Violet Evergarden and the issue of war

      Violet Evergarden is an is a great anime about a veteran learning to be a ghostwriter. Apart from its brilliant and heart-warming stories, the anime also delivers to us a strong message about war. We can see this by the overall theme of the production. In almost all episodes, we could see that Violet, the main character, meets with many people. However, they all have one thing in common. They are all have their love ones lost or got or got injured during the war, such as her classmate who has her brother limbed because of war, or the scholar who lost both his parents to the war, etc.This element not only did it in purpose of making the stories more heart-broken, but also saying to the viewers that war not only affects the soldiers but also their love ones.

      Not only that, the picture of war also got painted through the image of Violet herself. She is also a victim of war, as she also lost her love ones. The major in the Leidenschaftlich Army, or rather, her boss during war time, and also the person that Violet love the most, was declared as dead after the war. This left Violet traumatized and could not accept that fact for a while. Seeing her trying desperately trying to dig the ruin to look for her major’s body left me crying.

      War also affects her physically. Throughout the anime, there is one thing about her that the anime kept empathized on. That is her arms. Instead of normal arms, she has prosthetic arms. In every episode, we get at least one close up scene about her arms. 

Violet's prosthetic arm

      This is done in order to remind us what war have done to her. Not only that, the repeated effort of the producer also to say that the price of war will not just fade away with time. It will always be there as it will always linger in our minds.

      The effect of war does not stop with causing physical damage, it is also psychological. Violet is originally an orphan who got taken into the military. It is fair to say that she does not know anything except war. At the end of the war, or rather the beginning of the anime, she had no understanding about emotions. She still has emotions but she could not know what it is. For example, she treasures the necklace that has the same colors as her major’s eyes, yet did not know what is her feeling. The war had roped her from all of that precious understanding to the point that, when her major said “I love you”, she did not understand it at all. At a result, at first, her way of writing, as well as speaking, sounds almost like a soldier waiting for orders.

Violet's response

      Aside of tackling the issue indirectly, the producer also gives us the direct look at the issue at the last episodes, when Violet faces the extremists of the side who lost the war, who refused to end the war with peace. At first, they seem to be villains of the show. However, when Violet asked “Are you planning on starting another war?”, the leader responded with “Do you think the war is over?” and “You and I, we both have memories of violence burned into us like scars, and it will never be over”. At that moment, I realized they are also the victims of war. That is how war affects both sides of the battlefield. There is no winner, only lost soldiers.

     

That is the message about war that the producer is trying to deliver to us.