Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea

Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea was produced by Sunrise and Bandai Visual, and was directed by Kazuki Amane, same as in the series. It was released in theatres in Japan on June 24th, 2000, was licensed Stateside by Bandai Entertainment and had a limited run in theatres Stateside starting on January 25th, 2002. Hitomi Kanzaki is depressed and considering killing herself. One day, a man appears before her and calls her the Wing Goddess, summoning her to Gaea, a world at war, where she is the ultimate arbiter of the God of the Heavens and War, Escaflowne, and, accordingly, Gaea's destiny. As you can probablytell, this is a complete retelling of the original series. There are far darker takes on all the characters than you saw in the series, and a completely different plot and world that they're in, which in and of itself has its effects on them. And honestly, even though it's worlds away from the series, it's just as good of a story as the series told, especially in a more limited timeframe to work in. Every character from the series shows up, though some have their involvement changed around somewhat. For most major characters, there is enough basic similarities between their design (though not necessarily their clothing) in the series and in the movie that you can tell who's who easily. There are some characters that got a complete facelift for this, though, most notably Folken and Millerna, and the overall effect is not all that bad, really. In fact, RAWR. The art for this is richer and draws some amazing contrasts, especially with color in some of the earlier scenes and a notable scene that goes from watercolors to full cel animation; however, the same basic style from the series is kept and exaggerated in some cases, which, at times, does not produce the greatest effects. CG is also used far more in here, and it's kind of just as obvious as when they used it in the series. Every character's seiyuu was able to return for this, which adds that more of a sense of familiarity and continuity, especially if you can't recognize them at first glance. Yoko Kanno returned to work on the soundtrack for this, and it's just as beautiful as the series was. So, overall, while the movie does have a more limited timeframe to work in and lots of info to convey, the new storyline and character designs are more than welcome, especially with the seiyuu returning to provide continuity, and with Yoko Kanno on the soundtrack, and a richer environment to play around in, this adaptation is just as good as the series.

This movie is everything the TV series wasn’t. It’s everything the TV show should have been. You don’t have to watch the TV show before watching this, though you might want to if you're interested in seeing how a story can be dragged from the depths of writers hell into the light of storytelling purgatory. The main character of Hitomi is changed from a generic plucky cipher into an actual human being, a typical teenager with suicidal tendencies, who actually has a character arc. Her plight is introduced and compressed into about five minutes very efficiently through adept usage of editing, direction, artand music, with a montage of scenes between her and her best friend, who she pushes away due to self-loathing. Five minutes is definitely enough of watching a mopey girl and sure enough before we know it she's teleported into Gaea for a life-changing adventure with plenty of thrills and drama. The movie is paced so well that it knows how each segment could drag the story if played out too long, but it’s also paced too fast in that the story rolls along without giving the viewer, or characters, time to breathe. It’s one of the main reasons the overall score isn’t higher than it would have been if the story were more simple or the running time longer. Another fatal flaw is the antagonist of the story, although much better than the beardy old man of the TV series, the motivation and methodology is again woefully lacking. Just what exactly is the point of the bad guy in this story? What does he want? To destroy the world? Eh? Is that it? Why do we not even care? The writer learns his lesson from the TV series by using a better character as the main bad guy and keeping him bad, but again he doesn’t give the viewer an insight into the thought-process of the character, what he wants and why; or why other people would even follow him and do his bidding. The movie's not perfect and these flaws do irk, but they do not make the movie unwatchable, they simply prevent it from getting a high score. Escaflowne remains a memorable experience and worth a watch because it’s not long enough to overstay its welcome. The TV series is, or bloody well should be, notorious for its completely out of control plot holes, twists and meaningless revelations. The movie veers away from this childish nonsense for the most part and opts for more streamlined and concise storytelling, however cliché it may appear, it’s at least solid in narrative and consistent in theme. Now, whenever inexplicable stuff does happen, it’s dressed in abstract tones so it feels more cohesive and natural, it’s more like dreamy art that doesn’t have to make conventional sense, but relies more on mood to convey information or feeling to the viewer. Maybe I’m going too easy on the anime, but you can’t deny the powerful imagery and composition in this movie, its effective. It feels like Mamoru Oshii versus David Lynch. Escaflowne concerns itself with fate, space and time, so its skilful editing in the movie can be understood as part of the theme, whereas in the TV series the editing was conventional yet the story made no sense. This is the key difference between TV series and movie. One is dressed up in conventional tones yet is weak narratively, while the other is an abstract enigma that makes somewhat logical sense underneath the mystery. People who give this movie undue flak either have suspect taste or are too literal in their criticism of this reimagining of the TV show. And it is a reimagining, not a condensed version of a 26 episode show, because that would be futile and foolish. This is the writer doing what he should have done the first time round, this is taking the core premise of Escaflowne and fulfilling its potential by working with the rest of the cast rather than doodling random crap together by himself and worming his way out with deus ex machinas every five minutes. This is a near-perfect melding of all departments of the production team gelling together to bring to the viewer a unique vision of another world and its impact on a teenager at the end of her tether. Character designs are more 'realistic' than the TV series as expected, but what stands out the most is the world design which feels mystical and dreamlike, very memorable and unique, it feels like Escaflowne and not a random generic fantasy-land. The music by Yoko Kanno recycles some motifs from the TV series but includes a few new compositions and songs, all of the standard you'd expect from the master composer. Escaflowne itself is one of the best mecha designs I've seen in anime, truly a beast of a 'machine', literally taking the flesh and blood of whoever the poor user of it is, a real tool of war, one that is a double-edged sword, quite literally. And when Kanno's amazing music is playing it’s a sight to behold. The last 10 minutes of the movie revert back to TV levels of idiocy with childish plot devices and character behaviour, but if you're forgiving enough you'll overlook these flaws and just revel in the imagery coupled with Yoko Kanno, the likes of which you'll not see anywhere else.

Escaflowne was a franchise conceived of by Sunrise. They released a twenty six episode anime, multiple manga with different writers, some light novels, a video game that never saw an international release and, in 2000, this film. Sunrise was pushing this one hard. Maybe I'll get to the main anime later, but for now let's critique the film. Story: We open with a lone swordsman raiding an airship and slaughtering everybody. Clearly, this is a family picture. We cut from the fantasy setting and go into the real world where a teenage girl, Hitomi, is going through some depressive issues. Her friend tries to cheer her up onlyto be spurned. She probably should have suggested that she see a professional therapist and get some medication to sort her out instead of just playing around. Not that you can really fault a teenager for not knowing better. Hitomi sees a vision calling her the goddess of wings and beckoning her. She quickly finds herself inside a mecha in another world. The big problem with the narrative of this film is that things are wildly inconsistent. This goes for character actions, tone and even the atmosphere around Gaea. I'll talk about the character inconsistencies and atmosphere in a moment, but for now I'll focus on the tone. The tone is largely dark and brooding but it occasionally throws in something more goofy and comedic out of nowhere. It's like they were ashamed of how dark the film is and wanted to reassure people that the franchise does know how levity works. Which doesn't work well with the brooding tone but does make me wish I was watching the not brooding version. It doesn't really help that everything symbolic is pretty heavy handed. Escaflowne's colour changing, the animal people talking about how "denizens of the forest stood no chance against battle hardened humans, Hitomi contemplating suicide only to find herself in a world where she gets to decide whether to annihilate everything or preserve it. It's very not subtle or nuanced. The film also defines a king in a weird way. I get it, it's a fantasy story and they aren't using the term the way it's used in the real world, but it's still odd to see a real term used in such a counter-intuitive way. Basically, as a king Van has to walk alone and kill all his enemies. But real kings, even shit ones, are surrounded by loyal soldiers and advisers. Whether that loyalty is based on equating the king with the country or on a desire to advance their own position. And a good king needs to understand the fine art of diplomacy. So, it's a bit weird that everyone around him just acts like his faults are just an ordinary part of being a king. To its credit, the film does move at a decent pace and it has enough going on to keep your attention. Characters: There are two major issues with the characters. The first is the inconsistent characterisation. The second is that the bulk of the characters are pretty superfluous. Like, Van goes from bowing to Hitomi and offering to do anything for her to calling her a spy and threatening her in the span of a couple minutes. He then goes from not wanting anything to do with her to having her as the most important person. It's like he's a tsundere and wants her to know he doesn't like her or anything. The mole guy goes from worshipping her as a goddess to trying to get money out of her for no apparent reason. And our antagonist, Folken, shifts from torturing Dilandau for failing to smiling at him and acting like he needs him. It's like everyone in Gaea has severe bipolar disorder. It doesn't help that there are very few characters in this film who we actually need for the film's plot to work. Most of them seem to be here because fans of the longer series will recognise them. You could pretty much get rid of Van's entire entourage since most of them have no real personality and do maybe one thing. Dilandau's men are pretty pointless too. To the point where there's a sequence where they're trying to retrieve Hitomi from Van and Dilandau is the only one who actually steps forward to engage him. Does he just keep them around as a glorified cheering squad? I mean, that could work if the film were more comedic and they actually cheered while he went into action. Not so much with what we actually have. The major characters do have their own arcs with Hitomi learning to have hope and Van learning to let go of his past and move forward. They aren't particularly well executed but they're basically passable. Art: The big problem with the artwork is the whole atmosphere around Gaea. You get some stuff that looks a bit idyllic and gives Gaea a more typical fantasy setting but that's superimposed with these grim, heavily industrialised scenes that showcase the world destroying mecha and other science fiction technologies. You could legitimately take scenes from the small beast folk village, put them against scenes from the city where they have the final confrontation and persuade anyone who hasn't seen the film that they're from two different films. That being said, there are some nicely done action sequences. The character designs are pretty well done too. This would be a pretty nice looking film if it had a more consistent look. Sound: The acting is fine. Seki Tomokazu, Sakamoto Maaya, Takayama Minami, & Nakata Jouji all do fine in their roles. If the film was better directed and the character writing was good, I could see them giving some much better performances. But, as is, they're okay. Kano Yokko & Mizoguchi Hajime make the sound track the best part of the film. It actually is really good. Ho-yay: There are a few moments where things get a bit homo-erotic between Hitomi and her friend. Nothing significant. Areas of Improvement: Have some actual arc behind shifts in how the characters feel about each other. It would be fine to have Van be suspicious of Hitomi from the start but when you precede that with him kneeling to her and don't have a discernible reason for him to start trusting her, it just comes across as clunky. Tone down the dark, brooding aspect. You can't have a work that loves to hint at being more light-hearted but also revels in being dark and brooding and expect it to work well. This film would benefit a lot from less drastic shifts to its tone and atmosphere. Fewer nothing characters, better executed arcs for the important ones. That may seem callous since there are people who watched the TV series and loved the characters who don't contribute anything to the film, but when you've got a little over an hour and a half, you have to make some choices about which characters to include and how to spend your time with the ones you have. And this film would definitely have benefited from spending less time with under-developed characters who contribute nothing and using that time to better flesh out the arcs of characters like Van and Hitomi. Final Thoughts: Ultimately, I think calling Escaflowne a bad film would be going too far. It's certainly clumsy and has quite a few issues stemming from that. Which is why I'm giving it a 4/10 and calling it sub-par.

Warning there will be some spoiles for both the movie and the show Escaflowne in the brief review that follows. Before I get to that, I'll give a capsule review: this is a very nice movie that takes the characters and basic plot structure of the TV show and crafts them in a way to talk about an entirely different set of themes. To get the most out of the movie some familiarity with the characters will be helpful, however being too tied to characters behaving and doing the same things as they did in the show will invariably lead to disappointment. SPOILERS AHEAD (I canonly talk about the themes of the show and movie with the aid of spoilers, I'll minimize plot spoilers as best as possible) This is an interesting movie as the overall primary relationships between the characters from the show and those in the movie are largely the same. Of course, anyone outside of Hitomi and Van get considerably less to do, but such are the time constraints of a 90 minute movie compared to a twelve hour show. However thematically the story of the movie is used to talk about something very different than did the show. The TV show seemed to show us that man's attempt to change and control fate and destiny, even when its done for pure reasons, has unintended destructive side effects. It isn't so much a free will versus determinism argument as much as it is a warning against trying to get too tangled in controlling fate, lest you get bit. The movie however, doesn't go there at all and instead is a story about suicide and loneliness. There's a sort of fictional logic to the idea that a young girl on earth's desire to kill herself would hold the fate of an entire fantasy world in thrall. Here Hitomi is a very sad and lonely girl who lives life and yet is untouched by it. Her yearning for extinction is what draws her to Gaea, and through the process of meeting Von and realizing that she doesn't want him to want to die, she sees the value of life. The message here is very much about the power of choosing to live even through times of pain and how even though we are alone, within love we are also united. I think both themes and stories are valid and I love how the same director returned to the well and brought up very different results. I'm curious to see if the manga offers a similarly diverse look at the same root material.