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TheMorry wrote:

Are the episodes fixed 4/3? Or can you stretch the episodes out to fill the screen without black edges on the sides so it apears as 16/9?

As JesuOtaku suggests, you really do not want to do this.

4:3 -> 16:12, or in other words a 16:9 picture is three-quarters the vertical height of a 4:3 picture. Or in other words to convert a 4:3 image to a 16:9 image you have to lose a quarter of the picture. If you do it automatically, it's the top and bottom eighth.

Now. A quick search reveals that some nefarious evildoor has uploaded what appears to be the complete uncut english dub of esca to a certain google-owned video distribution website. Fortunately for us. Go ye and grab some random scenes, random shots: imagine there's a big dirty strip of duct tape or something covering the top and bottom of the picture.

It would look like a pig's arsehole. Esca is well storyboarded and the shots well-composed: it was drawn to use the full capacities of the technology available, which includes a screen that's proportionally taller than the ones we see today; there's a lot of stuff down high and down low, often in the same shots. [eyeballing it, I think there's a shot in the OP of van that looks like it cuts off about his earhole / eyeball level.] It was never meant to be watched that way, was never supposed to work that way. And it doesn't.

[lots of close shots, see. Mid-range shots, head and upper body, are simpler to animate and cheaper, and they have a lot of empty space you can work around. But a well-framed close-up on 4:3 doesn't have the vertical space to be cropped down successfully; you'll cut off at about the forehead level. Plus action and similar.]

ETA: Actual examples of the problem [in star trek]

http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/star-trek-in-widescreen-on-cbs-action-uk.279215/#post-11477729

Never mind answered my own question..

Never before have I watched older 4:3 media and been actively bothered by its aspect ratio, but with Esca's epic feel and all of its great establishing shots, there was this constant nagging thought as I began my rewatch about how unbelievably amazing it would have looked if it had originally been produced in widescreen. Well, how much more amazing.

But yeah, there's nothing ideal that can be done about it now. You can either crop the top and bottom off and lose a quarter of the picture and ruin the intended look of the show, or stretch it out and really ruin the intended look of the show (with no aesthetic benefit whatsoever).

The closest we get is the Esca movie, which even with its widescreen presentation (and higher budget/more fluid animation), never came close to matching the inspiring imagery and appeal of the show's unique visual design, in most peoples' opinions.

A great series, and I don't regret buying it - but I'll never kickstart from Funi again. The shitshow campaign was not worth the hassle. Robert and Animeigo? I'll back in a hot second. Ann and Pied Piper? Absolutely! Funimation? They can suck a turd.

I understand from a highly placed source that Funimation considered changing its company motto to, "We Suck Turds" but the proposal, after much back and forth debate, was ultimately scrapped.

Putting the new dub on part with the original Japanese dub is an insult to the original Japanese cast. I could go on about the casting problems for days, but Vic's performance as Folken was one of the worst I've ever heard. Sonny cast him without an audition and it shows.

penguintruth wrote:

Based on the episodes of the new dub I've seen on Funimation's site, the quality isn't much of an improvement from the Ocean dub. Dismuke is certainly good, and actually Mignogna is good as Folken (though not as good as either the JP VA or the Ocean one), but Glass has no business in a lead role, Strait is pretty much just "acceptable" as usual, and Dilandau is weak. Many character pronunciations are cringeworthy. If they weren't going to make a huge improvement, they shouldn't have bothered with a new dub. It's a disappointing one, considering many of Funimation's recent dubs are quite good.

But I'll eventually pick this up because Escaflowne is one of my favorite anime, and the Blu-Ray footage look gorgeous.

I agree with most of this, except what was said about Vic; the Dilandau and guymelef pronunciations in particular are awful.

If you're going to pick up any version of Escaflowne, I highly recommend the All The Anime Edition as it's a clear step up above the Funimation edition (I own both CEs).

jroa wrote:

Found it, with a little help from Google. This is apparently the relevant portion of that Animerica feature:

Quote:

Kawamori and Sunrise first hired the quirky Yasuhiro Imagawa to helm the planned 39 episode series. [multiple paragraphs skipped] For better or for worse, the series length was shortened to 26 episodes before the scriptwriting and actual animating began, due to production constraints. However, Takanashi noted later that the creators decided that instead of cutting the story, they would keep the overall story and simply tell more story per episode, giving the Escaflowne series the breatheless pacing for which it would later gain renown.

The specific Japanese sources aren't mentioned, which would technically make me remain quite skeptical, but to give the writer of the feature the benefit of the doubt...I guess it's possible that what Spoofer and Lord Geo have said above might be correct. Especially after finding another source which claims to be taken from a pamphlet written by Kawamori himself and seems to provide a far clearer picture of the situation (assuming it is reliable, which is open to debate). Here are the details:

Quote:

The title of the first proposal I showed to Bandai Producer Minoru Takanashi was Kuchu Kishi (Aerial Knights), which was going to be changed to Kuchu Kiko Senki (Aerial Chilvarous War) later. It was originally an other-world fantasy in traditional robot anime style combined with elements of fortune telling, which was popular among teenage girls at that time. On the planet “Gaea”, the Zaibach Empire and the Allied Forces (three countries including the Eastern Island Nation Fanelia, the Freid Dukedom, and the United Kingdom of Asturia) are at war. The knights from both sides ride on their transformable warplanes called “Knight Machines”, which fight with swords in their robot form. Main story development was already completed and if one read the plot for all 39 episodes, he would discover such terms as “stealth mantle”, “liquid metal”, “fortune-enhanced soldiers”, “fate alteration system”, “counteraction of manipulating fortune”, “zone of absolute fortune”, and so on. At that time, the setting was still more science fiction than fantasy.

A little while after talking with Mr. Takanashi, I had a conference with Producer Masuo Ueda and Producer Masahiko Manami, and then subsequently Mr. Yasuhiro Imagawa and Mr. Mahiro Maeda joined the project. When Mr. Imagawa left and Director Kazuki Akane joined, the tone of TV series became more clearly specified and further polished. We were planning to make the work in a girls’ comic style, but it was still more like a boys’ comic at the time. However, since we decided to tell the story from the viewpoint of Hitomi, the most important female main character, we could successfully create the delicate girls comic atmosphere. The appearance of motifs like “dragons” and “angels” and the samurai-armor-like styles can be attributed to the original ideas of Director Akane.

In other words, this was all during initial talks. The length might have been "cut down" during such an early stage of planning when proto-Escaflowne was still a radically different show called "Aerial Knights" or "Aerial Chilvarous War" (that title already sounds closer to Aura Battler Dunbine or Panzer World Galient, if you ask me). In short, the idea of making a 39 episode story may have only ever existed in Kawamori's proposed draft.

He talked about it with the producers, but that early proposal doesn't really sound too much like "our" Escaflowne, to be honest, even if it contained the fortune manipulation elements and other similar terms. Therefore, it is probably fairly safe to say that the anime story of Van and Hitomi, as we know them, was always meant to be 26 episodes once the final concept for the series had been polished and solidified by the staff. Which means the rumor came from a simple misunderstanding of when/how this all happened.

To piggyback on top of this, Egan Loo, who was involved with the Animerica article that has been mentioned a few times in this thread owned the now-defunct Escaflowne Compendium and has a blurb written about it written here too:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150107040413/http://escaflowne.anime.net/production/animation_live_action/television/index.html#note

The Escaflowne Tumblr fandom had an entire discussion about this after AX last year, but I can't seem to find the thread at the moment.

[Edit]: combined sequential posts. Errinundra.

I have a quick question. I noticed in the review that there was a mention of a directors cut of the series, presumably and not the movie. When I went to a certain online store they had a box that looked like my limited edition set but it didn't show the companion box with the escaflowne. Is the set I have, with the toy, a different set or is the site just not selling the correct edition as listed or something else?

Here's the set I have:
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F16%2F56%2F23%2F16562305491d115b3dcc7d07af66bbda.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Ftomyodefanel%2Fescaflowne-dvdvhsblu-rayld%2F&docid=iMsaCAhxVtjNaM&tbnid=sZFkh5d3QJMD8M%3A&vet=1&w=400&h=300&bih=657&biw=1366&q=limited%20edition%20escaflowne&ved=0ahUKEwjr34WBoubRAhVo4IMKHboPDvAQMwgiKAYwBg&iact=mrc&uact=8

Key wrote:

Quote:

Escaflowne was infamously cut from a projected 39-episode runtime to 26 episodes not long into production, forcing the already notoriously ambitious Shoji Kawamori to condense the show's second half without losing any important information.

I'd never actually heard this before, but this does explain why I've always thought that the second half seemed a bit rushed compared to the first half.

I've always considered this one an outlier as '90s fantasy series go since it had so little stylistic or content influence given how popular it was. (I suppose the one place it may have had influence is in popularizing the notion of fantasy mecha, as I can definitely recall fantasy series with mecha coming out later in the '90s but not earlier.) It's also one of the very rare series of any type to specifically blend shonen and shojo stylistic elements. Never thought about its role as a career kick-starter for so many people, even though I always knew it was Kanno's first major work (I've had the CD for the OST for over a decade now), so that was definitely an interesting perspective.

Unlike a lot of people, I was always a fan of the original English dub, so now I'm very curious to see for myself how the new one stacks up.

i am also a fan of the ocean group dub, though even i admit that the new dub is by far superior. at least for the TV series. the movie is another story cause there were some drastic improvement with the ocean group dub of the movie, so i would say at least for the movie version , both dub versions are pretty equal. and as much as arron who sounds great as the new van, to be honest , kirby morrow is the better van when in comparison.

as for extras, i got three words for that. HOLY JESUS CHRIST!!! funi seriously pulled all the stops with that considering the effort they did with the whole kickstarter program to fund the new dub. i have never seen a crapload of extras for any funi releases that is not named dragonball. while it will definitely be worth every penny , good luck with anyone trying to get entire collection that since it will really cost the average person an arm and a leg.

So, it seems that the 39-episode rumor came from the original plan, which was drastically changed before the series actually became greenlit and the actual director came on board, at which point the reworked series was always intended as 26 episodes. That would explain why the director said it had always been 26, but where the 39 number came frm.

Quote:

(Mignogna's immediately recognizable reedy voice is absolutely nothing like Nakata's dangerous baritone.)

It's not just the baritone being "dangerous", it's that strange and beautiful overtone Nakata uses (and that his voice has traces of even when he's speaking normally) that made him so perfect to play characters like Folken or the Count in Gankutsuou. It makes his voice sound slightly but not overwhelmingly melancholy, as if there was some kind of deep, buried sadness in the character. I've heard very few voice actors, Japanese or otherwise, who were able to do something similar to this. (Seki Tomokazu and Nakamura Yuuichi are two of them, although their voices work a bit differently and they have a wider voice range.) From what I've heard of Vic Mignogna... let's just say I really wonder why they cast him as Folken, of all characters.

sk1199 wrote:

I have a quick question. I noticed in the review that there was a mention of a directors cut of the series, presumably and not the movie. When I went to a certain online store they had a box that looked like my limited edition set but it didn't show the companion box with the escaflowne. Is the set I have, with the toy, a different set or is the site just not selling the correct edition as listed or something else?

Here's the set I have:
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F16%2F56%2F23%2F16562305491d115b3dcc7d07af66bbda.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Ftomyodefanel%2Fescaflowne-dvdvhsblu-rayld%2F&docid=iMsaCAhxVtjNaM&tbnid=sZFkh5d3QJMD8M%3A&vet=1&w=400&h=300&bih=657&biw=1366&q=limited%20edition%20escaflowne&ved=0ahUKEwjr34WBoubRAhVo4IMKHboPDvAQMwgiKAYwBg&iact=mrc&uact=8

I have no idea what you are asking. ?_?

The set you linked is Bandai's first boxset release for the show from 2002, which was a limited edition containing the 8 DVDs and the Black Escaflowne figure. The DVDs are relics at this point, as from what I recall from the last time I tried to watch the show via that release, they look downright awful.

The "director's cut" (Japanese home video version) episodes (1-7) had never been available in America before until Funi's latest release; all previous Bandai releases only contained the broadcast versions of those episodes. I'd been looking forward to seeing the home video versions for years, but in the end, I feel the show functions much better via the broadcast versions for various reasons (home video version spoils a future plot twist in the 2nd episode, is filled with needless exposition dumps, makes Allen look like a complete douche early on, etc.). If you want these versions of the episodes, you'll want Funi's latest release (which thankfully contain the broadcast versions as well). If you want Escaflowne to look absolutely mind-blowing with a fantastic 1080p film transfer (aside from the various scenes with digital effects which are upscaled), you'll also want Funi's latest release.

Their Collector's Edition set is sold out, but I seem to recall some indications that there may be a bit more produced in the future. There's currently huge markup on the set on Amazon, but eBay listings seem to currently be around the suggested retail price, which isn't bad at all. Otherwise, Funi's regular BD/DVD combos are what's available: Part 1, Part 2, Movie

SHD wrote:

Quote:

(Mignogna's immediately recognizable reedy voice is absolutely nothing like Nakata's dangerous baritone.)

It's not just the baritone being "dangerous", it's that strange and beautiful overtone Nakata uses (and that his voice has traces of even when he's speaking normally) that made him so perfect to play characters like Folken or the Count in Gankutsuou. It makes his voice sound slightly but not overwhelmingly melancholy, as if there was some kind of deep, buried sadness in the character. I've heard very few voice actors, Japanese or otherwise, who were able to do something similar to this. (Seki Tomokazu and Nakamura Yuuichi are two of them, although their voices work a bit differently and they have a wider voice range.) From what I've heard of Vic Mignogna... let's just say I really wonder why they cast him as Folken, of all characters.

just be glad it wasnt alan. almost everyone here in the fourms was fearing that happening when the dub cast was announced. most make jokes about it comparing the casting as a FMA reunion of sorts. and speaking of alan, its still inconceivable that's the same voice that did both krillin and uusopp. if you had asked any newbie fan who was brought up to the anime world thanks to DBZ Kai, DBS and OP and showed them alan's voice, they would think you were pulling their legs since the voices seriously dont sound the same at all. they sounds as they were voiced by different VAs. just goes to show how out of our league we are when it comes to doing voice overs.

Escaflowne was the first TV anime I watched in its entirety on home video, and the first "short" anime series (meaning the typical 1-2 season standard) that I ever watched. This was circa 1999, maybe early 2000. I was of course watching Toonami regularly, but at the time they were mainly playing just DBZ and Sailor Moon, with some western action 'toons like Reboot and ThunderCats in the mix. I don't remember how I found out about them, but I found out about a local video game shop that had recently diversified into renting out anime VHSs, including some DBZ fansubs of seasons & movies that had not yet aired. I was looking for something else besides DBZ and one of the clerks recommended Escaflowne. I was quickly hooked. I loved everything about that show. When I heard it was being dubbed later in 2000 to be put on Fox Saturday mornings (back when Saturday morning cartoons still existed) I decided to check it out, but was disappointed at the quality of the dub as well as how much content was cut and altered.

I'm glad to see this series still gets some respect and is regarded to have aged well. It is definitely one of the all-time greats.

nargun wrote:

TheMorry wrote:

Are the episodes fixed 4/3? Or can you stretch the episodes out to fill the screen without black edges on the sides so it apears as 16/9?

As JesuOtaku suggests, you really do not want to do this.

4:3 -> 16:12, or in other words a 16:9 picture is three-quarters the vertical height of a 4:3 picture. Or in other words to convert a 4:3 image to a 16:9 image you have to lose a quarter of the picture. If you do it automatically, it's the top and bottom eighth.

I'm also in the "watch it as it was made" camp; that said, it's probably possible to stretch the image using the DVDs, but not the Blu-Rays. If I'm not mistaken, Blu-Rays of 4:3 content have the black pillarboxing bars actually included as part of the video, due to limitations of the BD format -- video has to be 1920x1080, regardless of the material's actual aspect ratio. So as far as your TV is concerned, a 4:3 Blu-Ray is already filling the entire screen; stretching it won't do anything, unless some TVs have some kind of "Zoom-Stretch" option. (Unfortunately mine doesn't, and I don't have any 4:3 BDs to test.)

Most DVDs, on the other hand, only encode the actual video, so the Escaflowne DVDs only contain the 4:3 image. When that signal is sent to a widescreen TV, it shows up as video in the middle 3/4 of the screen and empty space at the sides, so it can be stretched. Again I don't recommend this, but no doubt Funimation/Sunrise will appreciate your money all the same no matter how you watch the discs you buy from them.

CaptainAvatar wrote:

I watched the first episode of the dub and cringed at some butchered name pronunciations, and gave up at that point. Maybe I will have to give it another chance.

I always wondered do people who cringe at bad name pronunciations also feel the same way when Japanese actors mispronounce English names?

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