Cheap Escaflowne - The Movie (Ultimate Edition 3-Disc Set) (DVD) (Kazuki Akane) Price

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Customer Reviews of Escaflowne - The Movie (Ultimate Edition 3-Disc Set)

Opinions Shall Vary
okay, i need to get this across because this is probably the main factor on why some people say it's great and why some people say it just wasn't. The series, the vision of escaflowne, was in fact intended to be a shoujo (aimed at girls) anime. Me, being a guy, saw the vision of escaflowne and still loved it, along with a huge population of guy anime fans. Therefore, escaflowne: the movie was created and was intended to be more of a shounen (aimed at guys) anime. The outcome was great. I enjoyed this more than the vision of escalfowne for five main reasons: (1) Hitomi is literally depressed, and not perky and annoying as she is in the series. (2) There is no love triangle, or square, or whatever the hell you want to call that thing with van, hitomi, marlerna, allen, and merryl. (3) You get to see characters such as van and allen acually use those swords you always see them carrying around. (4) During fights you see blood used not as good as Samurai X but more accurate than the series. (5) The way the armors, such as escaflowne, are used is different from most mecha (giant robot) animes in the sense it acually draws the users blood. Although, the vision of escaflowne does have one element over the movie: the characters in series (if you don't count hitomi) have much more depth, my favorite character Fulken's personality is ruined in the movie but it is only an hour so they don't have time to put depth into too many characters. Well i just wanted to clear that up, so whether you're a guy or a girl i hope i helped in your decision.

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What is this tripe?
I went into this movie as a lover of the Escaflowne series, but I knew not to set my expectations too high. I read the reviews and most people said that it is best if you take the movie on its own terms without comparing it to the series.

Well I have to admit, that's a little hard to do. People who have seen the series will be absolutely flabbergasted that their favorite characters and storyline have been butchered into something boderline incoherent. People who haven't seen the show will likely be very confused and bored by the storyline which seems to cram way to much into too little time (hardly a surprise considering the source material).

Although I didn't really care for the character redesigns, I have to say that visually Escaflowne is a spectacular movie. The opening scene where Van bisects the crew of an airship is worth a rental at least. The problem is that the creators forgot what made Escaflowne the series so special to begin with. It wasn't the animation, the giant Gymelfs or even the storyline (although it was excellent). No, Escaflowne's biggest appeal was the endearing characters, especially Van, Hitomi and Folken. The problem with the movie is that I actually detested the characters movie counterparts as they exhibited exactly none of the facination of the series.

So what are we left with here? A boring movie with stale dialogue, uninteresting characters and an absolute affront to fans of the TV show that has some remarkably stunning visuals. Would I recommend it? No, visuals alone do not make a movie and if you liked the Escaflowne series even a little bit then you probably don't want to see this movie as it will likely leave a very bitter taste in your mouth over all the wasted potential that is here.

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My thoughts on this movie
This movie is one of the best and i think its really original and the opening reminds me of the video at the beginning of onimusha 3 and i believe that this movie is way better than the series because the series is somewhat kiddish and really obsolete in the way that its a 26 epsiode children series and you basically get an overview of the entire series in just one movie which i think is a + and if you're a die hard fan of escaflowne you will apperciate this movie for what it is and i believe it some of the best anime out there and still isnt as korny as gundam is and i believe that gundam was derived by this series/movie either if you want you should buy one of the two the box set of the series or the movie i dont recommend the box set because no one want to spend 3 days just watching an entire series and then watching the movie and find out its same as the series only shorter but the storyline is almost the same the way that hitomi is taken from the mystic moon and sure some parts of the movie are a blur but it you ever get a chance to watch it you will learn to apperciate escaflowne for what it really is "THE BEST OF THE BEST"