Review by huldahvonn

This is an interesting take on alternative history. I liked it all in all but if you're used to watching explosive (mostly shonen) anime series such as myself (the likes of AoT, Demon Slayer, Death Note etc.) please take into consideration that this series is as similar to those as The Dead Poet's Society is to Mission Impossible. It's just a completely different genre of anime with a much greater emphasis on very subtle character driven plotlines and grounded philosophical themes than your run of the mill shonen anime. This series does not rely on the power of friendship/love tropes you find in Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! This does not have the bombastic action scenes of Attack on Titan, the witty humour of Demon Slayer or the thrilling, clever plot line of Death Note. This series does however have its own mysterious charm. It asks questions such as "What would happen if women had to replace men in most matters of business and politics?" and "Is a person either good or evil or can they be a little bit of both?". It explores humanity, human emotions and the reasons for why we do the things we do and why we are the way we are. Most of the characters have both redeemable and reprehensible character traits; there is no good side and bad side, it's all a question of survival and making the best of the hand you're dealt.

The animation was mostly good, although there were a few scenes scattered in between where you could clearly see they switched from traditional hand animation to CGI, but nothing too jarring. I watched it with the English dub and I think they did a pretty good job, although the dialog was a little bit coerced in some scenes and a lot of very poorly disguised exposition forced into it (which, to be honest, I don't know is the fault of the English translators or if the script was just written that way originally). For example, in one of the scenes a boy talking to his mother says something along the lines of "You'll leave my little brother Niko behind." No child speaks to their mother about their sibling like that; they both know Niko is his younger brother, there's no need to elaborate on that, it just sounds very exposition-y, if you ask me. Anyways, I digress.

I would recommend people give this series a chance, at least the first couple of episodes, bearing in mind that this is neither and action- nor an adventure series but a somber, even melancholy exploration of human nature. If you enjoyed Violet Evergarden I think you might definitely like this one.