Video:

Excellent video. no pixelation to be found.

Audio:

Both English and Japanese tracks are amazing as well as the soundtrack.

Subtitle:

Some subtitles seemed to be left behind a couple of seconds during the whole series.

Comment:

Escaflowne is one of the best anime series I have ever seen. No Extras. I didn't like the fact that I had to forward the intro song each episode since there were no chapter breaks. Otherwise excellent release.

Video:

Great R1 rips for the most part as the picture was quite crisp and sharp. Some episode's intro had various brightness and bluriness to them but it's not extreme and it's not much of a concern since the DVD rips that I've seen of the R1 had more or less the same issue.

Audio:

Good English and Japanese tracks. No complaints aside from the questionable dub in English. Watch it in sub; it's a LOT better.

Subtitle:

The missing sub in disk 2 and 3 that the previous reviews complaint about have been fixed as the English subs were fine on my copy. I purchased this set on Jan 26, 2004 and the seller ordered it from Mac then. I know this, since it took close to a month to arrive at my house. So any subsequent orders should have no worries about missing subs. Just make sure the copy you get it's not old stock and you should be fine. However, there were still around 4 lines dropped in total in the first disk. The only other detracting comment about the sub is that they're white and are not outlined very well so sometimes it may be difficult to read depending on the scene. The Chinese sub is on the disk too but I can't comment on the quality of it as I'm not proficient in reading all the characters.

Comment:

This is probably one of the best anime series out there. Imaginative designs, great score from Kanno, mechs, interesting story, and endearing characters. I would have no qualms in recommending this series. However, I would still recommend you to get the FX set over this Mac version as the cardboard and plastic used for the FX boxes are of superior quality. Plus the DVD menu in this set is very generic with no background music, animation or extras unlike the FX set. Lastly, the episodes are not divided by opening, part A, part B, and ending. All four parts are joint together so when you skip, you automatically skip to the end of the episode. A minor annoyance but it's still worth mentioning espeically if you stop watching an episode half way through and have to go back. However, if you can find this set for cheaper and the things I mentioned don't matter to you personally, then by all means get this one as the video and audio quality are quite good on this set.

Video:

Very good pictures. I didn't really notice any glitches. The only thing that sort of got my attention is the picture is 'jumpy', unstable underneath. Kind of gave me a headache watching it at some scenes.

Audio:

Very clear Japanese and English audio. I still prefer the Japanese audio because it sounds more natural and richer than the English audio.

Subtitle:

The subtitles for the first dvd ware pretty good. Only a few delayed sentences. However, the 2nd dvd onwards, the subtitles are really crappy. The characters could be talking but no subtitles appeared, not even 2 or 3 seconds later. If not, the subtitles appeared earlier than the scene. The 3rd dvd are so bad that I had to switch to the English dub from the beginning till the end.

Comment:

Escaflowne is a pretty good series to watch. Nice story without overdoing the mecha part. The biggest problem with this set is the missing subtitles. I like watching animes in Japanese. The missing subtitles is really irritating because I have no idea what is being said.

Video:

not bad

Audio:

no problems

Subtitle:

I'm sorry, but this is what ruins the set. The subs are grammaticaly perfect and all, (unlike how I talk), but thats if you ever got to see the subs. The second disk's subs were so god awful I had to switch to the dub. If I didnt, I would have had to start making up a story of my own. You'd here someone talk for a while, then the next line would be someone else saying "Thats absolutely correct, genius idea, I wish I thought of that".....and you sit there wondering WTF DID HE JUST SAY!!!!

Comment:

:(. I like Escaflowne, but this is far from perfect

Video:

Rip from the R1s. I've got no complaints whatsoever. Didn't notice any pixelation or artifacts. I watched it on a regular 27 inch TV

Audio:

Had both english and japanese audio tracks. Both were DD 2.0 stereo. Everything was clear and in synch, the english audio track was a bit on the soft side though but it was probably like that in the official DVDs. The music in the series was great, what would you be expecting from Yoko Kanno, I didn't like the ending theme though

Subtitle:

Subtitles were white with black outline For the first 12 episodes they were very few missing lines. I would say an average of 1 per episode. But after that missing lines became more and more frequent. It's hard to say how much per episode cause it was too much to keep count and I finally had to switch to the dub. Also on the last DVD during one scene there was a song playing in the background, the body of the subtitles of the song were transparent, they were outlined in black. I'm guessing the colour of those subtitles were different and the people at MAC must have screwed up somewhere.

Comment:

This is not a rip of the fx version but an original rip by MAC. There were no extras and the menus were in chinese. The menus were really dull, they didnt even have any background music. I've seen better menus on VCDs The artwork on the gatefold was really nice but the cardboard used was kind off cheap, not as good as the MI ones. The only problem this set has are the missing lines from the 2nd and 3rd DVDs but it's a biggie

Video:

R1 rip*. Very good, with the usual issues--some blockiness in dark scenes, a smidge of pixelation during fast motion scenes. Nothing terrible.

Audio:

No problems that I noticed The R1 dub track is included. Not the worst dub ever, but not the best either.

Subtitle:

R1 rips*, so the subs are excellent--when they appear. There are quite a few dropped lines, especially on the last disc. Fortunately, you don't really miss any important bits. It's annoying, but you can always switch over to the dub if it bothers you.

Comment:

The dropped lines were the only real problem, but considering what I paid for this set, I'm not going to complain. *Actually, I think this is a rip of the FX set, which would make it a rip of a R1 rip. Technically.

Video:

Excellent quality, I didn't notice any kind of artifacts. This series looked excellent on my TV screen (36")

Audio:

Great sound, the english dub was good. Don't think it was 5.1

Subtitle:

Since I'm new to this I watched the series with the English dub on and the subtitles on... my general impression was the dub removed a lot of the more colorful language, but it was in the subs. The subs seemed a little off in the timing but mostly right on.

Comment:

I'm new to this anime stuff - so until I have a little more experience this may be a fairly "green" review. I can tell you that I watched the entire series in a single weekend and enjoyed it.