The Vision of Escaflowne Review
天空のエスカフローネ
Tenku no Escaflowne
Escaflowne

Since the Community Anime Reviews site is all but dead, I’m republishing some of my OG reviews from there. I have corrected obvious spelling errors though. I will add new notes in parenthesis, labeled “ANB  note.”  😅 I won’t count these as part of the “Back to the Vaults” series as I have not rewatched them.

–> Buy The Visions Of Escaflowne – The Complete Series Blu-ray on Amazon.com!

Community Anime Review of The Vision of Escaflowne

(ANB note: This series was originally reviewed on 02-September-2003.)

I wouldn’t consider myself a mecha fan despite the fact that an increasing number of mecha titles are crossing both my DVD player and computer hard drives. So I was unsure if I wanted to see the hyped Escaflowne or not. Having seen it, I’m glad I did.

What I Liked

For starters, the mecha comes off, especially in the beginning, as nothing more than special armor for medieval (or fantasy) soldiers. It was as if someone took a suit of armor, then made it a few stories high and put a soldier in it who could do more both in attack and defense. As a result, I found myself very intrigued by this concept and was eager to see more. The special mecha known as Escaflowne, which can turn into a dragon form, is still somewhat of a mystery to me after one viewing. I gathered it was ancient technology of the Atlantians but it always seemed like it was supposed to have some special role in the series. In the end, it really didn’t (IMO). At some point I’ll rewatch the series to see if I can pick up on stuff I missed.

The cast of characters were great. Their designs are tough to get used to what with everyone having a beak nose. I was startled every time I was forced to take a break from the series (due to its popularity at Greencine.com) and then came back to it. (ANB Note: Greencine.com was a DVD rental site like OG Netflix. They had every anime DVD ever released in America while Netflix did not.) You get used to the odd character designs since the characters themselves make up for it as does the very interesting story.

What I Didn’t Like

To that end, there was only a couple of problems. First, the ending has been done countless times power of love and all that. However, that is a minor complaint.

My 2nd complaint is a bit more valid. There’s a love triangle that forms between Alan, Van, and Hitomi. I believed Hitomi attracted to both Alan and Van and I believed Van attracted to Hitomi. However, I never believed Alan was attracted to Hitomi. I think if the love triangle had been given more consideration without losing anything else in the story, it would have been an even better series.

Bottom line:

I really loved this world known as Gaea with Earth and its moon in the sky. As such I do recommend it highly.