/anime/103047/violet-evergarden-the-movie
(Spoilers for Series & Movie)
One thing I really respect in Violet Evergarden is it's underlying theme;
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The Beauty in Communication
We Humans were lonely apes. We started from ooga-booga, mumbo-jumbo monkey noises to a wide variety of languages & communication skills, in which "Letter Writing" is one such lovely idea that Violet Evergarden tries to explore and for me this has always been the main thing in Violet Evergarden. The series always tied it's character stories through it's letters that are flowing with heartfelt emotions and conveys a message that, 'Letters' are not just a collection of words on a piece of paper. The words of support from a loving sister to her caring brother as "Thank You", the cold & painful words of sorrow from a dying solider as "I don't want to miss you", the warm feelings from a dead mother as "I'm watching over you" and it's the small moments like these that conveys the magic in small words, and thinking about it now, I feel grateful for having a mouth that can speak sense and able to understand heartfelt emotions of others. My favourite scene from this movie is the phone call between Yuris & Lucas. Yuris was able to write letters to his dear ones with help of Violet, in hope to deliver them after his death to convey that he doesn't mean his rash behavior & actually cares for them and their emotions means a lot to him, but he couldn't write a letter for his dear friend, Lucas. Even as beautiful as a letter might be, it needs time and effort, so he was almost unable to give his departing words to his dearest friend but just when he's in his last moments, he was able to say the words he wanted to say & finally able to peacefully leave the world, thanks to the newly invented "Telephone". And for me, this is really a powerful moment because it shows the advantage our new communication had brought which reminds how amazing this new technology is and also gives a perfect send off to the whole concept of letter writing.
Violet Evergarden perfectly resolves it's beautiful plot with honest storytelling method but how I wondered this resolution was also given to it's characters, because I think that's why, this isn't as great as the series.
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The Stumbled Resolutions
If a piece of media ever said that a character's supposedly dead body "wasn't found", then there's a chance that the said character might be alive and this movie takes it as an advantage and brings Gilbert back. Now I really don't think bringing Gilbert back is a bad idea. The fact that Violet understands his departed words & chases him to the end to now give her feelings to him, and the fact that Gilbert who's grieving in pain & regret for making a killing machine out of a doll girl, was able to get out of that grief and started to accept himself & Violet; is a beautiful sendoff for a love story. Combine Kyoni's excellent storytelling skills (may the deceased creators rest in peace) and production, you got an almost gem. But this resolution doesn't fit with the resolution that plot went through. While the whole world started to embrace the new technology into their lives & moving forward, Violet still couldn't let go off her past and the fact that the same world brought Gilbert back makes this whole plot point, unfitting. It feels more like a forced happy ending, an ending made particularly for the audience and not for the characters, especially for Violet. This is kinda the reason why I hate Romance that feels forced, the same problem I had with many other Anime like Steins;Gate, A Silent Voice etc. where their endings are clearly made to tie up a happy romance when it would've been way more impactful if it haven't done so. It mostly ruins an otherwise solid story.
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(That simple gesture transcended through 2 generations)
If you've followed my posts, you've might known that Violet Evergarden was the Anime that really got me into Anime, especially the whole Slice-of-Life genre. I love Violet Evergarden & I still do, but it didn't resolved it's characters as splendidly as it resolved it's plot.
(That simple gesture transcended through 2 generations)