Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
reizamundi
A disappointing and predictable series riding on the mesmerizing musical compositions of Yoko Kanno.
The story of Escaflowne had the opportunity to incorporate engaging and complex explorations of predeterminism and how one’s state of mind is the catalyst to one’s destiny. The inspirations drawn from archeology and ancient mythology could also have had immense potential to support the theme.
Nevertheless, the narrative failed to dive into the underlying philosophical and rich subject matters. It is a pity that such powerful motifs were not thoroughly illustrated or perhaps the implicit aim was to cater to the generic audience. Either this or the writer gave up on the narrative midway.
Everything from the underdeveloped drama and tension in the plot, dry characters, and unoriginal envir…
Read at the sourcederpiii
Patiently watched all 26 episodes expecting some grand payoff - it never happened. I want my time back.
This is a shoujo with a mecha aspect thrown in to appeal to the shonen userbase. It does a poor job executing on each part, nor is the sum of those parts decent.
This would've made a decent 2 episode OVA. But for a 26 episode long show? It's a hard skip. You're not missing anything.
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Read at the sourcebloggbigg
I'll keep this one short, based on the most notable points.
For about the first 2/3 of the series:
The anime seems like an action fantasy adventure with romantic potential.
Building the world and demonstrating the power structure progresses.
Character development and relationship building are weak, but present.
For about the last 1/3 of the series: It's unrealistically anti-war- considering the story.
Things happen pretty close to randomly.
The anime becomes a melodramatic soap opera.
At the end:
The conflict element (& resolution) is severely downplayed
Other dumb, unexplained shit happens.
The shipping... is not satisfying.
It's tough to pinpoint without spoiling, but this is one of those stories where events are strung together, plot points are forced, and everyone is pretty stupid…
Read at the sourceBowlingJD
Escaflowne is an anime in the shoujo genre. Do not let that be a deterrent from watching it though. A massive studio is behind the helm in Sunrise (Gundam), but an unknown director by the name of Kazuki Akane as well. Already, that is two out of three categories that are generally not very popular. Again, do not let those be a deterrent from this gorgeous fantasy-mech anime.
One day, high school girl and track athlete Hitome Kanzaki is transported to a fantasy world where she meets a couple princes, battles with falling in love, and must survive an ongoing war waged on by the Zaibach Empire. It is during this struggle when Hitomi discovers she has a latent ability within her where she slowly unravels that mystery, as well as Prince Van Fanel and his connection to the giant mech called Esc…
Read at the sourceRipo
Tenkuu no Escaflowne 4/10
A few days ago I remembered an anime I used to watch when I was a kid (9 or 10 years old), "Vision of Escaflowne". My memory of it was hazy to say the least. What I did remember were those characters with the long noses, the pretty guy with long blond hair, and a very memorable soundtrack. So I had a strong urge to re-watch it, and I did, unfortunately the result was, my memories of this fairy-tale like anime were shattered.
Escaflowne starts promising (girl travels through worlds, meets knights and royalty, can use magic, some interesting adventures) but the more episodes you watch the more plot holes appear. Things often made no sense, or they simply ignored important details, added or just changed rules for convenience (to get out of a tricky situation for e…
Read at the sourceLostinblue087
The Vision of Escaflowne is a lesson in a fine art. Taking you through this lesson, is a man by the name of Allen Schezar. Allen Schezar is a certified hunk, gold medalist, PhD in hunkology. This guy knows how to be a hunk and in The Vision of Escaflowne, he takes you through all the important steps on how you at home can be your very own hunk.
Now while at surface level, it may seem that being a hunk is all about good looks. That’s obviously the first step, and it’s not a step that Allen skips out on. This is entry level stuff of course, but just because it’s entry level, doesn’t mean you’ll get it perfect. In fact, it’s a common rookie mistake to assume that chicks will dig long, tan and handsome. This is not the case. Allen has discovered through years of various flings with princesse…
Read at the sourceDantesoblivion
*Contains Heavy Spoilers*
So I've been patiently watching the series mainly because I have nothing else to do, and tbh I quite enjoyed the first half of the series. And then they lost me. I mean it's a fantasy anime, so a fair bit of leeway has to be given to the plot. I can make my peace with the hidden power of fate that the MC uses. I can deal with the mana-mechanical transformer-bots in a medieval setting. Hell, I can even swallow the uber ridiculous goal of the antagonist to control fate, and in corollary, control the world. Classic Villain. Pretty easy to swallow. Then it got weird.
There are a bunch of reasons I pretty much hated the series.
1. The antagonists are a fucking joke. First there's Dornkirk who is our classic villain in the shadows, pulling the strings, laughing his e…
Read at the sourceOtaku_Apologizt
You'll notice a marked pacifist tone in many of the anime of the 80s and 90s. The horrors of war fresh in the national psyche, anime became a medium of expression for the postwar Japanese artists. Escaflowne is part of the 90s legacy. This 26-episode series was hand drawn from start to finish - even the visceral mecha battles. Though the frames-per-second ratio is a little sparce, the visuals hold up to this day.
Escaflowne is a masterful mix of opposite elements, telling a realistic but fantastical story set in a medieval milieu with sci-fi technology. Though the narrative focuses heavily on emotions, as is common for shoujo anime, the series boasts enough plot and action to satisfy varied audiences. In fact, the story develops so fast that the 20 minutes per episode feels just barely en…
Read at the sourceinarizushi
Vision of Escaflowne is a woefully underrated show. It comes from that time in the '90s when anime played hop-scotch over the line between shounen and shoujo. There is plenty of romance, and love triangles abound, but it's set in the middle of a war and there are giant robots, bloodbaths, and dragons.
A psychic high school girl named Hitomi gets pulled onto the mysterious planet of Gaia where the earth and moon are visible in the night sky and anthropomorphic animals exist. Gaia seems to be in it's Mideaval period with monarchy still in effect, but has very different technology than Earth. There are no computers, phones, or cars, but there are airships and giant mobile suits. The mechs, called Gymelofs, are amazingly designed. They look like a knight's suit of armor and move with gears an…
Read at the sourceramimanify
Don't be fooled by Escaflowne's fantasy setting
Escaflowne is about Love, against fate
that is all, if you think this show is about anymore than that, then you're wrong
True it has its moments when the plot seems to intensify or when you (hope) for a character development that will really change the (gooey) romantic mode, but in the end it is rather disappointing to the fantasy genre as a whole
The soundtracks are good, the battle scenes could have been better, and it could have benefited the series if fighting was really a bit more implemented, and that is why
Escaflowne is for those of you who think that Love and romance is a major theme in anime and who are willing to actually enjoy it (which unfortunately I didn't)
Read at the sourceLindle
Vision of Escaflowne has something of a name for itself in anime history for being an an attempt to appeal to both shonen and shoujo demographics at the same time. Featuring mechas, swordfights, explosions, stuff burning etc. alongside bishonen male protagonists in a love triangle with the regular everyday girl from another world seems to be a lot of its selling point, and as a result, it's often fondly remembered as a true anime classic of the 90s.
Escaflowne revolves around a teenage girl named Hitomi Kanzaki, an everyday ordinary girl who happens to like reading tarot cards. Or so that was the extent of it, until one day, she ended up being whisked away to the mysterious world of Gaia with a dragon-slaying teenage boy who was returning. As it turns out, Hitomi has ended up in the midst…
Read at the sourceace52387
Escaflowne is in the same generation as other venerated anime titles often fondly reminisced upon by fans, kenshin, trigun, cowboy bebop, and fushigi yugi. Where those titles all had specific target audiences, Escaflowne goes broader, not by distinguishing itself from any set Anime genre, but mixing the staples, or cliché’s of several genres together. Nothing about Escaflowne is very impressive at first. The juxtaposition of a Shoujo cast of main characters and mecha/fantasy war at its bloodiest is novel, but neither individual elements are even close to out of the ordinary. Hitomi, the main character is an understandably reluctant heroin who also has, as high school kids often do, a romantic interest that is easily piqued. The 2 male protagonists are opposites. 1 is a smooth player, the o…
Read at the sourcezealot1138
-- Please do not read if you have not watched this and/or do not like any spoilers. Thank you --
Ok, maybe all that FMP watchin' made me want to revisit another tortured love story chock-full of action and beautifully drawn characters, so I cracked open the Special Edition box set of "Vision of Escaflowne." I hadn't seen this series since I was going to UCLA (and I only mention the school bit so that when I admit about my blubbering later, it won't seem too pathetic).
I wasn't sure I would ever want to see this again since my first impression of the series went from indifference to impressed to infatuated with a finale of utter disappointment! I had never cried so hard, not from sadness, but because I was that horrified that any story could build up such a fantastic love story only to pa…
Read at the sourceBeatnik
Escaflowne is renowned for its soundtrack scored by Yoko Kanno, an epic orchestral voyage to a fantasy land that remains original even today in an era overrun by music for fantasy films and anime, all vaguely familiar with their typical motifs and themes.
Escaflowne’s animation, at least for the remastered DVDs should also be praised, as well as the direction by Kazuki Akane. It’s dynamic, artistic and looks gorgeous; a vivid world brought to life by an excellent production staff.
Escaflowne’s story takes a dump on all of this, squatting on its nonexistent bent knees, its jeans wrapped around its feet awkwardly, while it looks around without any shame whatsoever, even with an air of arrogance about it, staring at you as if to say “Yeah? So what?”
A schoolgirl, Hitomi, gets transported t…
Read at the sourceVenneh
Title: The Vision of Escaflowne
Manga, Anime: There are three different manga for this anime, and the two that were released around the same time as the anime are worlds apart. In order to understand this, you need to know a little something about the production.
Escaflowne was in development for about five years. Shoji Kawamori (famous for his work on the Macross series and Eureka Seven) came up with the initial idea for the series after a trip to Nepal, and hashed out the basics of the series with Minoru Takanashi at Bandai, with Hitomi originally as a curvy, long-haired, air-headed girl with glasses, and a decidedly more shonen bent to the series. Sunrise (famous for their work on the Gundam series and Cowboy Bebop) was originally selected to do the series, which was then planned at 3…
Read at the sourceJTurner
For lovers of full-blooded sci-fi fantasy drama, Escaflowne is a must-see. Produced in 1996, this 26-episode series begins in modern-day Japan where we are introduced to Hitomi Kanzaki, an insecure, lovestruck student who has a special gift for telling fortunes using cards. She has eyes for the handsome captain of the boy's track team, but before she can confess her feelings, Hitomi finds herself magically whisked away to a far-off planet known as Gaea. This strange new place is filled with luscious forests and kingdoms that look as though they could have been drawn from 18th Century France, and are inhabited not only by humans, but by talking humanoid animal creatures as well! Two young men--Van, a brash, hot-headed young prince, and Allen, a charismatically charming knight--vie for Hitom…
Read at the sourceMaster10K
Escaflowne is an anime is about a high school girl Hitomi, who is one of the best runners in her school. She also has a gift in fortunetelling and she has a vision of having a weird encounter with a mysterious knight. Then one fateful day this vision becomes a reality when she has a deadly encounter with that knight. If things weren’t strange enough, Hitomi and the knight were suddenly transported back to his world.
I know what most anime fans are wondering, hasn’t this whole other world thing been done before, but this sort of has an original feel to it. Yet another romantic, fantasy, mecha, anime but with a medieval theme, which really hasn’t been done before (or hasn’t been done this well). The story basically follows and the knight’s (known as Van) advent…
Read at the sourceTsumayouji
Oh Escaflowne, I do love thee. This is my favorite series to date and is likely to stay that way, but what makes it so appealing?
The first thing about this series that earned it a point in my favor was the wholeness and realness of the characters. Hitomi, the protagonist, in particular earned my approval because she, unlike most anime females, seems very realistic. She's not the stereotypical "cutesy" girl (God, but I do hate those), nor is she overly self-sacrificing; she's not one of those violence prone angry chicks, nor is she the tough loner, she's not a goober who's always eating, nor is she a femme fatale; she's just a high school girl growing up in stages with a strong moral code. She's someone I can imagine meeting if I walk down the street, which, after being innundated with th…
Read at the sourcejet2r0cks
It had all the ingredients of a good anime – and yet it failed to please me. I had to force myself to finish it, since I do think that it is worth finishing. After all, the first time I watched it was almost 9 years ago, and I didn’t think it was that bad when I first saw it. I wasn’t able to finish it then so I decided to finish it now.
The story is actually good. Another teenager sucked into an entirely new world. Teenager wants to go home, but somehow forgets about that when she realizes she needs to help out the people of the new world she’s in. It’s cliché, I know, but Escaflowne’s story line is way more developed and well thought of than other series with a similar storyline. It is way more complicated than that, in fact, it was too complic…
Read at the sourceacebirchy
This anime was awesome!
I was swept in by the amazing story. It gave a whole new meaning to fantasy and love. The characters all had different personalities and it made them enjoyable. Some may have changed while others stay the same. I don't think I would have been able to watch this if the characters stayed the same. The Guymelefs were an interesting object to add, way better then just swords. The whole point that Guymelefs depended on the user's body was amazing. It was great how, if the Guymelef was slashed, the user would be injured as well. It made it more interesting then just the clanging of swords on metal. The battles would never end! If the user swung his arm, the Guymelef would swing his arm. How cool is that?! I would definitely recommend this anime. It's my personal favorite!
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