Good, but hard to describe

Written by Divine_Aurora on September 3, 2010 at 5:03 AM

I watched Escaflone when I was younger, when it was first coming out on TV, I think Kids WB or some other channel like that was doing it. Amusingly, they didn't watch the whole series before they started translating and showing it, and didn't realize that it got rather bloody and violent after that point, and they could no longer show it on a kids channel, despite the earlier episodes making it seem like it might be an appropriate kids show. The plot was a little simple and nonsensical at times, and it took often blurred lines between fantasy and sci-fi, but largely leaned towards fantasy. The visuals were often amazing, and it had many seemingly original ideas, or at least very good ones used which are very rare. I'd say it is worth watching, but while hard to define, it is simple enough that it is understandable by kids, so if you ignore the violence factor, it is more made for younger viewers, and also is rather dark and angst filled and moody at times, so that is something to factor in. Still, it is one of the better and more original anime out there, especially for what was being translated to English in the time period. I'd most likely recommend it to fans of Anne McCaffery's books, as it has some similar styles of characterization and blurry lines between Fantasy and Sci-Fi settings, if a less well developed world and more simplistic plot, and being more dark and moody.