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REVIEW: The Vision Of Escaflowne BD+DVD

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 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.)

As it happens, I watched this title for the first time (via the old Perfect Collection) recently and loved it. Did not know it was originally slated for 39 eppies. Now I'm bummed. I would LOVED to have seen that longer version. I'll definitely be getting the Funi Blu-ray/DVD standard edition at some point. I checked out a bit of the first episode on the Funi site and was impressed with the visual quality. I didn't hear much of the new dub, but my God, anybody's version of Dilandau has to be better than that "Canadian boy's." I'll use the subs for my first rewatch - looking forward to it.

I heard Escaflowne was originally supposed to be 39 episodes long, and was cut down just before the production by Sunrise to run for 26 episodes. I’m wondering what differences would there have been if you had been able to do the original full 39 episodes version? What would it have expanded on, and what was there not time to cover in the 26 episodes, and so forth?

I’m not quite sure where you got your information because as far as I know, it was always supposed to be 26 episodes, and in fact we planned it out very carefully. Honestly, it was so much work that went into the series that if we had started out with more stories, I think we might have had some casualties among the staff.

the main feature of this release is Funimation's new English dub, which became a necessity since the director's cut of Escaflowne

Funimation's dub blows not only the old Ocean Group dub away in comparison, it stands as one of the most surprisingly natural-sounding and charmingly earthy dubs Funi has put out in many years.

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.

For the record, the infamous rumor about the 39 episodes was dismissed by the director himself during an Otakon panel after the Kickstarter:

Quote:

I heard Escaflowne was originally supposed to be 39 episodes long, and was cut down just before the production by Sunrise to run for 26 episodes. I’m wondering what differences would there have been if you had been able to do the original full 39 episodes version? What would it have expanded on, and what was there not time to cover in the 26 episodes, and so forth? I’m not quite sure where you got your information because as far as I know, it was always supposed to be 26 episodes, and in fact we planned it out very carefully. Honestly, it was so much work that went into the series that if we had started out with more stories, I think we might have had some casualties among the staff.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/funimationprod/the-vision-of-escaflowne-a-new-hd-dub-for-the-clas/posts/1674275

Magical Knight Rayearth came out in 1994, two years before Escaflowne.