The Vision of Escaflowne
Escaflowne / 天空のエスカフローネ
Fantasy
Adventure
Mecha
Romance
Details & Synopsis
Hitomi Kanzaki is a high-school track athlete with a talent for tarot readings and an inconvenient habit of seeing things before they happen. During an ordinary practice session, a young swordsman named Van appears in front of her while fighting a dragon. Hitomi is pulled with him to Gaea, a world where Earth hangs in the sky as the Mystic Moon and kingdoms wage war using armored Guymelefs.
Van is not simply a warrior. He is the young king of Fanelia, and his kingdom is destroyed almost as soon as Hitomi arrives. Their escape brings them together with the elegant knight Allen Schezar and draws them into the expanding war against the Zaibach Empire. At the center of it all is Escaflowne, Van's ancient Guymelef, and a conflict where prophecy, probability and human desire become weapons as important as swords.
Escaflowne is unusual because none of its identities cancel the others out. It is a mecha series, a fantasy quest, a war story and a romance in the same twenty-six episodes. Hitomi's emotional choices matter to the mechanics of the plot instead of sitting beside them, while Van, Allen, Folken and Dilandau keep the war personal even when Zaibach's plans become enormous.
Western audiences encountered the series in several very different forms. Bandai released the original version for home video, while Fox Kids attempted a heavily reworked television version in 2000 and YTV carried it in Canada. That contrast between edited broadcast anime and the fuller original release makes Escaflowne especially at home in AnimeHistory's archive of how Western fans actually discovered these shows.
Van is not simply a warrior. He is the young king of Fanelia, and his kingdom is destroyed almost as soon as Hitomi arrives. Their escape brings them together with the elegant knight Allen Schezar and draws them into the expanding war against the Zaibach Empire. At the center of it all is Escaflowne, Van's ancient Guymelef, and a conflict where prophecy, probability and human desire become weapons as important as swords.
Escaflowne is unusual because none of its identities cancel the others out. It is a mecha series, a fantasy quest, a war story and a romance in the same twenty-six episodes. Hitomi's emotional choices matter to the mechanics of the plot instead of sitting beside them, while Van, Allen, Folken and Dilandau keep the war personal even when Zaibach's plans become enormous.
Western audiences encountered the series in several very different forms. Bandai released the original version for home video, while Fox Kids attempted a heavily reworked television version in 2000 and YTV carried it in Canada. That contrast between edited broadcast anime and the fuller original release makes Escaflowne especially at home in AnimeHistory's archive of how Western fans actually discovered these shows.
Alt Title
Escaflowne / 天空のエスカフローネ
Studio
Sunrise
Network
TV Tokyo
Aired
1996
Episodes
26
Genre
Fantasy, Adventure, Mecha, Romance
Status
Completed
Guides and reference pages for this series. More coming.
