Here’s probably another classic anime that EVERYBODY knows about. Well yeah, I just watched it recently. And I must say it’s pretty good.

Vision of Escaflowne

Lets start of with the basic plot

SPOILER WARNING

Hitomi Kanzaki is your usual high school student. As a part of the track and field team, she is in [puppy] love with the boys track and field star runner Amano. Upon finding out that Amano was leaving track and field behind to take over his fathers business, she feels the urge (well actually her best friend talked her into it) to reveal her feelings to Amano, else she’ll regret it for the rest of her life.

Cheezy eh? Yeah, but this is just to setup the story. You see, Hitome has been having these wierd dreams/visions of another world. And these visions seem to overlap with reality (was she daydreaming?) And these visions will finally become a reality during the time she attempts to “show” Amano her feelings (in her own unusual way I might add).

A boy suddenly appears, followed by this dragon. Apparently, the boy is some sort of dragon-slayer. The battle ensues until Hitomi has one of her “vision-attacks” and warns the boy of his supposed “death.” They are both transported back to the boys world called Gaea, where you could see the earth as one of its moons (called the “mystic moon” by the inhabitants of this foreign world).

We find out that the boy, Van Fanel, is in progress of his rite of passage to become a king of his homeland (which is eventually razed to the ground). One event leads to another (and believe me there are a lot of happenings in this series), only for us to find out that all these ill fortunes are a result of a carefully played out plot by the antagonist in his attempt to “guide” Gaia to it’s “ideal destiny.”

However, Hitomi and Van share this certain bond that seems to intervene with the Antagonist’s plans…

The story is well laid out, nothing was rushed, everything was explained in due time. While set in a fantasy world, the characters and internal struggles were naturally done giving the series a very “real” atmosphere for the viewers to relate to.

I guess the only peeve I have is the whole “destiny” concept… the concept in itself is ok but lines like luck intensification as a scientific process, which parallels the effect of having true luck, is ridiculous in any book… and the way it’s used in the anime, it makes the whole “concept” sound like a really bad pun.

Lines and concepts like these are just the tip of the iceberg.

However, this single problem doesnt diminish the experience of the series as a whole.

I really dont know how to end this review… so I’ll just recomend it. It isn’t a stellar piece of work, but still a recommended title.