Review: Escaflowne

Hitomi and Van are pursued across the world, and Van's magical suit of armour [mecha] Escaflowne and Hitomi's enhanced gifts prove to be vital pieces in a vicious game involving the fate of kingdoms...

The plot has some unexpected twists, particularly towards the end (see spoilers). Until about halfway through the series it's a little slow - there's a lot happening, but the really critical events don't happen very often, whereas as the series progresses life gets much more exciting. :-) Characters show their flaws and occasional stubbornness which makes them much more believable. Even the single "knight" who is otherwise shown as a paragon of virtue has a great deal of trouble keeping his hands off other mens' fiances.

Escaflowne has a reputation as a classic, and I can see how it's picked it up. I have seen other anime that I prefer, but it probably matches Evangelion for depth (suffering only because I find the cast of characters slightly less interesting).

Animation is decent for a TV series. Some sections are very obviously CGI, but I only noticed a couple of cases which were really obvious.

Both the original Japanese and the English Voice Actors do a decent job. Everybody seems to suit their parts fair well. (Note: I only listed to the English VA on the first two episodes, so things may have gone downhill from here.)

Music is well chosen and appropriately used, as are sound effects. Sound effects and foley are not really outstanding, but they do the job.