Escaflowne (film) - Production

Production

Escaflowne varies greatly from the original The Vision of Escaflowne series. With character re-designs by Nobuteru Yūki, the film focuses on the relationship between Van and Hitomi and their personal issues. The characters themselves are also given different personalities, with the film Hitomi changing from a cheerful girl in love to a depressed, suicidal schoolgirl who is suffering from self-induced feelings of loneliness and alienation. Van is also depicted as being more lonely and emotionally reserved, as well as being far more aggressive and willing to slay any perceived enemies than his more pacifistic series counterpart.

Although the Vision of Escaflowne series had been produced by Sunrise, the animation for the film was handled primarily by Studio BONES, a company founded by a number of ex-Sunrise staff. It was the first BONES feature film production. Studio co-founder Hiroshi Ōsaka and character designer Nobuteru Yūki split the animation director duties, with Ōsaka heading up production at BONES. Some of the film's action sequences were assigned to the studio's animators as talent showcases, notably including Yutaka Nakamura (who animated nearly a minute and a half of the opening sword fight without assistance).

The soundtrack was, as with the Vision of Escaflowne series, composed mostly by Yoko Kanno in collaboration with Hajime Mizoguchi.