I'm curious, what does Sup Forums think of Escaflowne?
I bring it up because it happens to be my personal favorite chinese cartoon of all time, but it seems to hardly ever get mentioned. It's from the same timeframe as the usual 'classics' like bebop or eva, but never seems to get much attention.
It's got a soundtrack by the fantastic yoko kanno, a very distinct artstyle, a stable of quality VA's, really cool (imo anyway) action sequences. plus it spans a sort of ridiculous number of genres and themes, from steampunk to magic to adventure to romance and the list goes on. yet it seems like it's sort of just a footnote among its contemporaries.
So what do you guys think of it? does it deserve to be just a footnote and I just have poor taste? Or is it the underrated classic I like to think it is
most of Sup Forums are busy watching moeshit to even know of this show, come to /m/ my man
Hudson Roberts
Escaflowne is a classic, one of my favorites. If it's mentioned casually you'll probably get a few reactions, but mostly >noses
Cameron Clark
oh? is the show regarded well on /m/?
regardless, the mecha are only a small part of what (imo) makes this show great
>Escaflowne is a classic, one of my favorites. If it's mentioned casually you'll probably get a few reactions
see that's the thing, I NEVER see it mentioned (unless i'm the one mentioning it). e.g. every time I see someone asking "hey, recommend me some good anime" you get the usual
>bebop >eva >trigun >gits
but virtually NEVER is escaflowne mentioned at all, despite being right in there with the usual suspects.
Ryder Edwards
GREAT anime. Ending could have been better, but that's like, literally every anime ever made.
To be honest I have no idea why I like it so much. On paper it should be terrible, but it all works. It might be the animation.
Do you really WANT this show to be mentioned all the time?
Julian Foster
I like it mostly for the aesthetic value. There's no denying it's one of the most beautiful looking anime out there. I like all of the different locales and designs, and how the show managed to make them look like different cultures in the world it builds, rather than a bunch of clashing ideas. That being said, I think the characters are pretty much stock and not very interesting aside from the villains. The last few episodes were rushed and underwhelming as well. An enjoyable show, but I don't really see it as a classic. Oh and the OST is great too, but that's par for the course for Kanno.
Justin Walker
>Do you really WANT this show to be mentioned all the time?
only because I want new animu viewers to be made aware of it, the same way they're made aware of bebop and eva and etc. I feel like too many entry-level-animu fans are missing out because they aren't exposed to the show.
Austin Williams
I saw a few dub episodes of this as a kid, and loved the mecha designs. It's saved in my backlog. Should get around to watching it one of these days.
Julian Brown
>I think the characters are pretty much stock and not very interesting aside from the villains I agree, but I think the villains are so fucking interesting that they totally cancel out the stock MCs. dilandau and folken are both fucking incredible imo
>The last few episodes were rushed and underwhelming as well. i guess this a agree-to-disagree deal, I thought the whole the villian is literally sir isaac newton and we have to defeat fate itself was fantastic.
>Oh and the OST is great too, but that's par for the course for Kanno. not sure what your point is here, yeah, kanno is consistently amazing, but i dont think that diminishes the OST in any way. great is great, isn't it?
the dub is FUCKING TERRIBLE. i'm not a snob about sub v dub, but this show, the dub is utterly awful and tries to re-write the entire plot. watch the sub.
Adrian Scott
It's one of my favorites as well, for the very reasons you mentioned plus that fantastic feeling I can only experience when I watch traditional animation that I first watched over a decade ago. It never fails to fill me with nostalgia and every time I watch it, I only feel more amazed by it. It's that one TV animation that I never hesitate to recommend because I consider it a timeless stand-alone classic, even if you're not a fan of mecha. I do have questionable tastes, though, so what do I know. Still, I think it deserves a lot more than just a footnote for the overall extraordinary production work, regardless if you like the plot and the characters or not, noses and all.
Grayson Peterson
I remember as a new anime fan, exploring the old was as much a part of things as checking out the new.
I guess I was just more interested in it as an entire medium than others.
Jackson Myers
No, Funimation, I won't give to your goddamn kickstarter!
Ryan Bennett
uh, op here, is there some kind of escaflowne kickstarter thing? i have no idea what you're talking about
Justin Thomas
Oh dude, you misunderstood me. I wasn't hating on Kanno, I was praising her because a great soundtrack from her is pretty much a given now. ZnT has one of my favorite OST's ever.
>i guess this a agree-to-disagree deal
I can see what you mean, but it was just how some of the events played out that underwhelmed me. Like Folken's death or how Van's fight with Allen lasted for like 10 seconds. Don't even get me started on the ending.
>I agree, but I think the villains are so fucking interesting that they totally cancel out the stock MCs
I personally disagree, we just spend so much time with protagonists I have a hard time giving any sort of fucks about. Sure Dilandau's fits of madness are extremely entertaining and my man Nakata as Folken is great, but it just wasn't enough imo. I totally agree with you, for me I just watch stuff on a whim, old and new. I don't pay too much attention to hype. Though admittedly a good portion of my favorite anime has come out in the last 5 years or so.
Dylan Lee
Why did he have to die so young Sup Forums?
David Ross
Manga Dilandau is underrated.
Kevin Ramirez
It is going to sound cliche, but they just don't make anime like Escaflowne anymore.
The post OVA boom where everyone coasted into dream project tv series like some sort of fever dream that lasted until almost exactly 2002.
James Stewart
>they just don't make anime like Escaflowne anymore.
Good. Anime is all the better for it.
Zachary Carter
god, balgus is the biggest badass of all time
>I WILL FIGHT THIS MECHA ON FOOT WITH A BUSTER SWORD TO END ALL BUSTER SWORDS
William Gomez
MYSTIC EYES
Lincoln Wright
care to elaborate? do you legit think escaflowne was BAD?
lol, fucking mystic eyes. that was a trend back in the day, the better the show the shittier the ED had to be
Liam Murphy
ED was funky as fuck.
Matthew Williams
>ED aside, escaflowne had a fucking fantastic "next ep preview" track.
No. I actually liked the series, I was just fishing for (You)'s However, don't believe it's the flawless holy grail that people think it to be. It's an okay, inoffensive series that encompasses many genres and themes yet doesn't excel in any of them. As it lacks the strong characterization and strong directorial flair of Evangelion, it's easy to see why Escaflowne was forgotten while Eva flourished.
Landon Young
ESCA
Landon Davis
There are some parts where they cut costs on the animation.
Also there's something off about it in general. Not sure why but I can't quite put my nose on what it is.
Julian Rodriguez
frown
Leo Reyes
Trust me, the ones who really want this stuff will find it easily. The reality is that most anime viewers don't want to watch stuff that looks old. Not even old like Escaflowne, old like (insert obscurity from five years ago). Don't worry about "entry-level" fans, they're not missing out on anything, because they really, truly don't even want it.
Cameron Walker
Second best show of its year.
Nathaniel Baker
Best show of its year.
FTFY
Ryan Mitchell
yeah it wasn't universal, but a fair number of shows had really stupid EDs compared to their general music. i'd consider mystic eyes to be one of them, but everyone has their own taste.
>However, don't believe it's the flawless holy grail that people think it to be. heh, the entire premise of this thread is that I never saw anyone even bothering to talk about it at all, let alone claim it to be a "flawless holy grail"
>It's an okay, inoffensive series that encompasses many genres and themes yet doesn't excel in any of them.
I guess we'll agree to disagree here, I think it excels in many of them. not ALL of them, but quite a few. imo it fantastically executes romance, steampunk, adventure, and determinism at the very least.
> As it lacks the strong characterization [...] maybe in it's protagonists, but the antagonists are IMO some of the best of that era
>and strong directorial flair of Evangelion, it's easy to see why Escaflowne was forgotten while Eva flourished. can't argue with that, but I am baffled by the fact that the likes of Trigun is remembered more than Escaflowne, because it is much weaker in all the aspects you mentioned
Brayden Gutierrez
It aired the same year as Nadesico.
Kevin Walker
Exactly, Escaflowne best show of its year.
Daniel Perez
>Nadesico #1 >Escaflowne #2 Exquisite taste my man. Fuck I would kill for another year that had even two shows that good.
Noah Martinez
Dear Sunrise, please save anime again with a good TV mecha series besides Gundam. Sincerely a concerned fan
Bentley Gomez
They really fucking dont. Everything is so commercialized and production committee dominated now. It really does feel weird sometimes going back to old anime the way things are now and being like "oh yeah this is why I got into this shit now I remember "
Hunter Smith
>can't argue with that, but I am baffled by the fact that the likes of Trigun is remembered more than Escaflowne
Their current trainwreck style gets more dosh for less effort. Why would they bother?
Michael Allen
I own the (original*) manga and greatly enjoyed it but I feel that the anime had pacing issues, likely would have worked better as a 1cour.
* = To my understanding, there is more than one Escaflowne mango but I could be wrong.
Robert Howard
OP here again, one thing I failed to mention; Escaflowne isn't exactly Unique in this aspect, but it's a fairly rare thing to see in animu;
virtually every episode picks up exactly where the last one left off. i.e. there are no time-jumps from one episode to the next. most anime, there are several times where from episode x to x+1 where an entire day or week has taken place offscreen. but in escaflowne, every episode picks up mere minutes or hours after the previous one. it's like a ten hour movie broken up into a 26 episode show, and I think that's fucking rad.
Robert Sanders
What the fuck, really? I thought they should have gone for one MORE season.
Angel Cox
I think that user is just fishing. Escaflowne and Evangelion are two distinct shows aimed to different audiences, comparing them is silly as is calling either of them the Holy Grail of Japanese animation. That is obviously Code Geass
The reason why no one seems to remember it might have to do with it being wrapped up a long time ago. It's in some of the recommendation charts but no spin-off material whatsoever kept it alive or relevant for 20 years. Trigun had a manga that ended fairly recently (I say fairly, but it was in 2007 or so). Spin-offs, OVA, remakes and movies help keeping titles alive for some time.
Matthew Wood
Yeah man. One of the few things I remember is how slow anything took to happen (hope that makes sense) and how the series could have benefited from conciseness.
Michael Lewis
You call the pacing slow, I'd call it steady. There are certainly lots of series which would benefit from trimming the fat down to 13 episodes but I don't think Escaflowne was one of them. My head hurts trying to think of how they would fit everything into one cour, they already rushed the shit out of the ending as it is. For most of the series though, I thought the pace was perfect.
Actually now that I think about it some more, the length of the series was just fine. It was just the ending that messed it all up.
Andrew Phillips
Mostly good, but the angel wings thing was stupid, as was most of the last few episodes.
Aiden Collins
>Because of scenes like these
I can't find them offhand, but escaflowne had equally compelling scenes when the catgirl twins die, when folken dies, when the emperor dies
Easton Brooks
Escaflowne is a classic.
John Nelson
Also fucking Dilandau dude. FUCKING DILANDAU
Brandon Nguyen
>Folken death scene was compelling As an Escaflowne fan I have to say I'm offended. I'm still fucking mad at how retarded the scene was. Useless as well because it served no other purpose than making everyone that was starting to like the guy angry. Sasuga Sunrise.
Jaxson Robinson
>Escaflowne was forgotten
Not really, for something it's age Escaflowne has held up relatively well. Evangelion is not a fair example to measure the success of any series against.
Owen Howard
>Escaflowne isn't exactly Unique in this aspect, but it's a fairly rare thing to see in animu The noses.
Andrew Ross
You watched a 26 episodes long show in an instant? Are you a time traveler?
Jeremiah Howard
really? I thought that scene was deeply profound. he knew he would die no matter what, but he nobly sacrificed himself because he knew it was necessary to challenge the fate the emperor was trying to enforce
Nathaniel Thompson
Wasn't he a she?
Christian King
I think its actually pretty hated because the lead is too shoujo
Chase Martinez
OP again
>Not really, for something it's age Escaflowne has held up relatively well. agreed
>Evangelion is not a fair example to measure the success of any series against. it's not so much the success, it's that (maybe i'm a broken record here) usually when recommendations about anime from that timeframe are being made, eva, bebop, trigun and a couple others are ALWAYS mentioned, but escaflowne almost NEVER enters the conversation.
dilandau was/is celena schezar, altered from a female non-combatant to a male warrior by the zaibach empire's fate-alteration experiments, who ultimately went insane as a result
Noah Torres
Dilandau is an artificial persona created by altering Serena's fate or something.
Logan Torres
do you mean hitomi or van?
Cameron Gutierrez
Ironically Hitomi is a much more realistic 15 years old girl than anything we're getting these days.
Hitomi is MC.
Jaxon Moore
>Hitomi is MC i would maybe argue that van and hitomi are dual MCs, but even if hitomi is the mc, why would anyone hate a shoujo mc for being 'too shoujo'? especially hitomi, she's an usually strong female lead for that era.
John Hill
Hitomi. Like, teenage girl angst, and insecurity about her feelings and all that. But also other things. I dunno, I recall user's raging on any number of things in it meant primarily for the female audience.
I personally quite like it though. It had Kawamori, Yoko Kanno, and is also the first major role for Sakamoto Maaya
David Gomez
>i would maybe argue that van and hitomi are dual MCs Just by watching the OP you can tell that Hitomi is MC.
Oliver Williams
>eva, bebop, trigun and a couple others are ALWAYS mentioned, but escaflowne almost NEVER enters the conversation
Eva was unprecedentedly huge, most of the others are shows (usually good ones) that had successful runs on English language television. Escaflowne's original release was fine as far as subtitled VHS tapes go, but when they adapted it for TV it was a hack job and it never got any traction, which has a lot to do with why it doesn't come up as much.
Aiden Johnson
I found most of the main cast extremely unlikable (let Dil have his way with them). This brings down an otherwise average show. A few nice tracks on the OST though when Yoko Kanno forgets herself and does something interesting for a change.
Julian Turner
Realistic 15 year old girl behavior is not moe.
Juan Gray
Because it didn't air on Toonami. Most peoples exposure was the shitty edited fox kids version.
Isaiah Ward
Sweet,I just got this off AB two days ago,looking forward to it.
Tyler Ramirez
It's not about the reasons behind his actions but rather how he died as the result of a lost piece of his broken sword, that only broke because he applied too much force and it a hard surface on the right spot to make it crack, ricocheted and happened to pierce his chest. This shitty way to die still makes me angry after all these years.
James Murphy
Van is pretty damn shoujo if you ask me.
Henry Phillips
>Hitomi. Like, teenage girl angst, and insecurity about her feelings and all that
that was the case for like, the first 5 episodes. but over the course of the show, she became the driving force of the plot. she got over it. if anything VAN was the one dwelling on angst and hitomi was the one telling him to GET FUCKING OVER IT
Levi Russell
I'm not saying they're correct in the criticism. There's a lot of chuuni's here who don't like the relative realistic ness of her character
Leo Robinson
>it's a "transported to a fantasy world" story Dropped harder than SAO.
Easton Gomez
>It's not about the reasons behind his actions but rather how he died as the result of a lost piece of his broken sword, that only broke because he applied too much force and it a hard surface on the right spot to make it crack, ricocheted and happened to pierce his chest. This shitty way to die still makes me angry after all these years.
that's the thing though, he KNEW that was going to happen. he didn't know the exact sword-reflects-back method, but he knew attacking the emperor would result in his death. and he did it anyway because he knew it was the only way he could contribute to stopping the emperor from his experience with the fate-prognostication-engine.
Zachary Sanders
endless keks, this show is a billion times better than SAO could ever hope to be. watch four episodes and try to compare it to SAO, there is nothing alike.
Luis Turner
I know man, I have no issues with that. It's how he died pierced by a lost bit of his sword that pisses me off. I'd have no problems if he died like Cid's adoptive father, for example.
Aiden Brooks
sorry, let me get this straight, your issue is just the method by which he dies, not the reason for it?
like you'd be happy if say, he struck the emperor and some kind of defense mechanism shot him with a gun instead of his sword breaking?
Nathaniel Barnes
Yeah, that's it. It's just him dying the way he did, not him dying in general. I don't mind my favorite characters dying if they have nice death scenes.
Being killed by a gun like that would also be shitty. To be honest, I think they dug themselves into a hole there. Any kind of death would look bad in that situation. Although it would be cool if the emperor had some sort of knife and stabbed him back, it would go against his beliefs in a way.
Tyler Campbell
Japan used to actually do those stories right, especially in shoujo (see: Fushigi Yuugi, Escaflowne, Magic Knight Rayearth)
Jacob Rogers
>Fushigi Yuugi >implying
Hunter Cooper
ah, I see. and I don't really disagree with your viewpoint, but it's a matter of different strokes for different folkes
I personally like the way it played out; I think it's kind of pottery.
he knew he had to die, he struck first even though he didn't really want to, and he died by his own blade while also accomplishing his ultimate goal.
Ryder Scott
>implying escaflowne is on the same level as SAO >laughingbitches.jpg
Josiah Lee
I mostly liked it, but I didn't care much for the romance aspects and that made some episodes a huge slog for me. The scene where the emperor uses his magical telescope to spy on teenage romance bullshit he orchestrated to change the fate of the universe was funny as hell, though.
I also really enjoyed Dilandau, he was psychotic villain executed very well. He was the life of every scene he was in. Didn't like that some story twist basically made him go poof, though.
Isaiah Price
The movie was great. but the series is also pretty good. In all honesty I have never seen an Escaflowne thread on Sup Forums, ever. More people really need to see the series/movie (series first obviously).
Nicholas Gonzalez
I really didn't like the MC, she was so annoying. But the art is amazing, and it has really nice concepts. I kinda want to rewatch it now, but I still got too much other great stuff to watch, so it'll have to wait. Listen to the opening theme almost every day, it was so good.
Tyler Collins
Wasn't the ludicrous way he died kinda the point, given the emperor was sitting on some kind of fate engine.
Adam Flores
10/10 first half
the writing starts to keep shiiting itself from there on
Bentley Miller
I couldn't get past the antagonist that sounded like a chick, then hitomi cock hopping(it wasn't bad just annoying.) Then the lack of dragon slaying killed it for me. Not to mention the "ancient" weapon that was a fully mechanized robot suit, when everyone else was using swords.
