The fjord, close up and distant

Most of the first half is a waste, with a bunch of dithering townspeople and Hitomi being mopey as usual.  Then Van and Hitomi head out to meet Van’s brother, mister evil-for-no-reason.  Okay, standard plot movements.

But then just before the break there’s this wack scene where a Zaibach general is staring out into a garden and watches a pretty lady try to … eat a snail?  Because she’s too stupid not to?  And he’s all like, “What’s happening to Zaibach?”  What, everyone is turning dumb?

The second half is the very-much-expected heel turn by Van’s brother, suddenly realizing that the Zaibach ruler is, like, wrong and stuff, for slaughtering tens of thousands of people and burning cities and pillaging lands and consistently breaking promises and treaties and alliances, for freaking years.  Oh hey, you finally noticed!  But the real breaking point was when your two adopted catwomen died in your arms, after you personally shot them full of “extra luck” in some extremely dangerous experiment? If a totally amoral bastard decides to break from a totally amoral bastard because he doesn’t like what’s going on, is that really a break?

This guy has shown only one emotion – cold bitterness – in every line of every scene since the beginning, and that still hasn’t changed.  He’s a crap villain who made no sense without a backstory, and makes no sense now that he has one. He only has one valid move in this plot: He is absolutely going to martyr himself in due time. And when it happens I won’t care!

Come on, Escaflowne; four more episodes to pull this out of the toilet…