Instead of my regular weekly column, I’ve been spending time re-watching some past shows; one of which has been Escaflowne…and now the time has come for the final episodes. Re-watching this show has been a bit of a journey for me in of itself; it had been so so long since I’d watched the show in full, and I had become so used to the Bandai English dub that I had almost forgotten what the original Japanese version sounded like. Of course, it’s truly amazing, and I will remain someone who favors subs over dubs. Sadly, I’ve been unable to hear what the Funimation dub sounded like, due to it being unavailable here. I’m pretty confident that they did a decent job though. Anyways…
As I touched on in Part 3, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Hitomi has become a catalyst for so many things that have happened in Gaea so far, both good and bad. The weight of this has now taken its toll on her, and while she’s been fighting to become independent of the others (instead of being that girl from the Mystic Moon that hangs around and can tell their fortunes), she becomes more torn. She wants to do her part to bring peace to this new world, but is now even more desperate to go back home. And even when she does, she still feels compelled to finish what she started on Gaea. More on that later though, let’s get into what’s happened so far.
In episode 20, Hitomi is thinking about what to do when Allen says that he loves her more than Princess Millerna. Unaware of this, Millerna asks Hitomi to do a tarot card reading on her upcoming marriage, but when Hitomi sees the marriage end in tragedy, she ends up lying to Millerna and tells her it’ll be a happy and joyous one. Once again we see Hitomi changing fate, and here even the tiniest of lies seem to have bigger consequences…bigger than she realizes. Meanwhile the leopard women, Nadia and Eriya, have been given ‘surgery’ of some kind, and end up gatecrashing the wedding, so in an attempt to ‘fix’ fate, Hitomi gives herself up to them.
Something to know here: the fortune telling & tarot card reading was added right at the end of script writing, in an attempt to broaden the audience and not make it one big shounen fest. As opposed to what the first cour offered, the second cour is far more compelling and detailed, and this ongoing topic of Hitomi changing fate subtly shifts to center view. She is already in the middle of a love triangle between Van and Allen, and with her being a potential part of ruining Millerna’s marriage, her giving herself up to Nadia and Eriya was the best decision. She no longer sees her beloved Amano-senpai in Allen any more. In fact being on Gaea has matured her much more, and has shown her that Amano was more of a girl crush than anything else.
The procedure Nadia and Eriya have had is a bit of a bizarre one though; they are made into ‘Luck Warriors’. However, as they capture Hitomi, they begin to feel some negative reactions to the procedure, with them growing weaker and weaker until they eventually die. Angry at their deaths due to this, Folken starts to turn on Emperor Donkirk. Later on, Folken confesses to Hitomi and his brother Van why he really abandoned Fanelia; he wanted to build a better Gaea by himself, without any war or conflict, and only found the Zaibach Empire as a tool to achieve that.
Episode 23, entitled ‘Storm Premonition’, couldn’t be more aptly titled. Folken returns to Asturia to formulate a stategy to build a military force to fight the empire, but later on Allen only goes and proposes to Hitomi, which…kind of came out of nowhere. Just as the Empire launch an attack on Asturia, and with Van using the Escaflowne to fight them off, Hitomi discovers another truth: Van’s will to protect her is fueling his bloodlust. So in another attempt to ‘fix’ fate, she prays to return home…only for another pillar of light to arrive, and send her back to Earth.
So what is a conflicted schoolgirl to do now? She has gotten what she wanted ever since she landed on Gaea, and now she’s finally home…except time has been rewound by a day. Remember back in episode 1, as Van arrives out of nowhere to slay a dragon and claim its heart? Well Hitomi takes this chance to go back to Gaea and ‘fix’ what she has brought to that land, only to discover it war torn.
All the while, Emperor Dornkirk is content knowing that his Fate Machine is working and everything is going according to plan. He has always seen Hitomi as a factor and a problem; why else has the Zaibach Empire been so desperate to capture her? Already angry at the death of his beloved leopard women and the reunion of his brother Van, Folken kills Dornkirk, only for fate to seemingly amplify, making a sliver of his sword turn onto him. And due to her heightened psychic power, Hitomi’s anguish at his death is felt by Van.
Oh yeah, and in all this time, I never even talked about how Dilandau was actually Allen’s long-lost and brainwashed sister Celena. This is something we discover in episode 24, but we feel this more in the final episode, as she snaps out of it, and forces Allen to react when Van attempts to kill her. But this final episode is something I have to talk about separately some more…
While the war ends in this episode, how it is done felt a little…ridiculous to me. Van flies to where Hitomi and Folken are, and the feathers from his wings regain the warring soldiers’ composure…yeah, I know. Maybe this is just me being a little cynical and skeptical on what the powers of Atlantis really are, but I could tell that this was not a rushed episode on the part of the writers, which leaves me with even more questions. Surely there could have been a better way to resolve any of this…
My final thoughts on the closing episodes are a little mixed, compared to what the rest of the show had offered. Episodes felt more and more compelling and entertaining to watch as time went on. These separate plot points all seemed to fuse together: from Hitomi’s fortune telling, to the Zaibach Empire’s advanced technology, from the Escaflowne unit itself, to Merle’s dorkiness. I felt a little disappointed by this final episode: something that I had completely forgot about since it had been so long since I’d watched it. Has it affected my overall opinion of Escaflowne itself? Not at all. Sunrise took a massive risk in making this show, and while it didn’t get that much attention in Japan, its massive success overseas has cemented this as a 90’s classic, and rightfully so. This was Maaya Sakamoto’s debut as a main character, and now we know her as a titan in anime dubbing in Japan. Escaflowne has made us think about what mecha shows can be, and at the same time, made us think about what fantasy shows can be too. That’s a triumph in of itself.
I’m glad I took part in this post project, and while my old Bandai Entertainment boxset might be put on a shelf somewhere in my apartment, it’ll no longer end up in a storage unit gathering mountains of dust. I’ll be returning to the OASG in October, with my regular Otaku Theater column covering shows in the Fall season. Justin won’t let me cover season 2 of Mahouka, as he knows that I will completely tear it to pieces. Instead I have a few other shows in mind, so go check that out.
My thanks go out to Alcina for providing the cool main header images for this post project. Escaflowne, meanwhile, is available on both home video and streaming platforms across the world, including Netflix, Funimation (NA) and All4 (UK). A new English dub has been made by Funimation, but if you’re able to find a home video copy with the Bandai dub, then be even more entertained at how English dubs have changed over the years.