think about what is happening, about what characters are doing, you will find holes. Lucky for me then, and you, that the individual character arcs did manage to fit properly into Escaflowne's runtime. Because they, and their stories, are what kept bringing me back.
Characters
This brings me to the characters which are, to me, the meat of what Escaflowne has to offer. Remember just a short while ago when I was talking about moment-to-moment storytelling? When I criticized Escaflowne's overarching narrative but praised its episodic one? This is what I was talking about. It is the stories and relationships of the core cast of Allen, Hitomi and Van that carry Escaflowne. Almost every episode has some kind of emotional revelation or important interaction for at least one of the three. A singular hook to pull you in and make you care for that 24 minutes. Slowly telling their individual stories, walking us through their individual arcs, as the show progresses. It's like a telenovela in a way, what with how little the overarching story matters, though much better written.
As a bit of an example I want to talk a bit about our lead, Van's, arc. To have any kind of meaningful discussion about I have to delve a bit into spoiler territory. So if you haven't seen Escaflowne yet, don't read this. Seriously. Just don't. The long and short of it is that Van is one of the best written characters in the show. And while he does suffer a bit from Escaflowne's handling of Zaibach and the world as a whole, it's still worth experiencing for its own sake. Disclaimer out of the way, lets go!
Spoiler, click to view
To say Van starts in a rough place would be an understatement. My initial impressions of him where that he was a bratty, arrogant prince, playing at being a knight. And as Escaflowne's early episodes wore on and we met Allen, Dilandau and the rest of our cast, nothing really changed my mind there. Maybe he learned a bit more about what it means to be a knight from Allen, he started to lose a bit of that arrogance and replace it with confidence, sure. However he still had a rather naïve and straightforward way of looking at the Zaibach conflict. But then around halfway through the series that began to change. Van began to take a more active role in the war, he began to find success fighting back. And in that success he also found blood. His own, his allies, his enemies. Van saw what war truly is.For me, this is where Van started to become interesting. A lot of series never even reach this point with their lead character. They will recognize what is happening but then just... ignore it. And Van doesn't do that. In fact he almost renounces war and combat entirely. He grows sick of the death. Only after some introspection and being backed into a corner does Van come to a decision: He doesn't like war, or battle. But its necessary to protect those he cares for. In this Van, across the 26 episodes, Van goes from a naïve prince who glorifies war and "honorable" combat to a true warrior, seeing it as a last resort to protect those he cares for.
Of course I could go more in depth here. Talk about how Hitomi helped Van work through all of this via her own refusal to be used as a weapon via her tarot readings. Or how Balgus, Van and Allen's former teacher, acted as a heroic ideal for both of them. An ideal neither could truly reach without the other, helping each other grow. There's even how Folken, Van's brother, influences Van's feelings about duty, revenge and eventually peace. Suffice to say that all of the character stories of Escaflowne are interconnected in multiple ways. They aren't a bunch of singular tracks that stand alone, progressing in parallel but unrelated. They all travel the same tracks, intersecting, colliding and pulling each other further forward.
Of course I could go more in depth here. Talk about how Hitomi helped Van work through all of this via her own refusal to be used as a weapon via her tarot readings. Or how Balgus, Van and Allen's former teacher, acted as a heroic ideal for both of them. An ideal neither could truly reach without the other, helping each other grow. There's even how Folken, Van's brother, influences Van's feelings about duty, revenge and eventually peace. Suffice to say that all of the character stories of Escaflowne are interconnected in multiple ways. They aren't a bunch of singular tracks that stand alone, progressing in parallel but unrelated. They all travel the same tracks, intersecting, colliding and pulling each other further forward.
What I'm trying to say is that Escaflowne has a good cast of characters. They were what kept me going through the show and I remember most of them fondly. But I don't think that they, outside of the main 3, got the development needed to really be called "Great". So instead they will have to settle for merely "Good" to "Alright". And reading that back? It's not to bad I don't think.
OST/Sound Design
With all the narrative done with, how about we get to good freaking food, eh? Did that transition work? No? Well too bad because it's time to talk about music!
Escaflowne's OST was primarily composed by two lesser known artists named Hajime Mizoguchi and Yoko Kanno. This is the 2nd time the two have worked together, the first being the Please Save My Earth OVA. For those of you that haven't heard of them, don't worry! Yoko Kanno has only worked on series such as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Kids on the Slope. Meanwhile Hajime Mizoguchi has a few small series like Texhnolyze and Tokimeki Memorial. So neither have really made anything to impactful... Alright that was starting to hurt so I'll cut with the joke, these are two incredible composers with long and storied carriers both in and outside of the anime industry. If knowing that these two are on the project isn't enough to sell you, lets talk about some specifics.
To start, Escaflowne has a huge amount of music, standing at a staggering 68 unique tracks across its 4 discs. And that isn't even including the movie! Most series I know of only have around 50 tracks, with larger series like Twelve Kingdoms going up to 65. Yet here's Escaflowne with a mere 2 cours exceeding that. It's not like all the music is the same either, Escaflowne has an incredible amount of variety. It can go from the somber and operatic "Arcadia" to the choral and imposing "Blaze". From a song conveying a soft, pure, true kind of love in "Romance" to bombastic, grand beats like "Ask the Owl". And this isn't even getting into the weird shit like "Fatal", made up entirely of whistling, or whatever the hell "Medicine Eater" is. Suffice to say, Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizoguchi went a bit wild for Escaflowne.
Variety on it's own isn't enough though. An OST also has to not only sound good but fit the what its playing over as well. Knowing the two in charge though, it should come as no surprise Escaflowne accomplishes those as well. "Epistle" for instance, one of my favorite tracks, makes for an incredible chase sequence. Meanwhile "Gloria" sells me on the age and mystery of this world, evoking this feeling of glorious, ancient kingdoms now fallen to ruin. And this kind of interaction between the music and the show doesn't stop at just the world. It also applies to the narrative as we see through the many evolving motifs in the music. Just look at the number of way Escaflowne reprises the OP, "Yakusoku wa Iranai", in different ways. From the soft piano of "Again" to the whimsical strings of "Fanelia". "Deja Blue" even gives us a lullaby version!
About the only negative I can come up with is that sometimes Escaflowne likes an idea to much. By that I mean they decided they wanted to work one specific thing in and will be damned if they don't. And for me at least that thing was the ESCA-FLOWNE chant. Don't know what that is? Well give "Dance of Curse" a listen and then come back to this. Don't worry I'll wait... Done? Good song, great battle theme with some powerful sounds? Now try "Murder". A very tense, ominous kind of music don't you think? One last time I want you to try "The Vision of Escaflowne". A very majestic piece right? Well by now you've seen, or heard, my point. Escaflowne really loves to shove this word into it's music. The music is still good! But the way this is used often took me out of the show.
What I'm trying to say with all of this is that I really like Escaflowne's OST. I wouldn't have linked this many songs if I didn't. The variety, the usage in the show, its all great. If I ever get the chance I will, without a doubt, be adding Escaflowne's OST to my vinyl collection. But sometimes... sometimes Escaflowne overdoes it. Much like with the narrative, the grand scope and idea of Escaflowne seems to have caused the OST team to make something that doesn't quite fit the final product. Creating these grand and majestic songs, chanting the word Escaflowne like it was some kind of grand epic or machine of great power. And yet neither of these things really happen in the show. Leaving these songs feeling stranded and ill-fit for how they were used. And that's a shame to me. At least they are still good songs though.
P.S. A few honorable mentions I love. "A Mole Man" reminds me of those old silent Mickey Mouse cartoons. This slow, inquisitive build up before finding something and backing up, only to do it all again. It's quaint! On the flip side we have the imposing strings in "Shadow of Doubt" bringing a very different kind of tension to "Murder". This one feels like an internal struggle more than a physical, external one, and I'm all here for it. And finally I want to give a shout out to "Machine Soldier", a great representation of Zaibach. I'm always a sucker for music that sounds like it was happenstance. All of the machinery just slamming and clicking together, happening to form this industrial, jarring cacophony. Seriously, I recommend you give at least some of these links a listen.
Shot for "Fantasy Epic", landed in "YA Fiction"
Finally we come to the personal section of the review. This is just a place for me to talk without pretense or care for spoilers, with no real format or goal. It basically exists so that I can talk nebulously about "emotion", "feelings" and my personal experience. So heads up, there will be huge spoilers. If none of that interests you than feel free to skip it! This has no effect on my final score and is only there to help you understand why I scored it how I did. So without further ado, lets go!
Spoiler, click to view
So, Escaflowne, why did it fall short. I think the easiest way to explain it is to give you an anecdote of my experience. At a later point in the show we are given this big reveal: We find Atlantis. Van, Allen and Hitomi learn what happened to the Draconians, they meet Dornkirk face to face before escaping, we finally learn what his plan is and what exactly is at stake. It was a good episode, a great way to end the opening act/prequel of a larger story and lead us into the conflict proper. Only... This was episode 18. Out of 26. Here I am, three quarters of the way through Escaflowne, thinking "Everything is setup, all the pieces in place, now for the grand adventure to really kick off". As you already know, that isn't what happened.As a result of this, Escaflowne's ending feels really, really rushed. I'm talking "A war starts, ends, starts again and then peace is found" in the span of four episodes. And that's not even mentioning many of the absolutely ridiculous decisions that had to be made to get there. For example: The nuke. Why do we need a nuke in a sci-fi fantasy series where they don't even have air conditioning? Is this meant to be some kind of World War 2 allegory? Because if so it feels wildly out of place. And that's sort of the crux of my experience with Escaflowne. So much stuff just... doesn't fit. It's like they knew how they wanted the series to go, spent most of their time and budget on the start, and left no resources for the finale.
Things get introduced and never explained, never used, never talked about again. The Escaflowne is some super special mech made by teleporting midgets and can summon them at will. Yet we never see another one nor do we ever talk about the Ispano or where they came from or why the Escaflowne specifically is so special. It has the power to resonate with Energists, the power source of the world, but once again that is never explored or expanded upon. Dornkirk is actually Isaac Newton from Earth with 17th century knowledge, yet he turns Zaibach into a futuristic techno-fascist state. Simply put, Escaflowne runs off of what is cool and good in the moment. And yeah, sure, a lot of those in the moment scenes can be very effecting. Hitomi and Allen's whole forced love in episode 19 was great. If only I could forget about everything surrounding it.
So yeah, my experience with Escaflowne was one of episode to episode enjoyment followed by ending every session thinking "How the hell does that fit into the narrative". If that doesn't bother you, then great. More power to you! But it bothered me. And it's bothered others I know. So it's something worth mentioning to anyone else interested in the show and its why Escaflowne falls just short of being something great for me.
Conclusion
And that's a wrap! Thanks for reading. If you want a short, sweet, tldr recommendation for Escaflowne then my answer would be a hesitant yes. If you like giant robots, fantasy settings and tales on the scale of empires then Escaflowne probably has something for you. The same goes if you're looking for a decent romance where the romance is more a sub-plot that augments a much larger story. The overarching story may leave you with some unanswered questions, a tad of dissatisfaction by the end, but the experience along the way at least should be worth your time.
If you liked reading this than please, check out my other reviews! You can find them here or on my personal blog linked in my profile where I also do weekly episode-by-episode coverage of every series I review.