Hitomi
Just received 3 retail DVDs of Escaflowne, which I bought to complete my DVD set of the series. I hadn’t seen these episodes before other than in Japanese, so lost no time in checking DVD#5. First impression is that this is still a great series, and that story, character design, characterisation, and general designs still make the grade by today’s standards. It was a revelation in places to discover exactly what the characters were talking about!
Escaflowne was among a minority of anime in having an original script, rather than being adapted from a manga or novel. If one can altogether trust the interviews in the “Escaflowne Cafe” extras, the production team were aiming to make it a cutting-edge series.
I wonder what we would think of other well-known older anime if we looked at them today. I’m not so sure about the continuing merits of Fushigi Yuugi or Kimagure Orange Road, but I still have a high opinion of His and Her Circumstances (Karekano). KOR has been discontinued by AnimEigo, but other older US-released popular series can now be bought as budget sets that actually cost less to buy than the amount some people paid to collect the early fansub tapes. For instance a US slimpack Escaflowne costs around $50 (£25), not much more than the cost of a dodgy Oriental 3-DVD knockoff version.
Escaflowne is pretty much my favourite show ever.
I think the only thing which really, obviously dates Escaflowne is the cast – or, rather, the fact that there are a lot of male characters. If they were making it now, they’d probably stick three or four extra female characters in there, even if they didn’t have much to do. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same kind of pulpy adventure serial Sunrise still make to this day, only produced better ^^;
This is a great anime! It has a decent amount of kawaiiness without the cavities that usually is present in romance animes. Some animes (yes Suzaku, I am looking at you) are so unrealistically sweet it makes me cringe during parts of the show. I’m glad that the success of Escaflowne has impacted anime today.