Time for part 3 of this project. I made the decision to forego the Summer 2020 season for real-life reasons. Perhaps that might have been for the best considering two things: one being the Summer Curse™ that will forever haunt me, and the other being that there is next to nothing this season that even interests me. Watching a show of my childhood is something that I am actually finding rather therapeutic, in fact. Considering that I cover seasonal shows here on The OASG, doing this project has made me appreciate the anime of old times some more.
I’m also writing this post just as the news came that Kissanime is closing down forever, and while I’m seeing a barrage of tweets calling this a ‘major loss in the anime community’, people seem to forget how incredibly dodgy the site was, not to mention the fact that what shows they did have on there were in very low quality. I understand that even Escaflowne was on there too, so I consider this to be somewhat of a victory, since there are many ways that you can watch this show legally. I myself am doing so via my Bandai Entertainment box set that surprisingly is still in good quality, considering it survived a flood.
Previously on Escaflowne (or rather, at the end of episode 13 and the end of the first cour), we saw the Escaflowne unit run into some serious trouble after Van decides to become one with it. We also learned that the kingdom of Freid possesses the power of Atlantis. In episode 14, Van emerges seriously injured, but the wounds he has match the injuries that the Escaflowne unit has, leading to suggest that the ‘merging’ worked somehow. We also see that Dilandau is acting more irrationally at this point, and is deciding to do more things that the Zaibach Empire don’t entirely agree with. Van grows more and more powerful whilst being in Escaflowne, thanks to the merging, with him wiping out an entire unit of Imperial Dragonslayers. This battle, however, results in Van falling unconscious, and the Escaflowne unit turning black and this is another moment where having Hitomi and her enhanced psychic powers comes in handy.
Like I touched on in the second post, we’re starting to notice that Hitomi is getting a little fed up of being someone that the others keep around just for the fortune telling and tarot readings. After Van collapses, Hitomi makes the attempt to bring Van back from the world of the dead and back into the land of the living, which works. However at this point, two brand new characters arrive, in the form of Guymelef-piloting leopard women who are loyal to Folken.
We see Naria and Eriya for the first time in episode 15, where they launch an attack on the Crusade ship, and nearly kill Van. However, since these two are loyal only to Folken (and not the Zaibach Empire itself), we get the impression that sometime along the road, something might snap in them. At the moment, though, the two seem content to following Folken’s orders and doing whatever they can to capture Escaflowne and Van, who is the only one who can use it (as well as being merged with it).
Merle has been someone who has firmly sat on the sidelines in the show, and has remained a total dork. I do wish that she would play a much larger role though, even with that scene in episode 15 where she stops Naria and Eriya from killing Van. I swear, in my original watch, and in the opening episodes, Merle was someone who frustrated the heck out of me. Now I want more of her dorkiness.
But seriously, this is a part in the show where things take a darker turn…and Hitomi’s place in Gaea is something that’s much more than just coincidental. The love triangle of Hitomi, Van and Allen still remains, and continues to be a prominent part of the show, leaving her torn. Going back to her enhanced powers though, while we see a much more independent Hitomi at the end of the first cour, we see someone who seems to control the fate of a lot of people on Gaea. Hitomi begins to feel like it’s her fault that bad things are constantly happening in this world. What amplifies this is the discovery of a diary belonging to Van’s mother, which squarely puts blame on Hitomi. It was when I started to wonder whether Emperor Dornkirk even knew this…that a cursed girl from the Mystic Moon would arrive on Gaea and ruin the lives of everyone. And then episode 19 arrives; the episode where Dornkirk reveals his ‘fate alteration machine’.
He decides to use the machine to create a ‘stronger’ relationship between Hitomi and Allen, thereby making Van more susceptible to releasing Escaflowne. Hitomi knows that Princess Millerna loves him far more than she does, but this doesn’t deter him one bit, and the two end up kissing, right in front of Van. We’ve seen Van have this semi-tsundere attitude towards Hitomi, while on the flip side, Allen has acted like a gallant gentleman. Cynics could just call this another example of a average anime love triangle, where the girl has to choose between the token bad boy, or the by-the-book handsome man. I’m not that much of a cynic yet, but seeing as I am an ‘older’ anime follower, my opinion can easily change.
Now I’m approaching the end, Escaflowne is not the show I remember. I was just about to start college when I first watched this, and now I’m a more mature person (or at least I’m trying to be), I’ve noticed a lot more. Doesn’t quite help that with this maturity comes more things to me to criticize; that’s what age does to a person, maybe…
But this new sub-plot involving Hitomi and how she is living up to her title as the ‘cursed girl from the Mystic Moon’ is something I actually did not remember, and so watching this has made me that much more curious on what the end result will be. Over the course of time, Hitomi has changed into what was a hanger-on, into someone that will actually change the fate of what happens to Gaea and the people around her. Of course we all know that, at some point, Hitomi will return to Earth, and will forever be thinking about the time she spent on Gaea, but the journey to that point as we are getting closer to the finale should be an interesting watch.
The final part in this Revisiting Escaflowne project will be in a couple of weeks, and will see me not only finishing the show, but give my final opinions now that I’ve watched it in its entirety for a second time. As for my regular Otaku Theater column, that’ll be coming back in October, ready for the Fall 2020 season.