Violet Evergarden is one of those animes that leave a significant impact on viewers even after they have watched it multiple times. There are many aspects of Violet Everganden that can be studied. However, at its core, it revolves around the titular character who has no memory of her life before she became a weapon of war.
With her pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, Violet almost resembles a doll. However, her character design was supposed to be different from the current design. The character design change was suggested by Akiko Takase, who handled the illustrations for the novel and was also in charge of designing the anime designs.
Akiko Takase Wanted to Ground the Anime Designs In Reality
In an interview originally published in Shin-Q Vol.2 2017, the director of Violet Evergarden, Taichi Ishidate, talks about his personal approach to the project, its themes, and the particularities of the production. He also talked about the change in the original character design.
The interviewer asked whether Akiko Takase continued to work on the character designs herself when it was time to revise the designs of the anime, and Ishidate replied:
We created a couple of commercials for the novels too, but for those we thought to use the design sheets she had already made for her illustrations. However, when it came time to animating, Takase-san requested to make the eyes a bit smaller; rather than accentuating the fantasy, she wanted to ground it in reality a bit. Taking her opinion into account, we altered the designs when we worked on the novel commercials.
The interviewer then stated that usually, in anime character designs, the amount of lines to be drawn is reduced. However, this is not the case with Violet Evergarden. Ishidate replied that the lines really weren’t reduced, for the most part. He further added that the illustrations in the novels gave a distinct identity to the series, and it would have been bad to take that away, so they challenged themselves to keep it as it was.
Taichi Ishidate Wanted Violet’s Main Focus To Be Her Eyebrows
In the interview, Ishidate was asked whether he made any requests to Takase during the process of converting the original designs into animation ones. Ishidate said that he usually did not intervene during the designing process, but during the key animation, he wanted Violet’s main part to be her eyebrows.
He further elaborated:
She’s a character who doesn’t understand peoples’ emotions and her own feelings, but that doesn’t mean she’s lacking something we’re all born with. It’s only because she was in such an environment that she doesn’t know; she simply wasn’t taught these lessons in humanity. Though she can’t express them that well, she does have these emotions we all possess.
When thinking about where to introduce the nuance of subtle emotion in her expression, Ishidate couldn’t say to put it in the eyes themselves, but he thought of placing them in her eyebrows as a means to show her expressions.
Frequently asked questions
Why were Violet Evergarden’s eyes designed smaller than typical anime characters?
Character designer Akiko Takase asked director Taichi Ishidate to make the eyes a bit smaller so the design would feel grounded in reality rather than accentuating a fantasy look. The change moved Violet away from the usual large-eyed anime style and, according to the interview, was incorporated when the team worked on the novel commercials.
Who designed Violet Evergarden’s appearance?
Akiko Takase, who handled the illustrations for the original novel, was also in charge of the character designs for the Kyoto Animation anime adaptation. Director Taichi Ishidate worked with her requests, and the team deliberately kept the detailed novel illustration line work rather than simplifying it the way anime adaptations often do.
How does Violet Evergarden express emotion through her face?
Director Taichi Ishidate wanted Violet’s eyebrows to be her main expressive feature during key animation. He explained that although Violet doesn’t understand other people’s emotions or her own, she still has the feelings everyone is born with; she simply wasn’t taught to express them, so the subtle eyebrow movements were chosen to convey her quieter emotional shifts.
