The Vision of Escaflowne – 25/26 [Zone of Absolute Fortune/Eternal Love] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to the final episodes of The Vision of Escaflowne! This week is all about war, love, fate and all manner of other cheesy buzzwords. And a quick note, there is a poll at the end of the post for my next series. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off, for the last time, the visuals. For all the issues I might have with this ending, this is not one of them. These two episodes had some of the best cuts/animation of Escaflowne’s entire run. In particular I want to point at the final Guymelef between Van and you know who, keeping spoilers for after the break. This is the kind of giant robot fights I want to see. Giant monsters of metal that actually feel like they weight what they should. Sparks flying at every little scrape. The momentum of their blows carrying through their entire body. Yeah there were other good scenes, Dilandau continues to have fantastic faces. But this is what I wanted from Escaflowne’s finale more than any big battle scene. And it makes me happy that I got it.

Getting into the episodes lets start with episode 25, “Zone of Absolute Fortune”. I am… split on this episode. There are a lot of good ideas here. Stuff like time having passed and the war having begun in earnest. Or Folken going in Hitomi’s place to confront Dornkirk and end the war, only for it to all be part of Dornkirk’s plan. The man has a future machine after all. But the way this was executed, along with some small details, fell flat for me. For instance: Why does Folken’s decision to sacrifice himself come from Fantasy cancer and not his own character traits. Better yet, why does Dornkirk have to die for his plan at all. I can make up my own explanations sure, how there would never be peace while Zaibach/Dornkirk lived. But Escaflowne never explains or talks about that. It instead just kills him off.

It also doesn’t help that, lets be honest, Dornkirk isn’t a good villain. I just don’t care about him. Yeah the guy got some backstory and his plan isn’t all that different from say Thanos. But Thanos was charismatic. He had a presence, he went and got things done himself. Meanwhile Dornkirk is just… sitting in a chair. Being menacing. Now luckily this isn’t to big an issue, as Escaflowne correctly identifies a much more compelling finale in episode 26. But we still burned an entire episode almost on just wrapping up Dornkirk only for nothing to really be wrapped up. Why did he have to die, how is he living on as a spirit, did he take Folken with him just out of spite? These are small questions in the grand scheme of things but important for his character I think.

And of course I can’t talk about my issues with this finale without bringing up the bomb. Oh the bomb. A cynical part of me wants to look at this as some real world allegory/bitching about World War 2. A nuke, an opportunistic opponent, “Monsters”, an “evil” empire that was ultimately well meaning. And in that lense I’m not a fan of it. However even when I take a step back and try to be generous, removing the lens of history, I think this nuke is a mistake. Everything surrounding it came a bit out of nowhere and it doesn’t feel necessary to make the point Escaflowne was going for, IE the horrible nature of war. If anything it just makes the technology of Escaflowne even more inconsistent. Had this been built up over the show I might be more positive towards it, but right now? Meh.

This brings me to episode 26 and the true finale of Escaflowne, “Eternal Love”. Right away I have to say that the Van vs Allen dynamic was a much, much stronger emotional core to a finale than Dornkirk. Here are two characters that have been with us since almost episode 1. Two men who have an established relationship, as both friends and rivals, coming to a head where both of them are in the right. And once you include Dilandau in the mix, someone who has also been around the beginning? Who has caused so much pain to both of them yet is also a victim in everything? Then you get the true strength of Escaflowne’s story. It’s not some grand war or the world of Gaea. It’s the characters. And I love that Escaflowne realized and dialed in on that.

Now before I go to far on the praise, and I want to be clear I did enjoy it, I do have one grievance with it: I wish someone had died. Maybe this is just me loving tragedies, but Allen’s death being what woke Van up from the bullshit instead of Hitomi’s psychic bullshit feels so much stronger to me. It would have illustrated the cost of war more than any bomb, as two men who were like brothers kill each other. It would have brought Allen’s arc full circle as he dies for his family, Dilandau/Celena surviving, in contrast to his father dying far away from them all. And finally it would have brought an element of bitterness to this otherwise sweet finale. Like I said, maybe this is just my own predilection towards tragedy so let me know what you thought down below!

My love of sad endings aside though, lets get back to the praise. This fight looked fucking baller. I talked about it a bit above, but this is how mechs should move. And the camera angles, oh I loved the angles. For those of you reading my Kimetsu no Yaiba posts you probably know what I’m about to say, but I love the wide shots. The full body scenes where we get to see the weight of each blow as the momentum travels through the entire Guymelef, their capes flapping in the wind. And wouldn’t you know it but it was animated by a personal favorite of mine, Yutaka Nakamura. From Kekkai Sensen to Space Dandy, Mob Psycho 100 to Soul Eater, this man is a master of momentum. All hail Yutapon. May his light shine upon your favorite series.

Finally lets talk about Hitomi and the nebulous power of love overcoming Fate. I was a bit saddened to see Hitomi return to Earth to be frank. I was hoping that, after her decision in episode 24, she would be allowed to stay on Gaea. Or at least to transport between the two at will. To actually allow this romance to continue rather than the age old trope I figured would happen at the start of the series. Don’t get me wrong, it makes sense she didn’t and I don’t think this was a wrong decision. Escaflowne had plenty of reasons built up for why she couldn’t stay and it doesn’t invalidate their feelings for each other. It’s just not how I would have handled it. Though her giving up on tarot readings and Van shutting down the Escaflowne were nice touches.

As for the nebulous power of love… eh? It’s not unexpected and it would be a bit hypocritical of me to say I hated it when this sort of “Power of Friendship” thing is what wraps up a lot of the Shounen I love. But I can’t help it that I was hoping for more. That something other than “Love conquers all” would be what turned off the Fate machine. Maybe had turning it off been tied to Hitomi going home, one last sacrifice on her part, someone actually losing something, it would have worked better for me. I do, after all, love tragedies. As it is though I can’t but but feel that the ending took a bit of a dip after Allen and Van’s resolution. Not enough to ruin it for me, I’ll remember that confrontation for awhile. But definitely enough to notice.

So yeah all in all I think this was a decent ending to The Vision of Escaflowne. I stand by a lot of my original thoughts on the series. That it felt like it wanted a longer run time and didn’t get it, resulting in being squished into less episodes than it needed. And a few of the finer details for the ending definitely turned me off a bit. But for those of you that can’t wait for the review: I would say I enjoyed my time with Escaflowne. I came to care for these characters. And its only because I’m invested in them that I care so much about their endings. It’s not my favorite show I’ve done for this segment, Princess Tutu will hold that for awhile. But I will recommend it to others.

And with that we come to the end of another season of Throwback Thursday. You know what that means! Poll time. You will find the poll below with a series of shows suggested by you all and curated by me. The winner will be our next series. If a movie wins, we will watch that and jump straight into the review before going to the 2nd option that won. In the meantime I’m going to start writing up the final Escaflowne review and I will announce the winner in there. After that I might take a one week break to prepare for the new series. See you all then! Looking forward to what you choose. P.S. You can select multiple so pick all the ones you’re interested in!