High schooler Hitomi Kanzaki is in a real rut. Her life feels meaningless, and she's experiencing bizarre dreams, so naturally she's depressed and just wants to vanish. After falling out with her only friend she is whisked away to a mythical realm, Gaea, where she inherits the control of Escaflowne, an apocalyptic weapon fated to spring to life when a prophesied "wing goddess" surfaces. Meanwhile, Gaea, is enduring its own threat: that of invasion from the Black Dragon Clan, who are certain Hitomi is the wing goddess herself who will restore Escaflowne. Now Hitomi must discover her true destiny as she bonds with the heroic rebel leader Van and helps to stop Lord Folken, the Clan's master and Van's corrupted brother, to bring peace and harmony to Gaea again.
Escaflowne is a re-telling of the 1996 Japanese anime TV series The Vision of Escaflowne, which I haven't seen. Therefore I have nothing I can judge it against, but to my otherwise unfamiliar mind and eyes this 2000 film version really works. Director Kazuki Akane and and screenwriter Ryota Yamaguchi cohesively synthesise all the setting and tone shifts into a thoroughly flowing plot that isn't too hard to follow, and Akane and his team of animators infuse each scene with striking visual detail, clarity and flair. The characters are all very likeable but with realistically adult edges to them which the Japanese and English voice casts handle very sincerely, and Yoko Kanno's and Hajime Mizoguchi's pulsating score increases the suspense even more.
The plot may sound quite cliched (part Rapunzel, part The Mists of Avalon, part Princess Mononoke), at least from how I've just described it, but Escaflowne nonetheless exudes confidence and consistency, and in astutely fusing adolescent romance with fantasy and adventure, it does ultimately cut a fairly unique swathe of its own. Studio Ghibli may the dominant name in anime films but theirs are by no means the only gems, and Escaflowne is one of many which prove that.
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