No letter that could be sent deserves to go undelivered ... - Fri 15/12/23 12:40 UTC
Looking back I am both amazed and shocked that no one has even mentioned this show. I remember seeing the first preview image, five years ago and thinking ... this is a show I really want to see. The fact that it was by Kyoto Animation didn't hurt at all - the studio that gave us Haruhi Suzumiya, Kanon, and later, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.
Violet Evergarden
I'm now on my umpteenth time of watching it.
I watched it every week when it first came out. Even now, when I scroll through Netflix and see it there, I smile, and I have to hold myself back from selecting it, knowing that if I watch the first episode I won't be able to stop until I get to the very end.
I fail epically at not doing that.
How to describe Violet Evergarden? It's very hard. Because it is more than just a story about a very young woman learning about the hardest thing in the world - herself - but a story about a country recovering from war, about those who had their lives changed by it, about the scars of being burned by that past, whether or not you had a choice, whether or not you even realized you could have - in some perfect world - a choice.
It is a story with action and adventure ... it is a story about conflict, conflict between two countries coming to terms of being at peace, conflict between one's heart and one's mind ... conflict between the past and the future ... and yet it is also quiet, thoughtful, reflective and in the end ... it is a story about us.
About being able to say what we need to say, to other folks, to ourselves, when you do not have the tools or skills to speak it.
About love. Redemption. Forgiveness. Kindness.
Violet Evergarden is an Auto Memory Doll. No, she's not mechanical. Mostly. Yes, she has prosthetics, but that isn't uncommon at the end of any war. An Auto Memory Doll is a person who writes letters for people in a world where literacy is not a guarantee.
She writes letters.
That connect two people.
She's not very good at it.
But she learns.
And that is a story worth watching. Oh yes it is sentimental. But it is powerful. The emotions are real. They are strong. And if there is not an episode in the whole run, not one out of them all that doesn't reach right down into your heart, then, to put it simply, you don't have a heart.
Violet Evergarden is a mirror of what's important in our world. How to recover from losing your daughter. How to reconcile with your brother. How to deal with a dying mother .. when you are a little child. Not military victories, not solving political intrigue, not how to build a successful post war business.
But what's important.
How we connect to each other.
And it is gorgeous. There is not one image, from remembrances of war to walking down a street, that is not beautiful. Every strand of Violet's hair. What it means for the sun to come out and wipe away the shadows. They use rain better than Ridley Scott. How a taking a single footstep can become something powerful. More powerful than any spoken word.
The writing is perfect, spot on.
The music, a perfect fit.
The more I watch it, the more I realize, of all the anime - of all the animation I have seen - Violet Evergarden is the only one that gets everything right.
Even Kelly likes it.
In the end Violet Evergarden it is a very simple story.
All Violet wants to, needs to, understand is what a simple, common, statement means:
"I love you."
And in the end, what those three simple words, what they mean, isn't that something we all want to truly understand?
Violet Evergarden
I'm now on my umpteenth time of watching it.
I watched it every week when it first came out. Even now, when I scroll through Netflix and see it there, I smile, and I have to hold myself back from selecting it, knowing that if I watch the first episode I won't be able to stop until I get to the very end.
I fail epically at not doing that.
How to describe Violet Evergarden? It's very hard. Because it is more than just a story about a very young woman learning about the hardest thing in the world - herself - but a story about a country recovering from war, about those who had their lives changed by it, about the scars of being burned by that past, whether or not you had a choice, whether or not you even realized you could have - in some perfect world - a choice.
It is a story with action and adventure ... it is a story about conflict, conflict between two countries coming to terms of being at peace, conflict between one's heart and one's mind ... conflict between the past and the future ... and yet it is also quiet, thoughtful, reflective and in the end ... it is a story about us.
About being able to say what we need to say, to other folks, to ourselves, when you do not have the tools or skills to speak it.
About love. Redemption. Forgiveness. Kindness.
Violet Evergarden is an Auto Memory Doll. No, she's not mechanical. Mostly. Yes, she has prosthetics, but that isn't uncommon at the end of any war. An Auto Memory Doll is a person who writes letters for people in a world where literacy is not a guarantee.
She writes letters.
That connect two people.
She's not very good at it.
But she learns.
And that is a story worth watching. Oh yes it is sentimental. But it is powerful. The emotions are real. They are strong. And if there is not an episode in the whole run, not one out of them all that doesn't reach right down into your heart, then, to put it simply, you don't have a heart.
Violet Evergarden is a mirror of what's important in our world. How to recover from losing your daughter. How to reconcile with your brother. How to deal with a dying mother .. when you are a little child. Not military victories, not solving political intrigue, not how to build a successful post war business.
But what's important.
How we connect to each other.
And it is gorgeous. There is not one image, from remembrances of war to walking down a street, that is not beautiful. Every strand of Violet's hair. What it means for the sun to come out and wipe away the shadows. They use rain better than Ridley Scott. How a taking a single footstep can become something powerful. More powerful than any spoken word.
The writing is perfect, spot on.
The music, a perfect fit.
The more I watch it, the more I realize, of all the anime - of all the animation I have seen - Violet Evergarden is the only one that gets everything right.
Even Kelly likes it.
In the end Violet Evergarden it is a very simple story.
All Violet wants to, needs to, understand is what a simple, common, statement means:
"I love you."
And in the end, what those three simple words, what they mean, isn't that something we all want to truly understand?
