Violet Evergarden puts us in a post-war era and we follow someone in this story that knows nothing else but the battlefield and orders from a very young age. It's difficult for us to tell just how horrible war is but this anime does probably the best job in describing this to us. War is something where people fall apart if they lose the only thing left - hope. Be it hope that peace will return or the hope that a loved one will return alive and well, that he'll open the door, says "I am home" and falls into your embrace again.
The story follows young Violet returning from the frontlines. Violet is an orphan and from a very young age have been used as a weapon for the military, she was extremly capable on the battlefield but war does bad things to people and that's multipled by 10 when it comes to children. Violet is essentially incapable of understanding emotions, she may feel sad or happy at times, but she's unable to describe those feelings nor understand what they mean. She only knows orders, orders from a man, who took her under his command, a man that inevitably falls in love with her and a man that never makes it back home. Violet sets on a path to understand emotions and to find out what "I love you" means, alien words to her, words spoken by the man she loved, without knowing about it.
The Art is really beautiful, that's the first thing I noticed, it's in a league of its own, some OVAs I've seen did not hit a quality like this one, it's beyond good even for KyoAni. If you're a fan of beautiful animations, it's worth the watch just for that, this one is simply a visual feast. it all looks and sounds really good, there's nothing bad to say about this, the production value have been cranked up to 100.
The characters are really strong, the emotions they give off are believable, I emphatize with all of them, everyone is dealing with some strougles and we get deep into all of them thanks to Violet's job being to write letters for them, like they were written from their hearts. Out of all the stories, you will surely find one that will pull at your heart strings, because some of them are really heart wrenching.
In the end, this is the first review I am writing for this type of medium, I wanted to put out a strong recommendation for this one, there's only a few 10/10 shows for me, this one is one of them for many reasons listed above. Some may not like Violet, she may come across as bland and uninteresting but taking her background into a consideration, she's perfectly in character. Don't sleep on this one, it's a gem waiting to be discovered, give it a chance!
