First impression: Violet Evergarden

Synopsis

Violet Evergarden was once known simply as a tool for war. With the war ended she finds herself left wondering over words that were said to her by someone dear in the battlefield. Now she finds herself starting a new life at the CH Postal Service. It is there that she encounters the “Auto Memories Dolls”, ghost-writers who convey the emotions of people into letters and messages. Struck by their work, Violet begins a journey into becoming an Auto Memories Doll, all in order to understand the emotion and message that was left behind for on that day.

The Good

Build-up, out of everything that was shown in the episode, this one element is what really shone in the episode. Throughout the entire work there is a clear development over the characters and the stories in different ways. As you get to know Violet there is a certain distinctiveness to her character that makes it clear of how different she is but at the same time when she does have emotional moments and we learn more of her story, you can’t help but empathize with her, especially when it was shown that she does hold care for the Major Gilbert.

Just in terms of character emotional work and development, there is a lot of potential to be found. The plot is also a highly interesting and unique point that hasn’t been done before and so far, the execution of the episode is rather good. Granted it’s not perfect but for the setting and tone that it has so far, again, there is potential.

The Bad

From the first few moments of the episode, one of the major flaws was made clear and that is the heavy-handedness in the drama. For the most part it works, but in others, it seems a little off point. What’s more there are also times when the tone of the episode seems to try and make itself bigger than it needs to be, for example, when the paper flies off in the beginning of the episode, it does well in visually introducing the art and setting, but the music and tone seems to make a little more extra than it needs to be.

It really is just the tone in certain parts of the episode that prevented the entire flow of the work to be as good as it could have been. Then there is also the introduction of the side characters which could have been done better along with some highly predictable moments with the story. If there was any way to describe the episode, it would be that of a cloth with creases on it, all it needs is some smoothing out just like the episode.

Conclusion

Character and story wise, there is a lot of potential to be found with the series as said. The only problem is in terms of execution, the tone of the episode could have been presented more smoothly. When it went into dramatic points of the episode, you could tell it was trying to hammer in the emotions of the viewer but at the same time it seems a bit on the extra side when looking at the bigger picture. Overall there’s a good amount of hits but also some holes to be found as well, but mostly it’s something worth checking out.

Rating: 7.5/10