What was Escaflowne almost going to be?

The 1990 pitch version of Escaflowne ran to 39 episodes and was radically different in concept and tone. Its first director, Yasuhiro Imagawa, imagined a heavily male-oriented series of dramatic battles with a shapely, long-haired, glasses-wearing heroine. Imagawa did leave one permanent mark: he coined the word "escaflowne" itself, a Latin-based derivative of "escalation."

Imagawa left to direct Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and with no director the project went on the shelf. Two years later Sunrise revived it under relative newcomer Kazuki Akane, who broadened it deliberately: the suggestive elements came out, the young men were redrawn as "beautiful boys," the tarot readings were added, and Hitomi was redesigned from a curvy airhead into a slim, athletic, short-haired track runner. Kawamori has clarified the episode question since: the 39-episode version never entered production, and the production that began in 1994 was built as the 26-episode series that aired, whatever the older pitch had promised.