劇場版 ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン
The original 2018 anime series introduced us to a young lady who was a survivor of a devastating war between nations. A war that took her arms and supposedly killed Gilbert, a soldier she was given to as a child. Gilbert was told she was trained as a weapon for war, and despite trying to bring a little culture into her life, she fought at his side until that fateful day. Over time after the war, she trained and became an “Auto Memories Doll”, a representative of a postal service who would help to craft and write letters, conveying feelings and emotions that were often alien to her.
In 2019, a ‘side-story’ movie was released, essentially a double episode with connective tissue between the two stories featured there. That movie isn’t very relevant here. Instead, we get some flashbacks to the main series relating to Violet’s journey. In a way, it’s not necessary to know the series, but it would help greatly in reflecting the emotional baggage loaded into the story for this movie.
Death permeates the story from the very beginning with a family in mourning over the death of its matriarch. The granddaughter, Daisy (Summer Morohoshi), soon discovers a stack of letters her grandmother had received every year on her birthday for several decades, most written by the dolls. Within those letters is a newspaper clipping that sets Daisy on a journey to learn about these dolls, and the most renowned among them, Violet Evergarden (Yui Ishikawa) who initiated the first few letters.
In the past, Violet is still haunted by Gilbert even as she takes on a new and insistent client (despite her backlog of work) Yurith (according to the subtitles, or Yuris- according to another review, or Ulysses ~ i think ~ according to IMDB) a young boy who appears to have a degenerative disease. He believes he doesn’t have long to live and hires Violet to write three letters to his family.
Okay, so the heartbreak and emotional turmoil may be a little heavy handed there, and boy, will they milk those tears out of you. Still, the dramatics there work well enough to impact Violet during the secondary story where her future remains tied to her past. While the series was having Violet deal with the loss and grief as a result of surviving the war, she had achieved an understanding of the love Gilbert had for her, and she had hope she would find that love again. In both stories here, there are reflections on death and what it means to those left behind. And in all that is a rebirth of sorts.
In all, we have the culmination of Violet’s journey. I can figure some may complain about her emotional journey, but there is a moment where they do touch of the suppression and repression of emotions (could be a Japanese thing) and it is something Violet has been doing for as long as she has been doing her job. Perhaps it’s a way for her not to reflect her own emotions onto her clients, needing instead to interpret their feelings and emotions to be poured into the letters. Perhaps it is due to her inability to understand those emotions, as it is part of her own journey to learn and experience those emotions.
That brings the rather emotional ending as either false, forced, or essentially true to her character. But as always, at least as I see it, she has been the mirror to the emotions of others but hardly her own until this point. Anyway, there is enough here to make me want to revisit the series and find some of those touch-points reflected in this movie, see how they may have woven key moments to work into the story here.
Yes, I’m dancing around that one key plot point some may have spotted in the trailers, other reviews, promotional materials and such.
So, moving on to the animation. As with the previous movie, the visuals by Kyoto Animation are absolutely gorgeous with all that hyper detail coming up beautifully. The environments and the lighting give the world a remarkable vibrancy while the sound design fills in the blanks as needed. Then there are the others designs touching on the smaller aspects, from the costume designs and mechanical designs, to the range of facial expressions crossing the visage of the various characters. How many ways can people struggle to not cry?
Then there’s Evan Call’s melodious tunes permeating through the movie. Granted, it may be a little manipulative in conjunction with the story beats and animation, but the score works so well as do the songs. Any anime fan will know what it means when the original theme song starts playing again.
Overall, it is an ending and it is a gorgeously executed one. The resolution is there although there is enough of an opening to revisit sometime if KyoAni should desire to do so… not that it is needed after this. The world within the story had moved forward from when the series left off, and it has moved on even more. Following the tragedy Kyoto Animation faced, this movie seems like a perfect reflection of facing those issues and gearing for a strong rebirth.
I’m glad it made it to our big screens.
Rating: 💌💌💌💌 /5
Directed by Taichi Ishidate
Written by Reiko Yoshida
based on the light novel series by Kana Akatsuki
Stars (vocally) Yui Ishikawa, Daisuke Namikawa, Takehito Koyasu, Hidenobu Kiuchi, Haruka Tomatsu, Koki Uchiyama, Sumire Morohoshi,
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