Kyoto Animation has had a rough and difficult journey when it comes to bringing their Violet Evergarden sequel film to theaters. Originally set to debut in Japan on January 20th, 2020, the film was delayed in response to the sudden hardships the prolific anime studio had faced in 2019. Eventually, the film was given a new release date of April 24th, 2020, and things seemed to be on track for an exciting and much-anticipated release. Unfortunately, with the rapid spread of the coronavirus hitting industries across the globe hard, it was only inevitable that Kyoto Animation would join the list of anime studios affected by the deadly virus. Due to concerns over COVID-19, the release of Violet Evergarden: The Movie has once again been postponed.
The news was shared on the official website for Violet Evergarden: The Movie, and unfortunately, there is no new release date for the film as of yet. This news comes hot off the heels of another major anime film delay, as the premiere of the third entry in the Fate/stay night: Heaven’s Feel trilogy was also recently delayed due to concerns over the coronavirus.
While this film won’t be coming out anytime soon, fans of Violet Evergarden can at least enjoy the official English release of the previous film spinoff in the series, Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll. The 90-minute release was recently made available on Netflix, with both Japanese and English audio available. Before being released digitally on Netflix, the film was screened in select theaters across America from February 17th–20th.
Funimation describes the plot of the side-story film as follows:
Violet Evergarden comes to a private women’s academy to tutor Isabella in the ways of being a lady. Heir to the York family, Isabella feels trapped in this new and uncomfortable world. She still grieves for the only person to ever bring her happiness — now lost to her. Violet’s lessons do give her a brief respite from the melancholy but with the absence of joy, how long does it take to truly heal?
Surprisingly enough, the world premiere of Violet Evergarden I: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll didn’t happen in Japan. Instead, the anime held its world premiere at the AnimagiC convention in Mannheim, Germany, on August 3rd and 4th of 2019.
After the world premiere in Germany, Violet Evergarden I: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll was only slated to screen in Japan for two weeks starting on September 6th of 2019. KyoAni went on to extend the screening for an extra week, though, and later extended it again to screen for a total of five weeks. The film went on to earn a total of 641,980,500 yen, or about $5.98 million.
