When pictures equal words - A extremely brief comparison of the light novel and anime series for Violet Evergarden

Movies and TV series/anime are great. They get straight to the point and it doesn't involve a whole bunch of reading. Some serious drawbacks include not being able to fully convey the author's meaning since you're limited to so much time. Also, quite often, my imagination depicts characters and settings far differently than what movies/TV shows. 

That is why I normally do not watch a movie/TV adaptation of a series I read. And if I do, I would read the book after to gleam the author's intent and for details that were not found in the other form of media. Even then, I normally find the book to be the superior form of entertainment.

With Violet Evergarden, I started with the anime series before reading the light novel. My thoughts for the anime series were depicted in another blog post . With an anime series that superior in quality, and with my mindset of expecting the books to be even more exceptional, I'm pleased to say that I found both of them to be of equal quality.

With the light novel (LN), the order differs from the anime. The LN starts with Violet being an auto memory doll on a job request, which gives her a mysterious aura. You don't find out more about her past till literally halfway through the... 13 chapters (if I remember it correctly). I thought it was a clever way to seduce the readers to continue to read; wanting to know about this mysterious beauty as they call her in the novel. The LN also had a couple of characters that were not added to the anime adaptation. One in particular, I thought, should have been added to the anime series for I felt it gave more depth to Violet's character. This character, was in a sense, Violet's foil. Both were soldiers, but one is allowed to function as a member of society while the other one is sent to jail. It's not as simple as the two of them being just soldiers, when the prisoner, Edward Jones, committed various other criminal acts, but how Akatsuki Kana (the author) illustrated Edward was spine tingling. 

One particular element that the LN had which the anime did not, or at least did not clearly state, was Major Gilbert Bougainvillea's status. In the LN, the Major was alive, despite missing an eye and a limb. Violet and Gilbert met at the end, and everyone seems happy. Personally, I felt that he should have been killed. The reason being is I feel like Violet regressed, even if it was ever so slightly, back to when she was a child soldier following orders. Violet is so dependent on the Major, that it's frightening. With his disappearance, I believe it allows Violet to grow as an independent person, not shackled to orders, even if it's her desires. With this, I believe the anime did a better job in not mentioning the Major's status, allowing for Violet to "move on". 

Now with the anime, I felt it was a better idea to tell the story in a chronological order with the flashbacks to explore Violet's path. The anime was sufficient in grabbing my attention, and not letting go. At times, when reading the LN, I would get confused on the chronological order. 

All in all, you can go no wrong with reading the LN or watching the anime or doing both in whatever particular order that floats your boat. It's not often that I find an animated media an equal or superior form of entertainment to a good ol' book. Kyoto Animation, apparently known for taking the original content to base a work and mutilate it to how they see fit, did do just that with certain aspects of the show. However, I didn't feel like it diluted the quality at all. 

I'm eagerly awaiting to watch the OVA and see how it'll enhance (and hopefully not soil) the anime series as a whole.