Escaflowne #2: Betrayal and Trust Bandai 100 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 12/05/2000

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At the end of the last disc Andrew brought about a tradition that I've missed very much. And that is the "sitting around in Japan" tradition. It made me get all nostalgic about back in the day, whenever we'd watch a disc of Trigun or whatever else and it ended in a cliffhanger someone would be sure to blurt out "Man, you know... if I was sitting around in Japan right now I'd be pissed the hell off". So I felt a little bad when, after he left, I put the second disc in so I could get two reviews out today. Don't be too upset, Andrew, as you didn't miss much. It's pretty much more of the same. Only now the giant robot Escaflowne has shown that it can transform into a dragon. Color me unimpressed but the bad guy's robots can fly too AND they can use their guns while they're doing in AND they don't have to sit on top of the dragon and control it with a set of reigns. I guess from a stylistic standpoint that's pretty cool but it's just not very logically sound. Would I sit on top of a flying dragon? You bet your ass I wouldn't. What's to stop someone for shooting you off? Hell, I don't think the damn thing even has a saddle. How do you stay on that?

 

More importantly, how does Van end up in the cockpit again when it transforms back? That's some miracle of engineering. It might just be too early in the show, but they don't bother to tell you. It transforms and all of a sudden, hello! Van is fine and back inside. What happens if he's riding a little high on the thing? Does he get crushed into bits? How does he even know how to pilot it? He's never flown it or even seen it in action before, has he? Those are all questions I wouldn't be able to answer. Probably because my attention was always being grabbed by the total nutjob that is Dilandau. Tell me, does every show like this need a gender ambiguous crazy badguy? Escaflowne proves that it's willing to go the extra mile, not only is Dilandau way, way crazier than your average effeminate twelve year old, but his entourage is comprised of two young boys who look even LESS masculine as him. Andrew refers to them as the "All boy action squad". As far as I can tell, their job is to get smacked around by Dilandau. Lord knows what happens to the poor guys when the camera's not on them. I think it's better not to ask, though it might be a good idea to call child welfare.

 

Things get even crazier as a whole new love triangle is introduced. Now not only do we have Hitomi-Van-Merle, we're also "blessed" with Hitomi-Alan-Princess. Is this really warranted? I figured what they had in the past few episodes was way more than enough, but now they're just grasping at straws. How often do you see this happening in real life? You know, I don't think I can think of a single girl one of my friends has dated that I've been able to say "Man, I'd really love to get into her stuff right now." Even if I did, there's that whole code of honor thing. Does anybody know something about this that I don't? Is it a woman's job to only go after guys that are already taken? At least we're given Folken to hang on to. He might be as much of a pretty boy as everyone else, but at least his hair doesn't go down to his ass. The older (not to mention cooler) brother of Van works for the bad guys but often seems conflicted. He's kind of a pull, because I know the people who watch this show totally go for the not quite bad but not really good subcommander of the evil empire. I'd be willing to give you even money that he'll turn around and betray his commanders at some point and join the good guys.

 

I don't really know what to say about this show. Stuff just... happens. And it seems to happen over and over again. Hitomi saves Van, Hitomi saves Van, Van saves Hitomi, Van saves Hitomi. How many times can the same thing happen before it gets boring? You know what my favorite part is? It has to be that a group of seven pirate rejects take out a whole flying fortress all by themselves. I guess things work differently in Japan, but you figure the guys with the obvious superiority when it comes to giant robots would have at least have like, a gun sitting around to take care of any potential troop invasions. I mean, it's like seven guys! Why is that a problem? So it seems like any time we're given something good it turns into more mushy romance stuff. I'm not wholeheartedly against that kind of stuff, but much like nudity in a movie everything has a place. And when you're on the run from an empire spanning the whole word, cat fights over your favorite giant robot pilots are probably not the best idea. Then again, I'm not the kind of person that would ruin an awesome escape scene by suddenly having the male lead sprout wings and fly away. I would imagine that it's my lack of obsession on angel wings that causes me to never direct that next, great Shoujo anime. It'll be hard to get through it all, but I think I'll make it out okay. Time heals all wounds, or so they say.