The Vision of Escaflowne

The Vision of Escaflowne (Japanese: 天空のエスカフローネ, Hepburn: Tenkū no Esukafurōne; lit. Escaflowne of the Heavens) is a Japanese anime television series produced by Sunrise. It premiered from April to September 1996, on TV Tokyo. Sony's anime satellite channel, Animax also aired the series, both in Japan and on its various worldwide networks, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. It was licensed for Region 1 release by Bandai Entertainment.

The series follows a high school girl named Hitomi, who finds herself pulled from Earth to the planet Gaea when a boy named Van appears on the high school track while battling a dragon. In Gaea, she is caught in the middle of a war as the Zaibach Empire attempts to take over Gaea. Van (King of Fanelia), with aid from Allen (an Asturian Knight), commands his mystical mech Escaflowne in the struggle to stop the Zaibach Empire. Hitomi's fortune telling powers blossom in Gaea as she becomes the key to awakening Escaflowne and to stopping Zaibach's plans.

While the anime series was in production, two very different manga series retellings were also developed and released: a version of the story entitled The Vision of Escaflowne and a retelling titled Hitomi — The Vision of Escaflowne. In addition, a second manga adaptation called Escaflowne — Energist's Memories was released as a single volume in 1997. The story was novelized in a series of six light novels by Yumiko Tsukamoto. An anime film, entitled simply Escaflowne, was released in June 2000. Four CD soundtracks and a drama CD have also been released in relation to the series.

Gaea is an alternate world that was created from the combined wishes of the inhabitants of Atlantis when it started to sink into the ocean. On Gaea, Earth is known as the Mystic Moon. Gaea's size, mass, atmospheric composition, temperature belts, and even seasons are the same as Earth's. The series focuses on Hitomi Kanzaki and her adventures after she is transported to the world of Gaea, a mysterious planet where she can see Earth and its moon in the sky. Hitomi's latent psychic powers are enhanced on Gaea and she quickly becomes embroiled in the conflicts between the Zaibach Empire led by Emperor Isaac Dornkirk and the several peaceful countries that surround it. The conflicts are brought about by the Zaibach Empire's quest to revive the legendary power from the ancient city of Atlantis. As the series progresses, many of the characters' pasts and motivations, as well as the history of Atlantis and the true nature of the planet Gaea, are revealed.

Shoji Kawamori first proposed the series after a trip to Nepal, during which he visited the foggy mountain region and pictured a hidden world where an epic focusing on both fate and destiny should be set. When he returned, he proposed the series to Bandai Visual and Sunrise. According to Kawamori, his pitch for the series was simple: "if Macross was robotic mecha and love songs, why not a story about robotic mecha and divining powers?". He worked with Bandai producer Minoru Takanashi to finish fleshing out the original idea. They researched various mysteries for inspiration, particularly stories centered on the mythical land of Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle. As the series began taking shape, they changed the lead character from a male, to a high school girl as the lead character. Nobuteru Yuki was hired as the character designer, and tasked with crafting a design for Hitomi and the rest of the cast. He would later state that Hitomi was his favorite character because it was the first one he would ever design completely from scratch rather than simply being adapted from an existing medium. Initially, Folken and Dilandau were a single enemy commander, but as the story was fleshed out, the creators felt the series would be more interesting if there were two with very different personalities.

Initially, Yasuhiro Imagawa was brought on board to direct. He is credited with coining the word "escaflowne", a Latin-based derivative of the word "escalation", that would be used in the title. Imagawa imagined a series that was heavily male-oriented and would feature a shapely heroine and dramatic battles. However, he left the project before production started to direct Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Without a director, the series was put on hold and Kawamori left to work on other projects. After two years, Sunrise revisited the project and brought in relative newcomer Kazuki Akane as the new director. To broaden the potential audience, Akane decided to add more girl-oriented elements to the series. The suggestive elements were removed, several of the male characters were given more "beautiful boy" appearances, and the plot element around the tarot cards were added. Akane also redesigned Hitomi, taking her from a curvy, air-headed, long-haired girl with glasses to a slim, athletic, short-haired and more intelligent and confident girl. With the series character designs finalized and the story set, Yoko Kanno was selected to write the songs for the series, including the background songs which she co-wrote with her then-husband Hajime Mizoguchi, with whom she had previously collaborated on the soundtrack for Please Save My Earth. Initially they found it difficult to score the series as the plot itself was still being reworked around the new concept, but the plot changes were finished in time for them to prepare the score and give the film the desired final "epic touch." 16-year-old Maaya Sakamoto, fresh from a small role in the anime adaptation of Mizuiro Jidai, was selected not only as the voice of Hitomi, but also to sing the Escaflowne theme song. Kanno is noted as saying that Sakamoto is an ideal interpreter of her work. After this project, they continued to collaborate on many other works and some consider her work on The Vision of Escaflowne to be the launching point of Sakamoto's career.

It is said as the series entered into production, the budget required it be cut down to twenty-six episodes before work began on the final scripts and the animation. However the director disputes this in a Panel Q&A for Funimation's Kickstarter, where he states the series was always supposed to be 26 episodes. This is clarified by Shoji Kawamori in the Special Edition Booklet for Escaflowne, in which he states the original pitch was 39 episodes in 1990, but this version never went into production, it was also radically different in concept and tone. The production really began in 1994 where the show solidified its fantasy aspects and the final format., In an interview during this time Kawamori had said he was unsure what form Escaflowne would take, but eventually it was set on a 26 episode TV anime. In the retail Japanese video release, some of the extended scenes were restored to the first seven episodes.

The Vision of Escaflowne premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo on April 2, 1996, where it aired weekly until it completed its twenty-six-episode run on September 24, 1996. Bandai Entertainment's North American division, which licensed the series for home video distribution under its AnimeVillage label, first released the series with English subtitles, across eight VHS volumes, including a box set, from September 15 to December 15, 1998. In August 2000, Fox Kids Network began broadcasting the series in the United States. Produced by Saban Entertainment under license by Bandai Entertainment, these dubbed episodes were heavily edited to remove footage, add new "flashback" sequences to remind the audience of the events that just occurred, and to heavily downplay the role of Hitomi in the series. The first episode was skipped altogether, and the series soundtrack produced by Yoko Kanno was partially replaced with more techno rearrangements by Inon Zur. This modified version of the series was canceled after ten episodes due to "low ratings". Fox explained that they edited to meet their own target audience, to comply with broadcast standards, and to fit the allowed timeslot. The Canadian television channel YTV acquired Fox's dubbed version of the series for broadcast. Following Fox's planned broadcast schedule, they premiered the series on September 11, 2000, with the second episode. YTV aired all of the episodes Fox Kids dubbed, concluding with the series true first episode in February 2001. Bandai began releasing the dubbed version to VHS in 2000, discontinuing the releases in February 2001 after only four volumes had been released.