I am- not
envious of the American anime fans
who are waiting for Violet Evergarden to drop on
Netflix on April 5th.
Not just because they have to wait for an obnoxiously long time
to actually watch this stunningly beautiful series from KyoAni,
but because there aren't enough tissue boxes in the world
to sustain an average human through a marathon of it.
As one of those
sick freaks who really enjoy it when shows make me cry,
this winter's anime line-up has been a real blessing.
A Place Further Than the Universe and Violet Evergarden
had been consistently bringing "the feels" as they say,
and the last few episodes of Evergarden in particular
have been a real emotional rollercoaster.
It's pretty easy to understand why I'm enjoying
cute girls doing Antarctica things
so much the "themes of struggling to connect with your peers"
and of "trying your hardest to accomplish something that
everyone else thinks is crazy and impossible",
resonate within my own experience and view.
even with the particulars like going to Antarctica don't *quite* line up with my own experience.
It's a very relatable story despite
it's fantastical elements.
But, Violet Evergarden isn't so relatable,
at least, not for me.
It speaks to experiences that I've never had,
and if I'm lucky, experiences I never will.
It's a show about war, and especially about the AFTERMATH of war.
And despite ostensibly being about a badass teenage super soldier
with steampunk robot arms
in a fancy victorian dress.
Despite only showing actual fighting
in brief flashbacks,
It's one of the most grounded, brutal, and emotionally
resonant war stories I've ever had the pleasure of watching!
Obviously, I don't have a proper frame of reference
to say if Violet's experience during,
and after the war is accurate to real life.
Although, a veteran posting on r/Anime did say that it felt very accurate to him.
But I can say that it FEELS true to life.
Which is- ultimately what really matters most
when it comes to art.
Despite Violet's life being so different from mine,
I'm able to believe and empathize with her suffering,
and understand where it comes from.
And I think a big part of why that works
is the show's structure.
Like the excellent Plastic Memories,
Violet Evergarden is an episodic series where the protagonist's job,
in this case, being a ghostwriter who helps people
compose important letters,
brings her into contact with a vast array of characters
and gives her an opportunity to fix their problems.
Essentially, it's a series of mostly disconnected,
emotionally charged,
short stories, tied together by the heroes' personal story arc.
It's a formula that allows these shows to deliver
small-scale emotional catharsis on a weekly basis,
while still building toward the kind of powerful, emotional conclusion
that can only work if we're given a lot of time
to get to know the characters.
But it's implementation also serves additional purposes
in Violet Evergarden.
Firstly, witnessing all of these sad stories first-hand
is what propels Violet's own character arc forward.
As a child soldier, Violet only ever knew the battlefield.
She never learned to really understand the feelings of others,
or- even, herself.
This is obviously an extreme and exaggerated scenario,
but Violet has many of the same fundamental problems
as many other soldiers do when they come home from war.
Soldiers are trained to follow orders at all costs,
to remove empathy for the enemy from an equation
and to be capable of killing.
All things which take a toll on the human soul.
And to paraphrase that Reddit post,
"When the war is over, they lose the sense of purpose and direction
that those orders gave their lives,
and there is nobody to teach them how to be civilians again."
The reason that Violet Evergarden becomes an Auto Memory Doll
in the first place,
was to try to understand what her commanding officer meant
when he told her he loved her.
But pursuing the job highlights her emotional deficiencies in other areas,
with her first few letters being formal and factual to the point that they end up
saying the opposite of what the client really wanted to say.
But, as she takes on jobs that are increasingly emotionally complex,
she starts being able to sympathize,
and eventually, empathize with her client's feelings.
So that, by the time episode ten rolls around,
the once emotionally suppressed killing machine has to actively fight back
her own tears, over the fate of Ann and her mother.
And aww man Violet
I am right here with you on that. I cried so hard
after that episode that it gave me a headache.
But on top of teaching Violet to
better understand others, these stories help
us to better understand Violet herself.
Because for the most part,
these stories are more relatable to us as an audience.
Most of us have wanted to
help a loved one, beating themselves up over their mistakes
like Luculia,
or been in love but unsure of how the other person feels,
like Princess Charlotte,
or had a loved one pass away,
like Oscar Webster.
And if we can relate to those experiences
while also seeing how Violet relates to them,
we can begin to properly
understand how she feels
by proxy.
It's a very smart writing trick
for engendering empathy with
someone, who at first glance
seems painfully cold, distant
and emotionally stunted.
I'm generally not a fan
of those so-called
"three episode rule" that it
takes about three episodes
to really get an anime.
But Violet Evergarden proves
that sometimes it isn't necessary policy.
A big part of the hype for the series,
came from the lucky few who got to watch the first three episodes
at Anime Expo
Their glowing reviews made it
one of the top rated series
on MyAnime list
*months* before its release.
When the first episode finally hit Netflix
this winter though, there was
a LOT of blowback.
Cries of 'overrated' and
'boring' flying left and right.
And I genuinely think
that that's mainly because
the story feels incomplete
in the first episode or two.
It's hard to connect with the emotionless Violet
and because she's our perspective character
that makes it hard to connect with any other of the employees
at CH Postal Service.
But, once you reach that 3rd episode
and see how Violet experiences as a soldier
allows her to understand both Spencer's guilt
for failing to protect his parents,
and Luculia's sadness at seeing her brother suffer,
conveying the feelings of the one to the other,
it all starts to click together.
Its that episode the allows us to
move past, simply understanding the plot intellectually,
and really connect with it emotionally.
And each subsequent episode builds
on that understanding.
Through witnessing other people go through rejection
and finding love, we start to understand the weight
of both Violet's feelings and those
of Major Gilbert.
In watching Violet
connect with her fellow orphan, Leon
and seeing his story, we get some
emotional context for how hard
her life must've been without a family.
And through seeing her help Oscar Webster
cope with the loss of his daughter,
jack supposed, with Violet learning the truth about Major Gilbert's presumed death
at the end of that episode,
we start to grasp
the real magnitude of her own loss.
To understand that she has lost at the center of her world,
and that she can no longer hold on to the delusion
that he might be alive, *that* world crumbles.
Though they are not directly connected,
the understanding built up by all the previous episodes,
is what allows episodes 8 and 9,
exploring Violet's past as well as her personal grief
to work at all.
The connections we made with her gives us a jumping
offpoint to understand the more foreign feelings
in experiences at the core of her character development.
The Major isn't just a person Violet loves,
he;s not just the first person to treat her like a person instead
of a weapon.
He is her reason for existing,
each order he gives her becomes her purpose in life,
and everything she does
every life she takes, ultimately
serves her goal of protecting him
and making him happy,
So if the major is now dead,
that means is that Violet all of those things,
killed all of those people,
for NO reason.
And her newly learned empathy means that
she FULLY understands what each of those deaths mean.
Each one is a letter that
won't reach home.
A story that can never have a happy ending,
a person, somewhere left mourning forever.
If the show just threw all this at us
at the beginning, neither we nor Violet
would be able to process it.
But with that frame of reference, we can properly grasp
the gravity of the situation,
as Violet sits on the verge of tearing up her room and possessions,
because she thinks that she doesn't deserve to be happy.
And ineffectually tries to strangle herself,
with her own hands before collapsing a sobbing heap.
Maybe we DON"T know everything
that's going through her head,
or everything that she's been through.
But we DO know enough that the
vast, unfathomable anguish she's feeling
is able to carry through the screen
aided by stellar animation and beautiful orchestrated music
and hit us right where it hurts.
It's not quite as heartwrenching as the near-
perfect episode 10, and there are
still some episodes left to go,
but THIS scene is what watching
VIolet Evergarden feel like it was worth the journey for me.
It paints a stark and brutal picture of
what war does to people.
Both of those who do the killing and
those who are left behind,
all incapsulated in a silently screaming face,
of one emotionally devastated girl.
If you're a writer, then Violet Evergarden is a must-watch,
or at least a must-read
It provides a powerful lesson in a
mechanics and techniques required to make
your audience connect with characters
who've had different experiences from their own and might seem a bit odd.
If you're not a writer, I still think it's a must-watch,
because it provides a rare and valuable
if, exaggerated glimpse
into the struggles that both societies and the people
who defend them, face, in the wake of war.
Let me know in the comments below what
your favourite
war stories in anime and other media are,
and what anime had made you cry the hardest,
and while your down there, why not
drop a like on the video if you liked it
or dislike if you felt otherwise
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By the way, did you know Violet Evergarden is based
on a novel?
Unfortunately, you can't read it in English yet
but you CAN read "The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress",
another fantastic light novel about veterans
trying to make it in a post-war world
that I think Violet Evergarden fans will enjoy a whole lot.
To celebrate the release of the third volume,
e-book "Bookwalker" is offering 250 coins
back to anyone who buys Volume 1
or 2 between now and March 28.
Each coin counts for 1 yen toward a future purchase,
and if you use the promo code, "Basement" when you check out,
you can get 600 yen off one of the light novels,
making the deal even sweeter.
And even if you're not interested in Combat Baker you're in luck
because Bookwalker is having a massive rebate sale,
between today, March 20th and March 22nd
as part of their "Spring Cleaning Event", you'll get
30% Bookwalker coins back when you buy any e-book
that was released before March 6th and isn't on other some other kind of sale.
If you'd prefer watching something to reading though,
then check out the latest public servers' anime
on the left, or something else that Google thinks you'll like.
And if you really like my content, considering supporting me on Patreon,
like all of the lovely people you're seeing on the right.
You guys help keep this channel running allowing me to hire editors like
the wonderful Mr. Nice Guy who handled this video.