Episode 25. Zone of Absolute Fortune: Van agrees to aid Cesario forces in holding the line against Zaibach while Hitomi returns to Asturia where Allen has come to terms with the Van x Hitomi pairing. Surprisingly Dryden returns the wedding ring to Princess Millerna, pledging to return and win her heart when he becomes the man worthy of her. In the heat of battle, Basram indiscriminately deploys a nuclear-like bomb which destroys more than three quarters of Zaibach’s forces. The rage of Zaibach’s enraged survivors starts to blemish Escaflowne like before. Hitomi feels Van’s suffering, goes to Folken and transports to Zaibach where Folken slays Donkirk and is fatally wounded when his own blade snaps and rebounds on him. Van senses Folken’s death and Hitomi feels his grief, triggering the fate alteration engine’s full power, the Zone of Absolute Fortune, everything has proceeded as (now Spirit form) Donkirk has foreseen.

Episode 26. Eternal Love: The Zone grants all wishes but as Zaibach retreats, the alliance disintegrates, turning on each other. Even Van and Allen come to blows as the latter rushes to Dilandau’s defence and Celena finally returns with Jajuka’s dying wish. The flowing animation of Allen and Van’s guymelef battle reflects their joy. The battle ends as Allen is distracted by siscon and Hitomi appears to Van. Hitomi finally realizes that she’s not just having a quarrel with Van but a lover’s quarrel. Van unveils his wings and flies towards Hitomi, his feathers raining down and calming the battle, he reaches her and their reunion stops the Atlantis machine. Folken is buried back home, Fanelia is being rebuilt, Escaflowne is de-mobbed and Van sends Hitomi back to Earth using its drag-energist and she gives her pendant to him. Even though they are apart, they can still see each other anytime because their thoughts and wishes are in alignment.

Series Review

For a Sunrise series, I really enjoyed the very romantic ending, almost had a Hoshi no Koe (before Hoshi no Koe) feel to it. It was quite rushed but at least the ending made sense to me and rightly focused on Van x Hitomi. The Sunrise staple themes of the tragedy of war (well intentioned people can do bad things) and the dangers of forcibly trying to change fate/human nature were nowhere as heavyhanded as in later series and was nicely balanced by the romantic angle. That balance worked because Hitomi was a strong and central female lead.

A great debut for Maaya Sakamoto (voice of Lunamaria Hawke). Folken is probably my favourite Joji Nakata role (Giroro loses out by a whisker because he should really tell Natsumi to hold him tight and kiss him forever more often ); great use of his deep rich voice but without over-egging it which sadly happens all too often these days.

The art style, 4:3 ratio and 2 ch audio was somewhat dated and I was a bit cheesed off that, for the last ten minutes or so of dialogue, the sub-titles went AWOL! Fortunately it wasn’t too difficult to understand as this isn’t Ghost in the Shell but it was still a quality problem that shouldn’t have occurred. And my final gripe about the DVDs themsleves was how they were packaged as two box sets; would have been better to fit everything into one thinpak boxset (clearly one entire whole rather than first and second season) and in 7 DVDs rather than 8 (last four DVDs in the second box had only three episodes in each DVD) but I suppose the DVD and boxsets were manufactured back in the days when licensees still were fantasizing about mass rather than niche sales.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

This was all very SUNRISE – the catgirls may have been portrayed as the bad gals but their back story makes them more sympathetic and are still shown to truly care for Folken. And finally it is those bonds of affection and the terrible cost that shatters Folken’s loyalty to Donkirk. It’s also the first instance of Hitomi taking her grandma’s advice – trusting in her feelings and getting a good result.

Episode 22. The Black Winged Angel: The weedy Asturian nobility discuss handing Hitomi over to Zaibach. Van receives a message from the beastmen that Folken is waiting for him in the ruins of Fanelia. Flying there with Hitomi in tow, they are confronted by land dragons and we get the back story of what happened to Folken during his dragonslaying rite. He teaches a Yoda-like lesson to Van; fear and anger do just lead to the Dark Side but also to getting munched on by dragons!

And so the brothers were reunited. Folken was really quite cool and you can see how Van would look up to him and why he was so bitterly disappointed that he disappeared and then turned up serving Zaibach. Also probably one of Joji Nakata’s roles that I don’t think GIRO GIRO GIRO. There was a particularly surreal scene in Zaibach when one of the big four generals looked at a certain someone looking at a snail. How was that related to the state of Zaibach?

Episode 23. Storm Premonition: Returning to Asturia, Folken convinces the other countries of Zaibach’s hostile intentions and an alliance is formed. Relations between Van and Folken remain tense and Folken’s alteration still stings in the Hitomi rabu triangle. Zaibach launches a pre-emptive strike on the alliance’s forward base and we see the return of Dilandau with new flunkie, the lion-man, Jajuka. But Hitomi is horrified by how she can sense Van’s enjoyment of killing and fighting, driven by his thoughts of protecting her. Scotty beams her back to Earth.

Quite surprised that Folken didn’t say anything about messing with Van x Hitomi x Allen. I suppose it’s easier to forgive conquest, espionage and diplomacy with technological and intel gifts but playing with a girl’s heart recalls that phrase about hell hath no fury. With Hitomi returning to Earth, it sets the scene for how Van x Hitomi hold the key to the fate of Gaea.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

Good grief, security at these Imperial headquarters are terrible! The converse of that old adage that the most dangerous place is also the safest place is also applicable. I loved how love between two people was described as a form of gravity given that attraction operates in both cases (though in different meanings); I don’t know enough basic physics to know how far the analogy can be stretched but, hey, physics has never stopped animu before. Rocket dragon FTW!

Episode 19. Operation Golden Rule of Love: Donkirk notes that Van x Hitomi = Level Up and orders Folken to break them up. Using hairs and the Fate Alteration Engine, Folken and one of his catgirls attempt to pair Hitomi with Allen instead. It works, coming hot on the heels of Van making the same mistake with Hitomi at Freid and the damage is sealed by a kiss in the rain.

Van no baka! Well, being upset like that is surely a sure sign that Hitomi is in love with Van. Why else would she be upset at him if she didn’t value his love? Look on the bright side, at least he came straight out and wanted you… for your power – still better than The Awful Truth. And we learn that the Shoop Shoop Song is right! I did feel rather sorry for the twist about the catgirl who got to kiss her dear Folken-sama as part of re-directing the Hitomi x Van vector; in the end, she felt that it was her sister who didn’t kiss Folken who got to keep the dream of having Folken’s love.

Episode 20. False Vows: Allen ‘fesses to Hitomi and tells her about Chid. Millerna comes to her for a reading about her marriage to Dryden and Hitomi changes the cards to say that the marriage will have some small teething problems but will bring her happiness. But fulfilling Hitomi’s vision of devastation, the catgirls attempt to kidnap and due to their super luck charge up, everyone else is powerless to stop them.

I liked how there was a great deal of ambiguity about Hitomi’s fortunetelling. In the first place, Millerna should not have asked her because she knew that Hitomi is not an uninvolved party and there’s a conflict of interest; it’s a sensible rule that one cannot tell one’s own fortune since you are too bound up in your own feelings. It was also quite sad to see how Hitomi blamed herself when Zaibach was going to attack anyway, that needless claiming of responsibility and blame as a means of countering guilt. She really needs to watch the Spider Mistress arc of xxxHOLIC to understand how she can’t just sacrifice herself because it’s also irresponsible to ignore all the cares and worries and sacrifices that others have for her.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.