YMMV / The Vision of Escaflowne

• Americans Hate Tingle: Hitomi... The Italian Escaflowne fandom doesn't like her. The Latin-American fandom, on the other hand, worships her like a goddess.
• Ass Pull: Some viewed the implications that Emperor Dornkirk is really Isaac Newton, of whom managed to gain the power of Atlantis, to be this, with Shoji Kawamori's sole explanation being that he came up with it after finding out that Newton studied the occult. It still made some viewers wonder why Shoji chose Dornkirk to be actually Isaac, of all people.
• Awesome Art: The movie compared to the television series, which was no slouch itself. For all the complaints about characterization and plot problems, nobody can deny that the movie's animation was sumptuous.
• Awesome Music: It's Yoko Kanno, what do you expect?
  • Say what you will about the Fox Kids dub, the opening theme is downright amazing. Judging by some of the comments, some even like it better than the Japanese version!
  • The Japanese opening is definitely no slouch. Also, THOSE BAGPIPES!!
  • If this had been a movie, "A Far Cry" alone would've won it the Academy Award for Best Score.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Hitomi. Some people feel she's a relatively strong and refreshing female character, while others feel she's devolved into your typical love sick shoujo anime lead. The Italians absolutely hate her for some reason.
  • Merle is either a likable and amusing character, or an annoying and unwelcome part of the show depending on who you ask.
• Better on DVD: Due to being very plot-heavy and viewers being subject to Continuity Lockout if they miss one or two episodes, the show works much better when you watch the series in its intended order.
• Broken Base:
  • Over the manga and The Movie. Many fans claim both are completely unnecessary. Others enjoy the lighter interpretation provided by the manga or the much, much darker, angstier, and more emotionally jarring experience of the film.
  • Dilandau's Original English voice. Some people feel it fits just fine thanks to the actor's age at the time of the dub's production, while others feel it's WAY too squeaky and chirpy for him to the point where they actually prefer his Abridged Series voice instead.
  • Geneon Dub vs Funimation Dub AGAIN!!!!!
    • In particular Dilandau's New English voice. Fans are now debating as to whether or not Joel McDonald's take on the character is better or worse than Andrew Francis's take.
• Canon Fodder: Dilandau and his Dragonslayers (Jajuka included) are often the subject of this, having many, many, MANY fan fics based on them so as to answer unanswered questions and expand their backstories beyond what we've seen in the show.
• Continuity Lockout: Despite only being a twenty-six episode anime, the plot is so fast-paced and non-episodic that viewers who miss so much as one or two episodes are liable to find themselves confused. This might be one reason it did so poorly during its initial TV airing in Japan, and why it was Vindicated by History since it's Better on DVD.
• Cult Classic: In the mecha and shoujo fandoms, in the first thanks to Van and the Escaflowne, in the other thanks to Hitomi and, well, the romantic aspect.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Surprisingly, though the Clingy Jealous Girl does gets pot shots thrown at her by fans, The Casanova is actually the most bashed for getting in between The Hero and the Ordinary High-School Student.
    • It isn't wholly unjustified either - all of the women he pursues are out of his reach, his attraction to Hitomi (and possibly others) is driven by his desire for a replacement for his missing sister, and he has a bastard son to boot, and he doesn't even try to connect with him. To top it all off, all of his love interests are underage by modern standards. Merle, on the other hand, has known Van for years and has bonded with him on a deep level, finding common ground in their lack of parental figures.
    • Do note that Allen literally cannot try to connect with Chid. It would literally throw Freid and Asturia into chaos. If its discovered that Chid isn't legitimately the heir then who is? Other countries would probably take advantage of the chaos and invade.
    • Note that Allen never actually pursues any of the women (save Marlene, who probably started it; that relationship was a two-way street). Millerna throws herself at him and Allen's response is to stand there. He didn't even know Hitomi had a crush on him. That said, he doesn't discourage her either, which Millerna's older sister Eries calls him out on.
  • Millerna is an interesting inversion, as there are a good many fans who have admitted that they only don't hate her because she gets in between Allen and Hitomi.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Dilandau and Folken. It doesn't help that both have tragic backstories and woobiness.
• Fan Fic Fuel: Lots of people have written fan fics expanding on the Zaibach Empire and the backstories of Dilandau, Jajuka, and other Dragon Slayers.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Fans were NOT happy with Dilandau's true identity being Celena Schezar, Allen's sister, as a result of Zaibach's fate alteration experiments.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why was movie-verse Dilandau more accepting of his defeat? He still had his Dragon Slayers.
• Gateway Series: Thanks to it being Vindicated by History.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The TV series bombed in the ratings during its run in Japan (it didn't help that it released the week after Evangelion stopped airing). It actually achieved much more mainstream success abroad. However, many, many Japanese manga and anime artists have cited it as a major influence.
  • This is more a case of Koreans Love Escaflowne, because of the success that the series saw in that particular country, it even influenced several moments in the Big Damn Movie, the clothing that Hitomi wears◊ in the beastman village is called a chima, part of traditional korean garb.
  • As far as the Anglosphere is concerned, it was also pretty huge in Canada, perhaps even more so than in the states. It helps that the Canadian channel that carried it, YTV, butchered it A LOT less and actually aired all the episodes (with the cut dubbed version (recorded by Ocean Group) — that Fox Kids initially put out but cancelled — placed in the afternoon, and the uncut dubbed version (also done by Ocean Group) in the evening; and yes, with the same English-speaking cast).
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • There's a scene in which Dilandau taunts Van by asking him if he's enjoying the "fireworks" as he burns a city to the ground. Flash forward a number of years to Heat Guy J, the second major project Kazuki Akane worked on with Nobuteru Yuuki, and Dilandau's spiritual successor Clair Leonelli habitually uses the word "fireworks" to refer to the explosives he loves so much.
  • After the explosion of isekai anime in the 2010s, with protagonists regularly hit by a truck to be reincarnated, many fans find it amusing that Hitomi is instead transported by hitting a Van.
  • Kelly Sheridan was Hitomi, one of the heroes opposing the Big Bad who sought to control destiny for the worst. Some odd years later, Kelly Sheridan would herself play a villain who sought to control destiny for the worst: Starlight Glimmer.
• It Was His Sled: Dilandau is Celena.
• Jerkass Woobie: Dilandau Albatou/Celena Schezar. He often comes off as an Bad Boss that beats his own men for even slightly questioning his orders, and gleefully goes on rampages murdering everyone in his path, but he still ends up seeing his own men getting slaughtered right in front of him, and he's horrified by it to the point where he loses his mind and has difficulty grasping they're dead due to his hate of being alone.
  • May also cross over with Asshole Victim. Dilandau is played straight-forward as an irredeemable brat who doesn't just kill people but enjoys doing it, and believes it reinforces his superiority. Some viewers may get satisfaction watching him finally fear for his life, only sympathizing with Celena for having been turned into that psychotic monster.
• Les Yay: Nariya and Eriya, despite being sisters and their feelings for Folken, complements of the scene where they lie on top of each other.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Folken Fanel, Van's elder brother, is the chief strategist and tactician of the Zaibach Empire, seeking to bring about a future free of uncertainty. Tasked with retrieving Escaflowne, Folken trails the heroes across various countries and landscapes, outmaneuvering them and luring them into traps while managing to acquire the power of Atlantis, all the while trying to convince Van to join the Empire to ensure his brother's safety. When Van and Hitomi's bond threatens Emperor Dornkirk's ideal future, Folken uses the fate alteration machine to separate them and sway Hitomi towards her other love interest, Allen. Ultimately realizing the error in Dornkirk's methods, Folken allies with the heroes and gives information on the Empire's tactics and weapons to help Van's cause, resolving to learn the laws of destiny himself to remake the world into a better place.
  • Emperor Dornkirk, ruler of the Zaibach Empire, was formerly a scientist from Earth obsessed with learning the laws of destiny. Transported to Gaea, Dornkirk used his knowledge of science to transform the chaotic land into a powerful, technologically advanced nation. Seeking the power of Atlantis to control destiny, Dornkirk plans to use Hitomi and Escaflowne as the final piece in his plan. Eventually, Dornkirk allows Folken to kill him, using Hitomi's anguish to trigger the fate alteration machine and grant everyone their wishes, hoping to create an ideal future for everyone.
• Memetic Mutation: "Moero!!!" (BURN!!!)
• Moral Event Horizon: The Folken of the movie crosses this in backstory. He murdered his own parents, destroyed his own kingdom and tries to destroy the world of Gaia for a relatively petty reason.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Dilandau's German dub voice, if the comments on this video are to be believed.
  • Oh what the heck, everybody else sounds great in German too (except Merle. Why does she sound like Rarity?)
• Narm:
  • There are times when Dilandau seems to have a Master's degree in this. It's played up even harder in the original English dub with Dilandau having an extremely high and chirpy voice that makes him sound like he's nine years old! Justified in that he is actually a girl.
  • "My cheek BURNS Van, just like the city! And all because YOU'RE in it!!!"
  • Also, Dilandau stroking his cheek while murmuring "cheek, cheek, cheek..."
  • There is also one "preview" for the next episode in which the characters say "Altering Fate" a dozen and a half times.
  • The Funimation redub has an unironic usage of the Wilhelm Scream during a pretty serious moment. By then the scream had long passed into only being played for laughs.
• Never Live It Down: For some reason, fans only seem to remember Dilandau for being psycho and saying "moero", even though he technically only said moero once or twice in episode 4, nowhere else.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The Japan-Only PlayStation game was not well received. The only saving grace was that the soundtrack was beautiful.
• The Scrappy: Millerna makes a very bad first impression, starting out a jealous Rich Bitch that treats Hitomi with a contemptuous undercurrent, and manipulates Allen into a kiss specifically to send Hitomi running away in tears. She undergoes quite a bit of character growth, but many fans were not willing to forgive her initial sins.
• Superlative Dubbing:
  • This honor goes to the German dub, solely for its downright awesome voice acting! Seriously, whoever dubbed this show in German needs to win some kind of prize for casting the perfect people as the right characters, Dilandau especially! Not only did the German dub totally do him justice, the voice actress who did his German voice seriously nailed EVERY SINGLE FIBER of his being and threw so much emotion in her delivery of his voice, especially in his sad scenes (like his only scene in episode 16. That's where this lady is at her absolute BEST!)!
  • The Latin-American dub was also pretty good. I.e., José Gilberto Vilchis's Van was simply spot on.
  • Andrew Francis who voiced Dilandau in the original English Dub should also be given a special mention considering that he did a good job in making the character sound like the axe-crazy homicidal psychopath and pyromaniac that he is; and so Andrew's voice actually fits the role. Not only that but Andrew, at the time he did the voice-acting for the show and was going through puberty, was actually around the same age as Dilandau - and it's rather fitting too. Not bad for a 14-15 year old either. With that, Dilandau not only looks like a young teenage boy, but he actually sounds like one. Note: Celena was voiced by a woman, not Andrew Francis, which still makes the voice-acting choices all the more interesting.
  • For that matter, depending on who you ask, either Bandai or Funimation's dubs can qualify for this.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many fans' opinion of the movie. As the magazine Animerica put it:
  "What a waste. If I'm ever tasked with doing a movie spinoff of a TV series that perfectly balanced flowery romance with butt-kicking mecha action, please remind me not to start by cutting out all the romance and all the mecha."
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Did you expect Chid's parentage to have any effect on the plot? Sorry. Aside from a couple mentions later on, it means nothing. This is just one example.
  • The pendant's history.
  • Why exactly did Dornkirk need the Power Spot again?
• Too Cool to Live: Because if Balgus did survive, he'd probably solo the Escaflowne universe Master Asia style.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The portable CD player, Tarot cards and lack of students with cell phones (having a pager, instead) firmly mark this as taking place in the mid-1990s.
• Values Dissonance: Allen's father neglected his wife and family because he fell in Love at First Sight with Hitomi's grandmother (or thought of her as his non-romantic soulmate) when she was briefly transported to Gaea, and doesn't realize he really loved his wife until he was dying in the snow. Fair enough, it's a classic tragic love story... except the object of his obsession was probably not fully out of puberty when he met her. Later, Allen proposes to 15-year-old Hitomi partly to resolve the Love Triangle with 15-year-old Millerna. In both cases the story treats this as "He's focusing on the wrong girl," not "Wait, she's how old?!". Gaea's set of values are close to the mindset reigning in the Renaissance, where high-class women were expected to be ''already'' married by Hitomi and Millerna's age.
• Vindicated by History: A mixture of this and Other Countries Love Escaflowne - it actually did not do very well in Japan and in fact bombed when it first aired. It was even canceled when it first aired in America (due to Fox Kids not knowing its violent content and intended demographic). However; when more people discovered the uncut dub as well as the subtitled version, it grew to become an anime classic, becoming a Gateway Series.
• Wangst: Hitomi and Folken in the movie. Hitomi is depressed and contemplating suicide because she lost a track race and Folken has become a Straw Nihilist Omnicidal Maniac simply because his younger brother was chosen to inherit the throne instead of him.
• The Woobie: Hitomi, Van, and many others.

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