Violet Evergarden

Episode 8

So we've finally reached Violet's backstory. Like the news of Gilbert's death, the story in this episode has been teased since the premiere, so it makes perfect sense to connect the two reveals.

Personally speaking, this episode reinforces one of the things I've always disliked about the core of Violet Evergarden's story. Simply put, I can't swallow the premise of Violet as a child soldier. In the beginning of the episode, Diethard simply dumps her in Gilbert's care and says, “She's a weapon.” Later, she proves to be good enough at fighting to single-handedly take out a small handful of enemy troops on her own, but even in context, this doesn't begin to explain why it's considered necessary for this underage girl to stay in the military or be referred to in such a dehumanizing way.

The lack of any child soldiers in this setting besides Violet only reinforces how out of place she seems. Every other soldier, from the named characters to the background characters, is an adult man. Considering that Akiko Takase has proven capable of designing colorful sub-characters in previous episodes, the uniformity of the soldier designs strikes me as deliberate, but it's a strange choice indeed, because by emphasizing the visual contrast between Violet and the other soldiers, the anime rids her plight of plausibility. Why does nobody bat an eyelid about her being in the army when she's such an aberration?

This portrayal is not unique to the anime, and it's one of the main reasons why the light novels never really connected with me. Although the light novels attempt to give more context behind why Violet is referred to as a “weapon”, including multiple scenes where she slaughters people mercilessly, these scenes never addressed the fundamental disconnect I had with Violet's character and only dragged down the pace of the story. Violet being a traumatized war veteran is one thing, but her past is so abjectly cruel that it reads more like a stereotypical tragic anime girl backstory than anything else.

This feeling of disconnect I had with Violet's character extends to her relationship with Gilbert. He is clearly conflicted about her being in the army and wants her to be free, but I wonder why he felt compelled to keep her in the army in the first place. In the anime, we're told that she's an orphan and therefore has no home, but she'd honestly have a higher chance of survival if she were abandoned on the streets instead of fighting on the frontlines. The light novels explain that she would be killed if she didn't fight, but forced conscription of child soldiers doesn't seem to fit the world of this story at all. Instead of taking any action, Gilbert just shoots sad looks Violet's way whenever they interact, but it's hard to empathize with a moral dilemma that doesn't seem real.

For all that, I actually enjoyed the anime's rendition of this story, mainly because of its visual finesse. Script-wise, I think that this episode made a good choice to intersperse the backstory with Violet's attempts to find Gilbert in the present day, as the contrast between Violet's past and present selves is genuinely striking. The most impactful moment for me was when Violet confronted Diethard. As she demands to know where Gilbert is, the camera focuses on her eyes, mouth, and body language; we don't see her full expression head-on. Diethard asks, “Why are you making that face?” and we're left to imagine just what kind of face she is making. It's a powerful moment, made all the more impactful because it's one of the few occasions when the anime chooses not to show a character's expressions in detail.

This episode also keeps up a brisk pace that prevents the war aspects of the story from feeling tedious, which was a problem I experienced through the excessive descriptions of the light novel. It may be true that the premise behind Violet's sad past is ridiculous, but the anime has been able to pull me into its atmosphere anyway by focusing almost entirely on Violet and Gilbert's interactions. Individually, these scenes are all animated and directed brilliantly, and I'm especially fond of how the anime uses different weather effects and scenery to capture Violet's state of mind when she doesn't speak. For example, Gilbert first brings Violet into his house in the winter, mirroring the cold and harshness of her interior world. When she ruthlessly brings down the enemy soldiers in a following scene, the dark night comes alive with fire. The deft visual choices make those typical story beats a little more immersive.

And then, of course, there's the final scene. The episode ends abruptly when Gilbert is shot in the eye. We know that Violet will lose her arms at some point, followed by Gilbert telling her to be free, but this isn't included in the episode's flashback. Instead, it ends at the first moment Gilbert's plans fall astray. As sudden and visceral as this moment feels, I also have to wonder if Gilbert wasn't secretly hoping for death to separate him and Violet, because her complete dependence on him obviously pains him. Even now, after all the experience Violet has built up as an Auto Memories Doll, her entire world revolves around Gilbert. Will she ever really be free the way he wished her to be?

This was a necessary story for the anime to tell, and it does succeed in laying the groundwork for more of Violet's future character development, but I'm glad that the anime chose to condense it instead of following the light novel too closely. The reveal of Violet's past was never as interesting as the buildup around it, and I'd rather see how the knowledge of Gilbert's death will affect her actions in the future. I wonder if the anime will return to episodic storytelling next week, and if Violet's interactions with her clients will be affected by her first taste of grief. I'm looking forward to seeing where Violet's journey will take her from here.

Rating: B

Violet Evergarden is currently streaming on Netflix in select territories.