Escaflowne was the first anime I ever saw(other than DBZ). I had seen it on FoxKids I think on a saturday. It was the episode where Hitomi "died". Of course, that just also happened to be the same episode where they decided to stop airing.(Just my luck). I had taped that episode for some reason(I don't know how or why
) And showed it to all my fiends. We all became obsessed with that episode and watched it like very day. A few months later, the DVDs started popping up... I began my collection. I didn't have a lot of money back then, so I only got about one DVD a few months, and then a big pile of DVDs for Xmas and my birthdays. Anyway, two years later, I was an owner of the entire Escaflowne series.(Not to mention ever month the prices rose on those things, now I believe they're up to 40 bucks for one of the ending or beginning DVDs whiel in the middle of the series it's 35 dollars... I have no idea why they price them differently, now ).As you can probably sum up, I loved the serie. The character devolpment, the romance, everything.. But then again, I was also a preteen, so if you shoved any romance anime in front of my nose I probably would have liked it.(More about the Escaflowne series noses later).
As for the movie, I heard a LOT about it before it came out. I went to websites galore, and when I went to my first ever con in 2001, I bought the movie(Before it was released in the US!). It was a subtitled VHS(Now listed as a bootleg at Lizzard.net's Escaflowne the Movie shrine bootleg list) and was bought at Dragon*Con. I watched that thing about once a week. I liked the movie a lot. It was about the same level of goodness as the series. But then again, as I said, I was preteen, I liked anything that was anime romance. I look at it now, and I understand what they did..(more on that later).
Anyway, about a year later, the DVD came out. I quickly reserved my sepcial limited edition boxed set(I realize what a wast of money it is, now). I had also bought the movie soundtrack wayyyy before I bought my first Bootleg movie.(The soundtrack is the best.. Ever!).
So now you know what I think about them both. But here's the info on other things..
The animation in the series:
Nobuteru Yuuki(character Designer) wanted to express the light image in the TV series by using light colors. This was common for shojo comics , and what Yuuki did was basically base all the animation from previous shojo works. Yuuki even based most of the clothes the characters wore in the series off of previous shojo comics. As for the bug pointy noses, be glad they're not as bad as what they were in the Utena movie...
The episode structure:
It was never originally supposed to be 39 episodes. Ryota Yamaguchi(Screenplay writer) wrote it in a 26 episode structure. The reason that it seems as though it was supposed to be 39 is later, during production, Masahiko Minami(Producer) wanted to reinforce the romantic part of the series to make it more interesting, instead of merely emphasizing the mysteriousness of the fortune telling.
The reason the series and the movie is so different:
The series as two themes that Shoji Kawamori(Original creator) devolped. The main theme, "Destiny" and the sub theme, "Feelings."("Feelings" sub theme was devolped by Kazuke Akane[Director/Screenplay].)
For the movie, however, the themes changed. Akane only wnated to focus on one theme. "Feelings". Akane's interpretation of "Feelings" is "being close to someone you love." With that said, Yomaguchi had a hard time writing the Movie's screenplay. He even states in an interview, "In fact, writing of the screenplay involved signifigant emotional pain. Hitomi and Van build walls around themselves, and hardly reveal their true intentions."
The spelling:
It's "Van". It has always been "Van." The original creators collaborated with Bandai Visual to use CG efffects in both the series and the movie, so whatever Bandai says the spelling is, is basically what goes. Not to mention that in any japanese magazine you see, and in character designs, it's always spelled "Van", with the occational "Ban". Which brings me to my next point with Balgus's spelling. The sounds from the letters "V" and "B" are the same in the Japanese language. So if it's "Van" or "Ban" it's the same name. That goes with "Balgus" and "Valgus" as well. They didn't change the character's name, they just made it easier for english people to understand.
AtomicWeezelMan, what you say about the Escflowne being drawn by a five year old is just a state of opinion. The exact same staff that worked on the series worked on the Movie.
Kimitoshi Yamane(Mechanical designer) drew Escaflowne as well as all the other guymelefs. For the theatrical version, though, he worked on refining Escaflowne and Alseides(The thing DIlandau pilots in the movie). In The series, Escaflowne seems to have a will of its own, but it has an undeniably mechanical robot appearence. Akane asked Yamane for a "More vital looking Escaflowne" So he tried to make it look organic. As Yamane says in an interview: "The most challenging part of designing the Escaflowne was to have its original design consistant with its transformation into a dragon."
Also, just going a bit off topic, The series does have deleted scenes, cut both from the DVD and the TV release. These scenes however had little to no character devolpment, and can be found on Lizzard.net's Lost Escaflowne Page.
Anyway, that's my really really long 2 cents...
. I hope not much since the translator has had 2 years of Japanese while my friend has over 6 and the other good ones are either Japanese or comprable education. I have another friend who works for ADV (she has translated Excel Saga, Rah Xephon, Noir, Xenosaga, etc.) and she's Japanese.
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