The Vision of Escaflowne – 19/20 [Operation Golden Rule of Love/False Vows] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to my weekly late post about The Vision of Escaflowne! After the action of the past couple episodes its time to slow down and reflect on how far we’ve come. To look at where we have yet to go. And also to wreck some homes, both literally and physically! So without further ado, lets dive in.

Starting off we have the section I’m sure many of you are tired with but I like talking about: Production. And while Escaflowne didn’t have much in the animation department this week, lots of stills and pans, those stills and pans looked really good. Like I’m talking some of the peak storyboarding, shot composition and coloring we’ve seen in Escaflowne so far. From the framing of the wedding to Folken’s little play. And how can I not mention the bridge in episode 19? I’m being vague here on purpose because these are spoilers before the break, but seriously these looked really good. They are proof that an anime doesn’t need bombastic Shounen sakuga to look good, to stick in your mind. That stuff just augments it. All you really need are scenes like this. Good job Escaflowne. I knew you could do it.

Getting into the episodes, we first have episode 19 “Operation Golden Rule of Love”. My initial impression of this episode was… not good. It felt really slow and dull, and the timeskip resolution to a lot of things annoyed me. I understand these episodes need to happen between action. Downtime, pacing, give the characters some quiet moments to interact with each other. But at the start it felt like so much in those 3 weeks just got skipped over. Like how they got back to Asturia so easily, or Dryden and Millerna’s relationship, or everyone having their “crimes” forgiven by Asturia. It felt really weird after the big revelations of episode 18 for everyone to be relaxing while Zaibach is preparing to conquer to the world! Needless to say, I was concerned. And then the second half happened.

This second half is fantastic. Everything about it was exactly what I want from these kinds of “between the action” episodes. Lots of non-actiony character stuff and important conversations. Of course there’s the obvious in Allen, Hitomi and the love triangle with Van. Each of them being broken or emotionally vulnerable in some way. Whether it be Allen accepting Millerna and Dryden’s wedding, Van unable to admit his feelings or Hitomi starting to wonder what she’s even doing here on Gaea. This episode sees all of that come to a head. But where most romances like this would just be a “coincidence”, a “Van just happened to see them and its a misunderstanding”, there is no misunderstanding here. In fact this whole thing is a plot by Zaibach to prey upon this exact thing. Turning what could have been a really sweet and romantic scene into something dark and foreboding!

Not content with that though Escaflowne also takes this Zaibach plot and turns it into it’s own little drama. The Fate Alteration machine requires that they act out, that they feel, the new fate they want to come true. Allowing Escaflowne to examine Folken and his relationship with the sisters Naria and Eriya. Showing the lengths they are willing to go to, even faking and playing at love despite knowing how the sisters truly feel, just for the war effort. It opens up doors for future conflict between the two sisters as well. And its the presentation that sells this so well. Framing the entire thing like a stage play with theater lighting and an audience. Cutting back and forth between them and Hitomi/Allen as they continue to escalate the scene. It makes Allen and Hitomi’s bridge scene feel “off” in all the right ways, if that makes sense.

As for the plan itself, I think its pretty clever. We haven’t seen Zaibach use the Fate Alteration machine at all yet in the war. It’s only mention was with Dilandau, who we haven’t seen in a while, and that felt weird. So to see it here is quite nice and I think Folken’s plan of using it to drive a wedge between Hitomi and Van is cool. It makes sense that the two are only a danger when together. And if you can’t guarantee the future when they are then you just need to separate them. But you clearly can’t do that by force so why not do it by emotion? I do think that the overall use of Fate here is a little weak, mostly because I saw the theme done better in Princess Tutu. However the presentation of said theme was great. Good job Escaflowne.

This brings me to episode 20, “False Vows”. This had a lot of good follow up to everything that happened in episode 19. The big one that I liked the most would have to be Hitomi’s. For the first time in a long time she’s taking proactive action rather than just reacting. More than that, it’s not for some selfless goal or to save the world. Its for something purely selfish. I love it. I love that Hitomi finally gets to act for something she wants and that those actions are affecting the world at large. And the best part? The way this parallels Dornkirk and the Atlantians. The… arrogance Hitomi has to have to think she can control Fate, to substitute one future for another without consequence, is exactly what Dornkirk is doing and exactly what the Atlantians did that lead to their destruction. As we now see.

We also got some follow up in regards to Naria and Eriya, the two girls, and Folken. It wasn’t much, only a few lines, but I like that they acknowledged that. That they realized through that whole play that Folken doesn’t love them, that he never loved them, and that not knowing might be better. Oh he cares for them. He watches over them, protects them, trains them, he certainly likes and trusts them. But in the same way a father might love their daughter. It isn’t romantic, no matter how much they might wish it. And what makes this interesting for me is how this might translate to Allen and Hitomi. Their romance was kickstarted on false pretense by the Fate machine. They care for each other sure, but is it truly love? Or is it because Naria’s feelings and realization of it bled into the procedure? I’m curious.

And as for the wedding itself? This was shot pretty well. I liked how Dryden and Millerna were in separate shots for most of it, really playing up how they aren’t meant for each other. All the while Allen is in the background of a number of shots, an ever present reminder that “Hey, this isn’t right”. Narratively I still feel like we rushed into this a bit. I think a bit more still could have been done to sell me on Dryden and Millerna’s relationship as well as Dryden’s overall personality in regards to the kingdom. I’ve rationalized this a bit in that neither of them are lead characters and we only have 6 episodes left. Time is a premium resource now. But I can’t help but ask “what if”, you know?

So yeah all in all I think these were another pair of good episodes from Escaflowne. Not perfect, the overall narrative definitely has some issues. From pacing to motivation, there are plenty of nitpicks. But its moment to moment story telling and shot composition were on point this week. The colors were beautiful, the way the story was conveyed was interesting and emotional. In the moment of watching the episode, I had a great time. It’s only when I step back after the fact and think about the narrative implications of what I just watched that it starts to crumble. And while that may end up holding Escaflowne back from being one of my greats, at least the very least I think I can recommend what I’ve seen as a good time. Lets hope it can keep it up for 6 more episodes.