The episode begins with a stirring operatic aria accompanied by an orchestra. At first I thought an actual opera singer was doing the vocals, but nope, it's TRUE. Dayum, that gal has pipes. Since her voice acting resume is probably nil, Yoko Hikasa voices the part of Irma, the singer.
This episode is an anime original, and is positioned between the first arc and the second, indicated by Violet's limited emotional expressions and her military report "letter". As a transitional episode between those 2 arcs, it's pretty good, and something I wish I'd seen in the broadcast. The difference in Violet between the end of her training and her first solo field assignment in the show was a rather substantial shift in character, and so this is kind of like the bonus episode connecting the second and third major arcs in the Hyouka anime.
I'm not a fan of writing that's like "I'm going to be coy about it until the end" (because that makes characters that are like "You need to read my mind before you see me doing anything useful"), but at least they wrapped it up in one episode rather than spread this out over 2 episodes. Now, this doesn't mean I want the plot spoiled within the first 5 minutes, but I'm not inclined to play detective or mind reader because the show isn't giving me any hints. A later episode masterfully used foreshadowing in a way that the writers for this episode clearly failed to grasp.
This episode's theme is "The voices of war's victims". They were clearly going for the feels in the "letters vault" scene, but it was more of a pinprick than a body blow. Here, they told the story rather than showed it in the previous scene, which in my opinion diminshed the intended effect; the "50 years of letters" sequence in the TV series was much better executed, because you got to see the recipient's reactions. I think a fuller impact of this theme is in Saving Private Ryan (specifically John Williams' Hymn to the Fallen) or the finale of YuYuYu's second season. The scene was a step in the right direction, but only a step; the soundtrack is still a part of the scenery rather than an integral part of the drama (its greatest weakness). There's more of a reliance on using voices at the critical moment than the studio's principal strength, animation-- there's a similar scene in Clannad that is way more powerful because it supported all those voices with animated scenes.
As always, writing drama is Hard. This is a good solid attempt, but the impact was limited because the writing was "good enough" and little more.
