The gateway to the remastered realm of Gaea opened a bit early.
Earlier this week, Funimation started streaming four episodes from The Vision of Escaflowne‘s new English dub. The first two episodes, as well as episodes 14 and 15, are available for streaming via FunimationNow.
In the announcement, Funimation explained that the disparate episode selections:
You may be wondering “Why episodes 1, 2, 14 and 15? We generally just put up two preview episodes of any new home video TV release 6 weeks before the release date, so these are previews of Part One and Part Two.
Both The Vision of Escaflowne and Escaflowne The Movie will hit retailers on October 18. Last month, Funimation released a pair of dub trailers to promote the releases, which you can checkout below:
Funimation’s English dub cast features:
- Van Fanel: Aaron Dismuke
- Hitomi Kanzaki: Caitlin Glass
- Merle: Alexis Tipton
- Allen Schezar: Sonny Strait
- Millerna Aston: Colleen Clinkenbeard
- Dilandau Albatou: Joel McDonald
- Folken: Vic Mignogna
- Eriya: Felecia Angelle
- Naria: Michelle Rojas
- Emperor Dornkirk:Jeremy Schwartz
- Balgus:Chris Guerrero
- Prince Chid:Bryn Apprill
- Shesta:Chris Cason
- Jajuka:Chuck Hüber
- Gaddess:Ian Sinclair
Funimation’s Kickstarter to re-dub Vision of Escaflowne officially launched on February 27. In an interview with Anime News Network’s Zac Bertschy, Funimation brand manager Jennifer Fu explained the need for a new dub on the series:
So basically there was the original dub that came out and it’s based on SD materials that, as you’re aware, the director’s cut, the HD Japanese version that was released on Bluray more recently, has scenes that were not in the original materials that the original English dub was based on. So because of that it’s not possible for us to put the subtitled HD material which is what we’ve just received from Japan, on the same disc as the original dub, because otherwise it doesn’t line up correctly and there are some points where the dub just won’t have any dialogue or anything in it and it’d just be kind of strange.
Funimation noted that the $150,000 goal wouldn’t cover the full cost of a new English adaptation.
The campaign raised a total of $318,784 across 2,058 backers, with an average contribution of $154.90 per backer.
Funimation released packaging shots for the Kickstarter Edition (Standard), as well as both retail editions of the release. You can check these out below:
Source: Kickstarter