Violet Evergarden Side Story: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll may be called a “side story” but it certainly doesn’t seem like one. Rather, it just feels like two additional Violet Evergarden stories–just like the ones you’ve already come to know and love.
Violet Evergarden is the story of Violet, a former child soldier with prosthetic arms, struggling to understand the concept of love. In order to do this, she becomes a ghostwriter–writing love letters and the like for the people of her war-torn homeland as a new peace settles upon the country. The TV anime is largely episodic in nature with each episode focusing on a single client of Violet’s and how her own search for understanding helps them come to terms with their own feelings. It is a tale of love, loss, and hope–and is as visually stunning as it is emotionally moving.
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New film Violet Evergarden Side Story: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll is more of the same (and that’s in no way a complaint). Especially notable is the eye-watering beauty of Kyoto Animation’s work. And while the detailed architecture and numerous landscapes are breathtaking in their own rights, it’s Violet’s mechanical arms that once more steal the show–especially as we get to see them in their full glory several times.
On the story side of things, Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll tells two different–yet, deeply interconnected–tales about two young women and their life-changing encounters with Violet Evergarden.
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The first half is set shortly after the end of the series. Violet has become a more stable, independent person by coming to terms with both Gilbert’s fate and her feelings for him. This, in turn, prompts her to take a different kind of job than usual. Instead of writing a letter or something similar, she has been hired as something between a maid and a governess for Amy, a new student at a young lady’s finishing school.
Amy, however, is anything but ladylike. Anti-social and hostile, it’s obvious she doesn’t want to be at the school. Despite being a noble’s daughter, she has no knowledge of manners or the like. It’s Violet’s job to get her up to snuff within three months.
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Of course, with her military history, Violet thrives in a world of strict rules. From her first day shadowing Amy at the all-girls school, she already stands out. Her beauty, confidence, and loyalty to Amy ironically make her the most masculine girl in the school–a dashing knight as far as the other young ladies are concerned.
Amy, on the other hand, has the same problem that many have when meeting Violet for the first time: she doesn’t know what to make of her. At first, she sees only what she expects: a noble girl who has been trained to be a lady from birth. Of course, Violet is a war orphan and child soldier–about as far from a noble lady as you can get. And as Amy gets to know who Violet is little by little, her own walls drop and we start to learn about what brought her to this point–as well as what the future is that awaits her.
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The second half of the film is set three years later and follows Taylor, a 10-year-old orphan girl. She comes alone to the big city, searching for the ghostwriter of her treasured letter–her one certain friend in an uncaring world: Violet Evergarden. But while it’s clear she looks up to Violet, it is not a ghostwriter that she wants to be. Rather she wants to become a postman like Benedict and deliver letters across the country.
As she spends more and more time with Violet and Benedict, we, in turn, learn more about her life, her dreams, and what exactly letters mean to her. And while this is a story all Taylor’s own, it puts a different viewpoint on the events seen in the first half of the film and shows how a single letter can bring hope to two broken hearts.
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Like with the series proper, Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll is a beautiful story. It’s a tale about finding hope and losing it. It’s about what we are willing to sacrifice for love–what losses we are willing to endure.
But most of all, it’s about the unbridled power of the written word. Memories fade and people drift apart but a letter is a snapshot in time–a crystallization of feelings from a single moment, forever kept in pristine condition. That is something precious and perhaps something that has been lost in the age of instant communication. If nothing else, this film will make you want to write a letter to someone you love.
Violet Evergarden Side Story: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll was released in Japanese theaters on September 6, 2019. There is currently no word on a North American release.
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