Completed: Escaflowne

before i do anything give me a moment of nostalgia if you would.

mmm ya.... right in the childhood.

though honestly.... of all the shows that exists.... WHY did they try and make this into a show for children? honestly.
oh and yeah... if you couldn't tell i actually like the english intro... again pure nostalgia glasses and i like Yakusoku wa iranai a million times more but considering it doesn't ever break into rap.... it's a decent english intro.

So yeah back in the day a show started playing on Fox called escaflowne, and someone can correct me if i'm wrong because my memories of childhoos are kinda crappy but i think it eventually moved to YTV which is a channel in Canada aimed kids, until Teletoon came along fox and ytv were the only channels we go anime on.

so.... what's the show about? why was it turned into a kids show?
lets find out.

now i'll be telling the plot of the uncut version cause...thats what i remember.... i barely remember the english dub other then that intro and the fact that it has allthse weird edits and jumps around a lot.

Hitomi is a young girl on a track team who also tends to be really good at reading Tarot cards, however one day a few odd things happen. She starts seeing a boy in short visions, she finds out the boy she has a huge crush on is moving and she hasn't had the chance to confess her love yet! so she asks him to time her run and if she gets under 13 seconds, a personal best for her, she would ask him for a kiss.
if you hadn't gathered by now YES i consider escaflowne to be, for the most part, a shojo title. i don't think it technically is but i consider it to be.
anyways she can't finish the dash cause a pillar of light appears infront of her and that boy she saw in the vision is now there and she bumps into him.
The others can't understand him but she can.... something that is never furthered and only mentioned the one time... awww.
anyways soon after a dragon appears and the two start fighting. the boy wins, rips out the dragons heart and a pillar of light grab both him and Hitomi.
She wakes up being able to see the earth and moon in the sky, apparently she is on another world called Gaea.
um... so stuff happens and eventually we find out Van, the boy, is king of this town that gets destroyed and so they leave to try and be safe and meet up with Allen and yeah... shojoness ensues with the occasional mech battle.
I love this show... yes i know it is actually classified shonen but it's not.
The story is about a girl trying to figure out how she really feels about everyone around her, she's trying to come to terms with the fact that she is special with being able to see the future and all and the fact that others may rely on her to the point of using her ability.
and no she isn't like "omg i so in love but with both of them... which do i pick?" she spends most of the show crushing on one guy but as time goes on she starts to realize her true feelings and then she has to come to grips with that.
the show also has a strong "why must it always come down to fighting" theme which for a show thats is probably half fighting it's a bit nice.
it does have one 'look into your soul to obtain new skill' fight but i think it only happens once and it feels honest.

Spoiler
though seriously this show is pretty old....

anyways the ending is my favorite part.
cause all that talk of who does she care for the most
all that realizing that Van is the one she loves with all her heart.
in the end... no one hooks up with anyone.
Hitomi goes back to earth and occasionally sees van in the distance.
Allan continues to be a knight to the princess... if he hooks up with her it doesn't matetr but i hope he doesn't cause he did have an illegitimate child with her older sister....
 but it doesn't feel like there was forced romance... in the end Hitomi had to 'return with the elixer' which in this case was having gone through a rough situation and grown up to be more confident in herself and less fickle. 
actually this follows the heroes journey pretty close now that i think about it... oh well if i compare the two we will be here all day.

anyways i like that a show that has romance in it doesn't forget that if they got together one of them would have to give up pretty much everything for the other.

End Spoiler


The good:
While the art is dated it still is really pretty... their noses are ridiculous but at least it wasn't just a single line (more on that in my first look of spring 2013), the animation is well done... even if their is some dodgy cg and the character designs are very unique.
The music is also really good... i mean... Yoko kanno? Maya sakamoto? both are amazing and Hajime Mizoguchi does a wonderful job of the score... one of a few anime soundtracks i own.

The not so good:
ending, even though i love it feels rushed, it needed another season/half season to flush it all out (considering it was meant to be 39 episodes originally it all makes sense)
It has a lot of Shojo elements for a shonen series and it has a lot of shonen elements for a shojo series.
if you like your anime clear cut between the two genres then this may not be for you... but honestly i think it's a perfect balance.

the bad:
things are brought up that should be be important and never really followed up on. this is probably just the part of me that feels everything should have meaning but yeah it was just little things in the end...

i really enjoy this show...

but~ how could they turn it into a kids show?
characters get killed in many gruesome ways, there are illegitimate children, theres talk of experimenting on children, characters get burned alive.
then there's all that icky romance and kissing stuff that just cannot exist in a show without turning them into cousins (here's looking at you Sailor moon and cardcaptors)
apparently they did eventually cancel the show cause they realized that the characters were going to war and people were going to die and if they edit it all out the show could probably be 13 episodes long.
or maybe they realized one character ended up changing in a way that they were worried the little kids would start asking.
or maybe they figure out it was stupid to turn something aimed at teenagers into something for children....
who knows...
either way got some laughs when i watched the uncut version and a silly english intro i get to be nostalgic over.