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For those avoiding spoilers, this is a classic (ie, older and respected) anime in which a tarot card reading, sprinting, long-jumping schoolgirl is spirited away to the world of Gaea, where she is immediately embroiled in a war. This combines the "girl in fantasyland" and "giant robot pilot" genres, as Gaea has knights who fight from inside giant robots. The worldbuilding is bizarre yet strangely convincing.
It had excellent narrative drive-- I watched the entire second half in three days-- and very good characterization and character relationships, plus smooth and pretty animation and a fabulous Yoko Kano score. But I'd rank it as good, not great, and not just because of the "eek, we've got to wrap this puppy up in three episodes" conclusion. I liked the characters, but I never fell in love with any of them, so unlike, say, Samurai Champloo, or, to take a couple older anime, Trigun or Fushigi Yuugi, it never broke my heart. And that's what we always hope for when we start a new show, I think; to get that link, like some pilots have with their mecha, so when they get hurt, we feel the pain.
Massive spoilers below cut.
So, about Dilandau, I was right! (It occurred to me early on for two reasons: a missing sister in Act I must be fired by Act III, and they had the same haircut.)
It was definitely a very cool reveal. Although I would have preferred it to come earlier, so we could have seen him/her and everyone else having to deal with the aftermath of him/her having been a male homicidal maniac for his/her entire adult life.
Though fast pacing and lots of plot worked well for most of the show, it felt rushed toward the end; and though the very special Escaflowne logic ("Prepare the fate oscillator!") made sense on its own whack terms for most of the show, toward the end I started having trouble figuring out what was happening and why. For instance, why did Dilandau suddenly show up at Allen's doorstep in the persona of his sister? Where was Jajuka during the rest of the show? What happened to Van and Escaflowne being linked? Why didn't the ancient haircurler cyborg evil mastermind guy die when Folken cut him in half, or was he a ghost later? And though I didn't expect Hitomi to stay on Gaea, I would have liked some discussion of why she couldn't or wouldn't, as without it her farewell with Van-- "We love each other madly, so I will now take off forever"-- seemed odd.
I did like that people's relationships didn't get wrapped up neatly, especially since I was sure Dryden would conveniently die so Allen and Millerna could get together, and as he was my favorite character, I'm glad he didn't. But the show needed a more leisurely conclusion, with more relationship moments and less crazed fighting.
It had excellent narrative drive-- I watched the entire second half in three days-- and very good characterization and character relationships, plus smooth and pretty animation and a fabulous Yoko Kano score. But I'd rank it as good, not great, and not just because of the "eek, we've got to wrap this puppy up in three episodes" conclusion. I liked the characters, but I never fell in love with any of them, so unlike, say, Samurai Champloo, or, to take a couple older anime, Trigun or Fushigi Yuugi, it never broke my heart. And that's what we always hope for when we start a new show, I think; to get that link, like some pilots have with their mecha, so when they get hurt, we feel the pain.
Massive spoilers below cut.
So, about Dilandau, I was right! (It occurred to me early on for two reasons: a missing sister in Act I must be fired by Act III, and they had the same haircut.)
It was definitely a very cool reveal. Although I would have preferred it to come earlier, so we could have seen him/her and everyone else having to deal with the aftermath of him/her having been a male homicidal maniac for his/her entire adult life.
Though fast pacing and lots of plot worked well for most of the show, it felt rushed toward the end; and though the very special Escaflowne logic ("Prepare the fate oscillator!") made sense on its own whack terms for most of the show, toward the end I started having trouble figuring out what was happening and why. For instance, why did Dilandau suddenly show up at Allen's doorstep in the persona of his sister? Where was Jajuka during the rest of the show? What happened to Van and Escaflowne being linked? Why didn't the ancient haircurler cyborg evil mastermind guy die when Folken cut him in half, or was he a ghost later? And though I didn't expect Hitomi to stay on Gaea, I would have liked some discussion of why she couldn't or wouldn't, as without it her farewell with Van-- "We love each other madly, so I will now take off forever"-- seemed odd.
I did like that people's relationships didn't get wrapped up neatly, especially since I was sure Dryden would conveniently die so Allen and Millerna could get together, and as he was my favorite character, I'm glad he didn't. But the show needed a more leisurely conclusion, with more relationship moments and less crazed fighting.
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