NOTE: I have not read the light novels of the film or the TV show and this is entirely based on what the anime has to offer.
When I had first watched Violet Evergarden, the series had left a hole in my heart for being a sad, happy, and vibrant story of Violet’s trouble adjusting to the post-war era, becoming an ‘Auto Memory Doll’ to understand what her Major meant when he said: “I love you”. The side story: ‘Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll’ follows that journey, of Violet’s growth in the series, but what I believe is not canon to the actual story. And is a decent spin-off of the plot of Violet Evergarden.
Plot 5/10
Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll, follows the story of a Noble family member named ‘Isabella York’ who is tired of living her life in this ‘prison’ of a boarding school until she meets Violet, who changes her life entirely. This section of the movie was in my opinion, the best part of the 90-minute film, but it had its issues. The main issue of this part is the pacing, it seems that the entire section of Isabell’s character growth was skimmed over with what felt to be not even 20 minutes, of course, I didn’t time it, but it felt really short and underwhelming. When heading into this film I expected this movie to be revolving around the character growth of Isabella and Violet within the boarding school. This was not the case. In the 20-45 or so minutes of screen-time that this section of the film gets, there seem to be many details skimmed over that might have been deemed unnecessary to the plot. This seems to be a mistake as the character development felt rushed and lack-lustre.
After the first part of the movie, the movie introduces us to another main character, Taylor. I can’t go into very much detail about her but she has close ties to Isabell, but they have split apart due to reasons. Taylor takes over the second part of the film as she tries to find Isabella again with the help of Violet Evergarden and Benedict. At this point in time in the film, I feel that the story took somewhat of a 180 with the story, performing a time-skip and having some sort of a ‘second-arc’ of the film. This kind of felt like the first season of SAO when the characters leave Aincrad Kirito still has to save Asuna who was transferred to another VRMMO game. It was unnecessary and made the arc that was prior seemed skimmed over and unfleshed.
Sound 8.5/10
The OST of the film was mostly re-used from the TV show and doesn’t need to be explained thoroughly. If you’ve watched Violet Evergarden, you will know how good the OST is for the show and this is no different, it still somewhat adds a ‘magic’ feeling to the scene of the movie, but points can be taken off because of the pacing that ruined the character development.
Art 9/10
Kyoto Animation has done it again with their vibrant, unique art styles that they perform to their works that create a realistic feeling. CG in the film is there and noticeable, but there seemed to be only 1 or 2 scenes that did use CG, they may have been more than just those but they were unnoticeable as they blended so well with the background art style.
Character 5/10
Due to the pacing problem with the plot, certain aspects of the movie were skimmed over, creating a feeling of unsatisfaction as the characters didn’t have any meaning placed behind them and the 180 of the story didn’t help either diluting the character growth, making it a stagnant mess with the three or four main characters. With the first half of the film being about Isabell and the second about Taylor, it just didn’t feel that there was enough attention with each of them and that focusing on one or the other would have produced a greater piece of work, by fixing the big pacing issue that plagued the entire film.
Enjoyment 5.5/10
Hopping into the film, the first part had really entertained me with the bond between Violet and Isabell, but the switch of stories and main characters diluted the entire film and kind of ruined the experience by the feeling that is was just 2 stories that barely correlated together, being stretched and sewn together to create this 90-minute film.
Overall/Conclusion 6.5/10
Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll seemed to have sewn two stretched episodes of the show and create a decent but lacklustre movie that had issues with the pacing, character growth and the overall 180 of the story of the movie at the halfway mark, making the overall rating of the film a 6-7/10.
