Favorite
EpisodeProbably the
second one, when Hitomi just arrived in Gaea and found that Van's actually
a king.  The rest of the show was too mecha for me, although the story
about Allen Schezar, Millerna, and her deceased older sister, Marlene...uh,
where was I?  Oh yeah, the second episode.  I guess I just really liked
this episode because it revealed more about Van and showed his coronation. 
And the whole thing with him communing with Escaflowne was pretty cool. 
This contained the first Gaea battle scene, when Fanelia was attacked
by invisible giants.  This episode set wheels into motion and was the basis
of Van's quest (which took up basically the rest of the series). 

Escaflowne
is actually a crossover anime, appealing to both shoujo and shounen audiences
alike.  But it's probably hard to please both parties.  Animerica
honored it with the Best Romance Masquerading as an Action Series award
and described it as nothing more than a love story.  As for me, I'm just
like, "What love story?"  I actually think maybe it's the other
way around, because this show has lots of men, mecha, and battles.  The
whole thing with Hitomi and Allen Schezar was so sudden, and the whole
thing with her and Van was so underdeveloped. 

But there's no arguing about
it, Escaflowne is probably as well-rounded as an anime could get.  Couldn't
imagine how else you could cram all those themes in the previous paragraph
into 26 episodes, and still have some room left for psychism, interplanetary
navigation, and diabolical inventors.  It also has schoolgirl stuff, dragon
lore, illegitimacies, and arranged marriages.  Howabout that?  This results
in an anime that doesn't seem to have a lot of fillers. 

The anime was created by Yadate
Hajime and Kawamori Shoji.  And interestingly enough, this is one of those
storylines where the anime preceded the manga, which was done by Katsu
Aki.  Or rather, the manga was based on the anime.  I haven't read the manga,
but from what I've heard, it's not as good as the anime.  Interesting. 
Looks like it's always the initial version that's much better.  Most of
the time. 

Synopsis
Kanzaki Hitomi was just a regular schoolgirl.  Well, most of the time. 
She was in the track-and-field team.  She also practiced fortunetelling
to some extent, and friends would often ask her to give them tarot card
readings.  She owned a necklace with a crystal-like pendant, which she
got from her grandmother.  It's called an omamori and swings in one-second
arcs, which makes it a great timer.  But more than a timer, though, Hitomi's
omamori had become an instrument of divination for her.  It would be shown
a lot in succeeding episodes. 

Being a regular schoolgirl,
Hitomi had a crush on her senpai, Amano, for a long time.  Like her, he
was on the track-and-field team and would sometimes time Hitomi.  She had
been perfectly happy to be quiet about her crush on him and only confided
in her best friend, Yukari.  Then one day, Yukari told her that Amano-senpai
was leaving to go to the U.S. Hitomi was able to meet him at the tracks
and asked him to give her first kiss if she beats her best time.  He could
measure her time using her omamori.  Amano agreed. 

While Hitomi was running, there
was this brilliant flash of light and there was this strange guy (looks
more like a boy) standing in the middle of the tracks.  Going at full speed,
she crashed into him.  She didn't have enough time to demand who the hell
he was--and he didn't have enough time to demand who the hell she was,
except ask if they're demon worshippers--because a dragon suddenly appeared
and everybody had to run for cover.  The dragon seemed to be the strange
guy's opponent, because they were soon battling each other. 

At one point, the dragon could
have killed the strange guy, if Hitomi did not call out and warn him. 
In that way, she saved his life.  He was able to kill the dragon, after
which he did a very strange thing.  He proceeded to cut the dragon's eye
open (well, it looked like an eye.  It could've been the heart) and remove
a glowing orb.  There was suddenly a glow of light that surrounded him
and Hitomi, and they disappeared, leaving Yukari and Amano stunned. 

Hitomi found herself in a meadow,
and in the sky she saw the moon and Earth.  The strange guy was still with
her, and he commented that they were safe.  They landed in Gaea, a world
consisting of several kingdoms.  The guy was Van Fanel, ruler of the Fanelia
kingdom. 

Escaflowne chronicled the story
of Van as he tried to avenge Fanelia using a giant, powerful Guymelef
(nice name meaning robot) called Escaflowne.  Only the king of Fanelia
could pilot Escaflowne with the use of a dragon orb.  Hitomi had no choice
but get thrown into the fray.  On more than one occasion, she was able
to save Van's life using her powers of premonition.  There were times,
however, when these powers brought her distress as well. 

Escaflowne was also about Merle,
Allen Schezar, and Princess Millerna.  Merle was a catgirl who was devoutly
loyal to Van and would have issues with Hitomi.  Allen Schezar (I would
call him Allen, but it seems like everybody else in the story called him
by his full name) was a knight with the kingdom of Asturia, who subsequently
had issues with his superiors.  He piloted a Guymelef called Scherazade. 
He also owned a ship called the Crusade, manned by a loyal staff.  He also
resembled Amano-sempai, which led Hitomi to have a crush on him.  Princess
Millerna was the youngest daughter of the king of Asturia, and was in
love with Allen Schezar.  Because of this, she had issues with Hitomi. 

The title also had a movie
called Girl in Gaea.  It consisted of an older, darker Hitomi and an older,
darker Gaea.  Actually, all its characters were older and darker.  It was
essentially like the TV series, only everything's crammed in an hour. 

Review
"That's it?" 

That was my initial reaction
upon finishing the series.  Then I watched the movie. 

"What the hell?!  That's
it?!" 

That was my initial reaction
to the movie. 

Maybe I just heard so much
fanfare about Escaflowne that I was expecting something fantastic and
incredible.  It fell short of my expectations and I wound up getting disappointed. 
Hmm, it's actually reminiscent of a lot of things in life, ne? 

This is a great series.  It
probably had the best opening sequence I've ever seen, with Hitomi looking
up in the sky and then Van gazing across a landscape and Allen Schezar...
*sigh* It's cute without going overboard.  It even had this clip showing
two Guymelefs battling in the mountains, silhouetted against the sunset
with their capes billowing.  Very cool.  The opening sequence was accompanied
by a great opening song entitled "Promises Not Necessary."  If
the video had some shounen elements (like the Guymelefs), the song's definitely
shoujo.  Not that I'm complaining.  Like I said, this probably had the best
opening sequence I've seen.  Or one of the best, at least.  The closing
sequence, on the other hand, was nothing to jump up and down about, except
Van there looked pretty hot. 

For most of the time, though,
Van looked pretty young.  I found myself hoping he'd pull a Zelda and suddenly
grow into a hot bishounen (in one of the Zelda games, Link became older
so the player had this cute guy in tights running around as opposed to
a runty boy in tights running around).  That's why the closing sequence
was like eye candy.  Allen Schezar would probably be considered a bishounen. 
He didn't seem that droolworthy, but he's definitely sexy.  There are other
guys in the series that have cute personalities but aren't necessarily
hot, such as Dryden, Millerna's wealthy fiance, and Folken, Van's older
brother. 

I guess this anime was a disappointment
because Van and Hitomi's relationship was pretty underdeveloped.  And what
was that I said earlier?  Her relationship with Allen Schezar was too sudden? 
Yeah.  All other relationships there were pretty well-developed, but the
ones with the main characters weren't.  The plot was pretty well-developed
too.  But the relationships between Hitomi, Van, and Allen Schezar weren't. 
Have I said that before?  Well, yeah, because it was sorely disappointing. 

But don't mind me.  Maybe I'm
too sappy for my own taste.  I recommend this anime.  Go.  Watch it.  Now. 
But don't go hurry and watch it all in one sitting with hopes that Van
and Hitomi would fall madly in love and get married.  If you have, maybe
we could start a petition or something to extend the storyline :D