For many people, myself included, Fox Kids’ version of Escaflowne was their introduction to the series. This version, produced for American TV, is largely disliked due to the many edits made. The cut version however holds a special place in my heart, and because of this I wished to create a small space for information about it so there could be at least one place where it is appreciated for introducing so many people to this beautiful series, and giving them a chance to experience it at least in some way.

Escaflowne was licensed in 1998 by Bandai Entertainment (then Anime Village) for American home release. They produced 8 subbed VHS which were sold separately as well as in a boxset. Plans to release the series on DVD followed in 1999, for release in early 2000, that would include an English dub. During this time Escaflowne was being ‘shopped around to TV stations’ in the hopes of an American broadcast. Fox eventually bought the rights, beating out other broadcasters, and announced that they would start to air Escaflowne as part of their Saturday morning lineup in 2000. Due to the upcoming broadcast, Bandai Entertainment decided to delay their home release, pushing it back to October rather than the June release it previously had in order to build up the audience.

When it was revealed that Fox would be showing Escaflowne many people started to worry about what they would do to it. In response to this DVDfile conducted an interview with Jerry Chu, a Bandai Entertainment Producer, in the hopes of alleviating some of the fear fans had. The interview stated that Escaflowne would see minimal changes when it aired on Fox. Even so, using the dub created for the home release, Fox edited Escaflowne to comply with American broadcast standards. They also asked for some replacement lines, which they were granted, but they were unable to produce a new dub themselves.

Although Fox wished to change the background music, both Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise refused to allow them. However new pieces were produced by Inon Zur to fill the stretches of silence and the original score was moved around too. In addition to this, a new opening song [x] was also created by Zur in place of Yakusoku wa Iranai. In contrast the ending was omitted entirely.

Fox however stopped showing Escaflowne after only 10 episodes. Although many people say Fox canceled Escaflowne due to poor ratings, no official source has ever confirmed this.

The ratings for Escaflowne were considered acceptable for the timeslot, though not quite what Fox had been hoping they'd be. Still the show was put on indefinite ‘hold’ and never reappeared [x] [x]. Despite this, YTV in Canada and Fox Kids/Jetix in the UK both showed the Fox Kids' version in it’s entirety, ending the series with ‘Fateful Confession’.

Only four VHS volumes of the Fox Kids version of Escaflowne were released and only in the US. Like with the uncut version a promotion for Hitomi’s tarot cards was included, what became of this once they canceled the release I do not know. Despite the series being taken off air at episode 10 in America the VHS tapes include up to episode 14.

Much of the speculation around fox's Escaflowne came from information from a supposed inside source from Fox, who under the name TVGuy, posted on the rec.arts.anime.misc group during it's airing.