Vision of Escaflowne

Fortune Telling, Fantasy, Mecha, The Lost Civilization of Atlantis, Sir Isaac Newton, and love triangles aplenty. Somehow, all this comes together for a marvelously crafted story which you experience through the eyes of Hitomi Kanzaki, a teenage girl (aren't they always) from Earth who discovers the world called Gaia, and in the process discovers herself.

There's a lot of drama packed into this story, and fortunately all the pieces fit together like you favorite jigsaw puzzle (Ok if you don't do puzzles, just pretend you do for the sake of this review). Hitomi arrives on Gaia just as the Zaibach Empire is gearing up for usual world domination bit. They have interesting reasons for doing so however, and you find that out later. Left to oppose the actions of Zaibach is Van Fanel, a young King who has yet to learn what it means to be a King, Allen Schezar, an honorable knight who it would seem can do no wrong (don't worry he has some skeletons in the closet), and Hitomi Kanzaki whose ability to use Tarot cards with accuracy has been increasing with frightening accuracy since her arrival on Gaia. Every main character is well fleshed out, and has a past that makes their actions in the present believable. Even Merle, a catgirl who I found to be incredibly annoying most of the time, is used in just the right way to produce some powerful emotional moments. In the end, if the big cheese running the show at Zaibach had been a little more interesting, and didn't have such odd and hard to relate to reasons for his mission of conquest, the story would have been perfect. As it is however, The Zaibach emporer and his motivations are a good enough reason for the characters to interact with one another but tend to strain when examined too closely in the last 5-6 episodes. Only a minor blemish though, on a story where you'll always be saying 'Just one more episode..'

Hitomi Kanzaki is not strong. She makes a lot of mistakes, she is unsure about feelings of love, and she is prone to a selfish moment or two.. but in a crisis she acts with an unthinking dedication to help the often in trouble Van.

Van Fanel is growing up in a time of war, and with the aid of a powerful mecha Escaflowne, he is a formidable opponent indeed. However, who is going to convince him that fighting is not always the answer? Can he reconcile his grief and anger before he hurts someone he cares about?

Allen Schezar is a formidble Knight with a strong sense of honor and responsibility. He lives in the present, preferring to forget painful events of the past... But of course we're not going to leave well enough alone and all of his secrets will be exposed at the end. Will he still be a nice guy?

Folken and Dilandau are two important villains in the series for Zaibach. The silent, intelligent Strategos Folken is an intriguing character. He contrasts sharply with the violent, crazy, and war loving Mecha pilot Dilandau. These two are far more than they seem, and answers surrounding their past will surprise you.

The animation has given me nothing to complain about. Well ok, maybe the noses ARE odd, but its something you can get used to after the first couple of episodes. I think the movies goofed up Nariya and Eriya (twins different only by their hair color) on a few occasions, showing the wrong color for the twin in question. It was sort of confusing. Did I mention the Zaibach emperor is a dork? Well he looks like one

I viewed this series Subbed and have only seen snippets of the dub (Which was enough for me to tell that they totally ruined Dilandau's character). All the voice acting is good in the sub. The music is powerful and even though its repetitive it does the job keeping you on the edge of your seat. The opening song is great too, and well choreographed. The ending song was just weird and I didn't like it.. it was a mixture of Japanese and English that left me confused.