Does it still hold up, Sup Forums?

Does it still hold up, Sup Forums?

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If you're an airheaded shoujotard.

Yes, up until the end. The ending sucked so much worse than I remember.

I hope you're talking about the movie because that was SAO: Ordinal Scale levels of bad.

No, I'm talking about the TV ending. Not going to watch the movie again. Not going there.

I'm pretty sure all the air headed shoujotards went to pic related.

I never liked Hitomi, which made a lot of the show pretty annoying to watch.

Wow, I just finished watching this for the first time last night. It had excellent pacing and a unique universe. There were a handful of issue, but nothing major. I enjoyed it overall.

Can someone please recommend a similar show? The part I liked most about Escaflowne was its fantasy universe, Atlantis, and occult elements. Is there anything out there with similar themes?

KIMI NO MYSTIC EYES

Of courshe.

Looks like we have a buttblasted shipper here.

I also don't understand.

Why couldn't she just have kept the pendant so she could go back and visit whenever she wanted? What's wrong with commuting between worlds?

Yeah, she annoyed me too. I enjoyed it a lot despite her presence.

I watched it earlier this year and was very disappointed. It started well and had lots of potential, and it looked and sounded fantastic, but Hitomi was seriously annoying, the melodrama was bad and the later parts of the plot seemed to be driven mainly by fate ex machina. It makes me wonder if SDF Macross was just a fluke for Kawamori.

Give Magic Knight Rayearth a shot if you haven't already.

Definitely. I disliked most of the protags, but the side characters and antagonists are oh so good.

I'll check it out, thanks!

Season 2 was a mistake.
I have to watch it at 4x speed.
If only I can handle 8x, i would do it.

The movie is godawful, I hope everyone can at least agree on that.

Sounds just like the last bit of Escaflowne than. It really does seem like a lot of fantasy mecha shows have hard time holding up till the end.

emperor donkirk was cool

I can't shake the feeling that S2 was made because people couldn't handle the great tragic ending from the first one.

...

S2 had a better premise than S1.
It was just terribly executed.

I dunno, the whole pilar thing was kinda dumb, and the resolution was the safest option they could have gone to, unlike the first that it's all about sacrifice.

Would Ascot won the Umi if he stayed as a cute manlet?

I'm always up for some /ss/ but I like tall Ascot the most.

Ascot is still underage b&.
Clef is the only suitable manlet.

...

Neither deserved her.

Why is Umi so best?

It's from 90's Sunrise, of course it hold up

You are not my nigga.

>MC is caught in the center of a massive earth-shattering war fought with magic and flying bipedal mech suits
>Primary concern throughout the entire series is 'Which cute boy do I really like the mostest and how can I make him like meeeeee?'

She's 15 after all.

You mean Nova

...

They are completely different, at least the first season. The only thing they have in common is that they are isekai fantasy mecha, Rayearth puts no focus on worldbuilding which is super important in Escaflowne.

I loved the second season, it had such a great mood.

I hated the main character which made it hard to enjoy, but I guess it had its strong points too.

Not really. When I was a kid, I didn't really notice it, but whenever I attempt to watch it these days I simply can't do it. It's clear to see they were really trying to target the teenage girl audience; you got your reverse harem of sparkly men and bad boys, love rivals everywhere, forced misunderstandings and romantic tension, etc. I think I only managed to get through several episodes before I just dropped it again. I really have no idea how I managed to watch all the way through it as a kid. I used to think it was a classic; my nostalgia goggles were tinted so thick I couldn't even see through them.

A really STUPID and inordinately self-centered one. The clingy, one-dimensional cat girl was even worse.

First world problems.

Dumb buzzword.

KIMI WO
KIMI WO
AISHITERU

>tfw you're tired of Watase's tragedy boner

Yes, but forget the movie exists.

I miss when isekai was good. I used to like it.

Amen.

When the primary focus was the romance and they make it last 5 minutes before permanently separating them just cause, hell yeah i'm going to be a little mad.

If that was true she would have stayed gone the first time she went back earlier in the series

Maybe if you're a huge fan of Maaya Sakamoto, otherwise not really

Man, the story for this was a mess with all its "twists" and the shit romance.

I forget doesn't this have a catgirl in it?

Yes and she is worst girl

Here's your (You).

So many closeted faggots ITT. The show is listed as shoujo and romance among others, what the fuck did you expect? Maybe you hoped for a bit of man on man action?

Protip: if your masculinity is fragile like a delicate flower, don't watch a show with a DVD cover like this.

It is possible to make shoujo romance that's enjoyable to watch. Not every shoujo romance has a protagonist as trash as Escaflowne.

Didn't you read the thread? Anons are mad because the so called main plot about romance was resolved like a "lel, not seeing each other never again".

Please name some. 90s shoujo usually features an airhead girl who cries about constantly stuffing her face while wanting to be thiiiiin. Also name some whose life does not revolve around guys and melodrama.

Hitomi is quite a realistic 15 year old girl. Of course guys is a big part of what she thinks about. But she is not a damsel in distress, actually she saves other characters multiple times, risking her life (including trying to save the "villains" such as the doppelganger or Naria)


Inb4
>b-but she is a whore because she was after Allen dick
Yeah, yeah... because he was not a manwhore and the whole fucking Zaibach didn't have to force them to kiss by the means of destiny.

A bit far fetched but maybe it's something like: . That is, that the creators of the anime decided that in the end it was unhealthy for the protagonist to escape into a fantasy world and meet a dream guy, a handsome young prince with angel wings, and live happily ever after. It could be that they were saying that in the end Hitomi had to grow up and move on in the real world, and live a normal life like everyone else.

Why does this always condense to "stay with the hot winged king"? And why do people who complain about "shitty romance" and "melodrama" not pay attention to anything else from the plot than that same romance?

Hitomi was messing up the world with her powers, worries and wishes. She could literally wish for anything to happen, she almost caused the end of the world and made Dornkirk's "utopia" true. She would surely have unconsciously wished for some bullshit again (it's not like you can really influence it) and messed the natural timeline. She is like the Atlanteans in the series, who destroyed their own world. That she realizes this and goes home is actually one of the few good, selfless decisions she made during the series.

>the so called main plot about romance was resolved like a "lel, not seeing each other never again"
Literally dumb shippers butthurt.

I was freaked out by Nova's perviness as a kid. CLAMP just loves self-cest.

himecut

Her voice is also a big part of it. And I like her personality.

>Does it still hold up, Sup Forums?
It's a masterpiece.
It was pretty bad, but the art and animation were great.
Season 2 and the OVA were both intolerable, and make the first season worse by association, which is a shame, because the first season is a very fun show.

Just rewatched it. Fell apart at the 2/3 point just like I remembered from 15 years ago. So no, it didn't hold up because it wasn't good to begin with. Music and animation was all it had even back in the late 90s.

What Escaflowne did good:
>worldbuilding
>mecha
>music
>animation
>cutting all the filler
>characters (matter of opinion, but I think they are not flat and I like them so fuck off)

What could have been done better
>character design is great except for the noses, if Nobuteru Yuki designed it more like Lodoss without such an risky and pronounced experiment, it would have been less controversial; also Hitomi would have been more beautiful therefore more popular
>writing in latter half
>give the shippers what they want (a least imply the possibility to travel back and forth between worlds), hell, even the stupid kiss would cut the whining in half

TV was great and yeah it held well
Movie was nonsense

>mecha
Be honest user. The mecha in Escaflowne is pretty pointless. You could take it entirely out of the story and just replace it with Vaan being the 'chosen one' and having human swordfights. Nothing in the story changes.

>cutting all the filler
Then it added a whole filler arc that was the ending...

>characters (matter of opinion, but I think they are not flat and I like them so fuck off)
Well if you don't want conflicting opinions...

The show fucks up after the escape from the Zaibach capital, the low point being episode 23. Things get back on track with episode 24.

>give the shippers what they want

Never, ever pander to shippers.

The plot lost its way about 2/3 of the way through

>Be honest user. The mecha in Escaflowne is pretty pointless. You could take it entirely out of the story and just replace it with Vaan being the 'chosen one' and having human swordfights. Nothing in the story changes.

I meant all the mecha including ships, floating fortresses and steampunk technology. You can scratch the suits, fine by me, but some guy named Kawamori would disagree therefore the series would not exist. And you have to admit the mecha are pretty original.

>Then it added a whole filler arc that was the ending...

They had to end it somehow, come on. You can see that the world war there was meant to be dragged out into a full cour or something (new countries, technologies appearing), but they had to wrap it up fast.

>Well if you don't want conflicting opinions...

Which character do you consider flat? Somebody mentioned Merle, okay, they probably hear only the worried "Van-sama" on repeat.
But she is:
>ready to risk her life for him
>a cute cheeky imouto
>confronts Hitomi and everyone else on their bullshit
>a surrogate mother character who cares about Van's well-being when noone else does
>wants to marry him but selflessly steps down when she sees he likes Hitomi
>even encourages him to go after her like a bro
>this all at the age of what, 11?

You can dislike the characters, but you can see actual thought went into them if you pay attention.

Hitomi and Vaan are both one dimensional. You can come up with reasons they needed to be in the story, but that doesn't make them well developed and interesting characters. Many of the secondary characters on the other hand had a lot more interesting back story and motivation to fight. But the story would forget about them after their arc was over and just keep going back to pointless development of Hitomi. And by that I actually mean her pendant, which had more of a character than she did.

Pretty enjoyable 90s fantasy up until the end. I think the world and premise could have been used for a more interesting and satisfying story, but even as-is I see why it got so much attention and was considered a classic of fantasy anime throughout the rest of the 90s and the 00s.

the show was supposed to be two seasons, it only got one. this is why escaflowne turned out the way it did.

>opinions
Van is a ragetard who hates fighting. There, I counted two dimensions already.

>keep going back to pointless development of Hitomi
Who else are they supposed to develop? I agree that it takes a long time for her to realize her powers and mistakes and then another long period is dedicated to her going PTSD because someone told her all bad that happened is her fault. It also deletes the times she has actually saved lives, because hey, it was your fault it happened anyway. I kinda feel sorry for her, cause all the bullshit piles on her head and she is not even fighting or something to rectify. They could have developed her athleticism to make her more badass, but she remains pretty (physically) underpowered throughout the series. But when it comes to her powers, she could have entered full-on god mode, that would have been fun to watch. Instead they left her weak and struggling with love life, which is why people do not like her.

>Van is a ragetard who hates fighting. There, I counted two dimensions already.

But user! It got a movie and a video game!

It was planned to be 3 cours long, they only got the budget for 2 before production started.

Or they could have just lowered the extreme production values and used the obvious huge funding they got to make the full show.

They got enough budget for three Evangelions. Someone simply decided it was going to be two cours.

More importantly, did Kawamori did anything worthwhile after this?

He was barely involved in the actual production of this.

But user, Japanese don't do Gregorian chant, the OST had to be recorded in Europe.

>free Europe trip
Yoko Kanno is a clever woman.

Macross Frontier and Delta?

Fun fact, the Gregorian chants were written by Yoko Kanno's husband, not her. He also wrote the best song in the show (Gloria). They have since divorced.

Also, I doubt the music was the biggest factor of cost. A show like Princess Tutu used the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra for its music. Still had nowhere near the budget of Escaflowne. No, the major cost for Escaflowne was the in house animation.

It's even more stupid that they made a totally pointless movie for this series because it was popular enough. Money which could have been used for a second season. This show is just an example of poor planning (like most Sunrise shows).

I agree on all points.

Mizoguchi is the one who should get the praise for this OST for Gloria, Shadow of Doubt and Far Cry.

Just joking because I don't really think you see the budget as much on the animation, either.

Rewatched it recently, since I got it in BluRay. It definitely does. Great story, great animation, very little and clever use of CG, beautiful soundtrack.

>Be honest user. The mecha in Escaflowne is pretty pointless. You could take it entirely out of the story and just replace it with Vaan being the 'chosen one' and having human swordfights. Nothing in the story changes.

Mecha is cool though
I don't think Escaflowne itself would be as regal and magical if it were just a sword or something

I think that was the point that user was trying to make-- the mecha only exist for stylistic purposes, rather than having narrative significance.

Style is an entirely valid thing to like

Doesn't he have a collar hankie named after him?

That is indeed what I meant.

Yes it is. But good shows find a way to weave style into the story. Most Sunrise mecha shows seperate mecha and the story into two seperate things. Your average Gundam show has some kind of grand conflict and character drama...then they jump into mechs once in a while, for no real purpose except to fight on a bigger scale. Or because the mech is "special".

I recommend you kill yourself.
You too.

This shit has one of the best hentai movies of all time

Mechs are completely impractical. There is literally no way to justify them other than being cool.

Do tell.

>first saw Escaflowne saturday morning on fox kids
I feel old

Dance of Curse does.

youtube.com/watch?v=O_49H_N43jQ

You could easily make them practical. Space combat, fighting huge monsters, making armies obsolete, etc. The problem is that Sunrise shows rarely do these things. Even when they have Gundams in space, they just act like mindless sword fighters. And don't utilize them to the degree that they would be useful in space.

But even if you had a Gundam that is practical for its setting, you have to go another level to make it useful in the story. Escaflowne made itself impractical because despite having huge armies of mechs, they still also used huge armies of ground troops. And the mechs using the moldable metal that is WAY more practical than a sword still lost to the big white plot armor mech with a sword. Because "muh precognition".

Took me years to find the whole song