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Directed by |
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Starring |
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Specs |
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Languages |
- English: Dolby Digital Stereo
- Japanese: Dolby Digital Stereo
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Subtitles |
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Extras |
- 8 Theatrical trailer
- Photo gallery - 24 model sheets
- Animated menus
- 3 Music video
- Short film - Creditless opening
- Jacket picture
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The Vision of Escaflowne V1 - Dragons and Destiny |
Madman Entertainment/AV Channel .
R4 . COLOR . 93 mins .
M15+ . PAL |
Feature |
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Contract |
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Well, this one is fairly run of the mill stuff. I wasn’t blown away, or indeed much impressed here. In fact, I had to watch it in increments, as I just couldn’t stomach the whole thing in one hit. Still, I’m but one animation fan. What would I know? As far as my newfound liking for animé goes, this was actually a half step back and reminded me of why I disliked animé to begin with. It is clumsy, overly English oriented in titles and actions, and the animation is of the el cheapo sweatshop variety. Plus, the story is just way too far-fetched and eclectic, cobbling together a bunch of differing ideas and sticking them together with tape and hoping it flies. It does not. With the DVD comprising the first four episodes, this series deals with a young girl (in a sailor suit, of course) who is training for a running race. She sees visions and suddenly winds up on a world where Earth and the moon hang in the sky all day long. It must be invisible or something, but no one mentioned that. The series is so convoluted with differing political agendas and wars, battles and dragons and swordplay between gigantic mecha-droids (surprise surprise), it’s kinda like if you took every animé cliché and threw them into a blender, this is what you’d get (sick). Our four episodes here all have those extreme English titles I mentioned and are played out thus:
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Contract |
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Naturally animation and, in particular, modern animation, is a different video image to a film, say. Here it looks as good as animation can look, although there are cel artefacts around about. The show definitely looks hand painted to me, though no doubt someone will write me to say otherwise.
There’s also no doubt this was made quite cheaply for TV as the ratio is 4:3 and the animation stops on still frames to stretch the time out, making more footage for less. There is some digital stuff thrown in, but this is limited and not common. Colours and such are fine and as I said, this looks quite good, though we do have a lot of that washed-out background palette we see in a majority of these things.
Audio |
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Contract |
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Dolby Digital stereo brings us the goods and here it sounds fine and delivers the show perfectly. Dialogue is all readily understood and the sound effects are synched nicely. The music in here was my highlight of the audio though, with some nice choral stuff and orchestral pieces. Also, the occasional cello solo really impressed me, although it hardly ingratiated me more to the show. Definitely a satisfactory soundscape though with no major hassles.
Extras |
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Contract |
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Overall |
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Contract |
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This is a wholly uninspired disc that has little we’ve not seen before. The animation isn’t even that exceptional to warrant a recommendation, because if that rocks, usually we couldn’t care less if it has a plot or not. Unfortunately, that would have helped Escaflowne a great deal, but alas, no. There are far better DVDs available if you like to gamble with your animé purchases, and this one can’t compete in the least.
LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=3305
Send to a friend.
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And I quote... |
"Escaflowne doesn’t fly at all, but falls out of the nest and plummets to earth. Fatally." - Jules Faber |
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Review Equipment |
- DVD Player:
Nintaus DVD-N9901
- TV:
Sony 51cm
- Receiver:
Diamond
- Speakers:
Diamond
- Surrounds:
No Name
- Audio Cables:
Standard Optical
- Video Cables:
Standard Component RCA
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