So what is this time about? A lot of people can probably think of a lot about the cover, but I'll summarize it. In fact, there are more or less three storylines in this film, but they largely converge. The film begins with Ann's granddaughter at her grandmother's house and finding old letters from her late grandmother. Who is Ann? The little girl from the Mother's Letters episode, she kept all the letters and her granddaughter then takes an interest in the person who wrote these letters. So she sets out to find out a little bit about Violet Evergarden - the mysterious writer who quit her job when she was eighteen. This plot, which is seen as taking place in the future, comes up again and again. The rest of the film then deals with Violet again, who receives an order from a sick boy at the beginning of the film. Somewhat similar to the Mutterbriefe episode, this boy will also die soon, can actually write too, but he doesn't know how to formulate a letter for his parents and brother. His best friend wasn't allowed to visit him until then because he didn't want him to see him like that. It is also increasingly shown and implied that the Akoras' job will very soon be out of date - phones are becoming a thing these days and it is also said in the film that Akoras will soon be redundant. So Violet is supposed to come back to that boy if he really is dying to write the last letter, only then another incident happens. A letter is found at the post office, written in Gilbert's handwriting - not addressed directly to Violet or the others, but the post manager recognized it. So he and Violet travel to an island a little farther away to find Gilbert - he's there too, but he doesn't want to see Violet. In his eyes, he hurt Violet too much just with the arms thing and the whole command thing. I won't say at this point how Gilbert ends, that's too much spoiler, but unfortunately Violet doesn't get to see the dying boy anymore. But in his final moments, he was still able to talk to his best friend on the phone and the whole thing was really extremely sad, because they also showed him dying properly. So much for the content right there.
The film was scripted on its own, in fact Violet's reunion with Gilbert in the light novel is different and at least one volume further than this film. The director of the series and the film actually wanted to close the series and leave it open - but when he saw the script for this film he changed his mind and wanted to continue. From his point of view, he didn't want to make Violet Evergarden any of the usual romances, but from my point of view this is one, but with a very bitter, emotional aftertaste. The theme of love is a thing here, of course, but it's not so carrying that romance is written into the genres. But I found it quite interesting to start the film in such a different way. At first I was adamant that it was Ann or her daughter but not her granddaughter. It was also very interesting to see that the radio tower is already completely rusty at the time, while it was just being built in Violet's time. In general, there were so many details in this film again, you really don't notice that there was something with Kyoto Animation a little more than two years ago. I could actually have forgiven them if they had weakened a bit - but you really don't notice it. I don't know how the animations here could have been made any better, Kyoto Animation really tried their best even when they were in such a bad situation. If you have no idea what happened there - in 2019 there was an arson attack on the studio, in which an entire office building almost completely burned down, 36 people died and 34 (including the perpetrator) were injured. Even if the office where this film was animated was not affected, it took time to repair the damage and time to let it all sink in. But that shouldn't be too much the topic of this review, I just wanted to mention it briefly.
The characters here aren't really that different from the start compared to the show, but each goes through their own conflict. Until the Gilbert thing comes along, she really doesn't seem much different - but of course his thing has an impact on her condition. For years she's been told he's passed away and he's not coming back - but then there's hope again. Accordingly, I found it hard that Gilbert rejected her so strongly in the first place. He just doesn't want to see her and that's just so sad to see that I would have been disappointed with any ending other than this one. Somehow one or the other feels different here than in the series, so I could have imagined without knowing that something in the course was changed here. Otherwise, only the red-haired post manager is often shown here, who probably doesn't want to raise any more children - but you can put that aside for now. Other characters are hardly in focus here, ok, Diethard who isn't an asshole at times, but that's about it. I'm also amazed that Violet really hasn't aged at all on the outside, even though she may have turned 15 or 16 in the film. We probably won't know what Violet did until the end of her days, but from my point of view this was the best that can be done in a film.
Musically, however, this film is really a step up from the series. Many pieces were also recorded outside of Japan, especially some of the orchestral pieces were recorded both in Prague and here in Germany (Babelsberg).
Of course, I could still rave about this film with thousands of words, but I think what I wrote should be enough for a review. Thank you for reading!
