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Funimation's Escaflowne Dub Casts Eric Vale, Jole McDonald

Funimation's Kickstarter campaign for The Vision of Escaflowne anime series' new English dub posted an update last Friday and this Monday, revealing two additional dub cast members. Eric Vale (Hetalia - Axis Powers' America and Canada, One Piece's Sanji, Fairy Tail's Loke) will play the traveling merchant Dryden, while Joel McDonald (Fairy Tail's Zeref, Black Butler's Ronald Knox, Baccano!'s Jacuzzi Splot) will play Dilandau, the narcissistic Zaibach commander.

Funimation also noted that the original rights holders requires the Blu-ray Discs to enable locked English subtitles when the Japanese audio is selected. Funimation added that the suggested retail prices of the eventual retail editions will be higher than the pledge levels for the equivalent editions in the Kickstarter campaign.

The campaign previously revealed that Caitlin Glass (Fullmetal Alchemist's Winry, Ouran High School Host Club's Haruhi, Danganronpa's Kyoko, Attack on Titan's Petra) will voice the heroine Hitomi Kanzaki, and Aaron Dismuke (Fullmetal Alchemist's Alphonse Elric, Blood Blockade Battlefront's Leonardo Watch, The Heroic Legend of Arslan's Arslan) will voice the main male character Van Fanel. Alexis Tipton (Rosario + Vampire's Moka, Haganai's Rika, Space Dandy's Honey) will voice the cat-girl Merle. Sonny Strait (Fullmetal Alchemist's Maes Hughes, Assassination Classroom's Koro-sensei, Dragon Ball Z's Krillin) will play the knight Allen Schezar, while Colleen Clinkenbeard (Wolf Children's Hana, Fairy Tail's Erza Scarlet, Fullmetal Alchemist's Riza Hawkeye) will play the princess Millerna Aston.

The campaign will reveal a new voice actor for the dub at every US$10,000 mark. As of press time, the campaign has raised US$285,287. The campaign will end on Thursday.

The company plans to release the director's cut of the series in HD on Blu-ray Disc, including scenes that were not available when Bandai Entertainment's original English dub was released. Kelly Sheridan, Kirby Morrow, and Jocelyne Loewen played Hitomi, Van, and Merle, respectively, in Bandai Entertainment's dub.

Funimation will also make a new matching dub for Escaflowne: The Movie. Funimation will release both a standard edition and a collector's edition for the series. The standard edition will be a Blu-ray Disc/DVD combo pack, and both discs will have the director's cut with the new dub. The collector's edition will have the new dub on Blu-ray Disc and the old dub on DVD. The release will also include an exclusive interview with director Kazuki Akane and creator Shōji Kawamori.

The rewards for the campaign include pre-orders of exclusive Kickstarter editions of both parts of the release, featuring 13 episodes each of the HD complete uncut version of the series in Japanese with English subtitles as well as the new English dub. The Kickstarter edition also includes exclusive art cards. Other rewards include digital wallpapers, on-disc credit listings, pre-orders of Escaflowne: The Movie, theatrical-sized posters, the series' soundtrack, and collector's edition box sets that feature an art book and an unannounced exclusive item, among others.

One backer who donates US$5,000 will receive a tour of the Funimation office, a bag of Funimation merchandise, and a chance to do voice work that will appear in the new English dub. This reward has already been claimed.

The campaign's remaining stretch goal includes an invitation to meet director Kazuki Akane at an exclusive VIP party at a major U.S. anime convention for US$500,000.

Thanks to Adam for the news tip