Escaflowne #1: Dragons and Destiny Bandai 100 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 10/03/2000

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You know, it's rare that I watch anime in large company anymore. Gone are the days of me and Jerry and whomever else hunkering down every Friday night over a home cooked meal and submitting ourselves to some form of anime torture. Now it seems like all I watch are those huge seven or eight episode collections and generally I wouldn't submit anyone I know to one of them. Lord knows I don't even like watching them myself. A big crowd in these days is me putting something in when Bare isn't playing some video game, and Bare referring to it as "Weird". I swear to god, everything Bare has ever seen is either "Weird", "Crazy", or "Odd". It's probably his Jersey upbringing. Never spending any long amount of time in the state, I wouldn't know. But us people from Pennsylvania are taught more than three words at a very young age. So it was a treat when Bare, Andrew, and myself sat ourselves down to watch this. I use treat strictly in the relative sense, as Escaflowne isn't exactly what I'd call one of my favorite shows ever. Do you want to know why it's not one of my favorites? Because I'm not a woman. Escaflowne is very obviously a show keyed towards the female population, despite its use of giant robots and the whole fighting thing. The main character of the show is female, strong yet insecure, and every main male character seems a bit too pretty for guys who run around in giant metal suits bashing the hell out of each other. As is to be expected, the female lead falls in love with no less than two of these characters at the same time.

Those of us that aren't enamored with long haired fops are fortunate enough that the main character, Hitomi, is at least semi-proficient at what she does. She doesn't get kidnapped every episode and she actually manages to help out sometimes instead of just standing around screaming on the sidelines all the time. As if they didn't want to leave the male demographic out in the cold, there's a completely gratuitous cat girl thrown into the mix. Now, you all know that I'm not a fan of cat girls but Andrew is even less so, to the point where he feels the need to deny that he likes anything that might even remotely contain a person with a tail. You should see him talk about Gunsmith Cats! But there's more than that to piss off our good buddy the reality expert. Escaflowne would seem to be his first introduction into the more Shoujo style of animation. The pointy noses, the eyes that show up through a wall of pretty-boy hair and the women voice acting for young boys. They're all here and they're all very unnecessary. You know what would've been great? If they spent half the budget animating the dragon in the first episode that the did giving all the characters hair that looks like it came directly from a bolt of silk. I'm not one hundred percent against bad animation, but I just hate it when they put something in that's so vastly different than the rest of the animation. Even worse, do they have to put it in the same frame?

But that's certainly not all Escaflowne has to offer, not by a long shot. It's one of those rare series that kills off one of its coolest characters in the first episode. Do you know why it does it? I think I might have a theory, it's probably because he's older than fifteen and doesn't has lustrous wavy hair. It might've had something to do with the country of Fanaelia being pitifully unadvanced. Let's see... the invading army has flame-throwers and "goo guns" and whatever else and Fanaelia has... spears I guess blowing up some giant robots with an equally giant sword just isn't good enough for some people and so Balgas is relegated to the land of dead anime characters, just like Gai Daigoji was. Of course, Gai died for a reason and Balgas died, again, because he wasn't the type of pretty boy that shows like this love to exhort. I know you might not think it's fair and you've got a good reason to think like that. If you're not a teenage girl then Escaflowne has no trouble with breaking your heart and not only killing off your favorite character also the other three guys that he hung around with. I guess the next time you'll know better not to root for someone who doesn't have a ridiculous hair color and actually knows how to get things done. So what are we left with? A bunch of kids, none of whom know how to put up a decent fight or how to dress appropriately for a battle.

That is, until we're introduced to Alan, the knight/pirate with whom Hitomi immediately becomes enamored with even though she was already starting to fall in love with her savior Van. Then what? Something so ridiculous it could only happen in anime, the love QUADRANGLE! Better than your far more mundane love triangle this involves every chick falling in love with some guy wants. Cat girl wants Van, Hitomi wants Van, Hitomi wants Alan. Everyone wants someone! (Except for Balgas, who has long since been forgotten at this point) I'll give you the summation of the first four episodes in the way I did to Andrew. A girl's on the track team and all of a sudden a dragon comes out and is promptly slain, then for no reason at all she and the dragon slayer are transported to an alternate dimension where the Earth is the moon (Why? Who knows!) and not only that, but it's so close to the planet that it seems like anyone with a big enough step ladder should pretty easily be able to climb up and grab it like a piece of ripe fruit. I don't really understand Escaflowne or what it's trying to said, but I think we all know why. I'm not a fourteen year old girl. Escaflowne's certainly bearable, but I've seen a hell of a lot better.