Escaflowne. I've been putting off talking about it in depth for a bit now. I've just got too many thoughts, and sorting them out is a task and a half. I'm sure most angles on this show have been discussed at length on these boards before, so bare with me if I go over stuff already said ad nauseum.
Music: I don't gotta tell anyone on this board how good Yoko Kanno's music is. But while I'm sure the reputation of the show's music is strong, it's weirdly, not *that* great? I mean, it's still just objectively a really good soundtrack. But if you just extract Escaflowne's OST from its context and just listen to it on its own, it's probably not in the top half of her output. There's maybe half the number of tracks to the TV show that a similar length show like Cowboy Bebop enjoyed the benefit of, so there is heavy reuse of certain specific songs and motifs, and there just isn't a lot of variety in the soundtrack either. Which is both a strength and a weakness, as it lends the show a certain consistent feel/tone, while probably not giving certain settings within Gaea enough of their own personality despite the inherent diversity of the setting itself. But oh man, does Escaflowne know how to use its soundtrack to the fullest. I will harp on this point until the day I die, but the musical accompaniment of the best pieces of media lets their soundtrack really shine and treats it like another cast member that deserves screen time and focus. And Escaflowne knows how to do this really well. Most anime music (really any visual medium) is completely disposable, but here it not just shapes the mood of the show, but is expertly arranged and timed to the choreography of the show to bring the most out of individual moments.
Cast: The Japanese voice cast in this show is crazy strong. There are so many heavy hitter in this show from top to bottom, and there's a lot of really iconic performances in this as well. Starting at the top billing with Maaya Sakamoto. Who is one of the most prolific, talented, wide-ranging talents there ever was, but this is essentially her breakout performance. And that she does such an incredible job here not just as Hitomi, but as the vocalist for the show's songs as well, is just All-Star material. Like Magic Johnson winning an NBA Championship in his rookie year while also playing minutes at Center while being a PG. I really can't understate how good of an actress Sakamoto is. Most anime fans will probably recognize her work in at least one or two of their favorite shows, since she's literally everywhere doing everything. But it's a shame that until very recently most localized games were dub-only, because for sure people would also recognize her videogame work as well. (She plays both Aerith and Lightning from FF7 and 13 respectively, to give you an idea of the kind of range she has as an actress.) And that's just Hitomi. The rest of the cast is just as noteworthy. Tomokazu Seki as Vaan and Shinichiro Miki as Allen are such great performances that they'd form the basis for the men being typecasted through their careers. Minami Takayama as Dilandau is another one where her range and gender fluidity as an actress was a match made in heaven. And there's no better choice for Merle than Ikue Ootani, the voice of Pikachu.
Staff: Looking through a list of the show's staff is like looking at this weird nexus where all this crazy talented people from across the industry managed to be in the same place at the same time working on this same project. There's some really good writers and animators that got their hands on this project.
Toshihiro Kawamoto doing animation direction is like getting Barry Bonds to bat 4th in your rotation.
Nobuteru Yuki doing the character designs is heavily under rated, the guy has done nothing but fantastic work. (Y'all might best recognize his work as doing the character designs for Chrono Cross.)
Junichi Higashi is nothing short of a master at his craft as an Art Director. Y'all already know about Yoko Kanno. There's nothing but prolific industry pros to work on the storyboards with Shouji Kawamori, who is also credited with the story and part of the scripting. And the key animators are a big list of strong talent that worked with Sunrise's Studio 3, which was responsible for Gundam 0083 and all of the City Hunter shows/films. And the show's director is not the most flashy of names, but I contend Kazuki Akane is still an incredibly talented individual. (Directer of the Code Geass spin-off films, the Birdy the Mighty TV shows, HeatGuy J, and Stars Align.)
Gender Dynamics: The world of Gaea (and Japan as well, if we're being honest) is one with very rigid, traditional gender roles. And while the show forces these roles onto its characters in ways you wish there could be a little more gender parity with regards to who gets to do what, I'm largely ok with the TV show because the characters by and large refuse to be constrained by them and that's a major resonant theme of Escaflowne. Every time a gender role is imposed onto a character by societal expectations in a way that goes against their nature, it leads to misfortune and misery. And when characters are not just allowed to defy those roles, but seize them of their own volition, is when we see characters come into their own and good things generally follow.
And the themes and outcomes are generally some of the more positive, and more importantly healthy outcomes for a romance anime. Romance in anime is some of the more fraught stuff, because there's honestly a lot of toxic or downright abusive behavior that's upheld as idealistic and romantic in these kinds of shows. Even the ones that are aimed at an almost exclusively female audience is full of its own icky business. And Escaflowne takes an approach to romance that's almost instructive in how healthy it is. All the bad stereotypes are here, but they're also there for the purpose of directly commenting upon and undermining. Almost none of the Escaflowne's pairings that are teased throughout the show come to fruition or persist the entire length. Millerna's husband breaks with her because he realizes that what he's doing is wrong, and that good relationships are built on mutual love. Millerna voluntarily gives up her infatuation with Allen because she realizes she deserves better for herself than someone who is emotionally and physically unavailable. Allen gives up Hitomi realizing that he's projecting his feelings for others onto her for his own convenience. Hitomi and Vaan are built up as the OTP who are perfect for each other since they treat each other as equal partners versus Allen's toxic masculinity leading him to want to cloister and dominate Hitomi. And yet Vaan and Hitomi both agree to mutually step back from one another because they realize that their relationship is dangerously codependent, they're both still young and growing and have their own lives, and that they need to take things slower. It's honestly remarkable that a show as thoughtful and respectful about its ideas of romance could come out of the mid-90s Japan.
Religiosity: There is a very strong Buddhist undercurrent to this show. Stronger than your typical Japanese cultural influences would assume. I'm not the best equipped to describe the intricacies of this. But everything Escaflowne has to say about perpetual cycles of violence, emotional attachments (even the ones rooted in pure love) leading to suffering, Hitomi not reading fate but directing it with the energy of her emotions, it's all super Buddhist.
Cats: Escaflowne is an enlightened show that recognizes that Cats are among nature's most fiercely loyal and loving creatures. Just sayin'.
The Movie: I think there would have been a time earlier in my life where I would have been extremely put off by the film's departures from the TV show. But now I mostly can compartmentalize those shifts and see them as interesting permutations on a shared theme. Escaflowne the Movie is basically what DYRL is to Macross. It's this companion work that I don't even think works as a standalone product because of how heavily it relies on you already knowing the characters and how things will work out. It literalizes a lot of the more esoteric themes of the TV show into more striking visuals like Escaflowne sucking Vaan's blood as a more to-the-point interpretation of how piloting Escaflowne would damage Vaan in the TV show. (Both of which are metaphors for how being a Guymelf pilot and murdering people is wounding the soul of this inherently gentle person.) Shifts in characters personalities feel striking but aren't out of left field. Hitomi and Vaan's struggles with depression and interpersonal empathy are subtext in the original show but brought to the foreground and put in center view during the film. Folken's hatred of Vaan is the biggest departure, but it's mostly there to take the abstract of him losing his way and hurting Vaan by giving it physical form in his personality. And everything is just visually arresting. It's still a completely baffling film because I just don't really know who this was made for. These changes are fascinating from an almost academic perspective, but fans are irrational beasts who dislike striking changes like this. Almost all shojo aspects of the original show was stripped out of this to make way for a brooding, depressing, violent film. It's almost masturbatory in the sense that the people making it clearly thought this was going to be really cool without thinking much about if people wanted to see Escaflowne done like this. What a really weird moment in history. Especially for what was essentially Studio Bones inaugural work and one of the main reasons the studio was formed to begin with.
Anyways, 10/10 perfect show, I kinda can't handle how good it was. Even its warts like the story going full-bore abstraction towards the end in very Shouji Kawamori ways is just mana to me. Love it. The film was a solid 8/10. A beautiful film and an interesting companion piece. Not remotely worthy of being a substitute for the original, but a heroic job of distilling a 10+ hr epic into an hour and a half.
