a5c7b9f00b Hitomi Kanzaki is a typical high school girl, with typical problems, but when a vision of a young man battling a dragon becomes a reality, her life changes forever. Drawn into a strange vortex with the swordsman, Van, Hitomi is thrust into the strange world of Gaea. Van must learn to master the suit of armor, Escaflowne, before he and Hitomi are crushed by the ambitions of the Empire of Zaibach. Van and Hitomi will encounter both allies and enemies in an effort to unlock the secrets within Escaflowne, and Hitomi's heart, stirred by love and adventure, will, at times ache with sorrow. But why was she sent to this world? Her journey has just begun! Hitomi is a girl with psychic abilities who gets transported to the magical world of Gaea. She and her friends find themselves under attack from the evil Zaibach empire, and the Guymelf Escaflowne provides the key to it all. I'd first became aware of this series after seeing ads for it on FOX Kids, four years after it premiered. I'd also heard that the American TV version had butchered the series, but to my surprise, my local movie rental outlet had all the episodes on VHS. I rented them and watched the whole thing from start to finish. What a show!<br/><br/>Mecha without the guns, cat and dog-people, royal families, science and magic, an evil empire, countless revelations, and a whole new world, as Disney's Aladdin would put it. When it comes to Japanese animation, this one was the best! You can have your Dragon Ball, your Speed Racer, your Sailor Moon, your Pokemon, your Akira, or whatever, but I found one that really speaks to me. Oh, and Hayao Miyazaki comes in as a close runner-up. If you're new to Japanese animation and want a believable fantasy world without all the guns (and more medieval weaponry), look here! Lets see where to begin…<br/><br/>I first saw this show on fox kids when I was channel surfing and I saw this show called "Escaflowne" on fox kids, I watched it and was pretty amazed at what I saw. Apparently I soon realised the UK got a terribly edited screwed up version of Escaflowne which pretty much almost made me loose interest in the show entirely.<br/><br/>Never the less I still watched it and enjoyed it despite the horrible censorship the show had at the time.<br/><br/>The story is basically about a girl called Hitomi Kanzaki that some how meets a strange boy called Van Fanel (Who is sent to earth during some freak accident) Van, along with a random blood thirsty dragon who is chasing him get caught up with Hitomi and her 2 friends Amano and Yukari. Eventually the dragon is killed and Van goes back to his home, the planet Gaea, and along with Hitomi by accident.<br/><br/>When Hitomi arrives, she soon notices 2 moons in the sky, the Moon and the Earth (On Gaea, the Earth is called the Mystic Moon) She is on the planet Gaea.<br/><br/>Later on, a group of mysterious attackers destroy Van's country of Fanelia and kill Van's old sword master Balgus in the process…..<br/><br/>I don't want to spoil the rest of the story ^_^ hehehe.<br/><br/>The story itself is absolutely amazing and incredibly deep, the music score is composed by the John Williams of Japan, Yoko Kanno (Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell: STC, Oban Star-Racers Etc) each of her songs fit the anime very well and beats what Fox did when the got Escaflowne and edited it with there own rubbish with only a few of Yoko's pieces.<br/><br/>The voice actors, oh yes ^^. The VA do an incredibly brilliant job of delivering the drama and suspense in the characters in both English & Japanese.<br/><br/>While I'm on the subject about the English voice actors, Anyone who thinks that the dub of Escaflowne sucks is an idiot, because the dub was done by Ocean Group (Beast Wars, Gundam Wing, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, Inuyasha) and they do a superb of delivering the voices to the characters. Richard Newman, Terry Klassen, Venus Terzo, Brian Drummond, Kelly Sheridan, Scott Mcneil & Kirby Murrow, Great VA this anime has to offer! <br/><br/>This is most definitely one of the top 100 anime's you should see before you die! Buy it on DVD now and watch it now! Strongly, Strongly Recommended!
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