First of all, I should mention that Escaflowne is my favorite anime series of all time. My only fault with the series is that it has box art that can inspire ridicule in anyone within a five mile radius. So, most people would automatically assume that I hated Fox the moment they announced it. Well, they're wrong. I gave Fox a chance to do it correctly before I hated them. Well, they messed it up. So NOW I hate them. Many people might not see the diference, but I do. In fact, I'm going to give a detailed reason of why I hate what they've done. Whether or not you wanted it.

First of all, the voice actors. I find these actors the most ironic things about the entire deal. Most of them are good matches: Van, Allen, Folken, Gaddes, Dornkirk, Mole, and most of the others sound pretty good, and fit their roles quite well. Only one problem: They all suck (except maybe Folken, who I'm reserving judgement on until I hear more lines). They sound like they don't care, or that they're reading out of a book. Van manages to try, but he can't seem to get it right. Now, for the big screwups: namely, Dilandou and Merle. Dilandou is played by the same voice actor as Gohan of DBZ fame (I'm pretty sure about that, but don't sue me if I'm wrong. It certainly sounds like it, anyway), while Merle is played by some 30-year-old trying to sound younger than she really is. Both voices couldn't be more off for their characters. This, however, is where the irony sets in. These are the only two voice actors who are any good. Not good for their PARTS, mind you. But good at voice acting. So, basically we have a whole crew of people who fit their parts and suck, and a couple who couldn't be more off but are good. You see why I'm pissed, right?

NOTE: I've now found out that my suspicions on Allen were correct: He's played by Zechs from GW. Also, Van is being played by Trowa of the same, which shows why he wasn't able to do much emotion in the first half-dozen episodes. He's gotten better by the end though.

Next up, the music. IT'S HORRIBLE! THEY HAVEN'T PLAYED A SINGLE CORRECT TRACK AT THE CORRECT TIME YET! THEY REPLACED ALL THE GREAT STUFF WITH GENERIC CRAPPY TECHNO! THEY TOTALLY DESTROYED ONE OF THE BEST MUSICAL SCORINGS EVER!
Now that I have that out of my system. Moving on.

Thankfully, they haven't been too bad on cutting things. Aside from nixing the first episode (and trying to cram the important parts into flashbacks in the second - all in the time of one episode, creating a horrible rushed affair), they haven't cut much footage. They say that they're going to cut one more episode. I think it'll be 24, as that will be totally horrible without seeing the first one. That would be a real shame, because the series will skip horribly, and it would cut out two of the most touching scenes in the entire series (when Hitomi leaves and returns, respectively). It remains to be seen how much of the rest they cut out (the Gender-bending, some of the deeper plot points, the whole Allen romance thing, etc.), but I can always hope for the best, even when expecting the worst.

NOTE: It turns out that when they said they would show 24 of the episodes, they meant PARTS of 24 of the episodes. So they're really only going to show about 20 or so. And I can't see any of them because I'm in America. Bastards.

In all fairness, Fox hasn't bungled TOO much yet. The voices hurt a lot, as does the music (or lack thereof), but these are not insurmountable hurdles. It's still infinitely better than Digicrap, and therefore will only have 1/1000 of the fanbase. Still, this is the kind of thing I wish Cartoon Network had picked up. It really would have been so much better that way. At least this failure may stop Fox from trying to grab anything else that doesn't belong with them.

Don't like it? Then E-mail me. I'm really not that busy.