hontou ni sou omou?

Episode 5. Seal of the Brothers: Van is captured and recognizes Folken as his elder brother by his wings. The latter wants his younger brother to join him in helping Donkirk rule the galaxy fight a war to end all wars but Van refuses. With the helping of Hitomi’s esper powers, Allen locates the flying fortress and launches a daring assault to rescue Van and recover Escaflowne; Hitomi makes one helluva long jump to warn Van against a backstabbing Dilandau who ends up requiring plastic surgery.

Episode 6. Capital of Intrigue: The gang arrive in Palas, capital of Asturia, which turns out to be like Neo-Venezia without the undines and a lot more corrupt. The king brushes off Allen’s warning as Folken has already fed him some cock and bull story about Faniela being the one who attacked Zaibach first. Van confronts Folken again and Hitomi saves the young king from an ultra long range sneak attack by Dilandau. King Aston and his merchant banker pal Meiden subject Escaflowne to a battle against three ruthless mercenaries.

Episode 7. Unexpected Partings: Van disables all his opponents by destroying the energist power cores. The king later proposes absorbing Escaflowne and Van into their armed forces to hide them from Zaibach. Hitomi is distressed when Princess Millerna kisses Allen but she’s captured by some geckos on the orders of Meiden who wants her for his harem. Alerted by Merle, Van pursues the gecko craft in the waterways with Escaflowne, Hitomi is surprised when he rescues her - she had been expecting/hoping for Allen. But Zaibach discovers Escaflowne, Dilandau doing serious collateral damage to the city before Allen’s intervention allows them to make their escape.

Episode 8. The Day the Angel Flew: Van starts to tell a homesick Hitomi about how his brother was supposed to be king but never returned from his dragonslaying trial. It becomes plain that Asturia will allow Zaibach to use it as a staging area for an attack on the dukedom of Fried, location of a ‘power spot’ sought by Donkirk. In order to warn Fried, whose prince is the son of the late Princess Marlene, Millerna helps Allen to escape from preventive custody. Meanwhile Van destroys an energist mine and unfurls his wings to save Hitomi.

All those feathers made me think CLAMP but, of course, Donkirk’s ambition to recreate the world without war is a familiar SUNRISE theme. Even the name of his Destiny Prognostication Engine seems to be a predecessor to Gilbert Durandal’s Destiny plan.

It was nice to see Hitomi not depend totally on her esper powers but also to use her athleticism to play an active role in the plot. Escaflowne is really interesting as a series because it’s about a girl who is the linchpin, actively making choices that determine the fates of all those around her and who has a choice of two strong male leads. Thus, even with the mecha, we won’t be seeing Hitomi doing the KIRA! ATHRUN! screaming routine (also in SCRYED, Code GEASS) simply because she isn’t pitted against anyone in that ’so good almost gay together friend’/'deadly enemy’ dynamic.