Seen Escaflowne Lately? It's About Time . . .

My background viewing this last week as I cleaned and organized and graded easy things was the classic series Escaflowne, and it was just as good this time as the last few. It's available for an unbelievable price (thanks to all the folks like me who shelled out an unbelievable amount of money during the first release), so if you don't have it, I think it's time for a purchase and a viewing.

This show just moves.  There are no filler episodes at all.  There may be filler scenes, but every episode is doing heavy lifting, so those filler scenes are usually doing several things at once, too.  If you want an action fantasy that moves, you have found it.  Politics, war, defying fate, fantasy science, plot on a rampage, Isaac Newton?!

The music is fabulous.  Yoko Kanno strikes again.  Whoa.  I have the Escaflowne chant stuck in my head, and the opening pop theme song is even worthwhile.  "Is everybody this lonely when they fall in love?" asks the first line?  So appropriate to the show, and so singable.

The voice acting (English dub) is still pretty great.  The right amounts of surliness, awkwardness, bravado, coolness, craziness, annoyance, weirdness, sadness, etc. 

• Andrew Francis was wonderfully over-the-top as Dilandau (I've never heard him be bad in any role he's had). 
• Brian Drummond was elegant as Allen. 
• Kirby Morrow was pretty much just perfect as Van. 
• Kelly Sheridan put in a great performance as Hitomi. 
• Jocelyne Loewen as Merle was the perfect shade of annoying and sympathetic. 
• Michael Dobson as Dryden was kind of heart-melting. 
• Paul Dobson put in a compellingly tragic turn as Folken. 
• Alex Doduk made Prince Chid pretty much the most adorable child ever; the way he said "Hitomi" kind of turned my brain to goo.

Club Escaflowne extras with the Japanese voice actors and staff were a weird hoot.  They don't make extras like this any more, folks.

SPOILERS.  I've had this debate with serenetempest (my sibling) about the ending: I say it was perfect, and ST hates it.  In my opinion, things had to turn out that way.  It makes sense that they did.  I give them kudos for that ending because it was hard and sad, and I'm glad they didn't take the schlockey romance way out and do some forced happy ending that left me feeling irritated because it just didn't make sense.  I still cried a lot.  Just because it had to end that way doesn't mean it it's less of a tragedy.  That's old school Romanticism!  ST still prefers a happy ending.  I make sure to have the tissues handy. END SPOILERS

I will watch this show again.  I will talk it up to new anime viewers.  I will listen to the music and love it.  If you're even a casual fan of anime and fantasy, give it a(nother) whirl.  If you've already seen it, it's probably been too long since the last time.  If you've never seen it, now is the perfect time to take a trip to Gaia.