30-DAC | Day 11 | Favorite Mech Anime

It makes me sad that I am not able to properly do this challenge. I wasn’t able to finish writing and scheduling posts (Day 26 was written way before this one!) then I got some issues in real life, so here I am just now even if it is long overdue. I just can’t bear not to finish it, so starting now, I’ll be continuing the challenge.

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Day 11 – Favorite Mech Anime

Let me just say that I don’t watch a lot of Mech Anime because, well, I’m just not fond of them. The only ones I’ve seen are Gundam SEED and Destiny, Zoids (whether it’s Genesis or Zero or the first, I don’t know anymore), Code Geass, and just a more. Not more than my 10 fingers. Here’s my choice, though:

The Vision of Escaflowne

Synopsis:
High school student Hitomi is transported from Earth to the magical world of Gaea, where she meets boy prince Van Fanel, and is caught up in his quest to unite the countries of Gaea against the ominous Zaibach empire. On the way, she discovers an hidden ability and strives to unravel layers of mystery surrounding Van, his past, and the giant machine known as Escaflowne.

Produced by TV Tokyo and Bandai Visual and animated by Sunrise, it is written by Kawamori Shoji (Macross, Genesis of Aquarion) and directed by Kazuki Akane (Noein, Code Geass: Akito the Exiled). Wonderful music are composed by Kanno Yoko and Mizoguchi Hajime. It also has one of my favorite OPs ever, Yakusoku wa Iranai which I talked about in an old post. This is one of my loved tracks there:

The anime has 26 episodes which ran from Spring 1996 till the following season. I thought that those 26 episodes are a bit short for the story, though. A lot of the things felt rushed especially around the ending. The world is interesting, but I thought it’s not build nicely as I felt that I wanted to know more about each of the worlds presented.

I remember that I felt frustrated by their designs just because of their pointy noses when in side view. But I liked the designs of Escaflowne and the likes. (I love Escaflowne’s different looks!) I also had a lot of like-hate feelings for the characters, especially with Hitomi, though when I re-watched it again last year after a loooong time, I realized that she’s not as frustrating. I used to dislike the ending, but after re-watching, I found her decision understandable and realistic. But I still think it’s a bit rushed.

So why is this my favorite mecha? Mostly because of feelings. I’m a sentimental person, if you haven’t noticed from my posts. Haha. Anyhow, this is one of my late childhood anime series and I’m attached to it because it’s one of those I remember fangirling on with my best friend. I liked Van, its OST, Sakamoto Maaya… I also owe to this series my discovery of the wonderful composer Kanno Yoko!

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I discovered late that Rockman.EXE (or MegaMan NT Warrior) is tagged with mecha on MAL. I would’ve put that instead here had I been not so lazy to re-write the whole thing. I’m still leaving this here just to blab a bit about it. Hahaha!

Why prefer it over Escaflowne? All because I’m more attached to it. My brothers and I bought merchandise of that series when we were young. We watched various seasons of it. I had a huge crush with Enzan and Blues, too! But yeah. I know it’s really something most adults may not be able to enjoy anymore. I’m not even sure if I’ll still like it if I’ll watch it again. If I do, a large part of reason may be because it reminds me a lot of some memories of the past.

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