“Language is an ever-evolving reflection of relational society. When language dies so does the society. When society flourishes language thrives. Language and writing go hand-in-hand since they are sides of the same coin. The written word penetrates the hidden places of the mind which only the individual holds access yet it is communal shared albeit in a unique way. While words do evolve since it is language, it also remains the same on the page but means something different to everyone because of our life experiences that mingle with it. Consider a 4,000-year-old text that was written in the language of the society but is now translated to a wholly new language: the emotive influences remain the same because it comprises the same human experience. “

– Corbin, English B.A., History minor

Before I began writing this review, I asked my good friend Corbin, the creator of Silver Screen Guide, to write me a short excerpt on the importance of writing, language, and human emotion in our social world. I asked for this because Violet Evergarden is an anime that deals with these themes in its 13 episodes. Adapted from a three-volume light novel, Violet Evergarden is set in an alternate timeline where peace is announced across Europe after a brutal 4-year war. A young girl named Violet Evergarden was conditioned to serve in this was as a quick and vicious killer, under the command of Major Gilbert. With any and all emotions being stripped away many saw her only as a tool, but the Major thought differently and advocated for her to live as normal of a life as she possibly could. After both the Major and Violet are severely injured in a bombing, the Major tells his companion to go and live a normal life, ending with the phrase “I love you”. Violet is found and brought back to her country and is given new metal arms after losing them in the explosion. She believes the major is still alive and begins to seek the meaning of the Major’s last words by becoming an Auto Memory Doll, a girl who transcribes letters for those who cannot write. Along the way she begins to understand what emotion is through those who are illiterate, and begins to piece together the meaning of the phrase “I love you”.

Violet Evergarden is a sensitive anime. Its exploration of human emotions, their meaning, and purpose in our lives is shown through multiple interactions and writings. Each and every episode contains a signature crying scene which entails a character opening up and spilling their deepest inward thoughts. Violet learns a lot from these interactions about the different emotions that humans experience. When these moments work is when Violet Evergarden is at its absolute best. The moments that work greatly outweigh the ones that do not. Episode 10 is the episode that stands out the most in my mind as we get to see the life of a neglected little girl with a sick mother. The way it is executed is organic and ends in a way that brought a tear to my eye. The way it explores the different emotions felt refreshing with each episode despite a noticeable structure between them all. No emotion is ever simplified for the audience. Instead, each situation that these characters bring is embraced fully and can oftentimes bring with them complex emotions. Some that will require more experience in order to fully understand and grasp. And the decision to follow Violet who is someone that has been conditioned to not have emotions them gives a much different viewpoint on emotions as a whole and kept bringing me back. This is an anime that I can return to in a number of years and get more out of it because of the different experiences I would have had. Things like despair and loss of a loved one, lying, honesty versus holding the truth, and, of course, the meaning of “I love you”.

For as interesting as this is, one of my main complaints, in general, is “too much of a good thing is a bad thing”. As much as I do see the importance and the reason for the overuse of the crying and the drama, I can’t help but feel like some of them are either overly dramatic or cheesy. There are times where characters began crying with little to no reason. And there are others where these moments came too quick and weren’t as impactful. An example of this is with one of the other Auto Memory Dolls, Iris, who is called to her hometown at the request to write a letter. Violet ends up coming along after Iris fell down the stairs and broke her arm before leaving. While they are in Iris’s hometown, Iris runs into a past love that had rejected her. The crying scene of the episode is built on Iris’s inability to handle the past. It is a moment that didn’t feel completely earned to elicit such emotions and was hyperbolic. Though this may be something that many viewers may not have an issue with, I, personally, would have much enjoyed more time being taken to build up to this moment. If this issue was only specific to Iris’s character and happened only once then I could accept the fact that is a part of her character to be overdramatic, which I do believe is the case here. But this is not the only time this occurs which is what leads to such a criticism. This could be chalked up to a short episode runtime since they are all limited to 24 minutes. Maybe a Black Mirror-like approach to variable episode lengths would have resolved this issue.

It might also be a turn off for some because of the lack of developed characters. Violet is quite empty for the first few episodes, though this is compensated later on when her past is explored a lot more. The farther you go, the more time is devoted to Violet. The other Dolls may be interesting characters with distinct personalities, but they are shallow and eventually become non-characters since Violet’s experiences take priority as her interactions with others are far more important than the other Dolls. This leaves the show with potentially a good and bad stylistic choice. On the one hand, it questions the existence of the other Dolls since they have so little to work with, with the slight exception of Iris. On the other hand, there are many different single-episode characters that open up to Violet and make themselves vulnerable for her sake. This allows the audience to connect with specific episodes and ideas, giving it both an episodic nature as well as a continued story. Each episode is a different take on emotion, which brings in another interesting view on Violet Evergarden. Different audience members may get a different reading than others. However, Violet Evergarden asks its audience to be vulnerable along with the other characters, rewarding them with an interesting analysis of a certain topic.

The character of Violet is one that is quite similar to that of the replicants from Blade Runner. While serving in the military, she was constantly referred to as a “tool”, where her only use was to catch the enemy by surprise. Her metal arms grant her great strength and an unmatched typing ability. Every moment that Violet shares with someone else that stems these overly emotional settings are not present just for the sake of making the audience cry. Instead, it’s opening up their raw inward thoughts which then fills Violet’s own void of emotion. In the beginning, she is very cut and dry with her thoughts, perceived objective opinion and in her early writings. Her first letter is very direct and blunt, the opposite of what a Doll is to provide. This is no more evident than in episode 3 when she goes to school to learn what it means to be an Auto Memory Doll and is shown to be exceptional in all areas except with the use of language. Her only drive is to find the meaning of the phrase “I love you”. Before in her life, she operated solely on commands. But, due to this drive to find the meaning of “I love you”, it is clear that Violet is not completely a robot. This is also similar to another anime called Gunslinger Girl, of which you can read the review of here.

This exploration of love is handled in a very interesting way as it is not outwardly romantic. Those elements do exist for sure, just no loving relationship that is developed. Rather, we see a past relationship shown through flashbacks with Major Gilbert and Violet. The phrase of “I love you” is also looked at in an empirical light and every moment in the anime is built around the exploration of this phrase. A phrase that is, arguably one of the most overused and least understood sayings in all human language. This gives every scene a large amount of weight and importance where no one feels out of place. Violet Evergarden is a finely tuned and does not waste any time. With this exploration of “I love you” comes an interesting debate. How much of the truth should we hide? This is a question that is asked both in social conversation with other people and with Hodgen’s character. Where Hodgens holds the secret of Major Gilbert’s death from Violet, allowing her to believe that he is still alive. This, then, leads into an interesting commentary on social conversation and the rules of what can and should not be said. In the first few episodes, Violet is very blatant and direct, refusing to withhold any kind of truth from whoever she is speaking with. This element of Violet Evergarden shows just how sugar-coated we tend to make things when conversing with strangers. It is an interesting viewpoint especially with a character who is detached from any social context with little understanding of emotion.

And then there’s the topic of sympathy and empathy. Normally this is a topic that is omitted in most reviews since it’s not important enough to elicit a discussion. But, due to the nature of Violet Evergarden, I feel it is worth mentioning. In any kind of film medium, and other art forms as well, solely relying on sympathy with no empathy is dangerous. Having the audience feel bad for a character without understanding the reasons for the character to feel the way that they do will leave the audience empty and little learned. The opposite is also true. No sympathy will come off as preachy and direct and will push away the audience. I bring this up because Violet Evergarden thrives on this topic. We are introduced to a character with little substance, devoid of both empathy and sympathy. And, over time, she begins to learn what emotions are and what they mean in the context of what makes a human, all done mostly through a physical medium, writing. Showing that love can be expressed in any form, no matter how abstract or how concrete. In one episode, Violet helps to write a play for a man who has lost his daughter. And in another episode, there is an element where we see a take on how more abstract models can be misunderstood where a prince and princess of two different countries fall in love through writing letters back and forth. There is a line that is said that perfectly sums up the anime as a whole “a letter can be short and sweet and explain so many emotions”.

Aside from some heavy topics like loss and suicide, one main reason for the TV-14 rating is its use of violence. The opening few episodes have brief glimpses of war and the aftermath. But, episodes 8 and 9 show a lot where most of the runtime is spent in flashback and explains the past relationship of Violet and Major Gilbert. The use of violence is quite effective but does also feel like an odd switch when the majority of Violet Evergarden has been dramatic. This is also one of the weaker points of the animation. For as good as everything else looks and moves, the action is more of a rollercoaster. Sometimes it is very well done, other times, not so much. It mainly depends on the episode. A good depiction of the battle of nature and nurture, but some may see it as a distraction. In a general sense, the animation is very smooth. There are a lot of subtle movements and good attention to detail that would typically be overlooked in most anime. This brings a lot more weight to expressing emotion that aids in the sensitive core of Violet Evergarden.

Violet Evergarden is best described as an overly emotional girlfriend. It may be a grind to keep her happy, but the love that she showers you with is unmatchable. Violet Evergarden explores the importance and impact of writing in its many forms through the lens of someone who has been trained to have no emotions. Tackling themes of loss and rejection, to happiness and love. Its depiction of war is brutal, and its conversations cut deep. But, the way it explores what it means to be human with someone who is more robot than human provides an interesting perspective as to how humans converse with one another. However overdramatic it often gets, not a moment is wasted. Violet Evergarden goes as far as to question our normal routine of social conversation, and the validity of our own emotions. It asks the audience to be vulnerable along with the characters. There may be a lot of segments with crying, but, it is done in a way that makes each of these characters feel very trustworthy and susceptible. There also may be a lot of polish to the animation which can be distracting at points. For newcomers to anime, this shouldn’t be too big of an issue. What Violet Evergarden gets right greatly outweighs its faults, providing an interesting journey of human emotion, and its importance through writing. As the written word penetrates the hidden places of the mind, Violet Evergarden shows us just how much can go into writing, no matter how long and no matter how short. Combined with a good score and half-episodic and half-sequential episode structure, Violet Evergarden is in a breed all of its own, omitting the normal anime-isms that many newcomers may like to turn away from.

I’m giving Violet Evergarden an 8/10 with a solid recommend.