Escaflowne: The Movie

Original Title: エスカフローネ
Romanized: Escaflowne
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Hitomi, a seemingly normal high school student, finds herself sucked into the world of Gaia--a fantastic place embroiled in a bloody war and hanging on the brink of destruction. Though she doesn't understand the conflict, her fate seems tied to a group of outlaws and a young prince, Van, seeking the mythical--and deadly--dragon armor, Escaflowne, that may be the key to saving Gaia or destroying it.

Quick Review

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-10-19

Escaflowne: The Movie is simultaneously spectacular and spectacularly bad. The parts that work are grand-slam home runs--absolutely gorgeous visuals, a marvelously creative world, and a spectacular, grand, lyrical, score by Yoko Kanno--while the rest are botched on a grand scale--the plot is AWOL, the characterization and backstory shallow at best, and the character development embarrassingly forced. How so much time and money could be spent on the technical aspects while ignoring the meaning behind it is a mystery.

Highly recommended for fans of gorgeous animation, but a likely waste of time if you demand a decent story. Fans of the TV series will benefit from some carryover empathy for the (very different) characters and a guess at the backstory, but will probably be annoyed by the fact that it's a completely different retelling.

US DVD Review

The original DVD features a variety of audio: an isolated soundtrack-only score in Dolby Digital, an English Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, and Japanese soundtracks in Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1. Aside from an anamorphic widescreen video transfer and trailers, however, that's about it. The newer "Anime Legends" re-release adds not only the whole soundtrack on a CD but an entire 2nd DVD full of extras, including side-by-side storyboards, production art, interviews, a musical performance by Maaya Sakamoto, making of, and more.

Content Guide

Both emotionally and physically violent, putting it in the 16-up range.

Violence: 4 - The battles are surprisingly gory and fairly brutal--even the mecha are bloody and disturbing.

Nudity: 1 - Essentially none.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - Some relatively strong mature themes, but nothing more.

Language: 1 - Nothing of particular note.

Notes and Trivia

This telling of the Escaflowne story actually qualifies as the third independent incarnation of the same concept; the TV series and comic series were produced from the same basic idea simultaneously, rather than one based on the other, and so despite sharing a the same basic framework and characters are completely unrelated stories. This movie follows neither, for yet another interpretation of an ordinary girl sucked into the world of Gaia.

Availability

Available in the US from Bandai on two different hybrid DVD versions, a standard set and Anime Legends box set.

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