Format: Region B Blu-ray, PAL, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles (TV series and movie). Region 2 DVD, PAL, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles (movie only)
Length: 24 minutes x 26 episodes, 98 minutes (movie)
Production Date: 1996 (TV series), 2000 (movie)
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Hitomi Kanzaki is an ordinary high school girl who is a sprinter on her school’s athletics team and reads fortunes to her friends in her spare time. During a practice run, Hitomi has a vision of a young man in armour appearing on the track in front of her and promptly faints. She is taken to the sickbay by her fellow teammate Amano whom she has a massive crush on. Seeing that there is a spark between the two and with Amano apparently leaving to study overseas, her friend Yukari encourages her to confess to him. She meets him after school and tells him that if she can beat her best time running the 100 meters, he wants her to kiss her. But as she runs, a column of light appears on the track and the young man in her vision appears for real in front of her. Wearing amour and carrying a sword, seemingly only Hitomi can understand and speak to him. A dragon then suddenly appears in another column of light. The young man tells them to run as he begins to fight the creature. Hitomi, Amano and Yukari flee up the mountainside to a Shinto shrine, but are horrified to discover the dragon in pursuit of them. The young man eventually kills the dragon (using Hitomi’s precognitive abilities when she warns him of being impaled by the dragon’s tail) and cuts out a large gem from its belly, a crystal called an energist.
Hitomi, in shock from what has just occurred, has an argument with the young man, but is interrupted when another column of light sucks both him and Hitomi towards the heavens. The pair soon find themselves on an alien planet with the Earth and moon visible in its sky. Hitomi learns the young man is Van Fanel, heir to the throne of a country called Fanelia. Though she is already surprised as to what has happened to her so far, she is shocked when a group of beastmen escort them back to Van’s kingdom. There Hitomi meets the people that serve him including several knights and even a cat girl, Merle, Van’s close friend who jealously guards him from Hitomi. A coronation is to be held where Van will be crowned king; however, large robot like armoured suits called Guymelfs from an invading country called Zaibach attack the country. Van uses his energist to revive his own country’s Guymelf, Escaflowne. Even though the invading Guymelfs are rendered invisible using a cloaking device, Hitomi is able to Van when the attackers are. Since she arrived in Gaea, her precognitive abilities have increased massively. While Van does defeat the attackers, Fanelia is in ruins and the survivors flee the country. Hitomi, Van and Escaflowne are enveloped in a pillar of light and disappear from Fanelia.
They have been mysteriously transported to the outskirts of the country of Asturia, where Allen Schezar, a high-ranking knight, saves Hitomi from being attacked by a petty thief. Resembling Amano, she falls for Allen. After a run in with a hot headed Van, Allen invites them to his country’s castle where they are reunited with an injured Merle. A Zaibach flying fortress arrives and a knight, Dilandau asks the kingdom for supplies. He also states that he is looking for Escaflowne when asked about his fortress’ movements. Though Allen suggests that Van should hide Escaflowne and stay in the castle, he decides to leave fight Dilandu. Allen tries to stop him in his own Guymelf, but Van won’t listen and the two of them duel. Allen manages to subdue Van, but in the process notices that Van manages to damage his Guymelf, something that hasn’t happened to him before in battle. Hitomi has visions of the castle being attacked by Zaibach. Allen dismisses her prediction, however soon the castle is under attack. Allen and his crew escape in his ship the Crusade while Van transforms Escaflowne into a dragon-like configuration and leads the attackers away.
Yes, this the legendary show from 20 years ago. It seamlessly blends robot anime with fantasy elements and shoujo drama. When I watched “Aura Battler Dunbine” about a decade ago, I really felt that “Escaflowne” was highly influenced by it. While in hindsight this show seems revolutionary, you have to remember that in the mid 1990’s there were a number of similar fantasy shows which had the same core ideas (most without the mecha); “Magic Knights Rayearth”, “El Hazard” and even “Fushigi Yugi”. I first came across "Escaflowne" in 1997 at my local anime club. It was around this time I got into fansubs and got the entire series from the US from fansubbers. There was a real buzz in western fandom about the show at the time. People were clamouring to see it. While it is primarily a mecha/fantasy show and contains many battle sequences, the it borrows heavily from shoujo manga. With a heroine who is a plain looking “every girl” high school girl and a bevy of bishounen guys in the cast, it was crossover hit, though not the first to combine mecha with good looking guys. “Gundam Wing”, also a Sunrise show, released the year before was probably the first to do this successfully.
Of course what makes the show so enjoyable is the roster of very talented staff assembled for the series. As you may be aware Shoji Kawamori (“Macross”) created the series, though Kazuki Akane (“Code Geass: Akito the Exiled”) was the series director. Nobuteru Yuki (“Record of Lodoss War”) did the character designs and Yoko Kanno and her former husband, Hajime Mizoguchi, scored the ethereal and otherworldly music for the series. In addition other well-known creative talent appear in the credits such as Shinichiro Watanabe (“Cowboy Bebop”) who directed several episodes and did some of the storyboards and Mahiro Maeda ("Gankutsuou") who provided some of the mecha designs. The mid 1990’s was also the middle of the “Seiyu Boom” so of course many of the top voice actors of the time appear in the show. Of note however is that the series featured a 16 year old named Maaya Sakamoto who of course played Hitomi and sang the opening theme song. While this was not her debut role as some sources cite (she began her career in 1992), this was her first major role. Sakamoto of course has had a very long and successful in the voice acting and music industries.
Due to all this talent working on the show, it’s a very high quality anime for a mid 1990’s TV series. Many of the sequences in the series are at least OVA quality, though at times the standard slips a bit and there can be some instances of off model animation. “Escaflowne” also made fairly extensive use of CG, possibly a first for anime TV series. Most of the time it is used rather sparingly and amazingly most of it has aged quite well. While I find it pretty hard to fault the series, where it does slip is in some of the scripting. A lot of the “shoujo” elements come off as a bit clichéd and silly; Hitomi’s crush at school going overseas, Allen’s over the top chivalry and gallantry, and some of the more overly melodramatic elements etc. Van also seems excessively immature to be royalty. However it’s pretty easy to forgive a lot of these elements.
This box set also comes with the movie, which was originally released in 2000. I have previously had mixed feeling about this film, however this time I really enjoyed it. The movie version has the same basic elements of the TV series, however the story is markedly different with some characters having completely different personalities and motivations (some being relegated to mere background cameos), different country names and pretty much the entire cast, mecha and world being redesigned. Of note is Hitomi’s transformation from an upbeat and happy girl in the TV series to a depressed teen who wants to take her life in the movie version. The lack of Guymelfs in the movie version is also a surprise. Esacflowne itself has been transformed into a more biomechanical creature rather than the purely mechanical (albeit infused with magical power) machine as seen in the TV series. The tone of the film is also far, far darker than the TV series and is far more bloody and violent as well. Apart from a couple of slow spots, the film is quite an enjoyable alternate take on the TV series and for the most part looks utterly gorgeous. Most of the creative staff returned to work on the film with the very notable exception of Shoji Kawamori.
The All the Anime box set is pretty special. The TV series is across four blu-ray discs in a digipak. Along with a three CD set of the three soundtracks to the series (also handsomely packed in a digipak), these two sets are packaged in a snug chipboard art box. The movie comes in blu-ray and DVD formats, also in a digipak, which fits in its own small chipboard art box/slip. Both of these fit inside a “spacer” box (made up of thin folded up cardboard) which fits in a larger chipboard art box which houses everything (200mm x 185mm x 80mm large). Also included in the larger art box is a 144 page hardcover book mostly of character, mecha design sheets and setting materials and a large number of promotional artwork pieces as well as artwork used for Japanese video releases (unfortunately none of it labelled as being promotional or home video release artwork). The only real problem I had with the packaging was the “spacer” box was a bit flimsy and did break in the mail.
The discs contain both the old Bandai Entertainment dub and the Funimation dub, which the company for some unknown reason decided to fund via Kickstarter. The reasoning for a new English dub was the original Bandai Entertainment dub was based upon the TV broadcast masters, not the Japanese home video masters which contained a couple of additional scenes (mostly a few seconds worth) in the first four episodes as well as in episodes 6 and 7. What All the Anime has done is put the broadcast versions of episodes 1 to 8 on the first disc, then on the second disc they have repeated the episodes and put the home video versions in place of the TV broadcast ones. I thought this was a bit wasteful as we get duplicates of episodes 5 and 8 for no real reason. What they should have done is just put all the episodes in order as per the original Japanese home video release on three discs, then put all the extras plus the TV broadcast versions of episode 1 to 4, 6 and 7 on a fourth disc. Bafflingly Funimation have redubbed the movie too (both dubs appear in this box set). Luckily all the extras for the TV series and the movie that appeared on Bandai Entertainment DVD sets appear on this box set, sans the CD soundtrack and booklet that came with the movie DVD box set. When this box set was released in November 2016, purchasers discovered the third disc had a major subtitle fault. All the Anime have only just shipped the replacement disc in April, which is why I’m reviewing this set now.
So summing up this really long review; this series is one of my favourites and to a large degree played a significant part in forming my love for anime. Apart for some general shoujo manga clichés, it’s really hard to fault this series. It’s really, really fun and still looks fabulous 20 years on. The movie isn’t as good as the series, but is still a stunning piece of work. This blu-ray box set isn’t prefect, but it’s pretty damn close we’ll get to perfection. At the very least it’s a lot better than the Funimation set. Taking both the movie and the TV series into consideration, combined they get a 9 out of 10.
Remaining Backlog: 17 TV series, 5 OVAs and 13 movies. In addition I am also waiting for additional parts of three TV series to be released before viewing them.
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