The Grand Ambition of Kyoto Animation through Violet Evergarden

Violet Evergarden

Kyoto Animation is one of Japan’s most prominent and recognized anime studio. They pioneer the industry by creating high-quality anime which is almost always positively received by both the audience and the critics.

Critics have lauded Kyoto Animation for their mastery over the genre that they are currently tackling with or even revitalizing a genre that is dying out or is unknown to the audience at that time, their habit of focusing on character more than everything , and the high production value that they always give to any of their production. All while the audience thoroughly enjoyed their anime through it’s sheer force of being highly entertaining or simply looks good.

It is no secret that I am a fan of their work, a huge fan of Kyoto Animation. I have been following them since they released K-ON! And The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is my first exposure to them if I am being honest, although I watched the anime at around 2011, right after finishing both season of K-ON!. From there on, I never missed any of their show, save for the second season of Free!, and thoroughly enjoyed them. However, despite my love for Kyoto Animation, there are several anime that I do not enjoy and think that they need to either work on that genre more or just avoid it altogether, which is Kyoukai no Kanata and Musaigen no Phantom World. Both action-oriented anime is just not the forte of Kyoto Animation and they, in my opinion, flopped at making those due to several problems. However, that is a subject for another article.

The subject for this article is Violet Evergarden. Many people, including myself has realized regarding one thing about Kyoto Animation. The studio did everything but one, which is capturing global audience and having a worldwide interest. Sure, they are popular in some parts of the country, but not that much popular, as many of their anime are normally eclipsed by a more mainstream product, such as Shingeki no Kyojin, Sword Art Online, even One Punch Man. Don’t get me wrong, all of those anime are good, but Kyoto Animation’s production is as good as them, and even better in my opinion, but they just couldn’t capture those audience, particularly because of the genre of their works that is not to the taste of the masses.

Violet Evergarden made by Kyoto Animation in hopes to gain worldwide audience.

However, Violet Evergarden has captured many interest from the mass despite only being airing for just two weeks at the time of writing this. Many people have been talking about it, some, who are not familiar with Kyoto Animation works, are already hyped for Violet Evergarden before the airing begins. This leads me to thinking that Violet Evergarden might be Kyoto Animation’s first step in achieving their dream of capturing the global interest for their products.

There are several factors that made Violet Evergarden unique in terms of their production, and evident at it’s attempt in capturing worldwide audience.

1.      Unusually High Production Value

One thing that always made Kyoto Animation different from the rest of the studio in the anime industry is their focus on quality over quantity, as many of their works focuses on delivering it’s content and it is no surprise to see them high in terms of production value, such as having crisp animation, colorful and majestic background, and a lively character. However, in Violet Evergarden, it is evident that Kyoto Animation goes way beyond their usual call of duty in making this anime, as it is unusually high in production value, whether it is animation or background, with this kind of quality normally seen only when they are producing a movie, such as Koe no Katachi or K-ON! Movie. 

So far, Violet Evergarden has a very high production value compared to the rest.

2.      Worldwide release, complete with respective dub for each region

Some of Kyoto Animation’s works are not released in English, with some unlicensed by an English-language anime publisher for a long time before they finally released it. An example for this is Hyouka, which aired in Japan on 2011 but received their English-language release on the west in 2017. However, in releasing Violet Evergarden, Kyoto Animation opted to release it in multiple region, complete with language dub that correspond the region that it was released. For the English-language release, the one who distributed the series is Netflix, arguably one of the biggest stream provider in the world, and this show is even reffered to as a Netflix Original Show. It was easily seen through this factor that Kyoto Animation was seeking the global audience, but there are several factors which underlined that line as well.

 

It was released both domestically and internationally.

3.      The Quality of the English and Japanese Dub

Kyoto Animation’s approach for their voicework is notable for including a newer or rookie voice actor and pair them with a more experienced or talented one in order to give the rookie more experience and cut cost as well. Violet Evergarden, on the other hand, had a line-up of a more talented voice actors ,which is already popular to the audience, that helmed the characters, such as Yui Ishikawa, who is known for voicing Mikasa Ackermann in the Shingeki no Kyojin series,  as the voice of Violet Evergarden,  Takehito Koyasu, who is known for his role in One Piece as Aokiji and Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure as Dio Brando, voices the character Claudia Hodgins. Despite the great line-up for the Japanese Dub, they also had a very talented voice actors voicing the character in the English Dub, something that is rare for anime, such as the names of Erika Harlacher, Cherami Leigh, and Christine Marie Cabanos. As I stated before, having a well-known voice actor for an English release is particularly rare for anime in this era, since the popularity of anime is waning in the region which had English as their main language, thus making the English voice a little bit cheaper or less known to the mass. However, Violet Evergarden release, evident through those names, indicated that they are aiming the western audience to pick up the series as their English voice are far superior than those I normally heard in other English-dubbed anime.

The voice talents used for Violet Evergarden was star-studded.

4.      Intentionally great first episode

All anime seeks to do great at their first outing so that the audience sticks to the anime until the end, as they say that first impression are everything. When a person’s first impression to an anime is already negative, they will view that anime as negative even though that anime is already doing good, vice versa. An in the airing of the first episode of Violet Evergarden, the first episode of the anime was so captivating that people had already rated the series so highly despite only being the first episode. The first episode was magnificent in terms of visual, captivating in terms of story-telling, and phenomenal in almost everything. Simply put, Violet Evergarden’s first episode is the dream of so many anime already airing or planning to air. However, why do I say intentional? While a first episode is good, the second episode must absolutely follow suit. While the second episode of Violet Evergarden is good, it is not as magnificent as the first episode. As such, I believe that they are intentionally making the first episode to be as majestic in order to capture the interest of the audience and made sure that they land a lot of viewer for this series.

The first episode was a cut above the rest.

5.      Garnering interest through theme

If you are familiar with the works of Kyoto Animation, you know that they are normally tackling a theme which is rather unknown to the public at that time, such as when they produced Hibike Euphonium, whereas the public interest for marching band is not that high, as well as swimming in the form of Free!, Theme park in the form of Amagi Brilliant Park, and even Monster girls in the form of Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, as the popularity of that genre is not as high as when Monster Musume no Nichijou aired. Through Violet Evergarden, which is centered around an a young woman trying to find out the meaning of love, it is easily seen that Kyoto Animation seeks to garner an audience interest by using a universal theme which many in the public has shown love for.

The theme of Violet Evergarden is as universal as you can get, and it was widely accepted.

6.      Setting is not in Japan

One of the many aspects of the anime which is sometimes not in the favor of the western audience is it’s setting. The setting is normally set in Japan, and commonly, in high school, which has drawn boredom from the public. Violet Evergarden, on the other hand, utilized a more western-oriented setting, presumably in Victorian era England due to their name and settings but I don’t know and don’t quote me on that, so that the audience hailing from the western region can get familiar with the setting and their name more. This is the simplest yet perhaps the strongest aspect yet, since using a more western-oriented theme and setting can help an anime get over the western audience easier.

Through many things, it can be seen that the show is not set in Japan.

7.      Visually amazing

As I talked  about earlier, Kyoto Animation works tend to have a high production value, evident in their visual. However, Violet  Evergarden turned it up into eleven in this manner. As I spoke earlier, their visual matched those with the one that they normally do for their movies, and this is by far the pinnacle of television anime as none can even close in their attempts in making their anime looks as good as this. This, too, is not done just for the sake of looking good. Instead, to gather an audience interest through a captivating visual, as people tend to flock around a good-looking anime. Many of these people are seen in the community, as there are people who watched Violet Evergarden simply because it looks good.

Visually, Violet Evergarden stood out as the best and finest looking of any Kyoto Animation works.

All of those are the factors which proved the fact that Kyoto Animation is seeking a worldwide recognition through Violet Evergarden. The production value, the worldwide release, and everything, is their effort in making both Violet Evergarden well-known and widely accepted in the west, as well as it is in Japan.

Violet Evergarden is already captivated me through it’s first and second episode, which is the only two episodes that have aired at the time of this writing, and I can’t help but wanting to watch the next episode. This is the effect that Kyoto Animation perhaps seek to achieve in producing this series, but I don’t know. 

Aside from loving this series as a whole, I also love Kyoto Animation as a studio, as I believe that they are the Japanese-equivalent of the Pixar animation studios in the United States. They are similar in their belief and ways to achieve their animation target, such as using a more obscure theme to gain interest, as well as making sure most of their work received the same high-production value, although Kyoto Animation is dreaded for their in-house works up until Amagi Brilliant Park and having almost a similar character model in many of their works. Despite all of that, Kyoto Animation always came through them all in their own way.

It’s just that , Violet Evergarden is in a league of it’s own.

There's no denying that Violet Evergarden is doing a really good job right now.

Food for Thoughts : Ancient Egypt and Anime

Miira no Kaikata

Food for thoughts : Ancient Egypt and Anime

A few months ago, I was playing an old game by Tilted Mill Studios called the “Immortal Cities : Children of the Nile”, which is a city-building simulator that was set on Ancient Egypt and centered on how we, as the pharaoh, build a wonderful civilization and constructed a grand Pyramid when we eventually die. I was captivate by how immersive the game was, and how the game kept true to the lore, and even got too engrossed in the gameplay that I kept playing it for hours and hours.

As an anime enthusiast, then I came to an opinion, wouldn’t it be great if there’s an anime set in Egypt?

Then, few months removed from that, the anime Miira no Kaikata, or How to Keep a Mummy, was announced. Of course, due to the title involving mummies and how I was playing the similar game, I quickly put the anime on my shortlist at what to watch, and when it does air, I was left with this question.

“Can anime actually take place in Ancient Egypt and be immersed in it’s culture?”

Why do I ask that? Well, Miira no Kaikata was set in Japan with a few Egyptian cultures mixed in to accompany the mummy. Don’t get me wrong, the anime was good, but was just that. By the time the anime ends, I kept pondering to myself that kind of thoughts.

Let’s be honest, there are only several titles that are actually set in Egypt or talking about stuffs regarding egypts. One of the mainstream titles that come to mind is the original Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime, as the Yami Yugi is a Pharaoh, whose name is Atem, and I don’t know about the anime, but the manga actually explored ancient Egypt from volume 32 upwards.

Yu-Gi-Oh! manga focuses much of the later arc in the Ancient Egypt.

There are several titles that came close to ancient Egypt, which is Magi. However, Magi is not set in Egypt. Instead, Magi is set in an Arabian night-like settings, with things referring to them, such as the main character names are Alladin and Alibaba, as well as Djinns and the likes.

Another reference of Ancient Egypt comes from the Fate/Grand Order game, in the form of Ozymandias. Ozymandias is the Ancient Greek name of Pharaoh Rameses II, and is actually written as a sonnet by an English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ozymandias is not referenced in the game as Pharaoh Rameses II, yet it’s Noble Phantasm is called Ramesseum Tetrys, or the Shining Great Temple Complex, a reference to the fact that Ramesseum is the memorial temple of Pharaon Ramesses II. Lastly, the reward from ranking his bond to level 10 is Ramesseum itself that comes with a lore that explains the greatness of Ozymandias, or Pharaoh Ramesses II.

Ozmandias from Fate/Grand Order

This is a shame though, since Ancient Egypt offers a plethora amount of anime-like conditions that an anime could actually take advantage off. Sadly, there are only so much titles that delved in such setting.

Due to the short amount of anime titles actually taking places in Ancient Egypt, allow me to delve further in making Ancient Egypt a setting for an anime titles. What good factors it will have and how it will approach the audience. There are several factors that I managed to gather, thanks to the game Children of the Nile, as well as doing several websurfing and information gathering. Without further ado, let us begin.

1.  Pharaoh tends to be young

Let’s face it. When we talk anime, we want our protagonist to be either good-looking or bad-ass. And I am glad to inform you that the Pharaohs of the Ancient Egyptian history tends to be young, allowing an anime title to place a young and good-looking character in a position of power, which is the Pharaoh. In the history of Ancient Egypt, it is no surprise to see a child, commonly in their teenage years, take the position of Pharaoh due to the death of the previous Pharaoh, or their father, and there is no other candidate other than that young child. Of course, due to the young age, the need for a Vizier, or a Pharaoh advisor, is necessary so that the young child is not burdened too much with the task of being a Pharaoh that leads a civilization. For example, the pharaoh Tutankhamun is famous for ascending to the throne at the age of 9-10 years old and died only after 10 years on the throne, which is at 19 years of age. An anime example of this is Atem, from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime is very young pharaoh that inherited the throne from his father, and he has a Simon as his vizier, who helped him get through daily tasks.

Pharaoh Atem from Yu-Gi-Oh! is very young.

2.  Impressive Architecture

When we talk about the Ancient Egypt, or Egypts in particular, one thing almost always pop up to our mind, which is their impressive Pyramid, in the form of Pyramid of Giza, the tomb of Khufu. However, a few people knew that the Pyramid of Giza we actually see is only the core of the pyramid, with the outer fine limestone of the Pyramid is either stolen or fell off the pyramid as the years gone by. In the Ancient Egypt, the pyramid are grand building designed to house the dead body of a Pharaoh, and the pyramid itself is a symbol of their power and rule. And usually, it is coloured white thanks to the fine limestone acting as the outer shell of the pyramid, which radiates light when viewed from afar. Another one of their impressive architecture is the Great Sphinx, a statue of lion body combined with the head of a man. Through the Assassin’s Creed : Origins, we can actually see the ancient pyramids and sphinx in their magnificent original design, so why can’t we see it in anime as well?

The original look of a Pyramid is magnificent.

3.  Intriguing Culture

The culture of Ancient Egypt is unique, much like the other culture from the rest of the world. However, the culture of Ancient Egypt is yet to be exposed upon, unlike the cultures of Ancient Rome, Ancient Greeks, or even the Feudal Japan, making the Ancient Egypt culture a prime candidate to add upon a new things. As stated before, their pharaoh lineage is intriguing, their ways of making cuisine is also unique, their architectural approach is nothing like we’ve ever seen before, their frightening yet revolutionary embalming technique, and there’s also their writing system, which looks distinctive. By utilizing this rarely-explored culture, the opportunity to open up a new audience as well as those who know Ancient Egyptian culture is prime, as those who are interested by the culture will seek upon the anime to learn more about the culture, while the more knowledgeable audience can compare their knowledge or be amazed from the culture shown in that anime.

The culture of Egypt is immersive as well.

4.  Classical Music

One thing that is always close to a new setting is music. Feudal Japan has their own distinctive music that truly immersive to the setting, as does Ancient Rome, or even Medieval times. And thus, it is no surprise to see Ancient Egypt with their own music. The music can sound Eerie at times, but those eeriness can be soothing and distinctive at times, allowing us to be immersed in their ancient culture. Below is the example of Egyptian music, made by the amazing Brandon Fiechter.

5.  Egyptian Divine Beings

When one thinks of Egypt, then the thought of Egyptian gods and goddesses immediately came to mind, such as Osiris, Horus, and Ra. Their history accounts are as diverse as the one found in the Ancient Greeks, and can even be the same, such as Amun, or Amun-Ra after fusing with Ra, being the father of all gods, much like Zeus. They all are unique and diverse, and opens up a room on how to utilize them. If the anime we talk about focuses on more harmonious time, then the civilization will ask from the gods a favor to make sure their civilization prosper, such as by worshipping either Hapi or Hathor, or even Osiris. However, if the anime in question delves on war, then the soldiers will look for the favor from the god of war Montu, or the likes. The possibility is endless.

Renekton, from League of Legends, is inspired from Sobek, an Egyptian God.

6.  Historical Figures

Ancient Egypt also hosts several important figures from the past. One of them being Tutankhamun, one of the youngest yet prosperous pharaoh in the history, and one of the most well-known pharaoh around the world, with his death mask a prominent symbol of a pharaoh. Another character from the ancient Egyptian history is Cleopatra, commonly known as the most beautiful woman in the world, I think. However, Cleopatra is not from Ancient Egypt, but from a more different time, which is the Ptolemaic Egypt, and thus, had more different cultures than the Ancient Egypt.

Cleopatra, as seen in Assassin's Creed : Origins.

7.  Ancient Egypt are rarely seen

And of course, this factor is the one that persuaded me to write this article. The amount of anime associating with or even set in Ancient Egypt are limited or even very low, making the Ancient Egypt a prime candidate for a setting. By utilizing this, the anime in question will become the first of the kind, where the mistakes of interpreting several historical facts that were inaccurate will be forgiven and even open up more opportunity for other anime or even manga and light novel to take place in this kind of setting. Light novel and manga might be the first steps to achieve this, but to acquire a more international interest, adapting it to anime will be necessary.

Bakura from Yu-Gi-Oh! series.

And there it is, the 7 important factors of what will make Ancient Egypt settings be wonderful and intriguing to see in an anime. However, take note that even by utilizing those 6 factors, the anime is not a guaranteed success or anything of the like, as what I note is what makes Ancient Egypt so unique and distinctive that one should ponder whether or not it will work in an anime-like setting. There are opportunities to gather more interest from the public by utilizing such settings, but we cannot be sure as how impactful it will be to the anime industry.

I enjoyed writing this article, since I am also a nerd when it comes to talk about history and mythological facts. I first got exposed to the Ancient Egyptian settings thanks to playing the game Age of Mythology, a spin-off to the popular Age of Empires franchise, which deals with 3 (now 5) interesting races, one of them being ancient Egypt. From there, I learned mainly about the gods and a fraction of their cultures, However, the recent exposure to the Children of the Nile opened up so much knowledge from the Ancient Egyptian culture for me, which inspired me to write this article.