Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
bob-weebington
Escaflowne is one of the classical fantasy world / isekai shows, before lame 2020's isekais took over everything.
I always seem to remember this film favorably after watching, which is probably a good sign. Although I always seem to forget the ending.
Some of the scenes are quite memorable, like when that one princess-girl goes out to sing in the middle of the night. And a lot of it, like the ending, I've basically forgotten. Nevertheless I've never regretted watching this.
The animation is pretty good for an anime film from 2000. If you like older films then definitely give this one a try. It's pretty good.
Read at the sourceCaeruleus_CCXVI
6.75/10 ~ Nice little standalone piece
I just finished re-watching Visions of Escaflowne (the TV series) for the first time since I was a child, at the conclusion I realized when I went to leave a review that there was a title under "related" that I imagine most people never use. I then realized there was a movie related to the series and here I am.
The movie is not a sequel but more of a retelling of the TV series from more or less begining to end. This movie is also not a recap and honestly should just be considered its own thing.
However there are many key similarities:
-Most of the charecters return with a change of outfit or role
-most of the English voice cast returns in the same roll
-plot on a wide scope is very similar
-the movie leaves out alot of exposition assuming you have…
Read at the sourceLockensocke
The original „The vision of Escaflowne“ TV-show from 1996 is one of the greatest anime of all time. It had spectacular world building, interesting and realistic characters and an unmatched OST making the emotional scenes that much more impactful and the action scenes that much more exciting. At the end it perfectly wrapped everything up in a tight package with no need for more. 4 years later someone decided to make a movie about it. So how do you follow such a masterpiece with a movie? Well the only conclusion I can draw out of this case study is…. you don’t.
The Escaflowne movie basically is an attempt of a retelling of the original “The vision of Escaflowne” show with the same characters (not all of course), but in a different setting and everything is basically a bit different now. It…
Read at the sourceJermaineM
The techno fantasy potential is completely tapped and suits the darker theme, it's an absolutely beautiful improvement from the series that deserved a 16:9 movie.
The title should be reinterpreted as:
The Vision of Escaflowne: Alternate Fate (Valiant Wing Goddess).
It is not a reboot, a retelling or a rewriting of the previous story. Many alternate fates are possible due to how the storyline was designed from the start, it's nice to had seen this one without the PG cushion the Escaflowne series was bound to.
The movie would make little sense to anyone uninvested in the series since a great deal of background on these characters is sourced from the viewer's prior knowledge of the series, this grants it a pass to be an abridged story, as it no longer needs to tell the whole story. So mu…
Read at the sourcebanichan
I rewatched this film recently, and personally it still works for me. Since there are already many reviews, I'll just lay out a few thoughts I had. Note that I have only had minor exposure to Escaflowne the series and have not watched the whole thing.
- It's pretty likely you'll be disappointed if you really loved the original Escaflowne series and are hoping for something similar to that. This film has a different tone, a different storyline, a completely different theme, and also removes Hitomi's fortune-telling. Luckily for me, I had very little exposure to the series when I saw this movie the first time.
- Thematically, this is very much a post-Eva type of anime - dark, bloody, emotional. In some ways, it reminds me RayEarth (the OVA), which was a darker AU rewrite of the original…
Read at the sourceThe_Namer
The Vision of Escaflowne TV series is a classic, filled with rich, sympathetic characters, and stands head-and-shoulders above pretty much every show cluttering the isekai genre these days. Escaflowne the movie is none of these things. So, what went wrong?
A lot seems to stem from who the film was made for. The Escaflowne TV series ended up being a lot more popular internationally than it was in Japan, and I suspect that led them to retool the tone to fit what was the common western perception of anime in the 90s, ie. mindless violence for teenage boys. Consequently, the film is pointlessly violent, with limbs being hacked off all over the place, and the elegant Escaflowne robot from the TV series is turned into a blood-sucking biomechanical nightmare. The characters fare even worse, with…
Read at the sourceArjman89
BACK IN MY DAY (!), “The Vision of Escaflowne” was considered one of the pinnacles of Japanimation. It featured the triple threat of a great story, charismatic characters and gorgeous production values. And it also had cross gender appeal through romance and fortune-telling (popular in Japan at the time) for girls and dragons/mecha for the boys. Over time though, it was mostly forgotten in the rapidly growing fandom. Among those relatively older anime acolytes, it still remains a cherished favorite (for yours truly as well). So well received was it, that this big-screen version was birthed a few years later. Sadly, it was the last time we got to travel with Hitomi in Gaea.
“Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea” was one of the last epic anime films with the privilege of being done in cellular animat…
Read at the sourceDraly
Escaflowne the movie differs greatly from Escaflowne the series. One could have seen this as an opportunity to address the many problems of the source material regarding its plot and poorly written characters but the movie is actually plagued by the same mediocre storytelling the series were...
The main problem of the movie probably comes from the fact it is, just like the series, way to short for the story Akane is trying to tell, making everything feel rushed and contrived. This is emphasised even more by the staff's concern for fanservice as they try to shoehorn in a 90min film every characters from a series that already had too many. As a result most of them serve no purpose other than making a little cameo and hurt the overall plot that cannot properly focus on its main protagonists.…
Read at the sourceLightningComet
The Vision of Escaflowne (or TVE aka Television Escaflowne lol) is more than just a good show. It's borderline great, providing a coming-of-age story with a heartfelt message about being conscious of the consequences of one's actions and the ramifications of pursuing one's selfish desires. Not only is this exemplified in our main heroine, Hitomi Kanzaki, but it's also demonstrated in the story's hero, Van Fanel, his antihero brother, Folken, and especially the series' villain, Emperor Dornkirk. Throw in a pretty decent story, some stellar production values courtesy of Sunrise, and amazing music (from composers Hajime Mizoguchi and Yoko Kanno, hell yeah!) and you have a classic of the isekai genre and of anime as a whole. I give it a rock-solid 8 out of 10.
So where does Escaflowne: A Girl…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Escaflowne was a franchise conceived of by Sunrise. They released a twenty six episode anime, multiple manga with different writers, some light novels, a video game that never saw an international release and, in 2000, this film. Sunrise was pushing this one hard. Maybe I'll get to the main anime later, but for now let's critique the film.
Story:
We open with a lone swordsman raiding an airship and slaughtering everybody. Clearly, this is a family picture. We cut from the fantasy setting and go into the real world where a teenage girl, Hitomi, is going through some depressive issues. Her friend tries to cheer her up only to be spurned. She probably should have suggested that she see a professional therapist and get some medication to sort her out instead of just playing around. Not that…
Read at the sourceBlue_Cake
This movie was truly enjoyable to watch, but going into it you need to realize this isn't any sort of sequel to the original series. This movie is a re-imagined version of the original 26 episode tv series, and is very different. The best way to look at it is an alternate story, spin-off to the original or an entirely different story(this also means you don't have to watch the tv show first to watch and enjoy the movie).
STORY(7):
I'm not gonna give a synopsis of the story, I will just say that to me this movie brought across a moving and compelling story that had me interested and wanting more until the very end. I only wish it was longer and had more time to dedicate to a more in depth story and character development(but that's usually the case with animated movies).
CHARACTERS(7):
I…
Read at the sourcetheGreenDeath
Warning there will be some spoiles for both the movie and the show Escaflowne in the brief review that follows. Before I get to that, I'll give a capsule review: this is a very nice movie that takes the characters and basic plot structure of the TV show and crafts them in a way to talk about an entirely different set of themes. To get the most out of the movie some familiarity with the characters will be helpful, however being too tied to characters behaving and doing the same things as they did in the show will invariably lead to disappointment.
SPOILERS AHEAD (I can only talk about the themes of the show and movie with the aid of spoilers, I'll minimize plot spoilers as best as possible)
This is an interesting movie as the overall primary relationships between the characters from the s…
Read at the sourcePlaycool
Having seen Vision of Escaflowne a couple of months ago, I have finally (after much postponing) decided to see this movie. I wont go much into details about the whole thing, I will rather explain why I enjoyed it, briefly.
The best thing of the movie is the visuals and animation... seriously for a movie of 2000 it was pretty awesome!! It is just beautiful, much better than VoE visuals, and those weirds nose are gone!
The sound is the same of the 26's animated version, so you can count on that awesome "Escaflowne" battle song, that sadly only appears one time, a great battle... a pity this movie is about Escaflowne but only near the end you see it fighting... in all its glory.
The story itself it is a different one versus the original, also being far darker. And that extends to its cast,…
Read at the sourceKonani
Completing the anime, i then watched the movie; the change in the story, plot and mood was more than radical!
I had heard rumors before that the movie was something of a short summary of the series, and that it was much darker than the anime- but i could never have imagined it was to this extent!
The beginning was like a sort of introduction to a psychological horror, and it continued to pull those strings through the very most of it. It was nice to recognize the characters from the anime, but they were all much different from the series.
Though it could have been a bit longer.
Rather anti-climax close to the end and just like the anime, i was mildly unsatisfied by the ending -it could well have been another hour to fill in the holes of the story and environment.
-Having seen the first s…
Read at the sourceannelg400
I have a particular taste for anime and this one was a little too dark for me. The animation (particularly the eyes) seemed a little odd. Not nearly as beautiful as some. Well done overall but not a favorite of mine.
Read at the sourcekuroyagi
The movie completely twisted the main characters of the Escaflowne series. It is undeniable that changes had to be made to better suit the pace of a movie, yet, the characters must have been kept intact since they were such a strong asset of the story. With the characters dropped out of the story frame, the story itself seems to be inconstant and rather banal compared to the series: Folken's problem with the world starts in ambiguity and ends with totally confusing the audience. However, the animation of the movie is good and the sound/music excellent. It can therefore be a good movie to watch for someone who is not interested in the nit-picky details of the story and who hasn't seen Escaflowne before.
Read at the sourceramimanify
The movie is everything the TV show isn't yes it is
But be warned the plot doesn't take some major turn about and transform anything to something new
we're still blessed with characters who do not know what their role is, and right to their dying moments they are confused and irritably blank-faced with the-expression of (oh-fate-love-who-am-I) kind of stare
The opening scene may be promising but the whole lot of the movie just don't cut it, it doesn't deliver the amount of gore and/or angst the movie prided itself to have contained
But even with all that I think the movie is a bit better than the TV series, at least the main male character is
Read at the sourceBeatnik
This movie is everything the TV series wasn’t. It’s everything the TV show should have been. You don’t have to watch the TV show before watching this, though you might want to if you're interested in seeing how a story can be dragged from the depths of writers hell into the light of storytelling purgatory.
The main character of Hitomi is changed from a generic plucky cipher into an actual human being, a typical teenager with suicidal tendencies, who actually has a character arc. Her plight is introduced and compressed into about five minutes very efficiently through adept usage of editing, direction, art and music, with a montage of scenes between her and her best friend, who she pushes away due to self-loathing.
Five minutes is definitely enough of watching a mopey girl and sure enough…
Read at the sourcemorningblue
Take Vision of Escaflowne, remove all the character development, writing, humor, romance, and action that made the series the classic 90s anime people treat it as, and throw it out the window. Then replace all that with angst and blood. That's the Escaflowne movie.
While I have to admire Sunrise to attempt to condense the series for those unfamiliar with it, as well as breathe new life into old characters, this isn't the way to do it. Hitomi, instead of being a shy, but head-strong girl, is now a whiny brat who contemplates suicide. Van, instead of being a bickering but brave and powerful warrior, is now Tarzan with a sword. Allen is now a clone of Sephiroth, and so forth; every character you knew from Escaflowne is ruined, and these character would still suck even to those not very famil…
Read at the sourceVenneh
Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea was produced by Sunrise and Bandai Visual, and was directed by Kazuki Amane, same as in the series. It was released in theatres in Japan on June 24th, 2000, was licensed Stateside by Bandai Entertainment and had a limited run in theatres Stateside starting on January 25th, 2002.
Hitomi Kanzaki is depressed and considering killing herself. One day, a man appears before her and calls her the Wing Goddess, summoning her to Gaea, a world at war, where she is the ultimate arbiter of the God of the Heavens and War, Escaflowne, and, accordingly, Gaea's destiny.
As you can probably tell, this is a complete retelling of the original series. There are far darker takes on all the characters than you saw in the series, and a completely different plot and world that they're…
Read at the source