[Dr Kain]

We finished watching Escaflowne tonight with the brand new dub that Funimation did and overall, I am quite pleased with it.

Hitomi - Caitlyn Glass was absolutely perfect for Hitomi. She nailed the character right out of the park and she sounds exactly like her Japanese counterpart Sakamoto.

Van - Aaron Dismuke also pulled off his Van with great perfection. He has the same gruff sound in his voice as Seki does in the Japanese track.

Merle - Alexis Tipton was just as stunning as both Aaron and Caitlyn were. It was like they just turned Otani's voice ineto English at the flip of a switch.

Allen - This is where the dub got a little iffy as Sonny Strait was no the right choice for Allen. He isn't terrible or anything, but Allen is supposed to be a soft spoken smooth talker, something which Strait is not. There were times where it sounded like Sonny was forcing himself to keep his voice lowkey and I'm pretty sure he broke out of it a couple of times. I enjoyed him, but I'm sure there are a few others that could have done better (such as Crispin Freeman, who he even said he wanted to cast).

Millerna - Colleen Clinkbeard has some extreme range as I didn't hear her voice for Luffy or Gohan at all in her. At first I was a little unsure but she grew with the character, giving us a really solid voice.

Dryden - There's a small sense of style that makes it hard to compete with Juurouta Kosugi's take on Dryen, but Eric Vale did a magnificent job on the character, bringing in his own style he has gained as Sanji over the years, while also keeping that scruffy tone in his voice that Dryden has.

Folken - Jouji Nakata voices this traitorous strategist in the Japanese version and that man is like the greatest Japanese voice actor ever. No one in America can ever top his voice. To my surprise, not only did Vic Mignogna manage provide a truly impressive Folken, but the only time you could tell it was him was when he was portraying the younger, innocent Folken. He might not be Nakata, but the man definitely showed off his talent here. A truly remarkable performance.

Dilandau - Okay, this is where things can get dicey as Dilandau is my favorite character of the series, so I have high expectations from him. Minami Takayama voices him in the Japanese track and she plays the character's ever changing psychosis to a T. The original dub failed on massive levels as I never found Dilandau to be the demented psychopath whose personality changes without any forewarning, it just happens. Joel McDonald, a voice actor I am not all that familiar with, pulled off the character with utter perfection. He had every mannerism down. The constant mood swings were there and they sounded magnificent. The only thing he lacked was the female tang in his voice (for obvious reasons), but he is by far the MVP of the new dub as far as I am concerned. This man deserves an award for his outstanding work on this character. Although, the pronounciation of the character's name is kind of jarring to hear, but you start to get used to it after awhile.

Naria and Eriya - I always group these two together given they're twins and both Michelle Rojas and Felecia Angelle pulled this duo off greatly.

Emperor Dornkirk - Jeremy Schwartz was on par with Masato Yamanouchi as Zaiboch's mysterious emperor.

All of the other third string characters and Allen's crew are great, so no complaints at all.

As someone who absolutely loves the Japanese version of this series, it is so nice to have the option of watching it with an incredible English dub that compliments the Japanese track with adamant precision. This is what I have always wanted from the English track but never got before. Funimation put a lot of hard work into redubbing this show and it shows with nearly every casting choice. Not only was it well worth experiencing the new dub, but I have no regrets for participating in the Kickstarter as it helped provide quality entertainment.

It's just a shame the new dub couldn't fix the crappiness of the movie, but oh well, it would take a miracle to do that.

Speaking of which:

Escaflowne The Movie - After the near perfection that is the series, how did this movie go so wrong? Instead of classic Final Fantasy we get Dynasty Warriors, which should have made for an interesting concept, but the execution is just so terrible. The pacing is all over the place as the movie can't be bothered to slow down to actually let the characters develop or the audience actually digest everything that has been thrown at them. Hitomi is now some whiny little emo who wants to commit suicide, but then is afraid to die and wants to change Van from being the same way. WTF? The final battle with Folken is anti-climatic as is the ending to the movie itself. Allen is barely even in the damn thing, but the worst goes to Naria and Eriya who have been reduced to bar singers. Oh, and instead of having some pretty kick ass fight choroegraphy given the nature of the samurai style, the characters now have Force abilities. WHAT?! Dilandau is the only thing in this movie that seemed on par with his TV personality while everyone else is a mess. As a whole though, this movie is just a mess. It feels like they had an idea for a new Escaflowne series but were told they could only tell it in movie form, so they cut 26 episodes down to the length of five episodes. Very disappointing, but at least the music kicks ass. The animation is smooth too, but there is barely any color in it and the fun is just sucked away, leaving nothing more than a lifeless heap of crap. I'm going to give it a 5/10.