News Reporting

Funimation Streams 4 Episodes of New Escaflowne Dub


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

Escaflowne Key Visual 001 - 20160817Funimation’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

About the author

Samantha Ferreira

Samantha Ferreira is Anime Herald’s founder and editor-in-chief. A Rhode Island native, Samantha has been an anime fan since 1992, and an active member of the anime press since 2002, when she began working as a reviewer for Anime Dream. She launched Anime Herald in 2010, and continues to oversee its operations to this day. Outside of journalism, Samantha actively studies the history of the North American anime fandom and industry, with a particular focus on the 2000s anime boom and bust. She’s a huge fan of all things Sakura Wars, and maintains series fansite Combat Revue Review when she has free time available. When not in the Anime Herald Discord, Samantha can typically be found on Bluesky.

Anime Herald

Support Anime Herald

Anime Herald is brought to you through our Patrons and Ko-fi supporters. Consider backing us for as little as $1 a month to help us keep the site ad-free and pay a fair rate to our writers.

Patrons and backers can access several benefits, including Early Article Access, our members-only Discord, and the ability to suggest articles for our team to write on your behalf.



Latest Posts

Columns

The Evolution of Abridged Anime Part 4 – No Screwing The Rules

Fears about legal ramifications were fairly common in the world of comedic anime fandubs, despite some arguing they might be protected under parody laws. Philip Sral of Sherbert Productions shared a story of how three fans caused a large amount of stress while trying to get a copy of one of their works by pretending […]

By Borealis Capps