Dragonslayers: The Straight Poop

Here I wish to present, not a profile of the Dragonslayers, for they are not my subject, but a little clarification of some points about them that people find mysterious. I consider this relevant to Dilandau Studies. They certainly used to provoke enough discussion on the Dilandau ML, back in the day.

Firstly, the Burning Question: Which one is Biore? When Dilandau is in distress, he tends to call on a sort of inner circle of boys, all of whom we get to see in the series except Biore, the elusive little scamp. Many people have supposed, not unreasonably, that the boy at the extreme right in this panning shot of the Dragonslayers from episode three is our huckleberry.

Pan shot

I think he looks kind of like Zoisite from Sailor Moon; he even has that little cowlick in his bangs that Naoko Takeuchi gives everyone whether they like it or not, and it looks as if he has a ponytail at the back as well as tendrils in front of his ears. Anyway, he's cute, but he's not the one. The question was posed to a panel of Escaflowne staff at Anime Expo 2001, and to the audience's surprise they revealed that this guy is not Biore. In development, he had a name, for the sake of convenient reference, but none of them could remember what it was. He's just an extra Dragonslayer, blue-clad cannon-fodder. The name 'Biore' was made up on the fly, in the script, and no character design was ever associated with it. This gives great freedom to fanfic authors to do whatever they like with Biore, and, of course, to make up a nickname for the Zoisite lookalike.

I give thanks to my AX2001 reporter, Webmistress Lizzard (wish I'd been there with her!), and to the lovely Nariya for making such helpful screencaps. Actually, another of Nariya's images poses more problems than it solves. Lookie here.

Group shot

Nariya observes, 'As you can see... there are at least 16 Dragonslayers assembled, plus the two flanking Dilandau, for a total of at least 19.' The Vision of Escaflowne Compendium, however, which is generally considered the authoritative source for information on the series, says there are fifteen of them. Who are we to believe? It's possible, of course, that there are some 'extras' in this shot who are not really Dragonslayers, perhaps because the animators made a mistake and thought 'Hmm, the background looks empty, let's fill it up with boys in blue armour.' But this is a tantalising mystery...

As for the two boys flanking Dilandau, we don't know their names either, unless you can make them out in this rawther old sketch by series character designer Nobuteru Yuuki. (For the record, the AX2001 panel stated that neither of them is meant to be Biore either.)

Flankers

What I like about the one with a quiff trailing over his eyes is that he's ducking his head so he won't look taller than Dilandau *^.^* This design appears to have been resurrected as Ryuon in the Escaflowne movie, although he ended up with blond hair in the series, not dark hair as indicated in this sketch, and as on Ryuon. I think the one with glasses is a hottie. It's also interesting to note that these boys appear in a lineup sketch that doesn't include Chesta and Migel, the two Dragonslayers who ended up with the most personality (or at least screen time) in the series. Guess they were later additions. Big ups to Lizzard for scanning the sketch.

So! One mystery solved, and two more brought to your attention. Happy Dragonslayerology! For more on the Dragonslayers, I recommend the SlayGround .

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