The Vision of Escaflowne

Written on 23/01/26

Discovered this whilst browing sakugabooru and saw the cut from the opening of the rotating shot of two mechas fighting each other with swords on a sunset bathed wasteland. I thought that was really cool so I decided to find out what it was and watch it, hence here I am writing this a day after finishing the series.
I'm surprised I hadn't seen anyone talk about Escaflowne much, especially among other anime that came out during the 90s.
I did find out it was brought to America but was sanitized in the process like many other anime at the time, though it seems it didn't air in it's entirety so that may be the cause of the lack of conversation surrounding compared to other shows.

Probably worth mentioning that I watched the 2016 re-dub of Escaflowne and I think they did a really good job overall, I honestly don't have any gripes with it other than maaaaybe Dilandau's voice but it isn't bad or ill-fitting but the japanese va gives him a different vibe that the english one doesn't quite capture imo.

Anyway, getting to the show itself, I'll talk a bit about the plot and stuff. Escaflowne is an isekai anime and despite the bad rep those have gotten as of late, none of that applies to Escaflowne.
Our main character, Hitomi, is a high school girl who does tarot reading and does track running. One night she, whilst trying to impress her crush by running a guy named Van appears on Earth from a pillar of light, along with a dragon he's intent on killing. One thing leads to another and with Hitomi's power to seemingly tell the future, Van kills the dragon but in the process Hitomi gets taken along with him back to where he's from, a place named Gaea that appears to be a planet orbiting the Earth, as we see from the Earth and moon visible in the sky throughout the show, almost a lingering reminder of home for Hitomi.

I'm not gonna summarise the entire show but to put it simply the story is very engaging, paced tightly but undeniably a bit rushed near the end. The first half of the show suffers the least from the pacing and it has a very strong sense of foward momentum with things constantly going on but not feeling overwhelming. Almost every episode the cast is going from one place to another and we get to see a fair amount of the world.
World building is done really well in Escaflowne. Gaea feels thoroughly crafted world and a lot of it's aspects are well thought out. The only issue I have regarding the world building are those mechanical dudes who came to fix Escaflowne that one time and peaced out. I'm assuming that was a result of the lack of episodes given to production once they were cut down to 26 from 39 but yeah, those guys exist I guess.

Back to the plot though, around the halfway point it's sorta clear that the show is trying to cram in as much stuff as possible, with some admittedly interesting plot points that have waaaaay too little time to be fleshed out properly and end up feeling shoe-horned in. It wasn't that bad but as I mentioned before, just feels incredibly rushed. Dog dude and Dilandau come to mind, which sucks cuz dog dude seemed kinda cool but oh well.
Despite the stumbling towards the end though, I found the ending itself pretty good. I suppose I'll talk about the romance of this show since it's slightly related to my thoughts on the ending.

Again, I'm assuming the romance between Hitomi and the 2 male leads was affected by the lack of time they had to explore it proper, BUT, I found it kinda weak.
In the case of Alan, I got the impression that he was just being suave with no romantic intent but then he suddenly switches up in the latter hald of the show which was weird given how Alan is old enough to have a kid and Hitomi is still in school. Even if I'm to ignore the problematic age gap, I personally interpreted that Alan only persued Hitomi due to Malerna getting married to Drayden(who's a pretty cool guy tbh), hence him wanting to fill a void of some kind, knowing that she was with him. Thinking of it like this makes it feel a bit better but due to the rushed nature of it all, it feels sudden and we don't get much introspection on Alan's part until the very end when he finds his sister.

In the case of Van, I have less issues with him and Hitomi, it's only that they have very little romantic chemistry. Throughout the show Van is generally laser focused on his goals and never seems to show any particular attraction to Hitomi, at least not in the same way she does to him after a certain point. Though I suppose some people may show affection or fondness for others in different ways, but I felt Van more so had a strong respect and sense of obligation to Hitomi due to her being able to help him multiple times thanks to her powers. I guess at the end of the day, I don't dislike them as a pair and the ending with those two did feel nice, but their romance could've been a bit better. As I'm typing this I'm kinda flopping between my thoughts on this matter so I might have a change of heart.

Lastly, regarding Hitomi herself, I thought she was a good main character, especially for a female lead in something that isn't a bona fide shoujo. Good stand in for the viewers so we can learn about the world through her lack of knowledge and she isn't entirely helpless and does contribute significantly to things throughout the show. She's never annoying and the way she reacts to things feels natural for someone her age. I also really like how she is shown to want to go home and being in this new world isn't an escape for her, I find that more relatable than the opposite being shown in a character.

Regarding the characters overall, I found the cast to be well rounded out and I don't have many qualms. Most of my gripes, again, stem from some things feeling underdeveloped or rushed. I found Valkan's turn around during the latter half a tiny bit sudden. It didn't feel out of character at least and he doesn't brush aside all the bad he's done. Then there's Dilandau who kinda just disappears around the midway point and then we have all the revelations regarding him shoved in the last two episodes. Some foreshadowing would've been nice but he is a pleasantly unhinged atagonizing force whenever he's around.

Favourite character is probably Drayden. I quite like how merchant minded he is and he seems like a cool fellow innit. Chill dude. Shout out to dog dude as well, I probably would've liked him if he had more screen time. Also shout out to silver cat lady. I like how she interected with Hitomi in that one episode and it fleshed out her and her sister's motivations and devotion to Vulkan in a way that I liked.
All together, Escaflowne's story and cast are great but it suffers from the lack of time to flesh out certain things, like I've repeated many times. However despite the messiness present in the later episodes, it's still really really good. yeah.

With all that stuff out the way, everything regarding Escaflowne is like a near 10/10 for me. visuals, music, animation and so on.
The opening genuinely became my favourite anime op, frame 1. Had to pause it, when I first heard it, and listen to the full song because it's that bloody good. I've already mentioned what I love about this song on the music appreciation page so I won't repeat myself here but Yoko Kanno and Maaya Sakamoto really outdid themselves with this one.
The rest of the soundtrack maintains the same high quality throughout. The songs perfectly fit wthe mood whenever they are used and are solid in their own right. Some favourites of mine are: Flying dragon, Hitomi's theme, ending theme, again and of course the opening song.

Onto visuals and animation, Escaflowne is one of the most consistently good looking anime I've seen. It has a very 90's anime look to it that might not be some people's thing but I liked it quite a bit here. The world itself looks very vibrant, the colors used make things pop out and look sorta vibrant when they need to, even appropriately so during scenes that are in darker environments.

I think the character designs aren't bad at all but the designs of the guymelef's stand out way more to me. I'm not familiar with mechas designs outside of Evangelion and John Gundam but the guymeleth's of Escaflowne have an exceptional cool factor.
The inner workings of them and way they move feel so incredibly right to me. I like that they are emphasised to be more melee focused too, along with the user having to pilot it with each of their body parts in a more intricate manner than just having a cockpit of some kind. Stuff like Escaflowne being able to turn into a dragon and the advanced tech of Zaibach's flying, liquid metal using Guymeleths are cool as hell but my favourite out of all of them is Alan's Scherazade.

Doesn't have any particular special abilities but it's design appeals to me immensely and reminds me a bit of Golbez and ExDeath from Final Fantasy. Probably The blue, yellow and silver come together nicely, though I would've preferred a sleek black instead, Alphamon vibes you know?

Last thing I want to praise is the animation. Like the visuals, it is consistently good for an anime that aired weekly and there are rarely any moments that seemed like they were making compromises or cutting corners. Honestly must have made good use of their budget to have it turn out so well. Noteably, I'm fond of how the Guymeleths move around and fight. There's weight to their movements that perfectly conveys heavy yet not necessarily slow nature of these giant machines. The cut I mention at the beginning is the perfect example of this.

Anyways that's all I have to say on Escaflowne for the time being. An excellent gem from it's time and I'm glad I came across it. Sits comfortably in my top 10 anime for sure