Funimation announced at the Ohayocon 2020 event on Saturday that it will screen Violet Evergarden I: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll (Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Eien to Jidō Shuki Ningyō), a side story to the Violet Evergarden anime, in select theaters in the United States in early 2020. The screenings will be in Japanese with English subtitles.
Funimation describes the side-story anime:
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?
Minako Kotobuki plays Isabella York, the scion to the great and noble house of York who is pessimistic about her future, and who holds no love for Violet, her new teacher. Aoi Yūki plays Taylor Bartlett, a girl with no family who comes to pay Violet a visit. The main cast members from the television anime also returned for this side story. Minori Chihara performed the the anime’s theme song “Amy.”
While the anime was originally slated to screen in Japan for two weeks only starting on September 6, it screened for at least five weeks. The film eventually earned a cumulative total of 641,980,500 yen (about US$5.98 million).
The anime held its world premiere as planned at the AnimagiC convention in Mannheim, Germany, which ran on August 3 and 4. The AnimagiC organizers said that they continued the screening “at the express request of the studio.”
Kyoto Animation‘s television anime adaptation of author Kana Akatsuki and illustrator Akiko Takase‘s Violet Evergarden novels premiered on television in Japan and on Netflix in some territories in January 2018. The anime launched on Netflix in the United States in April 2018. Kyoto Animation‘s separate Violet Evergarden: The Movie anime film project will open in Japan on April 24.
Source: Funimation