Violet Evergarden (Season 1)

Violet Evergarden (2018) is a Kyoto Animation series you can watch online on iFILM. The war is over, and the young soldier who only knew how to follow orders has no orders left. Yui Ishikawa voices the title role.

Violet takes work as an Auto Memory Doll, a kind of scribe who turns people's tangled feelings into written letters. There's a catch: to put someone's emotions on paper, she first has to grasp what emotions even are. Most episodes play like self-contained short stories, a dying mother, two separated lovers, a princess and her correspondence, while one half-understood phrase from her late commander Gilbert keeps pulling Violet forward.

What sets the show apart is the craft: this is some of the most painstaking hand-drawn animation of the decade, down to the catch of light on a fountain pen. It earns its tears slowly rather than through plot twists, so watch it in a stretch with tissues nearby. Thirteen episodes, with feature-length follow-ups. Stream every episode of Violet Evergarden online on iFILM.