Greetings, you have found my messy general/multifandom blog. Mostly my favorite fantasy universes: Escaflowne, Berserk, SNK, ASOIAF, etc. Plus some anime nostalgia, art and inspirartion. Never been too consistent in anything, don't expect me to start now.
cleaning/typesetting/checking: ONGOING (contact me if you wanna help out tho!)
Escaflowne Newtype Novels (from the beginning this time)
Novel 1 Prologue: page 20/20 COMPLETE!
Novel 1 Chapter 1: page 96/96 COMPLETE!
Novel 1 Chapter 2: page 162/162 COMPLETE!
Novel 1 Chapter 3: page 216/216 COMPLETE!
Novel 1 Chapter 4: page 250/265 ONGOING
Escaflowne Movie Drama
CD1 Earth: COMPLETE proofread ONGOING
CD2 Gaea: COMPLETE proofread ONGOING
Escaflowne Movie Novel
Chapter 1 COMPLETE proofread ONGOING
Chapter 2 COMPLETE proofread ONGOING
Chapter 3 COMPLETE
Chapter 4 COMPLETE
Chapter 5 ONGOING
I accept Escaflowne-related requests (such as, what exactly does the character say in this or that scene, small doujins, official art notes like those I’ve done before, etc.)! If you’d like to help out, beta readers are always needed here!
NurseRomance!AU…starring Millerna, of course! ;DDD Perhaps she’s the first lady doctor in the place, trying to prove herself! Perhaps Dryden is the rich, (supposedly) idiotic son of the family who owns the hospital, but of course has secrets depths! He’s really into Millerna, but she’s a Career Gal with Noble Medical Intentions who has no time for playboys! Perhaps there’s a love triangle with Allen, or else he’s just her ex! Side-characters galore! (Van and Hitomi side-romance?)
It practically writes itself! Except not really, lolololol!
Okay, so Van would be roughly her equal, right, so he’s a surgeon (because sharp things), maybe? And Hitomi…
Hitomi could be in the radiology department. (Because she sees the unseen. heh)
Can Eries be someone in the regulations or insurance department?
Allen is a nurse. In the maternity ward. Because why not?
Celena/Dilandau can part of the psych ward or burn unit.
LOVE Hitomi as a radiologist! Also, OF COURSE Eries works in admin. OF COURSE. (Celena/Dilandau in the burn unit is both perfect and ripe for hilarity? XD)
I could strangely get behind Van as a surgeon… Allen in the maternity ward is also kind of fitting/hilarious. But maybe he works security instead? Head of security? 🤔
Folken: Anesthesiologist? (I mean, he drugged Van that one time, lol.)
Gaddes: Long-suffering orderly, definitely.
Okay, because @ruinsoftime hasn’t suggested it (even though it’s her idea), obviously the title for this AU story would be “Gaea’s Anatomy”.
Escaflowne had some pretty distinct animation directors on board, and I think these four had the most recognizable throughout the series. Which one’s your favorite?
Hiroki Kanno (episodes 3, 6, 13, 19, second half of episode 25; narrower, “cuter” eyes, smaller noses, smaller faces)
Hiroshi Osaka (episodes 1, 5, 10, 17, 22, 26; style doesn’t stand out until episode 10, where you can see the noses getting longer and facial features in general getting more…trademark Escaflowne-y?)
Shigeki Kuhara (episodes 2, 7, 14, 24; longer bangs, big, glassy eyes, with a thicker outline around them; I also realize this is an unflattering shot that doesn’t do the strength’s of the style justice, but I wanted to get the closest face-forward shots I could find so comparing would be easier, and this was the best I could find)
Why am I posting a random train video? Well, you gotta wait for it… Today, Escaflowne is older than its number of episodes for the first time. Happy anniversary! I thought I’d finally post this thing that is so overdue, you wouldn’t believe. Thanks @coverteyes for proofreading once again, I would likely not get this out anytime soon without her help!
Warning: this is very long and image-heavy under the cut. Preview:
“I
asked you,” he said quietly, “if Huntington knew about—”
“About
the shanty girl of Pine Valley,” she mocked, “who sang in a dime
store for a living? Oh, yes, I told him. But strange as it may seem
to you, he doesn’t mind at all. He said it’s what I am today
that counts and that I can forget all my life up to now.”
“But
you didn’t,” he insisted, taking a step around the luggage and
towering over her suddenly, “tell him about you and me, did you?”
We’re
continuing with the Frances Lake (McKenna) spree, this time with
“Love For the Asking,” a short story/novelette published in the
July 1941 issue of Love
Fiction Monthly. The issue isn’t formally digitized, but you can view/download a
PDF of the story here. (As more and more of the romance stories I review aren’t available
online, and as WordPress only allows me so much space, I decided to
try something different, as far as sharing them goes. We’ll see if
I go back and edit earlier posts accordingly, or if I just leave them
as is, with pictures attached to the bottom. At any rate, this will
also solve the issue of what to do with those non-digitized stories
that don’t really warrant a full write-up, but that I’d like to
share anyway. I’ve
admittedly been slacking on updating my Pulp
Romance Guide,
and that’s part of the reason.)
But
yes, another Frances Lake story! Heads up that I’m not going to do
a full
summary of it, but it may initially seem like I am, because if I’ve
learned one thing after reading five of her works, it’s that this
bitch LOVES a complicated, convoluted set-up (and I, frankly, love
her for
it <3).
During a random search, I came across images of this adorable figurine.
I’ll admit I’m swooning just a little. The details kill me. From Van’s boots to his gloves to Hitomi’s uniform to their beautiful eyes and hair. I love this so much.
Old fans might recognize this from an old Livejournal post. Anyway, since that site seems pretty dysfunctional, I copied them here. I can’t find links to the original images.
According to a comment on that linked post, this was custom made for a magazine and is a one-of-a-kind item.
One more pic here and more of the kit here. Also, holy crap, I just found out Heavy Gauge apparently held a poll in Japan 10 years ago and people could vote to actually release this 🥺 I mean I always considered it pretty unrealistic, but there had been a REAL (even if tiny) chance. I need a minute.
Don’t blame the messenger, lol. But yes, it does say that.
But then, I was thinking… what did I think of the whole thing, really? Why would he be so desperate to meet this girl he only talked for a while again? Why else would Allen flip out when Dryden reads about her from the journal? Well, the obvious take is that he “fell in love” with her and dumped his family for that. What’s your take?
This actually gave me a reason to do something I had planned for a longer while: to take a closer look at the Leon and Hitomi’s grandma situation.
I need to put this somewhere before I forget about it… some time ago, we were discussing in Slack how Allen’s middle name is Crusade (Allen Crusade Schezar) and that the artbook confirms that the ship is named after him. And iirc, nobody was too hot about that, cause how tacky and self-centered is that?
Anyway, it seems the ship belongs to Allen, it’s not a property of the state, like Scherazade probably is…
And I don’t remember if we ever came to that conclusion or not in Slack (it’s behind paywall by now), but I just had this random thought out of nowhere and now I want to headcanon that Leon had got and named the ship when his son was born~ So, just to adding this here to my “making Leon a bit less of a jerk” pile of headcanons.
Is the anime Aura Battler Dunbine the prototype for Vision of Escaflowne?
This sword and sorcery meets mecha anime was created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Studio Sunrise between 1983 and 1988, and is an “isekai” about a brave young Japanese man who is transported to the parallel world of Byston Well and forced to fight in a war using giant mechas called Aura Battlers.
I have only seen clips and still images from this anime, but I think the art style has some similarities with Escaflowne. Although the human characters have that classic 80′s action anime vibe and don’t look much like the Escaflowne characters, the Aura Battlers have the same curvy “Art Nouveau” aesthetic as the Guymelefs. The Zaibach Alseides Guymelefs look a LOT like the Aura Battlers in terms of design, and the hero is wearing an outfit that looks like a more colourful version of the Dragonslayers’ uniforms.
Beyond the mecha design, the series is often highly praised for its exciting plot and sympathetic characters (especially strong and complex female characters) as well as the detailed world building that fuses medieval fantasy with science fiction elements. Those are the same reasons many folks love Escaflowne!
One day, I’d like to watch the whole series and see how many “inspirations” for Escaflowne I can find in Aura Battler Dunbine. If you’ve seen this anime, what is your opinion of it?
What if Aura Battler Dunbine is secretly set in the same world as Escaflowne, and it is just another epoch of Gaea’s history? What a cross over fanfiction that would make!
I’ve seen Escaflowne being called a “Dunbine ripoff” before, so not sure if Dunbine fans would agree with an Escaflowne-centric view like that, haha. I think the ground concepts are similar but the genre is a bit different. Escaflowne is quite eclectic like that, but for me it’s not a bad thing, it’s definitely a fascinating combo of influences and an improvement on many of them. And it’s actually quite interesting looking for its sources of inspiration. But others may call it cliché and unoriginal for the same reasons.
Those people (and there’s quite a bit of them and can be quite loud) who wished Escaflowne had the same caped mecha, same worldbuilding, but didn’t have a girl heroine, romantic subplot, and all those shoujo elements should definitely watch this I think. I haven’t watched it yet myself but it’s my impression from what I’ve heard of Dunbine. Anyone here watched it to tell us more?
♀ | SVK | 1988 | artist
