YoshiKyon

8/10

AniList: Series | Special
*Note: This is only about the series and the special episode. Movies to come later.

This is one of many shows that's been on my radar for a long time at this point - the concept sounded beautiful, and I'd consistently heard good things about it; it just kept getting pushed back to the point that it's taken me a couple of years to actually watch it.

It definitely lived up to those expectations - it's a beautiful show that really excels at the things it sets out to do - while never really exceeding them. If something isn't a focal point of the show, it's probably not handled well, but the core premise is executed so well that it's still well worth watching.

Some mild spoilers and more thoughts below.

In and of itself, the basic concept behind Violet Evergarden has been done countless times, both successfully and poorly. Violet is a child who has never known any kind of affection, and most of the show deals with her learning how to interact with and love the world around her. The way it sets this up is a post-war world, where Violet was a child soldier who was used as a living weapon until her most recent 'owner' took her in, where he teaches her how to read, write, and so on, while treating her like an actual person for the first time in her life.
I typically hate this kind of concept - and Violet strays dangerously close to this at times - because it treats the bare minimum as a good level. Thankfully, Violet Evergarden avoids that immediately: the show opens with Violet recovering after the final battle of the war, with the Major nowhere to be found. This then evolves into her working as a ghostwriter, and it's that that acts as the impetus for her to learn how to care for others and express herself. If it had simply been the Major's actions and nothing else, I'd have probably been way more harsh on this show, but it's handled pretty well on that front.

Beyond that, it's mostly episodic, and the individual stories are good. The show does a good job of handling individual stories while also tying them directly to Violet's development as a character, and it's here that the show truly excels. I'm typically not a fan of episodic shows because they become really formulaic, but the tone of each episode is so distinct from the last that it feels like an exception, even if it isn't upon closer inspection.
Eventually, this gets pulled together into the 'bigger picture' story, which shows a few of the weaknesses of the show - while the character and emotional drama is fantastic, the world-building is practically non-existent. There are hints of a greater world around the events that take place, but only when necessary, and a lot of it cracks upon closer inspection, especially towards the end of the series. The action scenes, meanwhile, feel mostly out-of-place, and while they're somewhat necessary because of the setting used, they can be jarring next to the character drama that the show mostly focuses on.

With all of that said, the character stories - both Violet's specifically and the smaller episodic stories within - are good enough to carry the show, and it has beautiful visuals and some really emotional moments that brought me to tears. It's hard to emphasise enough just how good Violet Evergarden is at its strong points, or how much it just seemingly doesn't even try at the parts where it struggles.