Violet Evergarden: The Movie Review

I had an extremely hard time choosing between Violet Evergarden and Dororo as my anime of the year back in 2018. I ended up going with Dororo for one reason and one reason only… it felt more complete. That was because Violet Evergarden didn’t really have an ending… until now. Even though this is the second movie after the TV anime had ended, this movie serves as the true sequel. Here, we finally get the answers that we’ve been seeking, plus a little more.

Let’s go!

The Story

As a bit of a recap… Violet Evergarden is a story about a girl named… well… Violet Evergarden. She was perceived to be a tool to be used for war and was assigned to Major Gilbert Bougainvillea of the Leidenschaftlich Army, who thought of her as something more than just a tool. During a battle in the war, both of them are severely injured. Violet ends up losing both of her arms while Gilbert loses his life. Before his time can come to an end, he orders Violet to live on and says “I love you” to her. Being an emotionless tool of war, Violet had no idea what the Major meant by those words.

She is then taken in by Colonel Claudia Hodgins, who was also a good friend of Major Gilbert’s. When he realizes that adjusting to civilian life isn’t going to happen anytime soon, he offers to employ Violet at his company, serving as an Auto Memory Doll: a person who writes letters for those who cannot express themselves on their own or have a lot of letters that need to be created in a short amount of time. Through this work, Violet hopes to gain an understanding of the meaning behind the Major’s final words to her.

That is the entire overarching story of the tv anime series in a nutshell. The movie starts off in a way that seems a little confusing at first, but it is easily pieced together. We meet Daisy, whose grandmother had just passed away. She seems to have a spiteful relationship with her parents for always valuing work over family. She even goes so far as to try and place some form of blame on her mother for neglecting her grandmother. Daisy then discovers letters that were delivered to her grandmother by her great-grandmother every year on the day of her birthday. After reading through them, she learns of an Auto Memory Doll who wrote those letters by the name of Violet Evergarden.

We are then taken back into the past, where we are rekindled with Violet. She is called on her day off by a boy named Yurith, who requests her services in a rather impolite manner. Not wanting to ignore a client’s request, she heads to Yurith’s location only to discover that he’s in the hospital with a grave illness. He’s having a hard time dealing with his parents always asking how he is and telling him that he should get some rest. He wants to feel alive in his final days, but this conflict has caused him to a bit caustic towards the one he loves. He wants to express his true feelings to Violet so that she can deliver them in the form of letters to his parents on the day he passes away.

Violet grants his wish and performs the task; however, after writing the letters and returning back to the post office, she is paid a visit by Hodgins, who is unsure of something. He still needs confirmation, but there is news that ends up sending the two of them to a remote island.

I won’t go into details on the second half of the movie; however, I will say that through one way or another, the series definitively ends, and it’s up to you whether you can accept the answers to all of the questions that have been asked from the beginning of the series.

The Characters

Our main cast of characters returns for the movie. Hodgins doesn’t really change all that much; however, we do get to see some nice development with Violet and Dietfried.

Starting with Dietfried, we’ve known him as this cold, calloused, brunt individual that didn’t have a shred of compassion in his entire body. Here in the movie, we see that there is, indeed, a heart that still beats under that hardened exterior. He tries his hardest to change, and while it is a bit of a slow process, he does come around eventually. It doesn’t mean that he becomes a truly likable character, but you could say that he’s more tolerable now.

It’s a start, right?

Violet, on the other hand, continues to grow and understand human emotions… something that she had begun to get a firm grasp on towards the end of the main series. She finally understood what love meant, which is why she craved just one opportunity to get closure for everything. Even though her character is as monotone as ever, you get a much better understanding of her ability to convey and ascertain human emotions and feelings.

In fact, it is through this understanding that she becomes one of the most renowned Auto Memory Dolls in existence. Her name is spoken with reverence wherever you go, and that is reflected nicely whenever the film time skips to the present day.

Yurith is a new character here for the film, and he serves a role like many of the other side characters did in the tv anime series. Much like how the tv series bounced from story to story while tying it into Violet’s journey, this filled the same purpose except that Violet doesn’t need this journey to learn about emotions any longer. Still, it was necessary because it is those lessons that she learned along the way that allowed her to write such compassionate letters to Yurith’s parents and his younger brother. Seeing as how the movie was ending the story, having an assignment that calls upon her experience and everything that she had learned was a humbling moment! The sentiment was disguised a bit, but if you looked deep enough into yourself, you could feel a sense of pride in seeing how far Violet had come.

Art, Animation, and Sound

If you thought the artwork for the tv series was gorgeous, Kyoto Animation turned it up for the movie. Every scene was stunning and well-detailed… especially the water. It’s kind of funny because as technology develops, one of the things that always drew my attention was the quality of the water in video games. With each passing generation, I always found myself looking at the water as it got more and more realistic.

I had that same feeling when looking at the water here in Violet Evergarden. As crazy as that sounds… as weird as it is to draw focus to this one element in a stunningly beautiful film on all fronts, it was one of the things I’m conditioned to look at, and I have to tip my hat to Kyoto Animation because… that’s some damn fine water you got there!

Awkward focus aside, everything from the backgrounds to the character designs and their animation was simply top quality. Even with the struggles that Kyoto Animation had to face in recent times, they really knocked it out of the park, visually.

The film’s soundtrack; however, wasn’t really all that memorable, but it didn’t need to be. In a film such as this, you’ll want to use the score to enhance the emotions that you are witnessing on the screen. In moments of joy, you want the music to make you feel happy. In the more dramatic and serious moments, you want the music to force the tears from your eyes.

While I can’t recall any piece even after finishing the film a mere fifteen minutes ago, I can still remember how the music made me felt. I remember the emotions that it created and because as such, I can vividly remember the scenes which made me feel those emotions. A good soundtrack doesn’t have to contain banger after banger that you’ll hear multiple times throughout a series… it just needs to enhance your experience and seamlessly tie itself into the story. The music needs to become part of the narrative, and this film accomplished that and then some with its score.

Overall Thoughts

Much akin to the tv anime series, the pacing of the film felt a little bit slow at times; however, once you get introduced to Yurith and then the situation that occurs afterward, the film gets you emotionally invested. Then, during the film’s epilogue moment, the events with Daisy tie everything together that you saw at the beginning of the film and makes you feel a bit thankful that it started off a bit slow. It can be likened to a marinade for your brain… conditioning you for the grand finale and the final payoff without you really realizing it.

Reflecting back on the tv series and then everything that happened in the movie, you truly do get a good sense of closure. This was the ending that was sorely missed but now that I’ve seen it, I’m kind of glad it was held off until now.

In fact, that’s what this entire movie is about: closure. Not just for Violet but for the world itself. After the war, the world needed to heal. During that healing process, letters were written to loved ones and the notion of humans conveying their true feelings after a period where the only emotions that were felt were anger and hatred gave rise to the old adage that time heals all wounds; however, time is also cruel.

It is cruel in the fact that after the war, technology began to advance. Writing letters would soon be replaced by this invention called the telephone. In fact, you could see a communications tower being constructed that served as a painful reminder that the Auto Memory Doll would soon become a thing of the past… or would it?

I’ll let you discover that answer for yourself… as you should. Since this is a sequel, it is highly recommended (and encouraged) that you watch the television anime series first, but I will say that if you already have, then this is a can’t-miss movie. All of the answers you seek… for better or for worse… are here in this film. It ties a red ribbon around everything and brings with it the closure that you seek.

**This movie was provided for review by Funimation.