(#66) Violet Evergarden S1 (2018) - [7.75/10]
Updated: Jun 7, 2019
A young girl takes a new step in life as a letter writer after she loses her arms in the army.
How would I describe this show in one word?
Visuals.
Note There. I watched it. You happy Ajay?!
Review Okay, I'm just kidding, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't bad really, just not interesting enough for me to want to continue watching. Like it had a lot going for it and a lot of potential but it was all wasted in random visits for some clients who don't know how to type. Okay, I'm being to mean and vague with proper reason, let me explain. The story follows a young girl who loses her arms (and now has prosthetic robot arms) while in the army and now has to move on in life with her new step in life as an Auto Memory Doll, a letter writer for clients cause back in 1940s Japan people didn't have the finance and knowledge to work a typewriter. Now why did she choose this profession of all the professions she could've chosen from? Well, the last thing her major told her before he died was "I love you" and she believes if she works in this profession, she could understand human emotions - something which she fails to feel and express - and hence understand the term her major told her. Make sense? Cool. Cause it didn't make sense for me. Because for most of the show, she doesn't say she doesn't understand or can't feel the emotion of 'love' she says she doesn't know what the term "I love you" means like she was illiterate. And she wasn't illiterate, for the first few episodes she was portrayed as a very weird, but very knowledgeable person who pick things up and learn it quickly. So it didn't make sense for me that she couldn't understand the term. It is only explained later on that she is aware of the expression of romance and love but is incapable of expressing and feeling them. So, for the most part, I had a poor impression for the premise of the show and feel that they illustrated that poorly. Also, every story needs a spine, a central story, and although this one had that, throughout its 13-episode length, it seemed to forget about that central story and seemed to deviate and lose focus. I just wished they didn't apply the filler like that. That would be my main complaint for this show.
There is more to the show than a young girl taking a love lesson. It is more about letters and its importance. Although in the modern world, letter writing is a virtually non-existent practice and we have all evolved into the practice of emailing and instant messaging through various messaging services to deliver updates on events and to convey emotions or for basic communication. It is about learning from communication and expressing emotions and the vitality of it, the pureness of it, the beauty and how much loved ones long for that expression and that feeling of loving and being loved. A expressionless, emotionless girl tries to understand and learn all this as she goes to her various clients and through each episode, slowly understands the real meaning of the hard-to-define emotion of 'love'. By writing this, I probably convinced myself that it's better than my initial reaction for it. It was a nice show. Very sentimental and one episode will really kick you in the face and make you rain tears of sorrow. Don't get me started on it visuals and breathtaking animation and it's beautiful, intelligent use of colour, cause I could just go on and on (I can't really, that's why I'm just putting in all in one word, it's really pretty though). And the score really did blend well with the animation. Mwah. RATING: 7.75/10
Creator: Taichi Ishidate Rated: TV-14 Runtime: 24 min/episode Genre: Animation, Drama, Fantasy Starring: Yui Ishikawa, Raissa Bueno, Aya Endô