Violet Evergarden: Recollections

The war is over and Violet Evergarden has nothing left to do. She was raised as a soldier from childhood; she took orders and carried them out. Now she works at a postal company. The work is writing letters: people who cannot say what they feel come, and she writes for them. But Violet does not know what feeling is. She is trying to understand the last words said to her, and she listens to people for that. Every customer teaches her something. She lost her arms in the war and writes with the prosthetics fitted in their place. Taichi Ishidate directs. Yui Ishikawa, Daisuke Namikawa and Takehito Koyasu are among the voices. It is a Japanese production and the studio is Kyoto Animation. This film is a compilation; episodes of the television series were shortened and made into a single narrative. The compilation follows the main line of the series and leaves out some of the side stories. The studio suffered an arson attack in 2019 and lost many of its staff; the later works in the series were completed after that. The quality of the animation is what is most discussed about the series; the detail of light and texture is kept high. The matter it treats is naming a feeling; the character feels and cannot find the word. The narrative is about what comes after a war and there are few scenes at the front. Its limit is form; for anyone who has seen the series it is repetition, and for anyone who has not it jumps. Who it is for: viewers curious about the series who want a way in, and those who like Japanese animation. Who it is not for: it is a compilation, episodic, and the ending says nothing new.