The Vision of Escaflowne
Jul. 23rd, 2013 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroHitomi is a normal teenage girl who likes running track, doing tarot readings, and mooning over hot boys. Until a boy named Van and the dragon he’s fighting with come through a mystic portal, and drag her back with them to the world of Gaea. There, Hitomi discovers that there’s more to her fortune-telling abilities than she’d ever guessed. Also, there’s sword-fighting, giant magitek robots, dragons, mad science, musings on the nature of fate, catgirls, politics, ill-fated romance, sibling rivalry, lost civilizations and really nothing that could possibly qualify as “filler”.
The pacing is really impressive. The show doesn’t really have any episodic nature (there’s no “monster of the week”) but every episode either has something important happen or reveals something important about the world or the backstory. (Wikipedia says it have been planned for 39 episodes, then cut/crammed into 26 for budget reasons. That would make sense, and I think it was for the better.) And each such revelation is important from then on—there are no episodes you can safely miss. This is less a TV show and more a nine-hour movie done in 26 parts.
I think I noted this early on, but I suspect I would liked this more if I’d discovered it ten years ago, and I would have adored it if I’d discovered it twenty years ago. It’s a parade of tropes that I like (especially in my tabletop rpgs) all crammed into one show. I may just be too old and cynical (and steeped in my nostalgia) to really appreciate the wonder of a show like this anymore. Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but I’m not going to go digging up fanfiction and scanlations of the various manga adaptations.
Though this is arguably Hitomi’s story (and to a lesser extent Van’s), it’s really an ensemble piece. There are a ton of subplots that neither of them really figure into, besides setting events into motion further up the line. They’re very good about letting characters trade off being in distress and needed to be rescued, and Hitomi gets plenty of agency and a very important set of superpowers. I appreciate that she doesn’t arrive on Gaea and magically become a way better fighter than everyone who lives there (which I suspect would have happened had this been the story of a boy from the Mystic Moon). Most of what she accomplishes comes from skills she demonstrates early on: Running, jumping, reading tarot cards and dowsing. It grounds both the character and the fantasy better.
Nitpicks / questions:
How does a beeper signal make it to Gaea? Also, it’s interesting how the scene with the beeper indicated that Hitomi had been gone from Earth for some time, but then after she reappeared (the day before leaving because magic wishes do that) and left again, she was apparently able to resume her normal life upon returning again. (Only this time she didn't compete for Amano's affections.) They never made it clear whether time runs differently on Earth and Gaea, but it didn’t seem like it did (or that they meant it to; again given the beeper scene). Or perhaps Hitomi didn’t re-live that day, and instead was in a dream world until she and Van found each other again. The final bit of her being on Earth didn’t really give a clear timeframe, so she could have been missing for a month and then returned and resumed her life.
Why don’t the people of Earth see Gaea hanging in the sky (and apparently not much further than the moon—where the hell does this thing orbit)?
Regarding the 11th hour reveal about Dilandau: Was this telegraphed anywhere? He never seemed fond of Allen, but I don’t think there was any indication of real recognition. He was much more obsessed with Van than Allen.
I guess the fate manipulation / wish granting of the Atlantis Machine in the ending is intended to be more subtle than the earlier work? I mean, given that Dornkirk's sorcerers were about to turn a little girl into a battle-crazed boy, I figured there'd be more "magic". Honestly, I think a lot of the ending feels rushed and a little too pat--Folken's death, for instance, seems to have little purpose (besides getting him out of the way) given that Dornkirk just reappears as some sort of ghost-thing anyway.
It feels like some of those early bits shifted gears or were abandoned by the writers; which I find surprising given how much this runs together as a single plotline. It feels like, in turn, some of the resolution beats focused on the wrong plotlines—I’d rather see Allen reconcile with his son (who we met) than his long-lost and forgotten sister. Or get some sort of ending details for Merle, whose presence fades in the back half of the series.
Overall: Stan Lee figured out that little boys would read soap operas if the characters had laser eyes and claws. This follows a similar principle, appealing to both those who like giant swordfighting magitek power armor that transforms into a flying dragon, and love triangles guided by magical destiny.
The pacing is really impressive. The show doesn’t really have any episodic nature (there’s no “monster of the week”) but every episode either has something important happen or reveals something important about the world or the backstory. (Wikipedia says it have been planned for 39 episodes, then cut/crammed into 26 for budget reasons. That would make sense, and I think it was for the better.) And each such revelation is important from then on—there are no episodes you can safely miss. This is less a TV show and more a nine-hour movie done in 26 parts.
I think I noted this early on, but I suspect I would liked this more if I’d discovered it ten years ago, and I would have adored it if I’d discovered it twenty years ago. It’s a parade of tropes that I like (especially in my tabletop rpgs) all crammed into one show. I may just be too old and cynical (and steeped in my nostalgia) to really appreciate the wonder of a show like this anymore. Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but I’m not going to go digging up fanfiction and scanlations of the various manga adaptations.
Though this is arguably Hitomi’s story (and to a lesser extent Van’s), it’s really an ensemble piece. There are a ton of subplots that neither of them really figure into, besides setting events into motion further up the line. They’re very good about letting characters trade off being in distress and needed to be rescued, and Hitomi gets plenty of agency and a very important set of superpowers. I appreciate that she doesn’t arrive on Gaea and magically become a way better fighter than everyone who lives there (which I suspect would have happened had this been the story of a boy from the Mystic Moon). Most of what she accomplishes comes from skills she demonstrates early on: Running, jumping, reading tarot cards and dowsing. It grounds both the character and the fantasy better.
Nitpicks / questions:
How does a beeper signal make it to Gaea? Also, it’s interesting how the scene with the beeper indicated that Hitomi had been gone from Earth for some time, but then after she reappeared (the day before leaving because magic wishes do that) and left again, she was apparently able to resume her normal life upon returning again. (Only this time she didn't compete for Amano's affections.) They never made it clear whether time runs differently on Earth and Gaea, but it didn’t seem like it did (or that they meant it to; again given the beeper scene). Or perhaps Hitomi didn’t re-live that day, and instead was in a dream world until she and Van found each other again. The final bit of her being on Earth didn’t really give a clear timeframe, so she could have been missing for a month and then returned and resumed her life.
Why don’t the people of Earth see Gaea hanging in the sky (and apparently not much further than the moon—where the hell does this thing orbit)?
Regarding the 11th hour reveal about Dilandau: Was this telegraphed anywhere? He never seemed fond of Allen, but I don’t think there was any indication of real recognition. He was much more obsessed with Van than Allen.
I guess the fate manipulation / wish granting of the Atlantis Machine in the ending is intended to be more subtle than the earlier work? I mean, given that Dornkirk's sorcerers were about to turn a little girl into a battle-crazed boy, I figured there'd be more "magic". Honestly, I think a lot of the ending feels rushed and a little too pat--Folken's death, for instance, seems to have little purpose (besides getting him out of the way) given that Dornkirk just reappears as some sort of ghost-thing anyway.
It feels like some of those early bits shifted gears or were abandoned by the writers; which I find surprising given how much this runs together as a single plotline. It feels like, in turn, some of the resolution beats focused on the wrong plotlines—I’d rather see Allen reconcile with his son (who we met) than his long-lost and forgotten sister. Or get some sort of ending details for Merle, whose presence fades in the back half of the series.
Overall: Stan Lee figured out that little boys would read soap operas if the characters had laser eyes and claws. This follows a similar principle, appealing to both those who like giant swordfighting magitek power armor that transforms into a flying dragon, and love triangles guided by magical destiny.
