Violet Evergarden

Breathtaking art aside, this was filled with anime cliches. Melodramatic and repetetive for large swaths of the series and goes into the common trap of completely overexplaining things. Especially egregious examples of this in the last episode. Giving it a somewhat high score because of episode 10, which is truely great and packs a huge emotional punch.

The art is phenomenal. The animation, mostly standard-to-good TV fare with occasional terrible 3D. I really wanted this to be good b/c of the art but fully expected a trash plot (Netflix light novel adaptation). It's definitely dumb melodrama, and super transparent about manipulating it's audience. To its credit, it does a better job than most anime at keeping a consistent tone. Anime far too often has a retarded comic relief/tonally inappropriate humor problem, which is thankfully absent here.

The animation alone is ridiculously gorgeous, but the series boasts also some great atmosphere and slow-burning character building.

It’s very uneven. There are some excellent parts—solid 10s—that I really enjoyed; the scenes where emotions are explored through letters are particularly good. On the other hand, there are some silly moments, like the train scene toward the end. Overall, it’s not bad, though it focuses almost exclusively on tragedies rather than showing a broader range of negative experiences. There’s a prevailing sense that goodness triumphs simply because it is good and holds the right beliefs.

The first word I think of when I think of this show is "boring." It's a sappy melodrama that acts like it's grander and more thematically powerful than it is. The directing is filled with overwrought attempts to "wow" the viewer with its visual flair despite it not saying anything at all. I also couldn't take its lead character seriously - she's a kuudere archetype looking for "love," but the plot makes her way too socially daft in an on the nose attempt to sell this characterization.

Well-animated though fairly typical "learning what emotions are" anime melodrama. Your response to this will depend on how much you typically enjoy such things - for me only the episode with the mother and little girl was the one to hit hard.

The melodrama is so ungodly thick. "Learn what 'I love you' means", please tell me I didn't just hear the main character say that.

Beautiful art and deathly dull storytelling in this lightly sci-fi slice of life anime.