ThiefHott Too much of everything

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Torrin-McFinn77 I'd first became aware of this series after seeing ads for it on FOX Kids, four years after it premiered. I'd also heard that the American TV version had butchered the series, but to my surprise, my local movie rental outlet had all the episodes on VHS. I rented them and watched the whole thing from start to finish. What a show!Mecha without the guns, cat and dog-people, royal families, science and magic, an evil empire, countless revelations, and a whole new world, as Disney's Aladdin would put it. When it comes to Japanese animation, this one was the best! You can have your Dragon Ball, your Speed Racer, your Sailor Moon, your Pokemon, your Akira, or whatever, but I found one that really speaks to me. Oh, and Hayao Miyazaki comes in as a close runner-up. If you're new to Japanese animation and want a believable fantasy world without all the guns (and more medieval weaponry), look here!

MovTV I am reviewing the English version of Bandai release. This is not Fox Kids release.Escaflowne is remembered by most anime fans who viewed the show as a great series. However if we look closely at this anime, we find that the diamond does have a lot of cracks.Plot: Escaflowne is a typical rabbit in the hole story of animes. Hitomi, the main character of the anime, ends up on a world called Gaia with Vahn, a boy king of a country in this world. Hitomi haves a strange psychic link with her tarot cards. Whatever fortune she gets from the cards comes true. With this, Hitomi is made a target of a evil empire who wants to use her powers for their own means. To get rid of this threat, Vahn and Hitomi travel to a mystic city to get aid.Now the bad: Escaflowne does try to add mysteries to the story to make it interesting. The main mysteries is what is Hitomi's grandmother's connection to Gaia and what happened to Allen's sister. At first, viewers think that both are connected somehow. The writers do give red herrings in order to add twists to the plot to keep the viewers guessing what wil happen next. But the results of twists are performed badly, are way left field, and make the characters look more undesirable and hypocritical to viewers than they should be (ex. Allen---daddy issues mixed with weird love affairs)To make the flaws of the anime worse, a major plot hole was lefted to confuse the intelligent viewers even more. The hole begins with Hitomi finding a CD for sale. Gaia does not have the technology to produce a CD. Hitomi thinks (which is a good possibility) that someone else from Earth came here to Gaia. However the only two people, as revealed in the story, that came to Gaia are the grandmother and Issac Newton (the main villain!!!-Huh I am not joking. It's real <_<). However Netwon and the grandmother came from eras that didn't have CDs. The story makes us assume that Netwon, with his genius, made the CD. However if you think logically, Netwon could not be so advance in his knowledge to have produced a CD since he came fromt the 17th century. In matter of fact when you think about it, Newton couldn't have been able to develop the high technology of the empire without complex modern science and math. Some might claim magic or new learning caused Newton's knowledge to expand to that level but I think that is stenching the believability in a senseable story and makes it wackier than it should. If a fourth Earther was methods or hinted, the fatal flaw may have been ignored easily.To top it off, Escaflowne haves some of the worst character designs in anime. "Doonsbury" noses on every character on the show!!!. It wouldn't be so bad if three characters had it but everyone seems to have one. Didn't the artist know how to draw different noses and actually make them cute besides that one!?. It becomes distracting if its ugliness and makes you less focused on the anime (if you haven't turned out from the bad plot by then). However mechas and monsters were good in design especially the dragon in the first episode. The skin was odd with its early CG skin which wasn't really not that bad. It looks impressive and fresh in design for an anime.Music: The another good and possibly the only good thing about this anime was the music. From its Gregorian chant battle music to its poppy 90s ending music to its shojo opening, the music is actually good to listen to. Vocals were done correctly and made you feel part of the story. If only the writing should have done that for the overall anime.Overall, Escaflowne is not good anime to me. It is watchable till the end but it made me disappointed that a highly budgeted anime of its time would allow all the flaws it did to happen, and highly intellect people (cough the director and producers) would prove the scripts and character designs when the writers and the artist would have fired on the spot for their sloppy and poor work. If you have to watch a old-school anime adventure, try SDF Macross or Outlaw Star first then try Escaflowne (but be prepared to watch a bad anime).

Timothy McKann When I first watched this series on TV, they only showed 9 episodes. The show is just like Gundam Wing, instead of calling them Mobile suits,they are called:"Guymelef's".The Escaflowne Guymelef almost looks like the Gundam 01 and Wingzero. I really wanted to see the entire series. But I wasn't getting anywhere after buying the first volume on VHS. When I got the first 2 volumes on DVD, they were very interesting, the first volume had a pilot episode that was never aired on TV. The other episodes had never-before scenes. The characters I liked are: Allen, Millerna, and Dryden. The reason why I liked those characters because their voices were done by: Brian Drummond, Venus Terzo, and Michael Dobson. The series got really interesting when I bought the other volumes on DVD. I learned that Van's brother Folken lost one of his arms in the Dragon slaying ceremony to be the new King of Fanelia. Another thing I learned that Dilandau was really Allen's sister who was spirited away by the wind. The music was very beautiful. It was done by Yoko Kanno. The final episode was very interesting,Hitomi said good-bye to Van and the others and returned to the Mystic Moon. So in closing, after the series, see the Movie.

Gwuinivyre1486 I saw Escaflowne originally on Fox Kids. I was a little confused, but then I went online and read how the story was, and I stopped watching it. I then was contacted by a friend who told me she bought the dvd edition three disc set with all 26 episodes on it off of Ebay. I went over to her house the very next day and watched it. I was shocked with how much they took out from the fox kids version. I instantly fell in love with the story. And especially Folken and Allen, but my first crush was on the adorable Gaddess. Anyways (getting off track ^_^)When we got through watching the whole thing I couldnt believe it. I then went out and spent the money on the 3 disc set and I was so excited. I almost toppled the UPS man when he brought it to the door I was so excited. I have to say to everyone that Escaflowne is the best damn anime there is. Well, besides DB/Z/GT. But I loved it. The animation was beautiful. The storyline exellent. the characters were enjoyable. And the music was totally breath taking. Such songs such as "Shadow of a Doubt" (more associated with Folken.) and "Chain" (the altering fate machine theme) have to be the most wonderfully done peices of music I have heard in a long time.In all I give this a 10/10 in ratings. I would go higher then a 10, but I want to make it reasonable. Hell. A 100/10.