Visions of Escaflowne is one of my favourite series ever. I watched it even before starting this blog (hence the lack of a review for it), and after a decent first half, the second half of the series stole my heart. I’ve never really had the chance to watch the movie, though, but now I’ve finally managed to check it out. Like expected, the creators got a bit too ambitions, and the movie doesn’t live up to the series.

Transferring a series that takes up twenty-six episodes into a ninety-minute movie has never been easy, seeing as how a lot of scenes have to be cut. One of the few anime who did it right was Utena: the first half of the movie was basically a crude summary of the series, after which the second half embarked on a totally original and crazy idea, and while it still wasn’t as good as the series itself, it worked. The key was how the Utena-movie stayed so wonderfully away from the mainstream.

You guessed it, Escaflowne the Movie goes way too far into the direction of mainstream, and screws up. Both the story and characters have turned into mere clichés, and the creators basically dropped all of the traits that made them interesting in the series. Folken has been promoted to the main bad guy, the old man is nowhere to be found, and neither is the machine that foresees destiny. Van has also turned into an overpowered action-hero, and Hitomi has turned even more annoying than she was in the series. The little bit of character-development that survived the transition doesn’t make any sense at all. One moment, Hitomi and Van are incredibly cold to each other, and the next moment they’re hopelessly in love without any reason whatsoever.

The movie at least tries to include some substance by asking some philosophical questions. The unfortunate thing is, however, that it refuses to answer them, and when things get too difficult, it just quickly changes the subject. Whenever Van is against a tough opponent that he doesn’t want to kill, a third guy conveniently shows up and stabs the guy, so that Van doesn’t have to worry about him.

Still, despite this I enjoyed a Girl in Gaea. The plot and characters may be dull, but the screenplay is terrific. This has been the first time where I’ve been amazed by the action-scenes of an anime, despite a weak story. Even for a movie, the animation stands out, and while the story itself has its problem, the storytelling is quite decent, and keeps the movie from dragging on and getting boring. And let’s not forget that Yoko Kanno composed the music for this one.

This isn’t really a movie that you need to have seen, though, as it ruins a lot of things that made the series great. If you’ve seen the series, then you might want to check this one out if you’re a real fan. If you’ve not seen the series, then this is a decent action-movie with a rather dull plot. If you’ve seen the movie, but haven’t seen the series, then watch the series NOW!!!

Just when you think a show can’t get any stranger, it surpasses itself. Get this: today’s mystery is about a guy who’s been spiked on top of a huge radio-tower. Yeah.

The explanation that the show puts behind it is also the most ridiculous of the entire series: the culprit was a fireman, and he used a super-powered hose with liquid nitrogen in the middle of the rain to create a path of ice to the top of the tower, climbed it and placed the corpse on top of it. Okay, I can imagine how he got the idea, being a fireman and all, but wouldn’t the ice-tower break through the sheer pressure, being hundreds of meters TALL and all? Also, wasn’t there a fence around the tower? How could he have gotten a fire-truck there? And seriously… why think of such a huge plan when you can just dump the body somewhere in the ruins of the city, and it would have been hidden for a long while. Why go through the trouble of such a risky plan?

Obviously, the evil Byakko is the source of the trouble again. Interestingly enough, she ends up killing the culprit at the end of the episode, and I’m curious as to what the creators had in mind for the next episode. This series really continues to baffle me… the creativity is there, it’s just used at the wrong places, but I do have to admit that I’m intrigued about what tricks the creators will pull with the next instalment.