Escaflowne - A Girl in Gaia Movie Story

Escaflowne - A Girl in Gaia Movie Story
This synopsis is spoiler-intensive. If you don\'t want to know every detail, don\'t read!

Gaian goats bounce across a rocky mountainside, trampling on the fossils of dragons. Suddenly a passing airship intrudes on their revelry. The goats\' surprise is understandable, because this is one seriously large ship. It has to be big — its cargo is the legendary armor Escaflowne.

Far above the airship, a huge bird sails through the air. A closer inspection, however, reveals that its not a bird at all — it\'s a man with wings. The wings disintegrate in a flurry of feathers and the man skydives toward the ship at high speed. He lands on the airship\'s watchtower with a heavy thud and slaughters the guard posted there.

On the bridge of the airship, the commander muses that the armor must be brought to Lord Folken at any cost. Unfortunately for the commander, that cost isn\'t going to be easy to pay. The skydiver, Van, is working his way through the airship, single-handedly slaughtering the crew. This guy could have wiped out the entire Nazi army in an afternoon. It\'s four minutes into the film, and already the body count is higher than a Shakespearean tragedy.

Ultimately Van reaches the bridge. The commander stares at him, commenting that he must be the rumored Dragon. Van glares back. \"I kill all of my enemies,\" is all he says in response. Then he takes the commander\'s head off with a single swipe.
In the cargo hold, Escaflowne begins to crack free of its casing, its heart beating slowly. Van approaches and laughs, delighted to have reclaimed the armor.

The setting shifts to Earth. In a dream sequence, a young Hitomi waits with her parents at a train station. She watches the people go by and then turns to admire her father\'s watch. The watch\'s second hand slows and then stops altogether. The world has frozen. Hitomi looks up, surprised, and sees a feral looking young man standing to her left. \"Who are you?\" she asks. There is no response. Time returns to normal. Hitomi stares at the empty spot where the man had been standing, while her parents try to tug her onto the train.

In present time, a teenage Hitomi sleeps on the school roof. Her friend Yukari sneaks up and awakens her, chiding her for skipping class again. Hitomi tells her about her dream. Yukari shrugs it off. She tells Hitomi that she is having strange dreams because she\'s bored. She should get a boyfriend, or join a school club. Hitomi rejects these ideas. She\'s too tired, she says, and her legs hurt.

Yukari notices a letter on the ground next to Hitomi\'s shoes and goes to pick it up. Hitomi tries to stop her from reading it, but is unable to get it away from her friend in time.

\"Dear Uchida Yukari, I am going to die. Bye bye, Yukari. Yours truly, Kanzaki Hitomi.\"

Hitomi finally manages to snatch the letter away from Yukari and tears it up with embarrassment. Yukari watches her, amused. What was that nonsense all about? No grammar, horrible vocabulary — if Hitomi wants to kill herself, shouldn\'t leave a stupid note like that! Hitomi assures her that she doesn\'t have the guts to kill herself. She\'ll grow old, become a grandmother, and wait for her final day.

A montage sequence begins in which we see Yukari and Hitomi riding the subway, shopping downtown, and walking the streets of their city, laughing. Over it, Hitomi gives a monologue. She wonders how everyone else can be so energetic. She\'s tired all the time. She sleeps to escape, to disappear. But when she wakes up, nothing has changed. No one has even noticed that she was gone.

The subway train the two friends are riding on suddenly stops due to an accident. Yukari is annoyed, but Hitomi merely looks out the window apathetically. It can\'t be helped.
Later, Yukari and Hitomi chase each other down a sidewalk, laughing. Hitomi seems happy, but then a bird circling overhead catches her eye. She stops and watches it, hearing a strange, sad song. Yukari asks what\'s wrong. Hitomi has a vision of a cloaked man standing at the school stadium. \"He\'s calling me,\" she says.

Yukari, probably wondering if Hitomi is on drugs, decides that its time to have a talk with her depressed friend. As they sit on the stadium steps, Yukari tells her that she\'s been acting strange, and tries to get Hitomi to explain. Hitomi tells Yukari to stop caring about her. \"You\'re getting on my nerves. I don\'t like you,\" she says in a dead voice. Yukari backs away, hurt. She claims that she has an appointment to get to, and runs away.

Hitomi doesn\'t move. She stares at the ground, berating herself for hurting her friend and wishing aloud that she could vanish. She looks up to the sky and calls out for someone to help her.
Enter Folken. He stands in the center of the stadium field in a black hooded cloak, and reaches out his hand to Hitomi. She\'s right, he tells her. Everything should vanish. Since she shares his dream, she should come to his world, Gaia, where she can fulfill her destiny. After all, she is the chosen one — the Tsubasa no Kami (Wing Goddess).

Shadows fall over the field as the vision of Folken disintegrates. The Earth rises into the sky, and the field begins to fill with water. Though a normal girl would run screaming from these rather unusual events, Hitomi stands firm. Is it a dream? A vision? Or is this real — will she be able to make her nihilistic dreams come true? The rising water overtakes her, and she falls into the watery blackness.

Meanwhile, on Gaia, a second moon materializes in the sky. On a cliff next to the ruins of an ancient city, the Abaharaki rebels watch the astronomical show from their landship. The Mole Man is particularly pleased, extolling the beauty of this Mystic Moon. But Millerna is worried. She comments that the armor must be cursed if it has these omens surrounding it. Allen does not share her concern. He idly wonders if everyone is in place for the drama that is starting, and smiles.

On the airship, Escaflowne\'s heart beats. Hitomi appears in a beam of watery light, materializing inside the armor. Escaflowne\'s heart beats faster, and the armor begins to move. The water drains out of the compartment containing Hitomi, and she looks around, confused by her claustrophobic surroundings. The armor sprouts glowing tendrils than coalesce into a flowing cape. Then it pitches forward and reaches its hand toward the waiting Van.

The rebels can now see the airship approaching. The Mole Man notes that this is exactly what he predicted. Will he be rewarded for his services? Allen reassures him that he\'ll be paid. The Mole Man begins to express excitement over his coming reward, but is forced to stop when Gaddes bounds into the room and lands on his chest. As the Mole Man tries to wriggle out from under the solider, Gaddes asks his boss if the plan is really going to work. Isn\'t Allen overestimating Van a smidge? Allen just smirks. Him, Allen, wrong? You must be joking.
Back inside the airship, Escaflowne grabs Van in its fist. Van is unafraid — but the same cannot be said for Merle, who is watching the approaching airship from the ground. \"Van-sama, Van-sama, Van-sama...\" she chants nervously.

As the airship passes by the cliff, Allen gives the command to shoot it down. Cannons fire from the side of the landship and slam into airborne fortress, causing Van and Escaflowne to pitch around madly, debris raining down around them. Still trapped inside the armor, Hitomi cries out.
The stricken airship crashes to the ground, clearing a wide swath through the abandoned city. Van is able to escape through a side hatch and leaps off of the exploding vessel, rolling down a stepped hill to safety. He looks back at the crash-site firestorm and sees Escaflowne emerge from the flames. \"It\'s alive,\" he murmurs.

Escaflowne does not appear to be too steady on its feet. It lumbers clumsily down the hill toward Van, tripping and falling as it reaches him. Luckily for Van, the armor manages to land on its hands, balancing precariously above his head. Inside, Hitomi is still clueless. She begs for someone to help her. As soon as she does, the armor casing that encloses her begins to crack. With an organic ripping noise, Escaflowne\'s chest splits open and Hitomi tumbles out — right on top of Van.
As she looks at Van in amazement and confusion, Hitomi remembers the strange person she saw at the train station when she was younger. This is not the same man, but he seems similar. Who is he?

Van is wondering the same thing about her. He grabs her shoulders and demands to know if she is the Tsubasa no Kami. Hitomi remembers that the cloaked man at the stadium called her the same name — but she has no idea what it means.

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Van backs away from Hitomi and kneels. He explains that he is a descendent of the Dragon Clan, and he will obey the wishes of the Tsubasa no Kami — in other words, her. He will use Escaflowne to eliminate anyone who opposes her will. Hitomi is naturally startled by this statement. She frets that she doesn\'t understand. This was not exactly what she had in mind when she said she wanted to disappear off the face of the Earth!

As her panic grows, Escaflowne begins to glow. Both Hitomi and Van watch in horror as it disintegrates into a green mist. The mist coalesces into a ball of light and flies away. Van looks up into the sky, upset that it has vanished. While his back is turned, a small pink stone floats down to the ground and into Hitomi\'s waiting hands. She looks at it suspiciously. What is this thing? And what the heck is going on?

She\'s not about to get answers from Van. Though he was swearing loyalty to her only moments before, he is now furious. She made Escaflowne disappear! She can\'t be the Tsubasa no Kami after all! He demands to know who she is and why she was inside the armor. Hitomi has no answer for him. Van prepares to attack.

As Van moves towards Hitomi with his sword, a voice calls out for him to wait. Allen descends from a nearby stairwell and tells Van to leave Hitomi alone — she may prove useful later, and besides, he would hate to see a woman\'s blood shed. But Van is in a foul mood, and snaps at Allen that he doesn\'t take orders. Allen just smirks at him.

Van, being the calm, rational animal that he is, doesn\'t take too well to this silent mocking. He attacks Allen, sword drawn. The older warrior is unfazed, and holds him off with his own sword — one-handed. Van wants to fight? Fine with Allen.

A brief but intense battle ensues in which Van is shown to be the more aggressive fighter, but distinctly less skilled. Allen ultimately knocks him to the ground. Van rises to attack again, but a blade flies into his leg from the sidelines, hobbling him. The knife\'s owner, Gaddes, tells Van that it\'s time to stop this silly game. After all, if Allen had wanted to kill Van, he\'d be dead already.
Millerna is not nearly as amused by the proceedings as the men are. She stalks down the stairwell and gives Gaddes a piece of her mind. He used his knives on his own comrade! Gaddes fails to see what the big deal is — it\'s not like he aimed for any vital organs or anything.

On a ledge above the stairway the other Abaharaki rebels, most notably the mischievous Reeden, tease Gaddes for getting yelled at by the \"princess\" Millerna. Then they notice Hitomi and transfer their attentions to her. Is she even a girl? Her hair is so short! The Mole Man interrupts their jeering to proclaim that the girl must be the Tsubasa no Kami. The rebels could care less. An annoyed Reeden tells the Mole Man to shut up.

Millerna asks Allen if the girl is really the Tsubasa no Kami. Yeah, probably, he says nonchalantly. Millerna is puzzled. The girl certainly doesn\'t look like a goddess. She kneels down next to Van and asks what he thinks. Still fuming over his defeat at Allen\'s hands, Van refuses to answer. Instead he yanks Gaddes\' knife out of his leg and throws it at his commander\'s head. Allen doesn\'t even blink as the knife whizzes by his ear. Gaddes catches the knife and pockets it with a laugh. Hey, if Van wants to try fighting again, Gaddes is more than happy to take him on.

The simmering argument suddenly takes a lighter turn with the appearance of Merle. She is enraged that Gaddes and Allen are picking on her beloved Van. As she runs down the stairwell, she kicks Gaddes in the shins. When she discovers that Van is bleeding, she rants at Allen for always putting Van in danger and swears that she\'ll poison him someday. Allen just looks at her with amusement.

Yeah, sure, whatever.

Everyone\'s attention finally returns to Hitomi, who has no idea what to make of any of this. Allen, operating on the assumption that she really is the Tsubasa no Kami, welcomes her and requests that she grant the Abaharaki the strength of dragons and the swiftness of wings. Hitomi\'s response? She faints.

A flashback sequence begins in which we see the inside of a burning palace. A defeated king tells his attacker that it is his own foolishness that caused him to lose the right to the throne. The attacker, Dune, just smiles viciously at this criticism. Then he responds in a cold voice. \"I will kill Van with my own hands, Father.\"

In the present time, an elf-like woman stands on a floor inlaid with dragon bones, singing a sad and ethereal tune. As the song ends, the glowing light around her fades. Clearly her song holds some sort of magical power. The lady turns to look behind her. Down the hallway, huddled up against a glass window, is a figure cloaked in black. The woman — Sora — calls out to him. It is Folken.
Folken looks up. Has the Tsubasa no Kami arrived yet? Yes, Sora tells him — but it seems that she has gone to the other Dragon instead of to him. Folken stands up and removes his cloak. So, the Tsubasa no Kami has appeared before Van, he murmurs. The lady concurs, but adds that she cannot sense the Dragon Armor\'s heartbeat. This seems to please Folken. As long as the goddess and the armor do not resonate as one, the armor will remain lifeless. This means that they still have time to gain control over the Wing Goddess.

Sora does not appear to share Folken\'s goals. Do they truly want the power of the Tsubasa no Kami? If the armor awakens, all of Gaia will burn to ashes. Folken will be destroyed as well, the lady says. But the leader of the Black Dragon Clan is not bothered by her premonition. He doesn\'t care if he burns. In fact, he wants to.

Elsewhere on Gaia, a city in the waterfields falls to enemy forces. A messenger brings the invaders an offer of surrender. The shogun in charge of the attack is not moved by this gesture. The Black Dragon Clan needs no slaves! Kill them all and burn everything — just as Lord Folken ordered.

From the nearby hills a lone warrior, a hound man, watches the slaughter. The solider wears the armor of the Black Dragon Clan, but it seems strangely out of place on his animal body. He gazes down sadly on the tragedy below. How unnecessarily cruel, he laments. \"My condolences,\" he says quietly to the people of the destroyed city.

The scene shifts to the interior of the Abaharaki landship. Hitomi awakens in a dark, narrow room. Before she can get hear bearings, Millerna speaks up. \"Oh, you\'re awake now,\" she says. \"I was beginning to wonder if you had died.\"

Millerna walks to the far wall and throws open the shades, filling the room with bright light. Hitomi cringes, still completely disoriented and confused by the day\'s events. As she squirms, she notices that in her hand she is still holding the strange pink gem that floated down to her from the sky. She looks at it for a moment, then shakes her head and starts hysterically chanting that she must be dreaming — all of this must be a dream!

Millerna doesn\'t suffer fools lightly. She walks up to Hitomi and slaps her, hard. Hitomi freezes for a moment in shock, and then touches her cheek. \"That hurt,\" she whimpers. \"Well then,\" Millerna says with a smile. \"It\'s not a dream.\"

Millerna drags the unwilling Hitomi to the window. Below them is an uninhabited, lush valley. There are two moons hanging in the sky — no, one moon and the Earth. Hitomi looks around and sees that she is in a giant moving fortress, one pulled by oversized yaks. Not surprisingly, her eyes grow a bit large at the realization that despite its strangeness, this world is very, very real.

Millerna walks away from the window and sits on Hitomi\'s bed. Well, she asks the gawking girl, did the sunlight wake her up? She goes on to tell Hitomi that she will have to stay with the Abaharaki for a while — at least until they can confirm that she is truly the Tsubasa no Kami.

Hitomi still has no idea what that title means. She asks Millerna to explain. The older woman stares at her in disbelief. \"No matter how long I look at you, I just don\'t see you as a goddess,\" she mutters. If Hitomi is really the Tsubasa no Kami, she should already know the answers!

Millerna asks Hitomi her name. After introductions are exchanged, Millerna proceeds to explain that she is a member of the Abaharaki — the survivors of the countries destroyed by the Black Dragon Clan. They fight for revenge. Escaflowne is the god of war that the Abaharaki believe will grant their wishes for victory. Millerna relates how a storyteller from Freid once told her that the Tsubasa no Kami would come from the Mystic Moon and revive the Escaflowne armor. And it was from Escaflowne that Hitomi emerged. Is it any wonder, then, that everyone thinks she is the Wing Goddess?

Hitomi is overwhelmed by it all. It doesn\'t make any sense to her whatsoever. Millerna looks exasperated for a moment, but then shrugs it off. Well, in any event, maybe Hitomi would like something to eat? Hitomi declines the offer of food, but it is clear that she does want something. Millerna presses her. Finally Hitomi cracks and humbly asks for some water. She\'s very thirsty. Millerna laughs. If that\'s all she wanted, she should have spoken up earlier.

Meanwhile, in the halls of the Abaharaki landship, Pyle, Kio, and Teo are gossiping about the supposed Tsubasa no Kami. Is that girl really a goddess? They\'ve never seen a divine being before. Will she expect gourmet food?

The three are startled by Hitomi\'s sudden appearance in the hallway, and back away from her in fright. Unnerved by their reaction, Hitomi flees down a stairwell, in the process managing to frighten yet another rebel. Once she has made her escape, she rolls her eyes. \"Do I really look that weird?\" she wonders aloud.

In the landship\'s command center, Millerna reports to Allen and Gaddes. The girl certainly doesn\'t look like she\'s from Gaia, Millerna admits, but she still seems doubtful that Hitomi is the Tsubasa no Kami. Gaddes grumbles that if the girl really is the Wing Goddess, the Black Dragon Clan will come searching for her.

Allen is determined not to let the Black Dragon Clan take Hitomi. He orders Van to protect her personally. Van glares at him for a moment and then dismisses the order. He doesn\'t believe that she really is the Tsubasa no Kami. Allen asks if he is afraid, and Van responds with a feral snarl. Completely unperturbed by this nasty gesture, Allen reminds Van that the Escaflowne armor is destined to appear again through the power of the Tsubasa no Kami. And when it does return, it will call for the blood of a Dragonkin. Van, as far as they know, is the only person left with Dragon blood. No wonder he\'s afraid.

Unaware that she is the hot topic of the moment, Hitomi wanders aimlessly in the bowels of the landship. She\'s lost. Ultimately stumbling into a stable, she calls out to see if anyone is there. Someone is — Merle. The cat girl isn\'t entirely thrilled to see Hitomi. What is the strange foreigner doing in Merle\'s stable anyway? Looking for water? What kind of person comes to a stable for water? She\'s must be a freak! Hitomi shows some spunk for a moment, snidely noting that Merle is hardly in a position to call anyone strange.

Merle ignores the jibe and throws a bottle of water to Hitomi. Then she demands to know if Hitomi is really the Tsubasa no Kami. Hitomi pleads ignorance. She doesn\'t even know where she is, much less if she\'s the Wing Goddess every keeps talking about. Merle calls her stupid, and Hitomi sits down in the hay in defeat. She\'s getting tired again, she says. Too much excitement. Merle is skeptical. Hitomi hardly seems \"excited\" to her.

A loud yawn startles both of the girls as the Mole Man rises from a pile of hay. He tries to charm them by saying that their voices remind him of singing birds. Merle is unimpressed, and tells him to shut his trap. The Mole Man ignores the cat girl and sniffs a bit. Is that the smell of a precious stone? Hitomi reaches into her pocket to retrieve the pink gem that fell from the sky. The Mole Man praises its beauty and tells her that she should take better care of it. He then asks her to hand it to him. Merle gawks in total disbelief as Hitomi places it in his hand.

With surprisingly dexterous fingers, the Mole Man shapes a silver attachment so that Hitomi can wear the stone as a necklace. Hitomi complements his metalworking skills. Merle makes a bratty interjection, saying that the Mole Man is also skilled at talking. After all, he is a fortune teller. The pendant is returned to Hitomi and she puts it around her neck, admiring it. All in all, a very touching moment — until the Mole Man holds out his hands and asks for a reward for his services!

Merle steps on his outstretched hands and snaps at him that her stable is no place to be bargaining. Time passes and the Abaharaki landship continues to trudge along. In the stable, Hitomi helps Merle brush the horses. While they work, Merle tells Hitomi about Van\'s past. When Van was a child, his country was destroyed by the Black Dragon Clan, she says. Now he fights with the Abaharaki, who he met on the battlefield. Yet despite having these allies, Van is still alone, Merle insists. Hitomi doesn\'t understand. Unaware of the irony in her statement, she comments on how strange it is for someone to try to hide their pain from others.
Merle elaborates on Van\'s story.

\"Van-sama was to become king. Even with his people and his land gone, with nothing to protect, he feels that he has to fight the enemy as long as he lives. That\'s his destiny, since he was born a king. But he is a very kind person inside. I just know it.\"

While the two women discuss him, Van is sitting on the back of the Abaharaki landship, watching the clouds go by. He gets up to leave and encounters Gaddes and Reeden in the doorway. Reeden tries to chat with Van about the cute new girl, but Van ignores him. As he walks away, Gaddes mutters that he still can\'t get used to him. Well, Reeden laughs, he is a king, after all. He has a right to be odd.

A/N: Yeah yeah i know i spelled somethings wrong but if you thought my cemercial was funny or something leave a Review for anything!! I\'ll put the next one up in 10 REVIEWS!!