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- JoinedJun 14, 2021
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Dec 22, 2024
Escaflowne has promise and is still what I consider better than most animes, yet it has fundamental flaws that keeps it from being the show it could have been.
The show is split between wanting to be a shounen fantasy mecha anime, which honestly could work. But on the other hand, it clearly also has shoujo elements with Hitomi (our protagonist) and her many love interests taking up a large portion of the plot.
The world-building has a lot of promise. It delves deeper than generic medieval fantasy and actually has interesting art work and world design in terms of architecture, soldiers' uniforms and so on.
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The power struggles between Zaibach and the other kingdoms are also extremely promising and most of the characters are more two-dimensional, having their own struggles both personally and politically.
Yet given its limited time and the large focus on going through all the men in the series like it was a dating sim, a lot of details are bombarded at once and most character progression is left in the dumps. Given the shoujo elements, it forces a love triangle that no one really needs and it ends up making Hitomi much more unlikable, as she constantly comes out as indecisive and downright naïve, indirectly making her seem conceited and cruel towards those who show her their affections.
Another thing that bothers me is the weird technological gap in the universe, with war having both knights, regular footsoldiers, mecha, nukes and tanks. I feel like there is so much potential to the world, with the characters being generally likable and the world showing promise beyond generic "knights and dragons" plot, but it is not explored fully. While I believe the story does wrap up in a way that is satisfying, I sometimes wonder how this show could have been a clean 10/10 with just a few tweaks.
A girl can dream...
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 11, 2024
Remember the hit-song from the Barbie movie "What Was I Made For" by Billie Eilish? Well, if this anime was a song, it'd probably wonder the same thing. I have never seen an anime with a bigger identity crisis on who its target audience is and what the story wants to portray. On one hand, it gives you your classic meek brunette protagonist who magically attracts the attention of a pretty hunk who on the surface level seems female-gazey with an androgynous look and the ability to say just the right thing at any time, eternally beautiful, eternally forgiving. On the other hand, the protagonist
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is probably the least relatable female character every written, and I have read my fair share of Haruki Murakami novels. She seems like the dream girl for an insecure virgin man. A woman who is traumatized, but never showing actual symptoms of depression or PTSD, but always in a meek feminine quiet way of suffering. No panic attacks, angry outbursts or bed-rotting. Just a few dainty princess tears for her beautiful danna-sama to wipe off while she still takes care of all her wifely duties. A dream woman indeed, and yet another ideal most women cannot possibly achieve, even with the best trad wife intentions. One would surely have to reintroduce lobotomies to achieve this level of gentleness and indifference.
Then we have the whole spiritual power subplot and I'm just left.. confused. It is never given enough time to explain why the spirits/ghosts are there in the first place, why we must fight them or how one gains skill in this - it is explained that it is a power that one is born with, but on the other hand we have armies with soldiers and their commanders, who I must presume are trained in this skill. The power of a ghostbuster in this universe is apparently somewhere between Emperor Palpatine and John Constantine, but of course our prime jewel of a protagonist is the true master of the discipline with seemingly no training or guidance. The benevolent creators of this anime spared us from the perils of a shounen protagonist having to deliver milk up steep mountains or being yelled at by his sensei, because our dolly dearest does not need silly training montages to be this level of perfect yet-unperfect.
Unfortunately, both the more classic shounen plot and the romantic subplot fail, leaving with a weird sense of wasted potential of achieving nothing but some pretty visuals to admire for 5 hours.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 5, 2023
This was a massive let-down, particularly after watching Nana, which is honestly one of the more entertaining anime series I've ever watched.
I was prepared for this not to be a masterpiece, but that is an understatement.
Our protagonist is possibly the least relatable character in the history of fiction - and yes, I've read Catcher in the Rye, I have seen the Twilight movies, but nothing compares to this bland piece of flour whose only personality trait is being pretty and hopelessly in love with George. And oh, did you know that she can eat absolutely anything without gaining weight? So relatable, right..?
And oh
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boy, where do I start with George, our own prince charming. He could honestly be interesting, I love myself a character who is absolutely horrible to everyone around them and acts like a spoiled brat, because usually it's entertaining and they get what's coming to them. Or at least SOMEONE is critical towards their awful behaviour at some point. But not George, oh no. Our boy is treated better than a king in the feudal era, nothing our dear George can do is wrong and apparently he is genius along the lines of DaVinci. Who cares if everything he says is no better than a 14-year-old boy whose biggest idol is Andrew Tate, who cares if he is verbally abusive and openly sexist even to his own mother, because he is just SO good at what he's doing. In this universe, dress-making is as essential as curing cancer or solving global warming, apparently, so surely we can put up with his negging and hostility?
The rest of the cast is slightly more promising, but they easily become stock characters and get zero room for development. I have seen more character development for minor characters in South Park, so this is honestly disappointing.
In the end, none of this leads anywhere and you are left just thinking how this was an awful waste of electricity, wasting these hours watching this show.
The only promising parts here is the early LGBT-representation (which was a miracle back in 2005), as well as an interesting outro, but I'd definitely recommend skipping this one. The characters are not awful enough for this to be a complete drama trainwreck, but not likable enough for you to actually care about them.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jun 12, 2023
Honestly, I was very disappointed by this. I'm a big lover of fantasy, I read a lot of fantasy novels and play D&D, I also loved the original OVA, but this one was far below what I expected.
The writing was extremely predictable and often, I found myself wanting for more. Something unpredictable, something that would explain character motivations, particularly the villains who came off as "evil for evil's sake" and not someone with actual meaningful motivations for the things they did. I didn't care for most of the characters and honestly, it was a drag to get through.
I still love the character designs, honestly, I
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still think they have one of the best designs for elves and even if the animation is subpar at times, I can't complain about the art style itself. But I still wouldn't recommend this at all - stick to the original OVA and keep away from this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 12, 2021
I've had really mixed opinions about this anime. On one hand, I have the gift of hindsight and may not have experienced the same disappointment as those who watched the anime when it first aired, so I like to think of myself as slightly less biased. On the other hand, I did read the entire visual novel and thought it was one of the best literary experiences I have ever had. It's one of those works where I consider it to have changed me both as a person and as a writer from now on.
With the anime, I found that the change in media may
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have made it really hard for people to follow, especially for those who did not read the visual novel. Particularly the dialogue between Battler and Beatrice really suffered in this adaptation. While I sat at the edge of my seat trying to guess the truth behind the mystery while reading the visual novel, I really felt the mystery part of the story got lost in translation from one media to another. The "meta" layer of the story was also hard to follow. For me, it was a nice way to revisit the story I've already read, but I can imagine others must be really confused as to what the point of the game introduced really is. The fantasy elements seemed to work better than its mystery counterparts and I did enjoy seeing some of the fighting scenes animated.
On the positive side, the animation is alright, it keeps the soundtrack from the VN (which is AMAZING), the voice actors are doing an amazing job as always and it was fun to see some of my favourite scenes animated.
I really wish it had more time to explore the point of the game between Beatrice and Battler, why we should care for the characters and particularly explore the "mystery" parts of the story more. A true shame. I really hope that Umineko gets another shot as an anime some day, because the story deserves to be told.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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