Trivia / The Vision of Escaflowne

• Acting for Two:
  • Maaya Sakamoto voices Hitomi Kanzaki and her grandmother Yuri.
  • Mayumi Iizuka voices both Yukari Uchida and Princess Millerna Aston.
  • Shin-ichiro Miki voices Allen Schezar and Susumu Amano.
  • Minami Takayama voices Dilandau Albatou, Prince Chid Freid and Celena Schezar.
  • Yuri Amano voices Nariya and Princess Eries Aston.
  • In the original English dub, Scott McNeil voices multiple characters in the series. Some of them are Jajuka, King Aston, and the geckos who kidnapped Hitomi, just to name a few.
• Anime First: The TV show preceded both the manga series and the movie.
• Blooper:
  • In episode two a Fanelian guard says "It's a Zaiback attack!" .... No one knows who the 'invisible giants' are until a few episodes later. Probably English blooper only.
  • If you watch the finale, it does not matter if it is the original Japanese or the English dub, you will notice that there is a mistake in terms of sequential order. The part at around minutes 17:45-18:09, where Hitomi tells some classmates that she has given up on fortune-telling, is placed at the wrong part of the episode's timeline as it should have been placed somewhere and some time after she goes back to her world - just before she sees that telepathic vision of Van in the end. It is a technical error on the Japanese animators and production team's part.
  • On the Latin American side, for some strange, unknown reason, the scene where Dilandau's about to be probed by the Sorcerers never got dubbed in LatAm Spanish, as it was kept in Japanese.
• Boxed Set:
  • During Bandai Entertainment's release of the series, a complete DVD Box Set was released to North America; it contained the English dub — both the cut^note Basically, a compressed version made into 21 episodes; still maintains the same storyline (parts deemed relatively minor cut out, and some episodes being merged together). It, however, maintains the [unfortunate] edits Fox made for episodes 2-9 and the uncut^note The full 26, nothing cut out, and yes, translated into English and still with the English voice cast of the Ocean Group; it also uses the original Japanese opening theme song versions — and the original Japanese language with subtitles. By The New '10s it had virtually vanished from retail in any capacity (outside of perhaps anime conventions), having fallen out of print halfway through the previous decade - a collector will need to keep a sharp eye on eBay or Amazon to see this set for sale.
  • In 2016, FUNimation re-released the series in two Blu-ray/DVD combo boxes on the back of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Every episode was re-mastered in HD, with both the original Ocean Studios dub and a new in-house dub with the deleted scenes (see below). No Fox Kids edited versions, though.
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: In 2004, a special limited edition box set called a "Perfect Collection" was released and included in it was the feature length film. FUNimation released a similar "Collector's Edition" in 2016.
• Children Voicing Children: More like Teenagers Voicing Teenagers, but the anime still has some standout examples:
  • 16-year-old Hitomi is voiced by Maaya Sakamoto, who was also 16 years old at the time.
  • In the first English dub, 15-year-old Dilandau Albatou was voiced by 13-14-year-old Andrew Francis.
• Dawson Casting: At the time the Ocean Studios dub of the show was first produced, Dilandau's English voice actor, Andrew Francis, was the only actor to avert this, though whether his voice actually suits the character or not is still debatable to this day. His voice changes for the better in the movie.
• Deleted Scene: When the series was first aired in Japan, Sunrise made too much animated content for the show's earlier episodes to fit in its TV time slot. As a result, some scenes having nothing to do with the advancement in the show's plot had to be cut for time. The deleted scenes were restored in Japanese video releases. Said deleted scenes did not make it to original US DVDs, even in the 2009 re-release for some reason. FUNimation later gained the license, and by some stroke of luck they managed to get the masters of deleted scenes. A Kickstarter campaign was started and the full amount was reached after three days, so they were included on their rerelease of the series. The only country that managed to dub those scenes during the original release was Italy.
• Dueling Dubs: The original Ocean Studios dub vs. the 2016 FUNimation redub featuring their usual acting company. The source of heated discussion online, as ever.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The Fox Kids dub only aired 10 out of the 23 episodes made for the dub in the US. The entire series did air in Canada on YTV, but that was years ago. The dub had 4 VHS releases from Bandai, but they were discontinued after Volume 4 due to the higher sales of the uncut dub and subbed versions.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Millerna not only got a radical redesign in the movie but changed voice actresses from Mayumi Iizuka to Aki Takeda.
  • For some reason, Van's German dub voice actor, Björn Schalla, didn't reprise his role in the movie and was replaced by Robin Kahnmeyer.
  • In the English dub, a number of secondary characters had voices changed for various reasons. Yukari was first voiced by Willow Johnson at the start of the show but was later replaced by Saffron Henderson (she was also the voice of Eriya). Johnson returned as Yukari for the movie, however.
  • The Dragon Slayers under Dilandau were especially notorious for this. Dallet, Shesta, and Gatti all had at least three (actors/actresses) per man. Sometimes their voices would change in the same episode! All three were voiced by Venus Terzo (Millerna) at various points while in others actors, such as Brian Drummond (Allen), Andrew Francis (Dilandau), Cathy Weseluck, Terry Klassen (Moleman), and even Van's voice actor (Kirby Morrow) provided their speaking parts. Shesta even got a fourth voice in the movie (Trevor Devall, in case you're wondering).
  • Two of the three Zaibach generals (Zodia and Getin) had multiple actors as well — Michael Dobson and later Paul Dobson for Zodia and Drummond, Don Brown (Balgus), and Richard Newman (Dornkirk) for Getin.
  • Young Van was voiced by Andrew Francis in the TV series but was changed to Jocelyn Loewen (Merle) for the movie dub.
  • Goau, Van's father, was changed from Michael Dobson in the TV series to Richard Newman in the film.
  • The FUNimation redub of the show hits this yet again with an entirely new cast (as using their own actors was evidently less expensive than the rights to the Fox-involved Ocean dub, among other things). It's not the first or second time they have moved an Ocean dub in-house. For example, Hitomi, Van and Folken, respectively voiced in the original dub by Kelly Sheridan, the late Kirby Morrow and Paul Dobson, are now voiced by Caitlin Glass, Aaron Dismuke and Vic Mignogna.
• Playing Against Type: Minami Takayama is well known for playing either grown women or cheerful kid heroes, so fans were absolutely floored when they found she voices the Ax-Crazy Pyromaniac psychopath Dilandau.
  • Interesting to note: Andrew Francis who voiced Dilandau in the English dub, at the time, was also known for kid-friendly roles such as Genki from Monster Rancher.
• Referenced by...:
  • Due to its inclusion of mecha, Escaflowne was included in the Super Robot Wars series several times: In Super Robot Wars Compact 3 and later Super Robot Wars X-Ω. Naturally as one of the Isekai mecha anime, its plot is connected with the one from Aura Battler Dunbine, the original/granddad of 'Isekai mecha anime'.
  • Unsounded creator Ashley Cope refers to her character Nary Frummagem's strange long nose as an Escaflowne nose.
• Romance on the Set: The series' lead composers, Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizguchi, got married shortly after the show's production.
• Screwed by the Network: Fox Kids tried to sell the dub as a children's show without realizing it delved into some fairly mature stuff in the latter half of the show. They quickly shelved it and tried to forget about it. Meanwhile, up in Canada, YTV realized its true nature early on and began airing it during primetime hours; it also aired all the episodes (and it showed reruns for a while after it was done), unlike Fox Kids. Plus, YTV showed the cut version of the English dub in the afternoons, while the uncut English dub was aired in the evening, rather similar to what Toonami was beginning to experiment with at the time.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Hitomi was Maaya Sakamoto's breakthrough role as a voice actress in Japan, and Escaflowne was also her start in her singing career (she sings the anime's opening theme song, "Yakusoku wa Iranai", along with several insert songs). She initially was hired only to do voice acting, but then Yoko Kanno, the series' music composer, thought she was perfect for singing, too.
  • In the Latin-American side, while Van Fanel wasn't the first known role of José Gilberto "Pepe" Vilchis, it certainly gave his voice acting career quite the boost.
• Those Two Actors: Van and Folken's Funimation voice actors, Aaron Dismuke and Vic Mignogna, previously starred in Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) eleven years earlier.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Escaflowne was originally going to be directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa. Yes, that Yasuhiro Imagawa. We can't exactly say for sure if this would have been bad or fucking awesome, but it certainly would not be the show we have today.
  • The series was originally supposed to be a World War I-styled spinoff of Macross called "Air Cavalry Chronicles" before the creators decided to change it to a fantasy shōjo series. The only things that remained were the concept of transforming mecha, the name of the opposing kingdoms (Fanelia and Zaibach), and of course, the Love Triangle. To quote series co-creator, Shoji Kawamori: "If Macross was robotic mecha and love songs, why not a story about robotic mecha and divining powers?". The original Zaibach designs ended up beciming the Varauta/Protodeviln variable fighters in Macross 7.
  • It was originally planned to have a plot spanning 39 episodes. Due to budget constraints, the story was carefully compressed into two-thirds of that length in order to retain its subplots and characters (which were at risk of being cut for time). This is why the story moves at such a brisk pace compared to most other anime (both before and since) and yet feels very carefully plotted. While nothing was really changed story-wise, however, who knows how the story would have felt to — and been received by — audiences, had the creators the necessary budget on-hand.
  • Many fans of the show wanted this series to be aired on Cartoon Network so it would be given a proper treatment on Toonami (this was before [adult swim] came into existence, which thankfully aired The Movie uncut). Instead, Bandai gave the license to Saban, where it was rather mangled and cancelled after less than ten episodes. To this day, fans wonder at how the anime and specifically mecha, fandom of the early 2000s might have been different with Escaflowne leading the charge right on the heels of Gundam Wing.

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