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Violet Evergarden: The Movie Wins Kyoto Digital Amusement Award
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The Kyoto prefectural government awarded Kyoto Animation's Violet Evergarden: The Movie anime with the grand prize (Kyoto Governor's Award) for its third annual Kyoto Digital Amusement award on Tuesday.
The Kyoto government launched the Digital Amusement award in 2018 to highlight the works of young creators in Kyoto. The prefectural government will hold an awards ceremony both as an in-person event at the Kyoto Sangyokaikakn Hall on Friday, and streamed through the Kyoto Content Channel.
The film opened in Japan in September 2020, and it ranked at #2 in its opening weekend. The film is the first new Japanese anime film (as opposed to compilation films) to open in Dolby Cinemas, with Dolby Cinemas screenings opening on November 13 last year. The film has sold 1,450,000 tickets for 2.1 billion yen (about US$20.2 million) as of January 14.
Kyoto Animation postponed the film's opening in Japan due to concerns over the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The film was slated to open in Japan last April. This was the second delay for the film, as it was originally slated for a January 2020 opening in Japan.
Funimation will begin screening the film in select theaters in the United States and Canada on March 30.
The movie won the animated film category at the Tokyo Anime Film Festival (TAAF) in February. The Japan Academy Film Prize Association for excellence in film nominated the film for Animation of the Year for its 44th annual awards this year.
The franchise's separate side-story anime, titled Violet Evergarden I: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll (Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Eien to Jidō Shuki Ningyō), opened in theaters in Japan in September 2019, and it screened for at least five weeks. The film eventually earned a cumulative total of 831 million yen (about US$7.90 million). Funimation screened the anime with English subtitles in theaters in the United States in February 2020. Netflix debuted the anime in April 2020.
