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Aug 28, 2020
Journeys always have been one of my favorite type of stories. Whether it is intentioned in seeking something great or simply in finding oneself – many journeys in anime have established themselves as one of the most compelling fictional works out there. Be it the renowned “Fullmetal Alchemist” or episodic tales like Urasawas “Monster”. Characters visiting different places, meeting interesting people they might not see again, witnessing life-changing events and learning lessons they won't forget for the rest of their lives and slowly evolving throughout it – this is what makes the journey an unforgettable experience.
Is Violet Evergarden a part of those? No, not really.
First
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of all, the initial premise of the show quite interesting: a young girl, previously a war weapon wants to understand the meaning of love. In search of it she starts working for a postal company writing love letters in stead of their customers.
And this is already where things go downhill. The show quickly regresses to a “sob-story of the week” format showing redundant characters going through something you probably have seen quite a few times if you haven't joined anime fandom yesterday. If you have seen some of Maeda Jun's works you know what I'm talking about: cute sad people with a sad past doing sad things. And sad means crying scenes, like LOTS of it. I'm not exaggerating if I say 40% of the show is characters crying or screaming.
Having mentioned the journey aspect before, it is quite messy. The episodes are just random sad love stories tangled together awkwardly and I don't see how they influence Violet in any way. Most single episodes (minus 8,9, 11-13) are so detached from each other you could basically change their order and I wouldn't ever notice it. They are also never reflected on and just forgotten after their drama is over. Their content is not fresh in any way, the stories unfold in a way that is the most tragic possible trying to force the drama right into the viewers face.
There's one episode that was memorable not because it was particularly good but because the contents were quite questionable. It romanticized a 20 years old guy and a 10 years old girl falling in love with each other like it was a disney movie. I know historically it is possible but this is not a historical fiction, this is fantasy and I don't think it is a healthy one.
The character aspect of the show is a disaster. The show's titular character Violet Evergarden is already where the issue starts: she is one of the most inconsistent characters I've seen in a while. Depending on the occasion she ranges between essentially being an Ayanami Rei-wannabe to a former soldier with PTSD to hysterically crying and screaming little girl. Her having PTSD does become relevant once the plot wants it to be, otherwise its not of importance. I saw the disorder being dealt with quite a few times in anime and most of the time it was handled way better than here.
Violet (and the other cast members) also makes sure you know how she doesn't understand love and can't have emotions a million times. Also her Major. And did you know she doesn't have emotions? Yeah I didn't. .
Speaking about Violet Evergarden you can't possible not mention Major Gilbert. Gilbert is basically the core of her character with her basically not caring about anyone or anything else. Although the show makes efforts to show her slowly moving on from him, the development didn't feel natural to me since the mini stories felt like a distraction rather than playing into it.
The other characters are not even worth mentioning – her colleagues barely appear and hardly do anything worthwhile. None of the single episode characters struck me as special.
Now onto the saving grace of the anime: the animation. Made by the glorious Kyoto Animation I already expected it being nice to look at but it still impressed me. Aesthetically, this would be one of the best anime I've ever seen and also the reason why I enjoyed parts of it. The town was reminiscent of European Mediterranean style and I was in awe of it. The landscapes were absolutely beautiful. The character designs also were quite the eye-candy: Violet has one of the prettiest character designs in anime (although looking older than her age) and everyone else also looked fine. The music was also alright - opening and ending sounded good, not quite the bangers but alright.
Overall Violet Evergarden is a visually outstanding show with an interesting premise only to be ruined by unnecessary drama and a messily written main character. It tries to be meaningful and different only to fall back into familiar patterns that we all have seen multiple times. Violet's journey searching for the meaning of love was in fact not unforgettable, but one of the least memorable journey's I've watched in anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 22, 2017
[Possible spoilers ahead! Skip below for TLDR version!]
As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the first two seasons I was strongly anticipating the continuation of the YowaPeda series. And while the first two installments of it were solid sport series, this one disappointed me greatly and had me wondering what the author was actually thinking most of the time.
STORY: The story starts at the point the 3rd years leave the club after the Inter Highs due to exams and skips to the beginning of the 2nd year for Onoda and his friends. This is the point where the first season already had it's major flaws: The story
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takes way too much time to start and keeps itself busy with character introductions and training. Oh and overly dramatic speeches of course.
Also another thing that bothered me was how everything keeps repeating itself. They have the beginners race, the training camp with the 1000 km race and so on which was very tiring indeed. The writer could've come up with something fresh/new instead of reusing the same plot-line.
But what disappointed me the most was that the aim of the team is still the same. Of course it's logical that they'd want to win the Inter Highs again but it took me 18 episodes to realize that all the hype around it was away. I didn't even care for them winning a second time because they already won it and that's it. Could've introduced another kind of tournament or maybe even an international one...but nope "InHi" again I guess. And with the same line-up. Yes, there NO new teams. They're still up against Hakone and KyoFushi (and some fodder schools but they aren't worth mentioning).
CHARACTERS: Here is where the show usually shined, but paled this season. First of all, our Senpais are away and will be missed for sure. But of course I hoped for some cool, new characters. What did we get instead? Bratty first years, copycats of prior third years and unnecessary character additions for plot convenience.
The team of six is completed by a guy named Kaburagi Issa who is pretty much a more obnoxious version of Naruko. He's an arrogant, childish and rude teenager whose purpose is not quite clear to me. The narrative wants us to think he's the "perfect" sprinter (while he wants to be an all-rounder). Why not introduce a type of character we didn't have yet instead? Why the fk does he look like Naruko?
Also we have our main characters, which didn't change much except that they're a bit more mature. Naruko gets some kind of development, while Imaizumi is irrelevant most of the time. Oh and Onoda tries to be Makishima 2.0 while he fails at it. Sugimoto showed some potential, but was cut off sadly. I was rooting for him actually...
Then at the training camp some guy who apparently everyone knows except for the viewer appears and challenges Teshima to a ride which shall decide who will be the captain. And ofc EVERYONE is ok with that. I mean dude, who are you even? Why is no one bothered by him? He was literally added just to give Teshima a justification for being captain and that's it.
The idea of giving Teshima some spotlight was good though, as well as Aoyagi. I enjoyed their scenes mostly. I liked how Teshima said "I'm weak" as opposed to the infamous "I'm strong" of Hakone's Fukutomi. But it could've been handled better.
But the worst thing was how they handled Midousuji. After the second day race and his "trip" with Onoda I thought he was inspired by him and changed a little concerning his attidue towards his team. However this season completely omitted that and made him even more evil and weird. He got some battle shounen-esque transformations where he literally evolves to a butterfly or something. And he has a gay-ass massage guy as assistant who likes touching people. Oh and of course he has his Zaku-army.
Hakone's new members are pretty disappointing too. Kuroda is too much of an Arakita try-hard, Shinkai's brother is literally Shinkai and the big guy was not terrible but also nothing special. Oh and there's a tall guy who likes Beethoven.
MUSIC/ART: The music was excellent as always and we also got a new Hime song. The animation was good although there was awkward CGI at times.
OVERALL: While it was not utterly terrible I was overly disappointed by the new seasons repetitiveness. It had absolutely nothing new to offer and recycled old formulas from season one instead. The new characters were not refreshing nor had anything interesting to them.
TL;DR:
+ Music/Art is good as always, although animation is not perfect
+ More spotlight/development for Teshima and Aoyagi
- no new plotline, recycles old elements
- not as exciting as season one, lacks some new goals/teams/reason for competition
- takes much time to start with the tournament
- characterization is weak, new characters are uninteresting
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 17, 2017
[This review applies to both YowaPeda recap movies]
Since the third season of Yowamushi Pedal is airing right now, I had decided to refresh my memory about the two last seasons and hence I watched both recap movies, Re:RIDE and Re:ROAD.
Unfortunately, many recap movies fail at summing up the story without excluding key scenes, making them feel incomplete. But unlike these movies Re:RIDE/Re:ROAD managed to keep the original feeling of the Inter Highs in only three hours, even if the source material is much, much longer. From the iconic Onoda and Tadokoro singing scene to Izumida's glorious "Andy! Frank!", it literally has everything. Even some bits
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of the (many) background stories are shown.
Besides, the writers also included movie exclusive scenes involving Makishima, Onoda and Toudou in Re:RIDE and the Senpai Line of Hakone in Re:ROAD. These extra scenes reveal a little more about their relationships too. If you're a fan you will love them!
Overall, both, Re:RIDE and Re:ROAD, are decent recap movies involving the highlights of the story, as well as something new to spice it up. I think it's worth watching these recaps if you (like me) watched the anime two years ago. If your memory is still good I'd suggest to skip the recap part and just watch the movie original scenes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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