__SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES AS WELL AS THE MOVIE
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Ah Violet Evergarden: a series I kind of have a love-hate relationship with. The hate part really just comes from this movie though. The series was something I absolutely loved and still consider a favorite, despite how terrible this movie turned out to be. If you happened to click upon this review before watching the series, GO WATCH THAT instead of reading this. Also watch the special and Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll if you liked it. Now getting back to this movie-

__Story
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First of all, there’s too many flashbacks that simply serve to stretch the movie’s runtime. Like, we already know about the scene with gilbert “dying”, and the time he and violet spent. The TV series already showed this to us more than once. It also shamelessly recaps episode 10, in an attempt to milk it for what it’s worth.

A lot of the fuckups done by this sequel can be attributed to one major problem: Gilbert is alive.

This was a terrible writing decision in a multitude of ways. The whole story up till now revolved around a broken girl who’s lost someone important to her, but despite this comes to terms with his death and learns to live on her own. She finds people she cares about, learns to love herself and effectively live a life he wanted her to: being free and independent.

But due to gilbert being alive all this time, this narrative loses its meaning completely. It ultimately devolves into a roundabout clichéd romance story, and not a complex one about what it means to love and the emotions we feel. Which is yet another bad thing because Gilbert throughout the show is portrayed as a mentor or a father figure to Violet. He essentially teaches her everything she knows so can one day be an independent person once the war ends. Yet, what you get here is a problematic age gap romance with someone who was practically her adopted father, that clearly wasn’t needed in any way. It's fucking weird and creepy.

The second ongoing plot with the sick kid was another failed attempt at an emotional outcome. I initially enjoyed Yuris’ interactions with violet, but that doesn’t make up for the fact this entire subplot was essentially a rehash of episode 10. Two rehashes of the same damn episode in one movie. Like… why? Due to the fact I knew it was coming, his death wasn’t really impactful. The whole thing felt forced.

The ending fucking sucked. The fact that everything, everything in this story built up to this, made me feel like shit. The entire melodrama between Violet and Gilbert, which plays out like a run-of-the-mill soap opera, eventually resulting in Gilbert changing his mind about not wanting to meet violet all because of a letter even though he didn't care when she talked to him about the exact same stuff earlier, then running up to Violet’s leaving ship and Violet jumping out to run towards him, meeting and crying for 10 minutes, was actually about as generic as it sounds. She quits her job at CH postal company, and they live happily ever after. I used to think happy endings are hard to do poorly, but this was a level of shitting the bed that was the last thing I could have expected from a series that was seriously well-written prior.

Characters
This aspect was quite literally the biggest insult to the viewer.

The series makes it quite clear, especially in episodes 9 and 13 that Violet is growing past her dependence on the major and learning to be an individual. She almost committed suicide in the midst of this, which was why her finally accepting her own past mistakes as a soldier who ruined families, and her current self that would live on without her dependence on Gilbert, while also helping people as an Auto Memory Doll, was one of the most satisfying and impactful moments. The movie outright ignores this. 4 years have passed since the aforementioned events, and somehow violet is still struggling with her feelings.

“I am worried she’s going to crushed by those feelings”, Cattleya says in a conversation with Claudia.

So you’re basically telling me that all those sequences about Violet maturing and moving on from her grief meant nothing? Even after 4 years, nothing changed? She’s still the same as her original episode 1 self after all? Goddamn.

That’s basically what Violet’s character is reduced to. A mere lovesick maiden who can’t live without a guy at the end, and is willing to throw away everything she built up in her life for him.

Daisy, Ann’s granddaughter is purely a filler character. On paper, she’s supposed to show how great Violet’s influence was in Leidenschaftlich. But this barely works because we don’t get to see much of the modern world to begin with. Not to mention, it hardly even matters because here we see less of Violet writing letters as an auto memory doll, and more of her romance with Gilbert.

Gilbert himself was annoying. This movie actually made me hate this guy, which is a shame because I had respected him before.

Dietfried was somewhat more likeable here, but I couldn’t care much for him. Yuris left no impression on me. I’ll admit, Claudia was actually quite good in this film, despite it all. Rest of the main cast didn’t get much screentime.

Visuals
Pretty good by your average anime standards, but this is Violet Evergarden we’re talking about. There is a level of detail and standard set by the TV show, and even more so by Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll, which is the series at its peak in terms of visuals. Yet, despite being the finale, it doesn’t live up to these two. There isn’t a single scene in this movie that you can point towards and say “That’s beautiful”, like you could say for Violet skipping across the water or the fluid movements and well placed camera angles in the series before.

Enjoyment
I absolutely despised this. Everything about this movie was a massive disappointment, and taints the series as a whole. Learning that gilbert’s alive retroactively ruins a lot of impactful scenes in the series. Also the fact that their relationship ends up in a romantic way, just changes so much about what the series was originally supposed to be.

Overall
I wish this movie didn’t exist. Seeing one of my favorite protagonists of all time get this treatment, and this horrible ending, was physically painful to sit through. The TV show had a decently satisfying ending, and this movie mercilessly shits all over it. What was originally a masterfully crafted series with great emotional impact, is turned into a substance-less cryfest that tries too hard.

Violet deserved better.