♀ | SVK | 1988 | artist 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. PLEASE NOTE I'M NOT PART OF ANY TUMBLR COMMUNITIES.
If you interact with my post within a community or even tag me there, it won't show up in my notifications and I likely won't see it. Thanks.
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 265/265 COMPLETE
Novel 2: reading COMPLETE
Novel 3: reading COMPLETE
Novel 4: reading COMPLETE
Novel 5: reading ONGOING
Escaflowne Movie Audio Drama
CD1 Earth: COMPLETE
CD2 Gaea: COMPLETE
Escaflowne Movie Novel
Chapter 1 - 10 COMPLETE
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!
EDIT: Sorry folks, since I can’t seem to pin more than one post on tumblr, I will also include links to my other translation/related ramblings, analyses and such for better navigation. Best I can do is make a cut here.
Gen Escaflowne
My Escaflowne Pilgrimage (2023)
My Escaflowne Collection (2023)
Short treatise on Escaflowne fanbooks (2022)
Escaflowne TV lore
My musings about Fanelia (2016)
The use of honorifics in Escaflowne (2015)
I’d love to know (2016)
The deepest Tarot Card lore (2025)
Leon’s bearded weirdness (2022)
Translation Easter Eggs (2022)
Escaflowne Movie lore
The movie trivia megapost (2025)
Thoughts after translating the CD drama (2024)
The secret OST (2025) TBA
Thoughts after translating the novel (2025) TBA
Preliminary notes on translating the CD drama (2022)
More of my translations and keyboard abuse of various kind can be found at @heavenlydragon and @visarcana.
After I and various people touched upon that, I started to feel the need to clarify that I don't join the Tumblr Communities and why. Long story short, it's nothing personal, I just can't wrap my head around this feature and how it should benefit anything. So I'm sort of boycotting it, at least for now.
When the communities got introduced, I thought "oh yeah, this could be the sort of groupchat/replacement for the message boards thing this website lacks" so I was hopeful. Unfortunately, it caught me at a time where I personally needed to take a break from social interaction. So I didn't join any, just stayed behind as an onlooker. Sometimes I got notified that something of mine got reblogged to a community. I thought nothing of it. Naturally, I felt like it was still my post and I wouldn't miss any interaction with my post. It felt natural to me as a long-time internet user that I wouldn't. And when none came, again, I thought it natural, cause what I post is old and unpopular stuff, yk?
And I was wrong. On some occasion, I received screenshots of the comments under my post reblogged by someone else in a community. It was something that maybe I would have liked to discuss myself but it wasn't happening under my own post. And there were even comments under the post that tagged me (as people saw that I was the OP)... and I stilll got nothing. Because I was not a member of that community.
It was then I understood that it behaved like reposting. Probably the person who reblogged it there got notifications, but not me. It was no longer my post; it was their original post in that community. So it was already back then the same thing as what tumblr has tried a while back and received such backlash for it; reblog became its own post. What took the cake was someone tagging me in the comment, seeing as I was the OP of that post... and I got nothing. I'm irrelevant, because I'm outside that community. To see the interaction with my own post there, I needed to join the group.
Seeing this, I finally checked the communities properly and honestly, I saw not many benefits there. Okay, you can react with an emoji, but you could always do that if you really wanted, in a comment or in tags. There is no improvement to the discussion structure; it's the same old comments as on a regular tumblr post. Plus, there is no tagging, there is no search to look up the old posts. It's just... flavor of the day, oblivion the next... the state of today's internet.
And I honestly can't support this unless significant changes are done to it. For example, thanks to the tagging system on my blogs, I can easily find a five-year-old post if I thought of it. Would take a few minutes at max. If I tried to do the same in a community, I would have to scroll until my fingers fell off. It seems like it's good for discussion but even if anything would get discussed there (not just reacted to), a new comment doesn't bump the post to the top so any discussion happening is stale and buried after a couple of days. It makes it seem a half-assed job as a function.
But more importantly, it ruins what tumblr is. Or was, anyway. You could follow interesting blogs and interesting people and discover new things thanks to them. If I discovered an interesting creator, I followed them. If I liked A and B and saw someone posting about them, I followed them. And these guys (sometimes forcibly) introduced me to C and D, which usually was interesting to me because I was someone with similar tastes and so I trusted their judgment of a show or such. Now, A, B, C, and D all have their community bubble which you would normally not wander into, unless you already knew them. So you find it and you are there, in your bubble. Or you take it one step further, to Discord, totally away from the public internet. For older and small fandoms, I think not having anything public available (where you can just anonymously lurk for a while for example) is a death sentence.
The bubble used to be the tag; you followed the tag or checked it regularly, and mainly, followed the blogs and met new people. I honestly see the benefit of a community more if you were creating a super secret club that you actually don't want everyone to see or join. You cannot reblog a community post from a community to public tumblr; but if you wanted to make a community to secretly mock someone there, for example, sure, why not. Honestly, the only community I saw and loved was the Ant Colony RP, because it's a community for itself, it creates its own content, and I admit that it worked much better in that format than if they just used a specific tag or something.
One last thing is the duplication, triplication, etc. I see it for myself, I run a fandom blog. And as I do that, I grew too lazy to duplicately reblog everything, no matter how much it deserves it, from that blog to this personal one, for example. It's no longer fun, it's tiresome. So I understand why people would start only using communities to reblog stuff and maybe only use their blog for original posts. Or if they dropped their fanblog after they created a community for that same thing. I don't even know if new fanblogs are being created after communities started. I honestly don't know what the recommended way of using tumblr is now and each new feature somehow tries to prove me that I'm doing it wrong somehow.
@staff / @changes
PS: I'm not telling anyone to stop using or making communities. But if you could just remember that your comments, questions, or any sort of feedback under my posts in the communities will not reach me. And that may be true for any other original poster as well.
Researching the Gaean Writing System, Part 2 (Atlantean Twist)
Escaflowne Week 2026, Day 6
Mysteries of Gaea / Ruins
It is not necessary to read part 1 to understand this one, but if this is something you would be interested in, I recommend you to read that one first!
I’ve wanted to look into this deeper many times already so I’m glad that I finally managed, thanks to @escaflowneweek. Truth be told, I just wanted this post to be about the conclusions to my part 1 research and scanning that one part of the artbook. I just wanted to be like, “oh hey, there is also this “Atlantean” script in the artbook but that one is handed to us on a plate, so I’m just giving it to you as is…”
Then I took a better look and I sighed, because this was turning out to be a longer post than I originally anticipated, again. Thinking that I originally wanted to do it all in one post is laughable now. Good news is, it’s not gonna be 15 pages of insanity like the last time, either. Without further ado, here’s the table as it appears in the artbook:
Origins and inspirations
First things first, I was wondering if they created this writing system from scratch or if there were some historical, or even ahistorical, references when creating the glyphs and letters. The short description in the book mentions (hiero)glyphs and it really makes you think of ancient civilizations and their writing systems. Considering the origins of those forms may have been pictures, it would have a lot in common with Egyptian hieroglyphs. To me, the most similar-looking system would be the Cretan hieroglyphs:
Perhaps with some hints of Phoenician (as we know, some of the names of these characters were used to create some of the Gaean names):
If we are speaking of the legendary Atlantis, obviously, no historical sources from there, but we actually have a few made-up alphabets to choose from. Funnily enough, I see most similarities in the Disney one:
It is created into a lot of detail, but it does not, actually, precede the Escaflowne one. Otherwise, there are quite a few similarities but I guess those could be explained by both sort of devolving the Latin alphabet to this fictional writing system.
As we know, Atlantis has been a popular myth for centuries and some treatises were published that I guess the creators must have familiarized themselves with to create the specific Escaflowne brand of the Atlantean myth (but that is maybe a topic for another time). Speaking of the (possible) Atlantean writing system, for example, the Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882) by Ignatius Donnelly makes a point of similarities between the ancient scripts that were being used on both sides of the Atlantic. The bridge being, presumably, the Atlantean civilization. But that just kind of returns us to the ancient Greek and Phoenician.
So I did not reach any conclusion about whether there were any existing things inspiring this made-up writing system or if the creators just used their imagination. Either way, I think they did a great job! Let me explain…
Atlantean and Gaean
When I started on this post, I roughly knew what the script looked like (I used it for a decoration in one of my pics) and I knew where to find it, but my memories were pretty vague. It took all that previous research of resources like Gaean characters’ journals and letters to actually see how deep this goes!
The Atlantean symbols actually look kind of familiar. Similar enough to see what the creators intended… the Gaean writing system developed from Atlantean! Which is pretty awesome. And thanks to this neat table, I can even possibly uncover the last secrets left that I just could not figure out using the screenshots alone. Let’s post it here once more, with a translation this time:
So the way this is presented makes me think of Japanese, because of how it’s mostly syllables instead of singular characters (making it more of a syllabary, too). For those who don’t know, I refer to Japanese alphabets hiragana and katakana. The only singular letters you have in them are A, I, U, E, O, and N. Other individual symbols represent syllables like KA, KI, KU, KE, KO… SA, SHI, SU, SE, SO… etc. And they are usually organized according to that a-i-u-e-o order, which is also how they order things “alphabetically” in Japan. That’s why I said it is the equivalent of a-b-c-d-e when I spotted the string on the cover of Marlene’s diary.
Anyway, back to this Atlantean script, so they represent it visually in the same way as one would hiragana or katakana, but some letters and whole rows are actually missing. We have the A, KA, GA, SA, ZA, TA, DA, NA, HA, PA, BA, MA, YA, RA, and WA rows, but miss the VA row (which is kinda strange given that it’s used in Varie’s – the only known character from that culture – name in katakana) and N. F is also kind of confusing, because in Japanese, you have the FU in the H row and from FU, you create FA, FE, etc. Atlantean probably doesn’t work like that, which means we are missing the entire F row. And Gaean doesn’t help because it seems P and F are used interchangeably there, which I realized while working on this (and it also reminded me of Korean).
But for the N, you can actually help yourself and derive it from the N row:
If you compare it to the A row, it’s easy to see what is happening here:
So this is how you’d derive an Atlantean N:
And now flashback to the Gaean N (double here in Dryden’s signature):
Neat, huh? If you look at the other letters as well, I think it becomes obvious that you can find the remnants of Atlantean in Gaean language.
What I still couldn’t seem to figure out was the B in the Gaean script. When I derived the Atlantean B though (like I just did with N), it kind of looked similar to Gaean V, as seen in the word “lover” and such. But the missing V row in Atlantean and a certain interchangeability of B and V in Japanese (Van/Baan being a prime example) told me that perhaps I should just combine the two. A similar thing is happening between C&K (their Gaean versions seem hard to differentiate) and P&F (which I already mentioned before).
Remember Gaean has those compounds as well? But they are not simply syllables and their use seems kind of irregular and depending on the writer. They can bind two consonants, not only a consonant and a vowel like Atlantean (at least according to the syllabary table). And yeah, since they write “English” they are not even necessary, you don’t need to combine them into some complicated shape, putting them one after another should work just as well. Nevertheless, this one thing convinced me they are remnants of the Atlantean script as well.
See how the whole column of U compounds in Atlantean fits the consonant inside the U-shaped enclosure? Well, the same thing is happening in Gaean. Some things are the same, some got simplified, perhaps some other influences stepped in, differences in handwriting, trends, localizations and such… which all formed “modern” Gaean that originally developed from the “ancient” Atlantean. That’s pretty believable if you ask me.
It also tickles my imagination, thinking of how it must have been Atlanteans who brought written language to Gaean, and how they even found the human society on the planet they created. I think it’s pretty plausible they assumed the role of an “advanced civilization” who brought inventions and development with them, much like they are portrayed in some of the theories on Earth. As a civilization who (or whose remnants after the cataclysm) had shared their knowledge with civilizations such as Maya or Egypt and helped them to achieve those things we still are in awe about today.
I already said that I much appreciate these extra miles that the creators went to deliver an organic fantasy world. And this really is one of the deepest lore things I’ve ever seen so far in any fantasy franchise. I’m pretty happy that the revealed Atlantean sort of helped me confirm some of my guesses from the previous post that I felt may have been a bit unfounded. And finally, I can uncover the mysteries of Gaea and of the Atlantean ruins and give you my current final best guess table as the final conclusion of these two posts:
(picture is just illustrative... my notes and doodles working on this)
I have wanted to do this for SUCH a long time, and when one of the prompts turned out to be Calligraphy, I knew it might be the final push to do it. Warning, this is ultra long under the cut and I will probably have to edit it later cause it's a mess... BUT it IS interesting to me at least!
So, how did I start on this research? First of all, I needed to see all the script that actually appeared on the screen. And here’s what I remembered as instances of the actual script being used:
Dryden’s letter transferring his fleet to Ispano in exchange for Escaflowne's repairs
Leon’s diary that Dryden pries out of Allen as a thanks for that magnanimous deed of his
Marlene’s diary Millerna finds in Freid
Some other minor instances of text being visible in the frame
(Sorry, they are not chronological but in the order I’m gonna use.)
Starting with Dryden’s letter.
This is the extent of what is visible out of it. Please note the fine letterhead decoration! It’s a pattern, the diaries we see are nicely decorated as well. And Dryden uses a wax seal as his legal signature (his ring serves as the stamp).
But we’re here for the contents. At this place, I immediately want to say that Dryden has the neatest handwriting out of the three writers. And from this little piece of information, I can already recover a few of the words and letters with almost 100% certainty.
Starting with the first one, Escaflowne! I am very confident it is Escaflowne, because they even used it in the title of the movie (the title of which is also simply “Escaflowne” in the original Japanese, using a similar script – see this post for reference). Aaand we can see quite a few of the inner workings of the script on this word alone. I think what is letter E in that word is pretty clear and resembles E in the Latin alphabet pretty obviously. Same with the S, C, and A there. But suddenly you’re running out of symbols and you still have the full “flowne” to cover.
And it's something I noticed later, too; some letter combinations (especially a consonant followed by a wovel) merge into some sort of compounds in the script. The “FL” is merged, and so is “ON”. I sort of proved it by analyzing the other words that contain the letters that are part of the compound alone.
Let’s jump to Dryden as he is signed in the letter, for example. D is pretty clear, R is pretty clear, I is pretty much the same, then another D, E we already know… and N is the same symbol as N in Escaflowne, just separate and double. Does that mean that the original Gaean spellings should be “Dridenn” and “Escaflone” then? We can’t say. But at least phonetically, we’re still in the same ballpark, right?
Another word that is pretty clearly visible to me there is “Please” … Especially knowing E and L already, it was pretty much without a doubt. WAIT WHAT, English? In my fantasy world? It’s more likely than you think. One of the sources for this Gaean script was Leon’s journal and Dryden DOES say it is written in the “language of the Mystic Moon” (rather than language of Gaea) so he first has to decipher it. But the other examples use the same script and contain English words as well, so there’s no real difference.
Actually, I read somewhere Hitomi was supposed to have picked up on that similarity of written Gaean to English but it was in the end cut out. Because, how does that make sense? Remember how Van speaks mangled Portuguese in episode 1 (and Hitomi hears and responds to him in Japanese?) Well, I think this whole script should be looked at as a nice Easter Egg by the creators, not something that we should draw conclusions out of as to what they speak. It was simply easier for them in the internet-less 90s to code some English words there than Portuguese.
Let’s take a look at another word, which I figured out might be REPAIRING. The top is cropped but I think the first letter could be R like in Dryden, without the extra “leg”. And I’m pretty sure that’s okay because it’s not the only time it happens. Perhaps it’s an artistic choice or should denote some nuance in the sound. Or it is just the lowercase R that has the extra “leg”. Next comes the clear E, then a merger of “PA” that I confirmed elsewhere. Next is a symbol reminiscent of a hiragana I (い) and I actually confirmed that it works as an I in other places. In the same word, there is the regular I, so perhaps one of them is supposed to be an Y (later edit, no, there IS a separate Y) or there is some other nuance. Next, the fancier (or lowercase) R. A normal I that we have already seen. N from Dryden(n). And something that has the general shape of a G, if you squint.
What’s left? What comes before “please”, for one. L is clear, E is clear and it’s possible that there should be an I and an S. And from this, I was immediately like “LEVISHIP”! Cause it makes sense, right? He exchanged leviship(s) for Escaflowne’s repairs. But then I was like, not so fast. First of all, in the original Japanese, there’s no “leviship”; it’s something descriptive in Japanese that got creatively translated as “leviship” for the English release. Not sure whether the original creators were consulted, but if they had coined a term in the local language for that thing (similar to, idk, gidaru or miet), I’m sure I would have encountered it somewhere. It STILL could be the Gaean term for the levitating ship, just the original version, instead of the English dub/sub one. But what do our letters imply there?
So, we have "L E_ _ E S _" so far, from the earlier findings. Also, from what I knew already, I realized that the missing middle is one of those merged two-letter compounds. So, the bottom part looked like a U, or what I suspected might be a U. And the top part kinda had something common with the C in “ESCAFLONE”. And the last letter, spoiler, is a T. So, it would be either LEUCEST or LECUEST. And I lean towards LECUEST to be honest, with the L being typically mistakenly used for R by Japanese people. So, my best guess for this word is REQUEST. Feel free to disprove me scientifically.
Alright, what’s left, Dryden? The short words between ESCAFLONE and REPAIRING which should contain T, possibly an I but used differently, with the bottom line. My best guess is that the first two letters are actually a compound of L and E and this could be "LET".
Then the next word that I lovingly call “ASS” cause it looks like it but the S is a bit different and C is a bit different, so it’s probably not an “ASS”. And the first letter might actually be O, from the actual findings. So, OSS or something (spoiler: it’s OVS as you’ll find out later and it probably has some grammatical function).
And then this part: WHICH MAKES ME FEEL LIKE AN EARLY EGYPTOLOGIST because watch:
It’s EVERYWHERE and that can’t be an accident. It must be something VERY COMMONLY used. Some equivalent of “I” “is”, “the”, or their combination perhaps.
So, the first letter in that second word looks like the established I so it could be IS or IN but both S and N look different? As for the little “lightning” (or tumblr's activity symbol if you want), I still don’t know. But let’s just call this combination of letters the “common expression” for now. And let’s get to the other materials, finally.
Okay, Leon’s journal. Dryden’s joy and Allen’s bane.
And the most helpful thing for me is the cover already. I mean this is pretty clear, right? JOURNAL...
From here, we get a pretty clear J, we see that the diamond thing is an O and cup-half-filled is U, R-N-A we already know and we confirm that L is really that sharp angle.
When Dryden reads the journal, it’s just scribbles and gibberish already. Right? RIGHT?
NO.
ENHANCE.
Both of these pages are actually WRITTEN in that Gaean script!
Leon uses the “common expression” quite often here. And this is what convinced me that SOMEONE actually gave effort to write something and code it into this language, then transfer it by hand into that angled shot. Knowing that nobody will probably be able to read it on a TV screen in the 90s. HA. Thirty years later, we have the technology and I’m gonna reap some words and letters from here, at the very least.
What do you see? I saw:
REDDER or READER, but it seems more like REDDER
PLAYDO(h) or maybe FLAYDO? Freid?! It’s there TWICE.
REDDER (again?)
ASSLOSER (j/k, idk what that is… OVSALOSER or sth)
MORALE?!
LOSER!
A same short word that appears in Dryden’s letter as well (no, not the “common expression”)
WAY, again twice, plus a:
WAT (same tbh)
Leon sounds a tad mad lol. But no, I’m actually only sure with REDDER and WAY here. But that still gives us W and Y as new letters for our alphabet. There are also more repeated symbols that we should store somewhere to possibly find their meanings later. The “trident”. The katakana “CHI” (千), the falling drunk E... And I see something Allen would like… or not. IDK. I’ll reveal it later.
It would be nice if such a shot actually appeared when Dryden reads the diary, so we would have a clue as to what the page is supposed to be about. But the screenshot is from the scene where Dryden just deciphers it alone in his study in a EUREKA moment (that was very relatable sight while working on this).
Also remember what I said about Leon having coded his diary into the Mystic Moon language? To hide the contents from the likes of Dornkirk? This a pure speculation, but imagine if he worked so hard to code it from “Portuguese” to “English” to obscure it from… Sir Isaac Newton. Comedy gold. But I’ve also never felt such sympathy towards Leon.
Let’s proceed to Marlene’s diary before I lose my mind.
Starting, again, with its cover.
First time I’m realizing this… the book seems to be bound in a Japanese way! Reading from what is back to us, to the front, like a manga. But that doesn’t make sense with the way the words are arranged on the page? Maybe a common mistake because THIS is what a book normally looks like to Japanese people. Or what we’re looking at here is not the title, but the back of the book and it is placed face down. Leon’s journal is bound in the “Western way” btw., I checked.
Actually, looking at the way she holds it suggests it’s the back page or the book is really being read from back to front. If it really is the back of the book, then the letters there don’t even have to be the title. It could be the name of the workshop that made it or something, right? As a sneaky advertisement…But let’s just call it the title here, for convenience’s sake and ENHANCE.
Okay, let’s skip the actual title (the first line) for now since that’s no simple and easy “journal” or “diary” this time around. The next line is a funny easter egg. From my current knowledge of Gaean, that is a “AIUEO”. Which is the Japanese equivalent of “ABCDE”… so gibberish, there, HA!
But the other stuff there does seem to be words. I can detect the existing characters there; it’s not just scribbles. There’s even two words in the brown part of the cover, but I guess those are impossible. Unless I find a detailed settei for this or something. And I already tried. There’s an image for ants of the diary in one of the books, which may have originally been a bigger piece of settei… but that’s how it got transferred to the artbook. Same with Leon’s diary. There’s no detailed settei for these in the published artbooks. So we gotta work with this.
What could be those words in the golden part? Besides the title (that we are still ignoring)… wouldn’t it make sense for it to be Marlene’s name? Her full name is Marlene Erisha (Alicia?) Aston. And the second letter in the third word surely looks like A, so it could be “MARLENE”. Except the first letter looks more like L. I see an N in the third position in the fourth row. I see the damn “common expression” again. But not much else, at least not known. But I don’t think it’s her name anymore.
Back to the title, first row. If it even is the title (assuming this may be the back cover). Anyway, there is some grouping happening there which I’ve seen elsewhere, too, but haven’t been able to decipher. The last part I’m pretty confident should be “ELIO” though. First letter could be a G (from Dryden’s REPAIRING) or another letter. This sounds like a word from a Latin-based language already, doesn’t it? If anyone speaking such language has a tip, shoot!
And let’s finally look inside the top-secret diary that would ruin a country if it was discovered. Pretty lamely hidden for that, Marlene.
FIRST OF ALL. Look at how they adjusted the script to look more feminine, because it was written by Marlene’s hand. This attention to detail just made me fell in love with the series again.
ANYWAY. There is a bit of panning happening here so I stitched this screenshot for the research purposes. This is the whole thing I’ll be working with (yeah getting rid of that shadow was a pain).
So, let me work some magic that I had already learned here.
Top right corner, again FLAYDO. So, it’s confirmed Freid. Marlene’s L is a bit different but it’s definitely not written as "Freid" (with an R as we know it) here. Anyway, I sincerely hope no one gets flayed in Freid.
Bottom of the page REDDER. AGAIN. My live reaction, wtf? But both in Leon’s journal and in here, the REDDER is followed by an empty space and the trident. Then what is the meaning of the trident???
Look in the top right corner of the page. Another trident. What would you expect there? THE DATE. Japanese school notebooks have similar brackets for the date printed in the top corner as well. SO THAT IS why it’s repeating. Like in Leon’s journal, the REDDER part is probably just new entry date appearing in the text. So, neither of the two starts their diary entries on a fresh page. But, likely for easier browsing, Marlene’s diary also has the date marked on top of the page.
Funny thing is, both in Leon’s and Marlene’s diary text, the part before the REDDER MOON is always conveniently obscured/not visible. I thought maybe because they didn’t think or care to create the full range the numbers. But it seems they DID create something, for this headnote. See how the first two symbols are the same between the pages and the third one is different? The third one would likely be the number in the date then. And some of the other symbols could denote the month/color.
As we know from Millerna’s reading, the date of the entry is "Red 3rd Moon". Since the trident appears right after REDDER in the text and on top, it seems to be a part of the date. The trident could be three, but I think that’s refuted by Leon’s journal that has the same string twice on the same page. So even if by great coincidence Leon’s entries were from the very same date (not just the same month), why would he write the same date on a same page, twice? Wouldn’t he just continue his entry from that day, even if he sat down to write, twice on the same day?
Therefore, I think the trident may possibly mean MOON. So, the first symbol in the brackets could possibly denote the color, without fully spelling it out. Perhaps each color has a simplified written symbol as well. Then the symbol similar to L would mark RED, the trident MOON and the last symbol the number 3. And, on the next page, number 4, 5 or whatever other date Marlene sat down to write. Actually, looks a bit like Japanese 9, but that might be just a coincidence.
In Leon’s diary, the trident symbol is followed by a period. That makes me think that in written Gaean, the date actually may look like NUMBER-COLOR-MOON, instead of COLOR-NUMBER-MOON as it is said in Japanese and the translations. Think seeing a date like 7/4 but reading it in reverse order like “Fourth of July”. That’s not outside the realm of imagination, right?
BUT HELLO, beginning of the fifth line says ALEN SHEZAL! I literally screamed when I saw that emerge from the page because I knew I was already getting a bit proficient in reading Gaean. Anyway, from Allen’s mangled name, we reap an H and a Z (here in a combination with A).
Deeper into the rabbit hole. What is this page even about? It’s the page where Marlene bemoans her betrothal (“Why was I born into a royal house…”), speaking about the fate of knights and princesses and confessing her love for Allen.
Well, the page seems to begin with that “Why…” part. WHY is pretty clear there, we confirm the H from “Shezar” there as well. After that, we get the “common expression”. Is the common expression “was I” then? I think it is safe to assume that one of those symbols should be for I… not for I, the letter, but for “ME/MYSELF/I”. Perhaps the lightning symbol. But we don’t know how we’d read it in Gaean. Here’s where we are starting to lean away from English a bit. The second part of the “common expression” is a two-letter word that should probably have an I in it, but it doesn’t exactly look like IS. So the second letter could be one of the existing letters we haven’t confirmed yet. Unless there is another S, like there is another I. Then it could be IS in fact.
Next, there is a quite long string of symbols that gets repeated two lines below: “__N__LIT DA-U-G-H-T-E-R”. 100% confident there’s daughter. And that she’s apparently, LIT. As to what comes before, pretty confident it’s meant to be with the meaning “royal”. For the first letter, it seems to be a combination letter containing I. Could it be KI? KIN-G??? It’s a bit different G than what we have seen elsewhere, though. Looks kinda compound-ish. And the LIT part is more separate in the third line. If it was not, I would maybe wonder if it was meant to be "KINGLIT DAUGHTER". Like a some mangled (Dutch sounding???) version of “königlich“, like, ”kinglich”. That’s a reach though already. Maybe we can get a notion of K from there, with a question mark. BTW, if you look under FREID on the next page, the two parts are exchanged... first comes LIT and then KING.
Next, the second-from-the-bottom line, LOVER. We can get a V from there. The line above that, at the end, SO. Remember “Allen, I love you so much”? That would make the word between the two of them MUCH, now, wouldn’t it? SO MUCH LOVER. I guess “lover“ works as a verb there then? Also the “lover“ is there twice and I think it’s supposed to be that repetition that got translated as “I like him... I love him… I love you so much, Allen“. At first, Marlene writes the common expression, an unknown symbol/word, then OVS LOVER. The OVS appears in Dryden’s letter as well, if you remember. Later on, she repeats it with “common expression” “unknown symbol” OVS SO MUCH LOVER. I think that OVS may somehow denote “him”. And for our alphabet, we recover an M.
Now look two lines above. There is a word starting with the same M symbol. Before knowing that, my brain immediately read it as “terrible” “horrible” or such. Based on the RR in the middle and E at the and. But that’s actually no L before that. It looks like MJRRIGE, from my findings. Some mangled version of marriage, it seems. And I even have theory how it works. So M is a given and what follows definitely looks like J from Leon’s “journal”. But I think this is another compound, because it DOES have that “connected” look where the letters overlap and the general shape of A is there, surrounding the M letter. So I would say that’s the MA compound. And then, see how the second R is different? It may again denote some compound or something. Yes. I think it’s supposed to be MARRIAGE. Perhaps the R with an extra leg somehow marks a compound with A? Remember it was in “Dridenn” as well? The order is somehow swapped but it could have been “DRAidenn” and “MarRAige” then! My best guess here, anyway.
The word before that. Looks pretty simple with L, something that could be N, E and T. LNET. But see how the L underlines the rest of the word? I haven’t seen the L do that before. It could have some funky meaning. Before that, we have the second part of the “common expression”. I am/was LNET MARRIAGE (spoiler: unlikely as it seems, it could be MUST).
And before that, I think we have the NIKHT. I think that might be the “KNIGHT” part (“fate of the princess and the knight”). Hear me out. In Japanese, knight is literally NIGHT. Both are NAITO in Japanese, because of the silent K of course. Katakana can’t express that clearly. They borrowed both of these words but they can’t differentiate between them without the context with the limited sounds in their language. Besides, the NIKHT kinda has a KNECHT/CNIHT vibe, the og Germanic/English word for knight. Anyway, what Millerna reads means there should be a knight in there, somewhere. It could also be night I guess, but she talks about THAT elsewhere, I think.
So, this would be the whole text by this prominent EgyptGaeaologist:
Red Moon 3. WHY [am I] A ROYAL DAUGHTER…. [DDI - unintelligible]. I LOVE [him?/you?]… [missing/out of view]. Royal daughter [unintelligible “UT” – possible AND?] knight [is] [unintelligible “LNET” - MUST?] marriage… [unintelligible “LITROVS” – BETROTHS?] [missing/out of view] ALEN SHEZAL. I LOVE [him?/you?] SO MUCH. Red Moon, [missing/out of view]… Freid [missing/out of view] ROYAL.
And now, let’s hear it from Millerna in the English subs for comparison (and please remember this is translated from the Japanese, not from the page here, so of course there would be differences):
Red, 3rd moon. I have been betrothed to the Duke of Freid. Why was I born into the royal house? I like him. I'm in love with him. But this is the fate of knights and women born of the blood. I love you so much, Allen.
Phew. It wasn’t easy to get to this point. So what else do we have? Not much, tbh. I scoured the series for more possible scenes that could have some written materials in them but I don’t think there IS much? So I can tell you for example that when Folken seeks refuge in Asturia, there’s a lot of discussion among the council members, army commanders etc. but it seems they have a paperless office policy going on. When they pull Vione out of the waters, Meiden has a notepad but we don’t look into it. Folken has some books and notes in his lab but we see them only from a distance. The books in Dryden’s library and in Marlene’s villa only have gibberish titles on their spines. The “PS, don’t get carried away” missive is only shown empty and from a distance. I can tell you all this because I checked all that came into my mind. But I still might have missed something. Let me know.
Anyway, here’s something obvious that I haven’t analyzed yet. The Zaibach flag that obviously has something written on it. Zaibach, if you asked me.
But it just doesn’t seem to work with all that I’ve found so far about the Gaean script. If it does, it must be some very “stylized” font that leaves a lot to the imagination. I mean I can imagine the first letter as Z. But the Gaean A has a pretty recognizable shape and there’s practically nothing left of it. Okay you could say, this could be another case of “DRIDENN” or “ALEN SHEZAL” so it could be “ZEIBAH” or something and looking for an A there is stupid. YEP. But I couldn’t move forward with this. It is quite possible, I would say even, that Zaibach developed their own, separate writing system. That country doesn’t look like anything else on Gaea, after all, if you watch the scenes from their capital. So why not go there. The settei even has a version of the flag with more tiny writing around the large text (guess some kind of motto?), but I could not quickly find it in the actual series. Will keep my eyes open in the next rewatch.
Next up, this is the map that Allen’s group use to find captured Van:
We have a little something there but it just doesn’t seem compatible with our written script, either. I mean yeah, if we look at the lake name (probably), it looks a bit similar if you squint. But the big lettering near the pendant has very little to do with the script that people actually use to write. May be intentional. May be printed as opposed to handwritten. May be a different writing system/”font” just for maps. Or just decorative gibberish on the creators’ side.
If you got here, how many letters are still missing? You have no idea, I know. But it should be like this:
Got: A, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z
Not: B, Q
Well, Q could be replaced by CUE as in RECUEST, remember? Then there’s only B left? Seems wrong but ok. There are at least a few prominent symbols that I haven’t been able to decipher yet, but I’m out of our alphabet letters.
One is part of that “common expression” and the other is the katakana 千:
But the way 千 follows after N, I don’t think that’s a consonant (B). And "IB" doesn't sound too natural, either. Perhaps they are other versions of the already deciphered letters, like the two version of I that we have?
Let's return to Leon's diary to decipher possibly the last letters.
Remember when I said there was something nice for Allen is in Leon’s diary? It’s his given name. It seems to be written there. He also seems to mention a “daughter”. Awww...
...Or yeah, it WAS awww, until I realized that it has too many words I’ve seen elsewhere… Allen… daughter… redder… Freid. WAIT. Here comes AN UNEXPECTED TWIST (or have you figured it out already)?
WAIT, YOU TOO, LEON??!
I now feel kinda dumb I haven’t figured it out at REDDER already. Anyway, so they just recycled/reused Marlene’s diary entry, in a different handwriting. And you know what, the trident may as well be three! Because we ARE, after all, spamming the same date everywhere. But I think I'll stick to the theory that it is for Moon/month. Makes more sense to me, somehow.
Aaaand I hit the image limit for this post, so it's time to wrap up.
In place of conclusions…
You know, when I started this, I kinda hoped for some funny message by the creators to be coded in those texts. This I guess wasn’t an intentional message as much as just saving time in production. I still love Escaflowne for trying haha. Where other anime would have used scribbles and gibberish, or copied and stylized recipes and other random texts in a different language to quickly and easily create the sense of “text in an unknown foreign language”, someone from Sunrise Studio 2 (and we don’t even know who, even if we know who whistled instead of Folken and who said “Esscaflowne” in a heavy Italian accent) sat down, created a writing system with its own functional rules and such, and coded some actually relevant text into it. For using it, what, three times in the series? And for each instance, they created a distinct handwriting for three different characters! Like much of their other worldbuilding work, it’s so criminally underused in the actual series!Anyway, I wish I could say to the creators: your effort was worthwhile and seen. We still appreciate it decades later <3
I particularly enjoyed this because I love languages, I love learning about writing systems, and I sometimes regret not becoming an archaeologist so I guess I compensate... The conclusive findings to this post will be posted on Saturday. Of course, you may give me peer review if you think I'm off or missed something here ;)
I've been here for 13 yrs this year, I'm a bit of a content creator myself - translation, artwork, meta, and the odd gif or such. Well, some of the worst scum, right, @staff? Someone that needs to get constantly punished.
When I joined Tumblr, the main unwritten rule was "do not repost". These words were commonly posted under each artwork and such, it was about that attribution and who deserved to get the attention the creation produced. Reposting someone who was already on Tumblr was considered stealing.
And now, after years of development from that "primitive stage" of the website, you decided to make hijacking someone else's post into a feature. I was already pissed at it with communities. I receive no notes about my posts being reblogged to the closed communities, no notes about comments or any interaction on my post reblogged to communities, no note even if people tag me in comments there. It took me a while to notice all this, but I actually wanted to complain about what harm they do to the community that is Tumblr with the way they are designed.
And now you roll this update out. Congrats. One may labor on something for hours but now it's enough to reblog it with a "gj" and it's yours now. Cause who cares about creators, right? It's all about "le funny additions" to a textpost.
So if you really want to keep this despite the massive backlash, I suggest the next change, @staff / @changes, which is allowing mass turning off reblogs in the mass post editor. Cause that's what I wanna do now and if you don't reverse this change I'm going to do it manually, post by post. After years encouraging reblogs, reblogs of my own posts no longer have any benefit for me now. But who cares, right, they are no longer mine, cause they already are in the "reblog chains™". Kek. I played myself already by having posted anything on this website for the past decade! So maybe it's time to actually move on.
Welcome to Escaflowne Week(s) 2026! This event celebrates the 30th anniversary of The Vision of Escaflowne/Tenkuu no Escaflowne anime (and the recent 25th anniversary of the Escaflowne movie). Of course, any material related to the expanded universe is welcome, too.
☄️ Enjoy and spread the love for Esca by reblogging!
Liking is nice, too, but does not do anything.
☄️ Feel free to link this post on other platforms as well.
Looking forward to your participation!
Event guidelines and text version of the prompts follow under the cut.
Guidelines:
Participants create any fan content related to Escaflowne, including but not limited to fanart, fanfiction, edits, GIFs, fanmixes, AMVs, meta, headcanons, and so on.
There are two prompts to choose from each day. Prompts are included in the above graphic and plain text version is included at the bottom of the post.
Using prompts is not required, nor is participating every day of the event. You may fill as many prompts as you wish on whichever days you want.
If you cannot make it on time to the part 1 of the event in April, fret not, there will be a part 2 in September, using similar prompts (but with a twist) that will be announced after the part 1 is over. You may even share the WIP in April and the finished work in September (as a suggestion).
Submissions created using AI technologies are not allowed! If you want to participate, your own creativity and effort is required.
NSFW submissions are allowed, but MUST BE POSTED ELSEWHERE in accordance with Tumblr regulations.
Tag your creations with #escaflowneweek so that fellow participants, fans, and the blog moderator(s) can more easily see and interact with your work. Since tag search has never been perfect, it is also recommended to tag the @escaflowneweek blog in the post text to notify the moderator(s) of your work.
Participants who do not have a Tumblr account are encouraged to submit links to their creations using link below. The moderator(s) will post submissions as they are received.
For any questions, please message @escaflowneweek.
Day 1 (30/3): Changing Fate / Three
Day 2 (31/3): Wish upon a Star / Calligraphy
Day 3 (01/4): Slaying of a Dragon / Beast
Day 4 (02/4): Royal Affair / Sisters
Day 5 (03/4): Guided Ones / Trials
Day 6 (04/4): Mysteries of Gaea / Ruins
Day 7 (05/4): Eternal Love / Time-loop
Perhaps “defense” is too strong of a word. The movie hardly needs defending. It’s beautiful and gorgeous, has a killer OST, the characters are gorgeous, everyone agrees on these things. But some say it suffers in terms of character development, or it’s not enough like the series, or Hitomi is annoying in this one, etc.. Those are things I’m here to answer.
(TW: contains brief references to suicidal ideations)
Three Points Up Front
First, my biases: I will always ship Van and Hitomi (and if you don't, you probably won't find this article meaningful); I’ve been depressed enough that I've wanted to throw myself off a building/cliff/bridge; and I love *everything* about the movie (minus one part, but I’ll get to that).
Second, I’m not an Escaflowne expert by any means, but in my five years in the fandom, I think I’ve become relatively well-versed in it. I’ve all but memorized the movie, read the movie novel, edited translations for the first and second movie-prequel CD Dramas and the movie novel, watched the series in multiple dubs, and skimmed the shonen manga.
Anyway, my take on the overall story is this: the creators seemed more than happy to let other authors/creators invent their own versions around the concept of Escaflowne, so I consider the different iterations as AUs (including the dubs). Even the movie novel is its own thing relative to the movie (and it's the most overtly romantic, btw).
Third, think of Escaflowne the Movie as an AU. When you watch it with this in mind, its existence makes more sense. They could have made a sequel, but they didn’t. Instead, they replaced anxiety with depression, cranked up the angst and romance, took out the love triangles, made Van (okay, everyone) hotter, and tied it all together with a visually and musically stunning bow.
Okay, with those things aside, let me get into it.
Hitomi seems like a weak heroine in the beginning. Why?
The first time I watched it, I found Hitomi to be insufferable and weak. She drove me crazy. She pushes her best friend away, can’t answer direct questions, and doesn’t want to accept the reality that she’d been isekai’d to a different planet.
But the more I watched it, the more I related to her.
And she never made more sense to me than when I was really, really depressed.
And that's the thing: Hitomi’s not weak, she’s depressed. Really depressed.
Her introductory scene basically tells us as much: the abandoned shoes and the note to Yukari are symbols that she was considering throwing herself off the school. She wants to die, even if she’s too much of a coward to jump. She feels pathetic. She’s tired all the time. She’s quitting pursuits that used to bring her joy. She has a fatalistic outlook, not just about her life, but about the train accident, about school and track, and about how her friends and family see her: she’s too much of a pain, she hurts people by existing and having emotional needs, etc…
She's mopey. She comes across weak and pathetic. To top it off, she’s even . . . annoying.
But if you’ve ever really been depressed, it’s very relatable. It is for me, anyway. If you haven't. . . well, pretend that every decision is a mountain and every action you make is nothing but a mistake.
Why does Folken reach out to her and not any of the millions of other angsty, depressed 17-year-old girls in the world?
Because Hitomi really is—somehow, by some quirk of birth or rebirth or fate or magic—The Wing Goddess.
The CD Dramas say as much. In them, Van and Folken (and his sorcerer at the time, Orm) argue about her a couple times. This means that, prior to the movie, Van and Hitomi had met before. A few memories have been erased by Orm, but it’s heavily implied that the two have met repeatedly throughout time and space. (This is The Most Romantic Thing EverⓇ, imo, but that’s besides the point.)
Moleman also reminds us of a few prophecies related to The Wing Goddess and Escaflowne:
It’s the Wing Goddess who will resurrect Escaflowne/The Armor; and
The Dragon, The Armor, and The Wing Goddess must resonate in order to change the world, for better or worse.
In other words, Escaflowne needed both Van (or Folken, technically, who's always been frustrated by not being predestined) and Hitomi. And later, it’s Hitomi’s influence over Van that turns Black Escaflowne into its Dragon form.
If Hitomi wasn’t the Wing Goddess, neither of these things could have happened.
Let’s Talk About Sora
I've heard it argued that Sora is a better candidate to be the Wing Goddess? She has actual power.
Yes, she does. But she doesn’t have actual influence.
And there’s a difference.
She's something between Folken’s sorceress and his aide. Whatever power she has, she’s only able to open the portal and prophecy Folken's death. She does not have power to resurrect or direct Escaflowne, nor does Folken love/respect her enough to unite in feelings with her and change his beliefs or his path (more on that later).
My thoughts about Hitomi returning to Gaia
I say “return” because, as I mentioned, she’s been there before, in the CD Dramas.
To facilitate her to return to Gaia, two things happen simultaneously:
Folken calls the Chosen One/Wing Goddess/Hitomi back to Gaea when her depression reaches its peak, and
Van speaks to the Armor to awaken it.
While Folken’s power, combined with Sora’s sorcery, carries her to Gaea, it’s the power of Van’s rite with Escaflowne that pulls her to him. (And this is because, as Moleman reminds us, Escaflowne and the Wing Goddess are connected.) Hitomi is thus drawn through the beam of water (for lack of a better description hahaha) and is deposited inside Escaflowne, as if she’s a baby in utero.
This is doubly symbolic: it’s her appearance inside that gives Escaflowne life, and it’s through this process that Hitomi is literally birthed into Gaia—at Van’s feet nonetheless.
Just like a baby, Hitomi becomes a newborn in Gaea.
And just like a baby, Hitomi is at Van’s mercy: helpless, overwhelmed, confused, possibly wet and cold, having just been through a very strange occurrence where she saw another world in the sky and then was swallowed up by a sorcerer and a stadium full of water only to end up inside a mecha and dumped at the feet of a terrifying young man.
I think very few people wouldn’t be utterly confused by this, and most people would think they were dreaming or hallucinating.
Additionally, she’s not thinking on her feet before this happens. Depression literally slows down brain signals and makes it hard to understand and make decisions. (It's like brain fog, if you've ever experienced that.)
So while it might seem pretty annoying that she’s unable to answer Van directly, it’s understandable when you consider it in these terms.
Why does Hitomi see Yukari?
In this post I wrote about the movie, I wondered why, in her first scene with Van, Hitomi sees a “vision” of Yukari telling her to be direct with him, to tell him her name.
Now I have a theory.
I don’t think this is a vision or a flashback. I think it’s simpler than that: it’s my belief that Hitomi is using Yukari as a guide post.
Think about it. In Hitomi’s eyes, Yukari is everything Hitomi isn’t: good at school, responsible as the manager of the Track Team, sociable, fun-loving, positive, good with boys. In other words, Hitomi thinks she’s perfect and is thus thinking, “What Would Yukari Do?”
Well, Yukari would be able to answer Van’s demands.
But again, Hitomi’s impotent here. She can't answer him, even though she knows she should.
Personally, I would love to see more of this Yukari-as-a-guidepost theming and then see it disappear, but whatever. We don't get that.
And if anyone has a better theory, feel free to give it.
One last important thought about Yukari. . .
It’s when Hitomi pushes her away and uses the worst insult, “annoying”, that Hitomi’s self-perception dips to its lowest. It’s when she’s hurt her best friend that she concludes not that her behavior is the problem, but that she herself is the problem. She’s projecting, and perhaps this is the first time she realizes that she’s the annoying one, not Yukari.
And her solution–rather than changing her behavior– was to just take out the problem altogether: herself. This spiraling attitude made her truly vulnerable to the beguiling Folken, who also wanted to just end it all and get rid of all sorrow (although he wasn’t quite as self-reflective and self-punishing as Hitomi. . . he rather preferred to punish everyone else).
Okay, back to the plot.
Is it Hitomi’s fault the Armor disappeared?
Yes, it is, more or less, though it’s hard to fault her for it. Because she’s connected to Escaflowne, when she voices her confusion about where she is to Van, only for him to get angry, they are no longer “resonating”; Escaflowne calls it a night and promptly transforms into a gem. (Van is too angry to notice this detail, otherwise I think he would have demanded the gem from her.)
Later, in Torushina, when Dilandau’s dragon armor was coming for them, Escaflowne senses her terror and her need and, finally, emerges. There isn’t a lot of indication of it, but I’m guessing that Van was also wishing for his armor right then, too. So, just like in the series where Dornkirk’s prognostication engine doesn’t work when the two are in harmony, Escaflowne doesn’t work until their feelings harmonize here. (It's an interesting connection to the series if you ask me.)
To change the outcome for the world, the Armor must resonate with the Wing Goddess and the Dragon
Van is connected to Escaflowne as one of the last of the full-blooded Dragon Clan. It’s his presence and voice that awakens it, his blood that powers it, and his anger and desire to destroy his enemy that turns it into Black Escaflowne, a weapon of destruction (that we don’t get to see enough of, imo).
But Hitomi is needed along the way. The first time we see the three of them resonating was in resurrecting Escaflowne. And in the end, when he stops to listen to Hitomi and realizes that he wants to be with her like she does him, it’s this mutual desire that resonates to turn Escaflowne into the Dragon.
Some speculation and questions I have that I don’t know all the answers to
So could Hitomi have chosen destruction? We have two reasons to presume that she could: A) We know she’s the Wing Goddess and for that reason alone has the power to choose destruction, and B) Folken recognizes her ability to destroy relationships and that she’s willing to destroy/end her own life, that’s why he calls her.
There’s plenty of speculation to be had about how things might have turned out if Folken had gotten to the Armor before Van. There’s also room to question why Folken thought she would appear to him while the Armor was in transit: shouldn’t he have waited until he had the Armor in hand to perform the ceremony? Perhaps he didn’t realize that Escaflowne was required for her birth onto Gaia, which is an interesting blind spot for him to have. That could be explained away if he was racing Van to get her (which is half the plot of the CD Dramas).
It’s interesting to note that Van wasn’t trying to call the Wing Goddess, even though he recognized that’s who she likely was when she fell out of the Armor. His entire goal is to wake the Armor. Did he know that was the same moment Folken was calling Hitomi? What if Van hadn’t been waking the Armor at just that moment? Would she have appeared at Folken’s feet? Or would she have gone into the Armor anyway and just sat there, confined, until Folken woke the Armor? As a claustrophobe, that thought is terrifying.
Fayrinferno's recent post does mention that she could only be called during a certain phase of the moon. Perhaps Van knew this and took advantage.
And why wasn’t Van explicitly summoning the Wing Goddess himself? Did he just assume she would be there if he woke the Armor? That’s probably the correct answer: he had complete faith not only that she would be there, but that she would give him his precious armor, no questions asked.
In what way is Van alone, and why doesn’t Merle have much influence over that?
This is something I ponder again and again. Every time I rewatch the scene where Merle is telling Hitomi about Van, how he’s always been alone, I think about what she really means. He has more or less grown up in Adom, surrounded by Ruhm and other beast people who welcome him. Merle has been his companion for a long time, even following him to and from Adom. Then there’s the Abaharaki fighting alongside him in the war, even if not for his cause.
So in what way is he alone?
In a few. His blood clan is dead. He’s a king without a kingdom. He’s the only human in a village of beast people. (This heavily implies, imo, that in this AU, it is not acceptable for beasts and people to have romantic relationships.) He’s the only one fighting to avenge his dead clan.
In the series, Merle is considered more of a sister than anything else, though she is jealous of Hitomi’s potential romance with Van. But in the movie, she comes across more like a true pet. He is worried about her when she’s injured in the attack on the caravan, but otherwise, he doesn’t ask for her or seek her out. Merle hovers over him at times, leaves him alone at others, and is protective of him when she needs to be. But she’s not jealous of Hitomi and seems to even, in the mentioned conversation above, encourage Hitomi to be closer to him.
In other words, she recognizes that she has little influence over his choice to fight, the same way our cat has little influence over what we choose to do for work. Only someone who could be considered a true partner (or a lover) could have the privilege of that influence, especially for a lone king.
What is it about Van that made him the chosen son, versus Folken?
Unlike the series, there’s no redemption for goblin-king Folken. He’s utterly determined to destroy the world, and he’s never done anything for anyone else’s benefit, except his own. Supposedly, his piss-poor attitude stems from his rejection by the oracles who chose Van over him, but personally, I think he was just born nasty. Why else would he be rejected in the first place?
Folken is obviously ambitious and a good commander, otherwise he wouldn’t have risen to the heights he has. But he’s also cold hearted, calculating, and destructive. (Why does Sora stay with him? Is it because he has heterochromia? He loves no one, not even her, so I see no justification for her Stockholm Syndrome. Not even power, as she has her own.) He’s willing to lay waste to entire communities as he amasses resources, an army, and magical armors. He cares nothing for beast people beyond exploiting them, cares nothing for the world except what he takes from it, and hurts others at will to get what he wants.
(NOTE: That scene where he breaks Dilandau’s fingers—and presumably heals them—is the #1 thing I don’t like about the movie. It’s so audio-visually graphic.)
But Folken never does any of the dirty work himself. He very rarely even goes anywhere in person, using sorcery to project himself where needed. He doesn't even man the armor, even though he's technically of pure dragon blood. Instead, he coerces Dilandau to do it. While he's willing to destroy or take anything necessary to get what he wants, he’s not willing to do the really hard stuff himself. This is his biggest weakness, one I think Van can and does exploit.
Yes, Van is proud—too proud to associate casually with the Abaharaki—but he’s a king and carries himself like one. Yet he treats beast people with compassion and as friends, and, rather than leaving a wide swath of death behind him, he only goes after those he needs to in order to achieve the end goal (something he does with impressive precision).
Van is efficient in more ways than one. Not only is he an efficient killer, but he’s very efficient with his use of resources.
I say this tongue-in-cheek, but hear me out.
Rather than wasting his time and resources directly competing with Folken—raising an army, amassing resources, etc.—Van took advantage of his brother’s hard work and, willing to get his hands dirty, intercepted the Armor in transit. This changed everything. Folken was the one with all the resources to dig up the Armor, transport it, and command sorcerers to call the Wing Goddess. Had Folken gone to the Armor himself, had he been willing to wear it, things might have been different, but he wasn’t willing—no, he always hired others to do that. Even when he had another armor, he made someone else do the painful stuff. He liked having that power over people.
Meanwhile, Van was willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goal. This willingness to get his hands dirty made it possible for him to be the one who resurrected the Armor, and thus he was the one to welcome the Wing Goddess. And because he’s willing to change, because he ultimately cared for others other than himself, he later received the Armor from her, thus being in the position to choose the outcome of the world alongside the Wing Goddess.
Folken was never willing to do any of that. He wasn’t willing to bend his will to anyone, let alone a woman of lesser/different birth (such as Sora). He only wanted to use others. Whether or not Van consciously knew and exploited this is up for debate, but that he did exploit it shows his adaptability, cleverness, and fitness to be a good king.
But that's just my opinion.
We have the potential to influence the world for better, or for worse
Okay, one huge beef I have about the Series is in Episode #17, The Edge of the World, when Hitomi is more or less blamed by Varie and Yuri for all the problems going on around her, because she has a confused heart and mind and is using her anxiety to make wishes too carelessly.
What the heck, Escaflowne creators? Why do you dump so much responsibility on a 15 year old girl??
Well, the movie does something similar, except instead of anxiety, they use depression, and instead of blaming Hitomi, they just shackle her with the responsibility of choosing the outcome. Hitomi doesn’t know this—she’s a figurative infant, remember—but the people around her inform her of it little by little. When she is first birthed into Gaia, Van swears fealty to her, saying he will do her will for this world. Later, in Torushina, when she has opened up to the idea that she could be the Wing Goddess, she hears the prophecy that goes along with Sora’s song, which says that the Wing Goddess has the power to destroy or change the world. And when Black Escaflowne begins to wreak havoc in Torushina, Millerna reminds Hitomi again that she has this responsibility.
The interpretation I choose to give is thus: even when we are depressed and surrounded by darkness, we still have the power to change. In fact, we have the responsibility to change our attitude, our behavior, and our treatment of others.
In other words, even the most depressed, pathetic-feeling people on the planet can change the world.
Van and Hitomi were walking parallel paths of self-destruction
Van was about vengeance. That was his entire personality, up until his injury during battle with Dilandau.
Hitomi was depressed. She lashed out at others just like Van, hoping to bring them to her level of misery.
Until she realized how such a destructive attitude affected things. Like how Van changed when he realized she wanted something better for him, she changed when she saw where his path was leading, when she saw herself mirrored in him. Her choice to change her outlook, to change how she interacted with others, was the catalyst to being able to encourage him to do the same.
And Van chose to allow her to have influence over him; when she encouraged him to choose life, he made the decision to do just that. This small addition of positivity gave them both hope, and it was because of that, they could see there was more to the world than just vengeance and self-destruction.
We see what happens when characters choose to climb out of darkness. . . and what happens when they don’t
I put forth that this entire movie is an allegory about climbing out of the darkness eating our souls, be that revenge, loneliness, or, more apparently, depression. (I'm not necessarily talking about long-term, clinical depression. I'm a huge advocate for medications. But episodic, situational depression.)
In the beginning, Van is out to Slay All His EnemiesⓇ and Hitomi is stuck in the funk of depression because she sees herself as pathetic. Both of them are kindred spirits because they’ve both been in a dark spot. Hitomi recognizes this during her conversation with Van in the Adom forest. Because Van, by nature (as Merle says) is kind and sensitive, he understands her meaning, even though her words sound a little trite. (I mean, come on Hitomi, having depression and hurting your friends is not the same as having your entire family and clan completely destroyed. It’s still bad, just. . . not on the same level.) Van even—take note, Folken—responded to her, opening up and showing his vulnerable side. That must’ve been terrifying for him. Luckily, Hitomi was a soft place to land.
Folken, on the other hand, was determined to remain in his darkness. He had someone who believed in him, who supported him, and still, he refused to open up, to show his vulnerable side, to admit that he’s on the wrong path. Because of this, Sora prophesied his death. I am glad he at least released Sora on paper, though emotionally, she was too foolishly loyal to him; she stayed and died alongside him.
Still, usually, having one person believe that your life is worth living can be enough. When Van collapsed in Hitomi's arms and Jajuka declared that the king just wanted to die because his life was nothing but pain and loneliness, Hitomi declared that she wanted him to live, and she decided to stay with him until he recognized he wasn't alone (i.e. when he found his own will to live).
At the climax of the movie, Van makes another choice, predictably falling into Folken's trap and giving in to his dark feelings. It was the anger of the Dragon Clan King that turned Escaflowne black, unleashing a weapon of destruction. Yet, when he heard Hitomi plead to him, he came to and realized what he'd done. Like in the series, he is sent to perdition (for lack of a better term) near the Atlantis Tree, where he bathes in despondency and self-recrimination.
Thankfully, Hitomi was the friend we all need in this situation: she persists and goes after him, and it was through her pleading again that Van made the ultimate choice to give life and hope a chance.
Now resonating in this way, the Armor—Black Escaflowne, the God of War—transformed and transcended into the God of the Sky, on their way to Folken.
What is there to learn from Jajuka's death?
This part hits in such a discordant way. One one hand, it’s satisfying to see Folken die. On the other, it’s such a letdown that he dies in such a deus ex machina manner. Van and Hitomi are there, and we know Van is capable, but not only does he decide he no longer wants to kill his brother when here comes Jajuka to do it instead!
Nobody ever likes to see the dog die in movies, and yet here he goes and does the heroic thing and DIES. In a splash of blood, too.
Why?
I don’t think the show-writers were being unsubtle here. This was a deliberate choice: he died to show us what would happen to Van had he chose to continue down the path of vengeance. Just like Folken’s fate in the series was to die by his own broken blade as he exacted revenge on Dornkirk, so does Jajuka die in almost the same way, just with far more blood.
It took me a while to realize why this had to happen, that Van had to see what his fate would have been had he not made the decision to change.
This movie is just more of that clichéd trope where a man needs a woman’s love to change. . .right?
Some people call this movie old-fashioned for that reason. Yes, Van needed Hitomi, but she needed him, too. (Surprise, people need each other!) It was her empathy for him that changed her heart, and because she loved him, she became a safe place for him. Moreover, he didn’t change into something he wasn’t. Van's change was more of a return into his true self, into who he used to be, to who Merle once knew him as.
In conclusion, our true form is what we become as we rise above our trials . . .
When Black Escaflowne was reborn into Dragon form Escaflowne, the people of Torushina looked up and exclaimed in joyful hope about the White Dragon. Judging by their reactions, the God of the Sky is not a god of destruction, but one of hope and peace. This form is diametrically opposed to the Armor’s primary form and function as the God of War.
Likewise, Van and Hitomi emerging from the belly of the Armor can be seen as a rebirth, too. From that point on, Van no longer wanted vengeance, he no longer wanted to fight and kill.
To put it simply, through love and hope and vulnerability, the God of War transformed into a god of hope, the God of the Sky. Contrary to what Dryden suggested about Black Escaflowne, I’d argue that the White Dragon was Escaflowne’s true form.
Just like Slay All His EnemiesⓇ Van wasn't his true form, neither was cruel and depressed Hitomi her true nature. These things are part of them, a part of their story, certainly; some might say these dark moments are important in being able to move forward onto a more clear path. It's important to remember, these dark episodes don't define them and didn’t have to be their entire existence.
The same way Hitomi and Van were reborn upon a new and divine form of Escaflowne, so they were reborn into people who left their darkness in the past.
So it can be for all of us as we push through our difficulties.
Who knew that a beautiful, angsty, action-adventure, mecha-romance anime could convey such a message without making it saccharine?
Well, that's my interpretation anyway, my defense of the Movie. Take from this what you will.
A big thanks to @fayrinferno for the screenshots and encouragement! I couldn't have done this without your help!
I would call this essay, especially the parts relating to depression, a recommended reading for the movie. It takes many rewatches and thinking to reach this point of understanding (at least in my opinion), so this should be properly appreciated. It's easy to dismiss the movie as shallow because of its short running time and many of the characters appearing only as glimpses of themselves. Yes, many things are only implied, easy to miss, or leaving you guessing. But I think the points @coverteyes makes are solid even with what we have from the creators. The additional materials show more of their vision, so I'm glad that we have them. The topics of the movie are profound and they did what they could with their constraints. They did great, considering all. The movie may simply be too small a container to hold all this. It would be amazing as an OVA series (up to 10 episodes) but it would benefit greatly even from having the time to breathe (a 2hr movie instead of barely 1,5). It is what it is, we all know that.
Thanks for the shout-out, too, it was my pleasure to contribute a little bit to this great analysis!
Phew, found it! Thought I didn’t need to do a new post about this.
Basically, I offered to do some quick translation requests and @drkstars-art thought of the note next to the Yuuki concept above. As soon as I saw the pic I knew I had tried at it before, but this time, I was a bit more successful. In fact, I feel like I cracked the Yuuki code a little when I translated the dragonslayers’ notes. Of course, for someone who actually spoke Japanese this would be laughable, but it is a success for me.
Anyway, next to “Dilandau” it says お嫁に行けないい (o-yome ni ikenaii), something like:
Not cut out to be a bride
Bride in sense of a housewife. Cooking and all that. Plus a heart-shaped exclamation mark. :D
There is also a manga with the same title I found out.
2026 EDIT: OK I found it. Grateful to my tagging system, rarely lets me down.
So this is the one that I have to sort of correct cause yeah, I probably read a bit too much into it.
See, this お嫁に行けない (o-yome ni ikenai) is sort of a fixed phrase, which I realized only at some later point. It basically means what it means literally:
I can't be(come) a bride
And this is often used in all sort of circumstances, not rarely comedic. Basically it means, nobody will want to marry me. For many possible reasons. Between the most dramatic fictional and most ridiculously exaggerated comedic settings, it can be used as a desperate exclamation in a range of situations between "I suffered such humiliation, nobody will ever want to marry me!" and "a stranger just saw my panties! now I can't become a bride!"
So basically, it's for situations where the girl is no longer "good enough" or "suitable" for marriage. Obviously, the origin has a strong connotation to sex before marriage, but yeah, I don't think it's been seriously used with that meaning for long years. Other common root issues would also include ruined beauty (such as face injury) or lack of fertility.
What probably also confused me 9 years back was that Yuuki adds another い (i) to the end of the fixed phrase, making it お嫁に行けないい (o-yome ni ikenaii). And that いい (ii) generally means "good, fine". So I think I understood it somehow like, "I can't become a bride, and that's fine". Hence my original translation.
But it's likely that he just elongated the last word in a sing-songy, cutesy way like "I can't become a bride anymore~" Only Yuuki knows why exactly this early concept of "Dilandau" can't become a bride. My personal guess would be homicide but ofc the possible range is much wider here.
OR, it is simply an internal joke since she is drawn naked... remember when Hitomi, in a similar bubble, complained about her modesty to the director in her underwear settei? It's like, since such drawings are "made public" the characters grow embarrassed and break the 4th wall to react. So yeah, that kind of little joke is also quite likely with this sketch, since it wouldn't be the first time with Yuuki.
To conclude, YEP, I have to admit my mistake but actually I'm not regretful at all cause it sprouted a pic I like. You just gotta be thankful to the muses.
Damn right! I rewatched this episode recently and in this scene (and even the one when he asks for Hitomi’s help) he a/ says way more b/ uses much kinder tone than usual! It’s obvious he warms up to Hitomi and is honest in his regret. And even she admits she overreacted a bit.
Also, I think what he says right at the end of this scene (right before he runs away) is quite important. In all subs I’ve seen it’s translated as ”Hitomi, I don’t know if I…” What I hear him saying is “Hitomi, mou omae ni…” Of course, unfinished sentences are hard to translate, but with my beginner Japanese I think it means something like “I won’t … you anymore” (I’d say something like ask that of you or drag you into this). Which agrees with your statement in some of the previous posts, he really takes it upon himself, leading to all that traumatic crap.
You make an interesting point referring to the barn scene, I have to continue the rewatch to come up with some personal explanations. What comes to mind now as the difference between these two scenes is the doubt rising within Van, as he sees Allen and Hitomi grow closer. And the momentary panic, of course.
Yeah, I just watched the one where Hitomi gets a case of the confessions for Allen, and Van walks in on them cuddling after some turbulance, and was like “Oh yeah, this is why you mess up later.” My reactions are all in the queue so I don’t spam the tag more than necessary, but yeah, I forgot how much of that he has to see, not to mention Folken’s crappy fate date.
That’s really interesting about Van’s unfinished sentence! I wonder if maybe you have a little light to shed on something that’s been bugging me, which is the use of honorifics in this show. Most characters seem to drop them for most other characters most of the time. At first I thought maybe it was because they’re not really speaking Japanese, and this was the show’s way of reminding us, but Hitomi does it too, with only a few exceptions. She puts some distance between herself and Allen with a -san, Millerna as well, I think. A lot of very fawning characters use -sama for their pet leaders, but for all of the important people running around I don’t hear it as often as I would have thought. I also thought I heard Dilandau toss out what would have to have been a sarcastic -dono at Folken while on a mission, since he uses nothing in private, though I could have been mistaken. Van also uses one I can’t seem to identify when talking about his family, which sounds like “-wei”, ie “haha-wei”. I wondered if it was very old-fashioned/formal or something to go with his kind of old fashioned words for mother/father. I remember Millerna seems to use more common terms for her royal family, though I think she -sama’s them. Basically, what I’m getting from it is that honorific use seems to be more about pedestals and emotional distance than proper manners. But that might just be my ignorance as I try to squeeze understanding from something I admittedly don’t understand very well.
I wouldn’t worry about the spam in the tag, if I can speak for the fandom, the activity is more than welcome! Personally, I’m enjoying your analysis and edits VERY MUCH! owo
Regarding the honorifics, I also try to observe them as I watch trying to make sense of some of the relationships and perceptions of the characters. I must say I haven’t noticed some of the nuances you point out, but I looked into it some… and since my reply got too long, I made another post.
@fayrinferno Do you still agree with your early translation of his unfinished sentence? I love using that “I don’t know if I… ” in my fanfics, but I’m fascinated if there’s actually a canon response there.
@coverteyes Well, it's the official translation, so you can't be wrong for using it. And I'm not arrogant enough to correct a pro translation and say that "it's probably this instead". I actually don't think it's a bad translation. Obviously, it wouldn't do to translate it literally, disjointed like I did there. Yes, I still hear what I heard back then and if you asked me to translate it for the subs today, I would probably go with: "I wouldn't want to..." or "I never wanted to..." It's a matter of personal opinion. But I don't think it's necessarily correct. You have to fill in the blank somehow when translating it and this is as specific as I can go not to read too much into it myself. I have been writing a longer post about all this so it will be explained there in more detail.
I didn't know you write a fic in the canon timeline? Or do you mean that you used it in an AU as a reference? Sorry, my memory can be poor (if I actually read it). Also, what do you think he (or the translator thought he) wanted to say? Like what was supposed to be the full sentence? I am short on ideas with that "don't know if I" but I understand that it's vague and therefore more romantic.
I've been looking at the old Escaflowne LJ community and found a fanfic recommendation post. So now, some years have passed and I'm curious about one of the stories but sadly it's no longer available on FFNET. Did someone, by any reason, save it before it was deleted?
The story is "Of Cars and Corporate Intrigue" by PerfectGrammar
Unfortunately, I don't think I can help you in this particular case, I vaguely remember the existence of this fanfic and the main theme, but not much else. Hope you manage to find it though! (I'm all for archiving good old fics).
I know you were one of the people who did some research into the old Escaflowne fics and the old archived websites, probably more so than me. But I got some of my own findings together in case it helps.
My reply got too long and general as usual, so I made a new post.
This started as a reply to @ruinsoftime's post looking for a specific fanfic, but I sort of trailed off as usual. I've been reading fic for about 20 years and yeah, at times in the past, I was obsessively looking for something (that may no longer exist) as well. So, when looking for an old fic, here's what I would check:
AO3: (I know you know but) sometimes the authors backup their fics there. They can submit it to the archive with the original publication date so you would find it at the very end of the tag.
secondary fanfiction archives: in FFN's heyday, there were more servers like that, hosting fanfiction. One is adult-fanfiction.net (AFF) which hosted NC-17/X-rated works after they were banished off FFN. But if I remember correctly, the work didn't actually have to be rated THAT to be posted there. The other was mediaminer.org, a smaller, but at one point lively server which also allowed X-rated fics. Some fics had their more raunchy versions posted there while the censored cut was published on FFN. Both servers are still online, so you may try your luck with the lost fic. There may have been more I am not familiar with. Also, if you're really desperate, and I hate to say this, but some of those scam fanfiction apps or mirror websites for FFN may use an older version of the database that still has the deleted fic. I probably wouldn't go as far as to check tho.
livejournal: Yeah, LJ lived and breathed fic but I still think most of them were just linked to FFN, not posted there directly. It's a feeble hope of finding the whole fic posted there.
personal website of the writer or a private fic archive: as you know, in the olden age of geocities and angelfire, people would build their own fansite or "shrine". For the work, for their fav character, even for their fic (honestly, goals, and something that inspired one of my blogs here). And sometimes, even for hosting the fics of other authors in the same fandom. I think this may probably the last chance of finding the fic if all else fails.
What you need is the URL (which may be difficult when you can't use the search engine, right?) and then a bit of luck with the waybackmachine. A good starting way of obtaining the URLs is the Escaflowne section at anipike (and then just going through the sites linked there and their links sections, etc.):
I remember one or two bigger of these Escaflowne fic archives, I used to go there for the fic that was deleted off FFN. It is actually quite often the writers who delete their FFN profiles and their fics. Not saying FFN may not have a hand in deleting others. Anyway, these forgotten sites may be the only traces left.
Also, if one of your favs was rewritten and you're interested in the old version, again, this might be your only chance to find the original version. Yeah, sometimes the "rewrite" is the actual death of the fic. Especially if it's like, "I'm too embarrassed by my old writing, let's delete this and start over". What they don't realize is that if it doesn't work out, there may be nothing where there was something before (or significantly less than it used to be). Of course, there are also people who want to actively wipe it off the face of the internet or not to have their handle associated with it.
Nevertheless, I would like to once again appeal to any fic writer who sees this:
Don't delete your old fics(!); there likely are still people who love them or would love to read them. Repost them on AO3 and orphan them if you don't want them associated with you.
Also, Esca fandom, wouldn't it be useful to make a repository of the working waybackmachine links to the old sites and shrines?
Hello. I recently got into Escaflowne this year and just wanted to say that I really appreciate you keeping and sharing all of this knowledge about this hidden gem(for me it was anyways.) Also, I wanted to ask if you had any good full body hd art of Folken from either the show or the movie. He's the one character that I can't seem to find art for in any of the artbooks or fanbooks that doesn't have anything in the way. Thanks for all you do! :)
Hi there! Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm doing what I can for fandom preservation; luckily, there are still friends to help and fans to appreciate. It's always great to see a new person in!
It sounds to me like you are looking for some ref art! In which case, what is relevant is the settei. As someone who has all the artbooks and such, the best resource are the character model sheets. Yes, you will find the settei in all major MOOKs (Esca Settei Collection, Roman Artbook, Sunrise Artworks, Memory of Gaea, etc.) and elsewhere, BUT in those artbooks, some images are printed just in the size of a credit card, or maybe two-three credit cards. And an image for ants, no matter how HQ the scan, is an image for ants.
So the best quality you can get are the model sheets that the animators used in the production. Every illustration there was placed on a separate sheet of A4 paper, so you would get more detail out of the same image. There are colored versions, like this one for the movie (source: http://syan.rubberslug.com):
And there are BW versions, general design ones that look very similar to the artbooks and versions with the color codes for the cels to be painted, like this one (source: mandarake)
The model sheets are rarer to find BUT especially the BW ones are sold also as xerox copies. They can be bought in various sets, usually incomplete (for example, a set given to an animator for a specific episode that won't have all the sheets). And getting the scans in HQ is even harder because a) some of these scans are pretty old and it was a different time and a different norm for image quality and size to be shared on the internet, and b), people who scan them today and under today's standards usually don’t do it entirely for free.
There are people now who collect these for all kinds of anime and they publish them online. So they would be the source for these in HQ, if you can’t buy them (I haven’t bought them either). AFAIK tho, the HQ scans are usually placed behind a paywall (e.g. on Patreon).
Not sure what you meant under „anything in the way“, in case it's clothes and such, I can confirm there’s no nude or even semi-nude settei of Folken. For the TV version, this is practically all you can expect (of his canon age self). Ofc, higher quality exists, just grabbed this off pinterest/search results since it has more in one place.
Also recommend checking the tags on the Escaflowne blog I maintain:
https://heavenlydragon.tumblr.com/tagged/settei
https://heavenlydragon.tumblr.com/tagged/folken
Sorry I can't provide any HQ images directly, in fact I struggle with it myself because as I said, I don't have the model sheets and the scans of the books are not much better since the images are smaller there. I thought I had some model sheets in HQ downloaded but I looked for better part of an hour and just found images for ants again. If I find something better, I'll get back to this and tag you. Thanks for the ask again!
And invitation to the rest of the fandom to help out if they can (pls remember to tag @ensad).
EDIT: Maybe it's not all under the paywall! Looks like my internet search skills failed me the first time, pls check this out: https://setteidreams.net/settei/tenkuu-no-escaflowne/
Escaflowne Movie Trivia (you may have missed), the Megapost
You may have noted I shifted my focus quite a bit to the movie materials in these past two years, translating the CD dramas and the novel. Well, I wanna spill all that I have on Escaflowne Movie until the end of the year, which may be a handful of posts. The movie had its 25th anniversary this year and next year is a big year for the series, so it's only appropriate.
So, another thing I wanted to post were these trivia notes collected over several rewatches and connecting the things between the movie and the CD dramas/novels, and also taking a good look at the definitive Movie Artbook (Escaflowne Newtype 100 % Collection), referred to simply as the "artbook" here. Also, @coverteyes helped me with this again, big thanks for her help and readiness to kill time with me working on this. This will be long and imageheavy, as usual (there's almost 70 points, I warn you).
The first scene of the movie seems to have similar elements to a scene with the CD drama, where Hitomi sees a vision of Van praying to the dragon fossil (presumably believed to be one of the “twin gods” that led to creation to White Dragon Clan and Black Dragon Clan).
Van prays for “power to kill his enemies” and takes off, flying away, while Bird Song, the initial part of First Vision is played. First Vision is the OST to the opening scene of the movie, where Van attacks an enemy ship transporting the dragon armor, Escaflowne. Could it be that what Hitomi sees in the vision in the CD drama directly precedes the first movie scene?
The Black Dragon soldiers use the geographical term “Sasu”, according to the Newtype Artbook, it is a name of the elevation and the abandoned city where the war caravan is parked as Van attacks the Black Dragon Clan ship. The name of the ruin of the tower where the war caravan is parked is Tower of Heaven, we see a temple with huge stone statues and a well. The artbook speculates this city may come from the time of ancient Gaea.
The circle around the title card Escaflowne is made out of the word that looks like “Escaflone” in a script similar to the one the series uses for Gaean texts (above is the movie logo, below is the series text from the contract for the Ispano repairs).
The length of the “veil” on the Black Dragon Clan soldiers marks their level in the command (it's hard to catch them from the back so I had to edit a dark screencap -- this long veil belongs to a general). They also use oxygen masks since they operate at high altitudes .
The scene where Hitomi sees young Dune (who later became Folken) takes place shortly before 12 p.m. Time stops for a while, which happens repeatedly when the movie Hitomi experiences visions of Gaea. Yukari tells Hitomi she sees the dream of the young man as a result of frustration, because she has no boyfriend.
Hitomi’s family seems to be waiting for the 12:00 pm shinkansen “Hikari” heading to Okayama at the Tokyo Station. According to Newtype artbook, they are going “home” (probably to a countryside where one of the parents was born) for the New Year Holidays and Hitomi is 5 at the time.
When Hitomi mentions Dune to Yukari, she familiarly calls him onii-san. It’s like “bro” – similar to “gramps”, “sister” or similar, but when used towards an unrelated stranger.
The scene on the roof takes place on Saturday, 16:45 p. m. Saturday was a school day in Japan until recently, when they tried to relieve the students of the pressure and stress and it started being phased out. This is also why Yukari and Hitomi make plans for the next day, since Sunday is their only free day off of the week.
According to the Newtype Artbook, Yukari is a third (senior) year and 18 years old, whereas Hitomi is a second year and one year younger. Yukari also is “happy, active, and likes fashion”, and has the looks of a “future perfect wife”.
The ages of the other characters appear in the artbook as follows: Van 18, Millerna 18, Merle 15, Allen 22, Folken 28, Dryden 25, Jajuka 24, Dilandau 18, Chesta 15 (youngest of the Dragonslayers)
Hitomi and Yukari become stranded on a train in Yoyogi, Tokyo. Earlier, they seem to walk through what looks like the area of Harajuku (there is a “Harajuku Ouest” building) and Omotesando. They don’t seem to have their school bags, so going by what happened in the novel, they might have ran away from school. Or they put them in a coin locker at the station. Their trip seems to be a spontaneous thing – Yukari only has a small shopping bag and a bottle, probably bought on the way.
There are sightings of other existing buildings such as the Meiji Museum and the National Stadium. At the stadium, Hitomi has a flashback to a running race. We see her rival who, as stated in the CD drama, always leaves Hitomi behind and finishes first, a long-haired girl with pretty eyes and beautiful running form. She always leaves Hitomi behind, and in one race, she wished something bad would happen to her rival, leading to her losing her concentration and falling. Part of why she quit track was the injury she suffered in that race. The rival runner’s jersey bears the inscription 蘭 ran (orchid). It seems like her high school has that in its name, which is not uncommon (a fictional example would be Ouran Academy in the manga/anime Ouran High School Host Club).
Meanwhile, Hitomi wears a Kama-kita jersey like in the anime, so supposedly, her school is still in Kamakura (it is the case in the novel as well) and they just make a trip to Tokyo with Yukari. Unlike in the series, no Kamakura sights are present in the movie.
Folken’s arrival at the stadium was hinted at in the CD drama. In the drama, Folken, with the help of sorcerer Orm, tries to draw the Wing Goddess to Gaea, where she had once been. Neither Orm nor Sora can do it, and they conclude it can only be a “Dragon king”. Sora says that once the moon is full again, the path to the Wing Goddess will be open again and Folken says he would go out to meet her. As Escaflowne comes alive on the Black Dragon ship, Folken seems to unwillingly disappear though, his plans thwarted again. Hitomi appears to Van instead.
The pillar of light seems to be yellow instead of blue in the movie.
Van first automatically addresses Hitomi with a rude/casual omae (as a king would address anyone) but he immediately fixes it to a more polite anata, considering she might be the Wing Goddess. Once she “makes Escaflowne disappear” and he starts suspecting she may be a Black Dragon Clan spy, it’s back to omae again, and even an offensive kisama.
When the Dragon Armor disappears and Van starts blaming Hitomi and demands answers, she sees a flashback of Yukari. She is in the school and says, “You should definitely answer him, Hitomi”. What do you think it was that she should have answered, back when the scene happened? When I think of high school life as portrayed by the anime, I would think of something like a love letter or an invitation to a date. Especially since Yukari seems to recommend Hitomi getting a boyfriend.
When the Abaharaki make fun of Van for having “snatched Hitomi from somewhere”, they use the word for carry off, kidnap, or abduct.
The Dragon bones on the wall behind the throne of the Dragon King fade into the dragon bones on the floor of Folken’s palace. I always thought it was supposed to be the Black Dragon Clan god, but comparing the screenshots, it seems that Folken simply took them after he destroyed his homeland. Anyway, the artbook says there are more dragon fossils on Gaea, from the time many dragons wandered Gaea and also that Folken likes to walk over those bones.
As the kingdom of Salas falls before the Black Dragon clan, Jajuka says “they burn beast villages for conquest”, but this was apparently a whole kingdom. Did he mean the kingdom then? Was the kingdom destroying beast villages, and Black Dragon Clan burned them down in turn?
The Black Dragon Clan calls Folken soushi, the transcription is present in the artbook and the movie novel. It's 総師 and it seems to be a word coined for the movie. It looks VERY similar to 総帥 which means "commander-in-chief" but from the kanji, the meaning is more of a "general master", "general leader" or whatever, less militaristic, more of a position of respect.
Jajuka, in turn, is a strategist (like Folken in the series), they call him gunshi in the movie and in the CD drama.
Millerna says to Hitomi, it was the “storyteller of Freid” (語り部, official subs use “bard of Freid”) who told them of Wing Goddess. But it was Mole man who claimed that everything happened just as he foretold and that Allen owes him money. Is the bard the Mole man then? They call him the “quack fortuneteller” (如何様占い師 ikasama uranaishi). In any case, Freid seems to exist in the movie as well.
Hitomi’s watch shows Saturday again, 17:05… but it’s the next day (19th instead of 18th). So, is it just a mistake then and it should show Sunday instead? That would make it about one day since she had disappeared from Earth.
In the CD drama and in the movie (although for some reason it was not translated) Dilandau uses gunshi-dono (軍師, strategist) with Jajuka, a title that belonged to Folken in the anime, even including the choice of honorific. And it does really seem like it’s Jajuka’s place to keep Dilandau in line this time. Except, Dilandau didn’t slap Folken in the anime, but he surely does hit Jajuka here.
Miguel is titled Dilandau’s second in command by the artbook. He is also the first to die, same as in the anime.
Chesta is the youngest of the Dragonslayers, aged 15. His ability does not seem to be genetic, it was the sorcerers who equipped him with it.
There are beast men who seem to be the slaves of the Black Dragon Clan. One of them recognizes Van as “Van of Adom”, meaning he knows him from the wolf village. Van calls him “Nukushi”. But since Nukushi (or Nukse) in the artbook seems to be the name of the clan rather than his own, he could have been meant to be referred to in third person as “the Nukushi” instead. The beastman says his own village was destroyed and the survivors enslaved. That village was probably not too far from Adom, if they knew each other. Meaning, Black Dragon Clan got pretty close to Adom, and Van hasn’t been there in some time if he doesn’t know of it. Also, Adom might have been next in line of Black Dragon Clan conquests.
Speaking of, Van isn’t the king of Adom, nor is it implied that he would rule there after the movie, he is more of a refugee there. The wolf village just sheltered him after the total destruction of his kingdom and has its own elders who help Van recover from his injuries. Ruhm is Van’s childhood friend and might be one of them (he is in the novel). Meanwhile, Van was originally to be the king of the White Dragon Clan. White Dragon Clan was very isolated but kept contacts with the neighboring beast villages, that’s how Van knew them (and possibly Nukushi).
The horses (?) of the Dragonslayers let out strange blue sparks of flame. In the novel, they have referred to these horses as a special breed of “sacred steeds” (神馬, shinme or shinba, the book does not confirm the reading by furigana). In the artbook it is just said that the horses of the Dragonslayers are reinforced by sorcery and have stamina up to hundred times of a regular horse.
The original names of animals living on this version of Gaea include the makusy (the horned goat-like animal jumping the cliffs where the dragon fossil can be seen) and meqras (the strange bird without eyes, seen flying about and shrieking). But we also see more kinds of birds and some deer-like creatures make appearances.
How does Van know Hitomi’s name? She introduced herself to Millerna and Merle knows her name, too. Unless they make introductions off-screen, it seems Van may have eavesdropped on Hitomi's conversation with Millerna. Because when Hitomi was later kidnapped, Merle referred to her by name instead of Wing Goddess and Van immediately understood.
It was just a moment as Dilandau sent the sword shard flying through Van’s chest and Hitomi apparently did not even notice. That’s why she’s shocked and doesn’t understand why he’s bleeding so much.
In the Dilandau torture scene, there are eight other people wearing the white overcoat same as Dilandau. It seems they are the same level of commanders? The guy on the ship and the guy leading the castle attack in Salas are described as generals but they don’t wear white. So, what kind of people are these? Folken says Dilandau is one of the last few with dragon clan blood in their veins, although he’s of lower birth. Could it be those are the people of dragon clan blood in the Black Dragon Clan army? In the same scene in the Novel, Folken asks "who made you into a Demon General?" so that may be the rank of all these people, which is also why his punishment is witnessed by them.
The Artbook confirms Dilandau has “a smaller portion” of dragon clan blood. Does not seem like the fact that he was an illegitimate son of the former Dragon king and half-brother to Folken and Van carried over to the movie.
The scene where Folken breaks Dilandau’s fingers was inspired by the director Akane having a collision with a car on his bike and his little finger being broken off his hand.
Dilandau does “the Lucifer gaze” from The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel in the torture scene with Folken. Right before he attacks him, too.
Folken “predicted” the location of Alseides in the lake in Torushina. This is strange because in the CD drama, both Folken and Van needed the Wing Goddess to predict the location of Escaflowne. And Folken does retrieve it, based on Hitomi’s vision of the past that Sora eavesdropped on using her powers. It seems Folken was just given credit for Sora’s work with Hitomi’s memories here.
Folken, originally named Dune, is ten years older and only a half-brother to Van, as confirmed both by the Artbook and CD drama. In the CD drama, it is said that after Dune showed no sign of a king, his father remarried, to a beautiful, young dragon clan princess. Van, the son by this princess, was the one to have that favor. Dune’s mother died from grief, and his own life became a misery after he was told by his father that his only purpose was to be ready to give his life and die protecting his little brother who would be the king.
After joining Black Dragon Clan, Folken served under a commander called Adel (アデル); however, realizing he was only a tool to him, he eventually turned on him and killed him, rising eventually to the position of leader of Black Dragon Clan. This “Adel” might be a remnant of the Zaibach general Adelphos in the anime, who is the leader of the Copper Army Folken and the Dragonslayers serve with.
Sora is a miko (shrine maiden) and originally a daughter to a priest from a village called Neir (ネイル, other possible transcriptions include Neill), destroyed by Folken. He captured her for her “mysterious power”, called tsuuriki (通力). The kanji suggest it’s a power of “insight” or to “know the unknown”. Folken speaks of this tsuuriki also when he speaks to Dilandau about the dragon blood having "powers" in the punishment scene.
It seems Dryden has spies with the Black Dragon Clan, among the people working at the mineshaft where Alseides is discovered – according to the artbook, his spy holds the title of “factory manager”. Dryden also retains his waka-danna or “young master” handle people call him by in the series.
In the part of the Artbook comparing the characters to the TV version, Dryden is said to be “the only” son of Meiden in the anime. This information was never confirmed by any of the TV anime materials to my knowledge. He is actually called his firstborn son, which may insinuate he does have siblings, but it’s not confirmed, either way. Perhaps in the movie, he is supposed to be the only son, then?
As the Abaharaki repair the war caravan, besides the meqras bird appearing, you may also spot five swords stuck into a stone boulder in the background. Could it be that they lost 5 comrades to the Dragonslayers attack?
Did you ever wonder how Hitomi and injured Van got into Adom? It seems Jajuka must have had a hand in that. He’s a friend of the wolf clan it seems, he even retrieved Nukushi’s body. Hitomi’s speech must have had an effect on him if that’s the case. On the other hand, Van thanks Ruhm upon their departure and it is Ruhm who found them in the novel, so it was also possible they cooperated.
The village of Adom looks pretty similar to Fanelia, if you just take the topography into the account. Adom seems to be a small village in a very similar-looking valley to where Fanelia lies in the anime. In the novel, the name Fanelia is explicitly mentioned for the White Dragon Clan kingdom, but seems to have been totally destroyed, making Van an exile in Adom. Adom is not a purely wolf village, several kinds of beast people live there, which also explains Merle.
The totems (gate?) seen in one of the pictures bear inscriptions similar to the White Dragon Clan tattoos. Could it be some sort of protection?
According to the Artbook, it took a month for Van to heal enough to step outside.
Right after Hitomi and Van leave Adom, there’s a shot of two beast people making an offering to some kind of altar. Could it be a cameo of the little rodent people with their anthill civilization from episode 15 of the anime? There is also a dolphin man in Dryden’s bar, possibly another easter egg.
At the inn, there is a wall scroll with painting of a warrior or perhaps a king, and a dragon. Hitomi seems to study it for a while. This is the biggest extent of what is visible of it.
Mole Man mentions a song of Gadarasai, speaking about the wing goddess. Who or what is Gadarasai? Is it the Bard of Freid then? Or the whole phrase is simply the name of the song and the bard is Mole himself? In this version, Mole Man is also confirmed to be fully human (in the series, he is half-man half-beastman).
The sorcerers (madoushi) exist in the movie as well, they are responsible for reviving the dragon armor. In design, they seem to be a mix of the series sorcerers and Ispano clan from the series, with lower stature, varying number of eyes that are closed shut, and dark cloaks. Even with their eyes sewn shut, they seem to study some ancient materials as they are reviving the armor.
There are pins connected to (what I assume is) Dilandau’s brain. But the sorcerers seem to have pins in their heads as well.
What broke in Hitomi’s room at the inn, creating the vision with the shards and liquid reflecting the sky, seems to be a water carafe. She has a carafe and a basin on her side desk but in the next shot, the carafe is missing. There is a similar scene in the novel, but there, Hitomi unconsciously uses psychic power to break Dryden’s glass at the pub when he provokes her.
Van, Mole, and Merle seem to share a tiny room at the inn. Merle has a blanket with a familiar pattern.
When Van finds himself surrounded by flames, he has a flashback to the destruction of his homeland. He calls for his mother, who seemed to have died surrounded by six other people, who mostly appear to be women, possibly her ladies-in-waiting. According to the CD drama, this woman is the mother of Van only, a “pure blood Dragon Clan princess” who arrived to marry the Dragon King. Dune’s own mother had died over the sorrow of her son not having the favor of destiny.
Van’s mother had long hair with thick braids and metal decorations on the bottom, a crown in the shape of a dragon, and on her shoulders, tattoos or markings similar to Van, his father, and young Dune in Hitomi’s vision on the train station.
In the novel, they are tattoos made by Ruhm to remember his lost kingdom (but they also feature Fanelia’s crest, unlike in the movie itself). It’s hard to imagine Ruhm came in to tattoo Dune, Folken’s mother, and finally Van himself, but maybe it was a tradition, so Van would actively seek someone else who would be able to do them for him once he came of age. Little Van doesn’t seem to bear those markings, neither in the movie nor in the production materials, so it doesn’t seem like something the Dragon Clan are born with.
On the other hand, on the sketch depicting Dune with little Van and Merle, not even Dune has them, and he is older than what we see at the train station, so the sketch could include a consistency error.
Do you think Folken still has the markings underneath his robes, even if he gave up his wings? In Hitomi’s vision, Van has no markings, neither as a child nor a young man, but that may be a stylistic choice of the lack of detail. Or, removing the markings of the Dragon Clan royalty in this scene may be a symbol (he’s just a boy). He doesn’t seem to have any markings in Folken’s memory, either.
There is also a shot of the royal castle, which seems to have many towers and is built on a side of the mountain, near a river and surrounded by a forest. It’s a shot of the White Dragon Clan kingdom (in the novel it retains the name Fanelia), a separate place from Adom, which is a beast people village and does not seem to be subject to the authority of the Dragon King.
This is a sculpture in the White Dragon castle. Who would hold such a position of respect in this demi-god clan? Do you think it could be a depiction of the Wing Goddess?
According to director Akane, the White Dragon Clan isolated themselves since they knew their powers were dangerous and they wanted their blood to eventually vanish from Gaea. Once it spread into human populations, it would be impossible to root out. Black Dragon Clan had the opposite approach to that.
The movie armors bleed and are indeed fleshy. Dilandau burns Escaflowne’s hand to the bone but it doesn’t stop Van. Also, he puts a spear through the whole side of Escaflowne and it bleeds, plus, Van bleeds (even more than usual) inside the armor, suggesting the same type of connection seen in the anime. Van uses the same spear and his own sword to pin Alseides to the ground.
When Hitomi and Van leave Folken’s disintegrating castle on wings, Moleman says something that got translated as “Dragon people are dancing”. What he says is 竜人/竜神が舞っている (ryuujin ga matteiru). It is hard to say in fact whether he says dragon people or dragon gods. It uses the same mau verb as the name of the TV version episode as well as the movie novel chapter The Day the Angel Flew. It is an interesting verb that indeed can mean fly as well as dance, but rather “dance in the wind”. It is used also for the cherry blossoms scattering in the wind, so what he is describing are the white feathers that flutter about. It is insinuated they are not just from Van’s wings, but rather, they are the Wing Goddess’ doing.
The song the kids sing together with Merle is called “Nomitori Uta”, which, believe it or not, means “Fleapicking Song” :D The lyric “Kakurenbo” that keeps repeating there means “Hide and Seek” (the game) and even though the lyrics are difficult to get, I think it could be about playing hide-and-seek with the fleas in one’s fur. LOL.
The lyrics are:
かくれんぼ、かくれんぼ
おせなにかくれんぼ
なじょしてとるか
ちいちい
Kakurenbo, kakurenbo
Osena ni kakurenbo
Najoshite toru ka
Chii chii
Loosely translated as:
Hide-and-seek, hide-and-seek
On the back, hide-and-seek
How do I get you
Little flea
The transcriptions of names and titles into Latin alphabet/English in the artbook differ slightly from the official subs of the movie and the anime, namely in cases of Sora (who appears as Solla), Ruhm (Rumu), Reeden (Riden), Katz (Kattu), Orto (Olto), Gaddes (Gades), Miguel (Migel), Nukushi (Nukse), White/Black Dragon Clan (White/Black Dragon Tribe), Abaharaki (Avahalegi), Torushina (Tolcina). Other names match the ones we see in the subs. Maybe these were in fact the spellings intended by creators but there was some miscommunication involved?
HOW TO GET YOUR ACCOUNT BACK FROM RANDOM NIGHTMARE SURPRISE TERMINATION!!!!!!!!!!!
I woke up on sunday morning to find that my whole account had been terminated out of the blue. VERY DISTRESSING!!! if this has just happened to you, YOU CAN GET YOUR ACCOUNT RESTORED. the best part is, everything remains intact! your messages, asks, followers, posts, etc. don't fret!! they restored my account only a day after it had been terminated. usually, it takes one to two weeks for a response. HERE'S WHAT I DID!!!
it's important that you send a SUPPORT TICKET. don't randomly email them!!! go to https://www.tumblr.com/support and choose "terminated account" as your reason.
include the email of the account that got terminated. this makes it easier for them to recover it! if you can't send it from that email, just include it in the message.
include the following: to the best of your knowledge, you have re-read the site rules and you haven't broken any site guidelines. state how important your account is to you, and stress how thankful you are for their help in recovering it. BE POLITE. EVEN IF YOU'RE UPSET OR PISSED OFF!!!! it significantly ups your chances of being listened to. I included the phrase "I'm sure you understand the importance of this" which is corporatespeak for "FIX THIS OR SO HELP ME GOD" and that seemed to get their attention.
you can also @ support on tumblr with the issue, and @ them on another site (e.g. twitter). there's a chance they'll see and respond quicker! cover all your options. the reddit for tumblr account termination is no longer active so don't bother with that.
if they don't respond within a few days, reply to the confirmation email they sent after you sent in your request. follow up! ask for updates! reiterate the urgency of the situation! make sure you're not responding to an address with "noreply" in it!
REALLY HOPE THIS HELPS!!!! all is not lost you just gotta be STERN AND POLITE. it's terrifying to have your entire account vanish overnight but there is always hope okay. love you good luck
UPDATE: I had to do this whole thing AGAIN because my art blog ALSO got terminated out of the blue and they got back to me the very next day. this shit works!!!! I think the main factor is following up by replying to their confirmation email because as soon as I did that they got back to me.
Can confirm this is how I tackled it when this blog was randomly terminated a while back; I had to do this before. I got my whole blog back, which is good, because I think this one is over a decade old by now.
Thanks @radical-rad1986. I did practically all of this almost a month ago (for my own decade-old fanblog). Nada. Not even a reply. The email address I got the confirmation of the appeal request from looked like this: support+'randomstring'@tumblr.zendesk.com
It was possible to reply to and all but they never got back to me. I followed up twice since, second time just today. Idk, it seemed to take shorter for people who actually succeeded with this.
@crabussy said: @fayrinferno yeahh the zendesk email acc is notorious for getting absolutely no response... you could try directly emailing support ([email protected]) to see if that works?
Thanks for the reply and suggestion! I wrote to that email and immediately received this automated reply:
Hello and thank you for your message,
We do not accept emails to this address. Please follow the link or instructions below for further assistance.
And a bunch of links to the support pages I'm not gonna copy.
I'm not sure I understand though. I first did what you suggested in the original post; I submitted a support ticket, selected Terminated account, gave reasoning, etc. in this contact form:
But the reply came from the zendesk email acct. Is it not the case for everyone, then? Since in the original post you suggest replying to the confirmation email, well, I have no other email to reply to but the zendesk one to stay in the "ticket" conversation.
Did you not receive your own confirmation from the zendesk acct then? The 'randomstring' I mention in my first reblog might be the specific ticket number I assume, so I never suspected anything was wrong with the ticket itself. Or was I filtered as a bot already by being given a zendesk email to reply to??? Actually, one thing I have not mentioned is that very first, I submitted the ticket for Account access, since I missed the termination option. I received only the automated email from [email protected] (without the random string). Never received any other reply to that, either, although I followed up once on that, too.
Also, even when I contacted [email protected] today, the reply about not accepting emails there still came from [email protected]. And even if they told me NOT to contact them on that email address, the email contains the text
##- Please type your reply above this line -##
(´。＿。｀)
Sorry to bother you with all this, I'm just trying to make some sense out of it. I know some people received email reasoning for example when their blog got terminated, I never received anything except automated replies and confirmations and I followed up each and every one of them just to be sure. I will do it this time as well but I wonder if I am just filtered altogether because, idk, my email provider (it's yandex btw, I created it many years ago and I just wanted a tertiary email address without the phone number etc. hassle... not a bot, I swear).
@crabussy said AWWW DANG THAT'S ANNOYING….. you're not bothering me, don't worry!! none of the responses I got were from zendesk, except one written by an Actual Person after I followed up (at which point my account had already been restored). I've heard that if you send the support ticket through the "domains" option and not the "terminated account" option they might get back to you? I've also heard that they might have your original account's email marked as spam if that was the reason you got incorrectly terminated, so if you haven't, maybe a separate email might be worth contacting them through?
But wouldn't my whole account be terminated if it was because of my email? Only one of the blogs got deleted (so far), I still have three other working blogs there.
I feel like I'm drawing summoning circles trying to reach some living soul from the support. I hate to be that guy, honestly. I try to do things the proper way so being pushy and using the "wrong" support options just to "cheat" the system rubs me in a wrong way. But can I just easily give up on years of work? I'm almost never pushy but I am trying not only for myself but for people who supported my blog and were saddened to see it go. And also for other people, so they can prevent the same thing from happening to them or so that they know how to fight back. I know you are doing the same with the post so thanks for making it and trying to help.
In case it helps someone, here's what I suspect may have been the reasons for my own blog/account termination (they call it account but even the appeal option works with the the singular blogs and it automatically recognizes which blog was deleted, so unless it was your main blog that got terminated, guess you won't lose access to your account):
1. using the VPN
It's built in the browser I was logged in at the time, so my active sessions over a few weeks look like Norway, Norway, US, Netherlands, etc. I get that it might look a bit suspicious but I don't think it's that rare among the tumblr users?
2. accidentally using several words that were probably monitored in a post
Well, since the blog got deleted within seconds after that post, I think that would be the main suspect. It was a translation of some pieces of trivia that unfortunately did contain these words randomly scattered all over the post. Nothing too extreme but I don't self-censor words or use euphemisms. Never felt like I needed to do it here. Even if it was the case, I don't understand why it didn't flag or even delete just the post in the first place? Was the blog already flagged by then and it was just the last straw? Also, to be clear, it was just the presence of some expressive words, by no means were there some hateful or otherwise problematic expressions of phrases.
3. using the yandex email address
IDK how bad the russbots issue is here these days and if yandex addresses are specifically monitored. As said, it was accidental, I had that address for ten years. And as said, only one of the blogs got deleted, not the whole account associated with that email.
I tried also to understand that Zendesk vs. no Zendesk support email issue and from what I gather, Zendesk is a third party product for customer support. Why and how can there be double standards of if it goes through Zendesk or not for some users is something I just don't understand.
Re: "the Zendesk addresses are notorious for not replying"
Read this to be understand that if you got your reply through Zendesk, you are in fact being "helped" by a "happiness engineer". And cry happy little tears of joy if they never got back to you.
Wordpress.com's parent company, Automattic, has an entirely decentralized team of 350 agents. They use Zendesk Support to solve ~50K+ ticket
Guess that's it for today. I wonder if this blog is in jeopardy now as well.
EDIT: Re: @crabussy I really must thank you, I eventually folded and wrote to support using the domains option as you suggested... and it really worked! I can't believe such "hack" works better than the dedicated option but here we are (on the hellsite)!
Thanks for all your help!
Few days ago, tumblr just deleted/banned the @heavenlydragon fanblog. Without any warning, without any reasoning, without a word. I'm posting this so that you know it was not deleted by the owner. Support has been contacted and spamming them won't help, so there's nothing else that can be done right now. Reading the notes of people who had this happen to them, it may unfortunately be permanent.
The blog was started in 2016 on the series anniversary. So it was almost ten years worth of original content (mostly translations and edits), reblogs, and all kinds of work you can expect maintaining such blog. It had thousands of posts, hundreds of follows and reblogged all kinds of Escaflowne content, so that it becomes archived and searchable even if the original poster leaves Tumblr (or gets banned). Unfortunately, we had no idea it could get deleted itself. No need to mention, there was no problematic content that warranted such action. So yeah, @staff I definitely see this as a slight and I am eagerly awaiting your response. Right now, you can only see how it looked here:
An Escaflowne catalogue.
P.S. If you care about them, backup/export your tumblrs people. I don't know how to react tbh. I started forming a plan B but I have to admit that this was a huge blow to my motivation to continue any activity here.
...in Japan was on June 24th!! And we thought it would be a good time to share the movie novel translation (although we are a few days late). The novelization, titled simply Escaflowne, is a retelling (or protoscript, if you want) of the movie with quite a few surprising twists and turns! It was written by the main series and movie writer, Ryota Yamaguchi, and published as part of the Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko edition. (So not a Newtype novel this time.)
This translation was a teamwork effort with @coverteyes, whom I thank for the proofreading, editing, and basically making this happen. It is a work several years in the making, so we hope you enjoy!
