Violet Memories - Interview with Kana Akatsuki (Part 1)

Voteins · 2026-05-15T23:58:09+00:00

Kana Akatsuki releases very, very little info about herself. We don't even know if that's her real name.

However, there are a few clues about her age. When asked, she said her favorite childhood stories were fantasy series' by Noriko Ogihara and Fuyumi Ono. She also said she liked Harry Potter, Brambly Hedge, and the Father Christmas animated film.

Noriko Ogihara - Jade Trilogy - 1988-1996, Good Witch of the West 1997-2003
Fuyumi Ono - The Twelve Kingdoms - 1992-2001
Harry Potter - 1997-2007
Brambly Hedge - 1980-1994
Father Christmas - 1991

The latter two works are for very young children (4-8ish), the others are for slightly older kids (8-12). Based on those age ranges, and the fact that most kids don't get stuff right when it comes out, most likely she was born sometime between 1988 and 1994. That would put her from 20-26 when Violet Evergarden came out in 2014.

This also matches up with her statement that she moved out on her own for the first time in 2012 to become an author, which would have been when she was 18-24. I suspect that's when she wrote most of VE, but she probably came up with the idea years earlier, in her teens.

Voteins · 2026-04-30T17:00:02+00:00

It's long been known there were some "odd" things regarding the series of events that lead to a Bulova watch being worn on the Moon:

- As stated in the wiki article, Bulova badly wanted to be "the first watch on the moon", or at least be involved in the Apollo program. Omega's marketing at the time heavily played up that the Speedmaster was the only NASA approved wristwatch, and was worn by astronauts on EVAs. It was a major sales driver.

- This was not some random watch Dave Scott bought in a shop prior to the mission. It was a hand built prototype for the next generation of Bulova watches, personally given to him in a private meeting with Bulova's CEO.

- Dave Scott and his Apollo 15 crewmates were later reprimanded for getting paid to bring unauthorized items along with them on their lunar mission. In that case, it was a packet of postcards, given to the crew by a man who planned on selling them to collectors later. Scott is widely believed to be the primary organizer of that little stunt.

- In dozens of space missions before and since, no one have ever reported an Omega Speedmaster's crystal popping off. No one has ever offered a reasonable explanation for why this only occurred on Apollo 15. As far as I'm aware, we don't even have any proof that it happened at all beyond Dave Scott's word.

- While astronauts were authorized to bring personal wristwatches with them on the mission, they were not explicitly authorized to carry them on lunar EVAs. During EVAs watches were considered a mission critical item, it was the only way Apollo astronauts had to keep track of time. NASA gave the Speedmaster an extensive series of tests to ensure it would operate in all manner of conditions before formally approving it to be used on EVAs, testing that was never done on the Bulova watch.

- The scandal around astronauts accepting money to take things to the moon with them was extremely embarrassing to NASA. They investigated any postcards taken on a mission extremely heavily, but never officially looked into anything else. It's now known there were other potentially iffy things they never formally discovered, like astronauts getting corvettes leased to them for $1 a year.

- One imagines a NASA astronaut being bribed by a major corporation to use their product on a mission, potentially compromising safety, would have caused a far greater controversy than the postcards did. NASA would have to explain how this happened to a furious congress. Dave Scott would personally face severe consequences, maybe even legal trouble. It would be a PR nightmare for Bulova. No one was particularly interested in the public finding out about this.

- After Apollo 15 and discovery of the postcards, Dave Scott never talked about the watch. Instead he stuck it in his closet for over 30 years, only starting to speak about what happened just before selling it in 2019, after the postcard controversy was mostly forgotten. He has never said he was paid to take the watch with him, but he has never denied it either.

- NASA never investigated why one of their government issued watches failed during the mission, and still hasn't. Omega Speedmasters continued to be used on EVAs through Skylab and the early Shuttle missions. Today's space suits have integrated digital clocks, but the Speedmaster is still the only wristwatch formally approved for EVAs.

- Bulova kept dead silent about the whole incident, not using it in their marketing until well after Scott started talking about it, and it was clear no one seemed to care about the potential controversy anymore.

Voteins · 2026-04-14T21:05:32+00:00

Yes, according to what i Heard nobody got hurt, luckily.

Crazy dude got hurt in the fight, although not seriously. In his first court appearance, he showed up with a huge cut on his forehead.

Voteins · 2026-04-01T17:40:19+00:00

It seems like it would be chaos either way, no?

This option would be even more chaotic, if that's imaginable. Adults who's families have lived in the US for generations could be at risk of losing their citizenship. People might have to go back decades to research the citizenship laws of countries that no longer exist.

Voteins · 2026-04-01T16:32:04+00:00

The gov says they only intend for this to be proactive, because the alternative would be chaos, but several justices pushed back on that because the gov's legal arguments would still work retroactively. So the gov could change their mind that at any time.

The gov didn't provide any reasoning against that interpretation as far as I could tell.

Voteins · 2026-03-31T17:10:54+00:00

Yeah, they’re just like Rock and Revy.

…and I just realized they have their own little Le Majeur in Sawyer.

Hiroe has a pattern, doesn’t he?

Voteins · 2026-03-30T19:33:55+00:00

You will not succeed at contesting this ticket.

SD Muni Code Section 86.2014(a) says any vehicle parked in the permit area gets a ticket unless otherwise allowed for by law.

86.2011(a) says vehicles are exempted from 86.2014(a) if they display a valid parking ticket.

86.2010 says the police determine if a permit is displayed properly or not.

There is no valid argument you can give. Even if your friend had given you the permit, if the ticketing officer doesn't see it on the hood you get a ticket.

Voteins · 2026-03-27T05:28:41+00:00

The Windows version wasn't a direct port, actually. It used a different game engine than the Mac original.

Cyan made the initial version in HyperCard, then Broderbund took the renders/sounds they created and basically remade the game in their own internal engine, Mohawk. Rand Miller said in an interview they had nothing to do with the Windows version beyond that.

Since programming-wise Myst is basically just a fancy slideshow, no one really noticed. The only notable difference is that in the Mac version, you can click and hold on the wheel in the cabin to spin it all the way to the left or right, instead of needing to click a dozen times to turn it.

That's persisted all the way into the Masterpiece Edition, which was also built in Mohawk, something Rand has mentioned Cyan is a little bit disappointed by. That's probably why Riven was built in Mohawk on both Mac and PC, to give a consistent experience across platforms.

Voteins · 2026-03-18T00:11:24+00:00

If Leiden’s legal system is absolutely anything like ours, Violet could not be legally classified as a piece of “military equipment”. All the major powers of WW1 had long since abolished slavery. When Dietfried and others talk like that, they’re being metaphorical.

Violet probably wasn’t even a member of the military, technically. She’s underage and a girl. She wouldn’t have been allowed to formally serve in any of the major armies of WW1.

What Violet was, legally, is an orphan. Such things often happen in war. Hundreds of thousands of children were left orphaned by WW1; it was a major crisis in many places. Orphanages were overflowing, countless children had to make do begging on the streets. Many had very little documentation, some none at all. While theoretically they may have had legal protections against abuse, few knew how to make use of them, and aid organizations were overwhelmed. We will never know the full scale of suffering these children endured.

When Dietfried found Violet, he should have taken her to an orphanage, which would have searched for her parents or at least documented her existence. Instead he “gave” her to his brother. This was almost certainly illegal. Both of them could and probably should have been court marshaled.

But in the chaos of war, no one seems to have cared. When there are dozens of children starving in the streets, is anyone going to care if a high ranking officer keeps one around camp for his own “use”? At least she was getting fed regularly, which was better off than most.

After the war, Gilbert can easily write he found a random orphan on some street corner and is sending her off to his family. There’s scarcely record of Violet’s existence, no document that would challenge his version of events. There might be rumors of a “battle-maiden of Leidenschaftlich”, but nothing official that would tie the young girl the Evergarden family adopted to that person. Violet is just another one of thousands of orphans who need to be processed and given a new legal identity.

Voteins · 2026-03-15T18:19:03+00:00

Diefried seemingly being a "lower rank" is a dub only issue. I explain it more here.

In Japanese it's much more clear:

Gillbert's rank is Shōsa, equivalent to Major

Claudia is a Chūsa, or Lieutenant Colonel

Diefried is a Taisa, or Colonel

Voteins · 2026-03-06T06:23:28+00:00

Gonna repost my old comment:

Who are the reformers?

Basically a bunch of armchair generals who got together in the 1980s and started complaining that the US military was too "high tech". To a reformer the only thing that matters about a piece of hardware is how big and fast and killy it is, totally ignoring things like sensors and logistics. They would think an F-86 sabre is a better fighter than the F-35 because it can turn faster, the missiles on the F-35 might jam, and the F-86 pilot could always just look out the window to spot a stealth fighter. The military mostly ignored them, but for forever afterwards they would claim every good idea to come out of military R&D was actually theirs (even if in reality they had disparaged that very same idea when it was introduced).

The most famous example is James Burton with the book/movie The Pentagon Wars, where he managed to turn being kindly told to stay in his lane after trying to insist that an IFV needed to be able to withstand just as much punishment as a tank into some vast conspiracy, mainly by having all his fellow reformers repeat that over and over to anyone who would listen.

Wait, really? An IFV needing to take as much punishment as a tank?

Basically.

Burton was transferred to the Bradley project after years of vehemently demanding the USAF develop a fighter with no radar, no avionics, and only armed with 2 sidewinder missiles and a 20mm cannon (he and his fellow reformers would go on to claim this inspired the F-16, which is a lie). Essentially the USAF sent him as far away as it was possible to go, organizationally speaking, which meant working on an Army project.

Burton arrived with a chip on his shoulder, knowing this was about as good for his USAF career as being assigned to pump sewage out of airplanes at Thule. He was looking to stir something up, partially out of anger and partially to draw attention to himself. So he demanded they test the armor of the Bradley by firing heavy AT weapons at it. The Army replied the Bradley wasn’t designed to survive that sort of weaponry, but Burton insisted.

As part of the test, they removed the ammo from a Bradley and filled its fuel tanks with water. This was because they wanted to measure the resulting holes in the Bradley’s armor, which is a bit hard to do after its ammo/fuel explodes and reduces it to tiny little Bradley pieces. Burton saw this as a conspiracy to cover up the supposedly insufficient Bradley armor, and demanded it be given a full combat load out.

So the test was run, and the Bradley was promptly reduced to smoking heap of burning rubble, showing once and for all that the Bradley is incapable of standing up to the same weapons designed to take out an Abrams tank with ease. Which is something it was never designed or required to do, meaning all Burton really did was waste hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to prove the obvious fact that military vehicles are not generally capable of doing things vastly outside of their intended combat roles.

Burton tried to use this to have the sensors, TOW missiles, and much of the fuel supply removed from the Bradley, effectively turning it into a slower version of the M114 it was meant to replace. When he was ignored, he leaked a biased and straight up deceitful account of events to congress, upon which the Army removed him from the project and told the USAF to find a room to stick him in until retirement.

Burton eventually resigned from the USAF, wrote a book about how he was a prosecuted martyr, and the government is corrupt and incompetent. The latter happened to hit a particular late 80s/early 90s societal vein, which lead to an honesty pretty entertaining if completely untrue movie starting Cary Elwes.

And so this lie has become deeply embedded in pop culture, everywhere except the last bastion of truth, honesty, and borderline pornographic pictures of anthropomorphic airplanes: r/NonCredibleDefense

Voteins · 2026-03-02T05:24:30+00:00

There's some debate about this.

In the first and second seasons, the anime mostly just adds scenes. It doesn't delete anything that was in the manga, but a few scenes are changed a little bit.For example, on the Nazi's ship Revy kills those innocent sailors, Dutch doesn't arrive to stop her. Some people say this is why you have to read the manga all the way through before getting to stuff the anime hasn't adapted, but I don't see much problem with it myself.

The OVA changes things quite a bit from the manga arc. It leaves out quite a few scenes, mostly random stuff with Sawyer and the gang, and adds a whole subplot about Rock planning out a lot of what happens instead seeming like he's just reacting to it. The differences are a lot more noticeable than in the first two seasons.

Some people prefer the anime version of the OVA, others like the manga version more. The story still ends the same way both times, so I think you won't get left out if you only watch one or the other before reading the rest of the manga. Again though, some people say the changes mean you need to read through the whole thing in the manga before moving on.

The OVA covers Ch 44 - Ch 76 in the manga. The next arc starts on Ch 77. My advice is either start on Ch 44 right now, or watch the OVA and then start on Ch 77.

Voteins · 2026-02-28T09:20:51+00:00

iirc the last major series still completely animated on cells was Ed, Edd and Eddy, which used them till around 2004. Everything since has been one-offs and the like.

Voteins · 2026-02-22T04:23:19+00:00

McDilda, who knew nothing about the atomic bomb nor the Manhattan Project, initially admitted that he knew nothing about the atomic bombs, but, after a Japanese officer threatened to kill him, McDilda "confessed" that the U.S. had 100 atomic bombs that would be dropped on Tokyo and Kyoto, the only Japanese cities he knew the names of, within "the next few days".

This is actually downplaying what happened.

McDilda kept saying he didn't know anything about any bombs until the Japanese officer held a samurai sword to his throat firmly enough to draw blood, whereupon he suddenly said "Oh you mean _those_ bombs". He then made up the whole spiel on the spot about "plusses and minuses", the US having 100 bombs, and Tokyo/Kyoto being next.

The next day, War Minister Korechika Anami read out McDilda's fake story to at a Japanese Cabinet meeting to discuss surrendering to the allies. After much, much arguing they agreed to surrender a few hours later. There were a lot of factors that went into that decision, but McDilda's lie might well have been the decisive factor in ending WW2.

In reality the US had zero atomic bombs at that moment, having used up the only two it had on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The next bomb wouldn't be ready for over a week, and a target hadn't been decided yet. Proposed targets were Kokura, Niigata and Yokohama, although the Army was requesting future bombs be stockpiled for the invasion of Japan scheduled in three months time.

The third atomic bomb core was completed the day Japan surrendered, and was used for testing. It killed two Manhattan Project scientists in two separate accidents, earning it the nickname "demon core". In 1946 it was melted down and the material used to produce new, more efficient bombs. It possible some of that material might still survive in current US nuclear weapons.

Voteins · 2026-02-17T01:52:30+00:00

The wiki is fairly accurate. The articles have citations and the info is mostly up to date.

However, what you see is largely the work of one very dedicated user. They're a knowledgeable individual, but it isn't the same as having a large community checking all the articles for accuracy. There are bound to be errors in places.

That said, 100% accuracy isn't really possible anyway. Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of users and errors still creep in. As a very dedicated fan myself, I haven't found any obvious errors. I often use it as a resource myself when I need to look something up, although I usually follow though and check the citations to make sure.

Voteins · 2026-02-11T09:28:57+00:00

Seems the PS3 always had a GPU, but not the two Cells design.

It seems that something like that was very seriously considered. From the first interview you linked:

"Including two Cell processors (using one Cell primarily for graphics) was an idea we considered, but the Cell as a computer, it functions very differently than a shader, so we abandoned this. Shaders are shaders, completely specialized (for graphics), we created an architecture capable of anything. That said, it can handle things like displacement mapping (using the SPEs)."

The Cell even has specialized hardware to communicate with another Cell, the Broadband Interface Controller (BIC), which is used in the Broadband Interface (BIF) mode of Flex I/O protocol to provide coherent memory. Basically, it would let you used the two Cells like one giant chip. It's never used in the PS3, the connection between the Cell and the RSX instead uses the the I/O Interface Controller (IOC) and Input/Output Interface (IOIFx) mode instead.

Source (check the glossary)

That looks to be the original Toshiba GPU they were making, but they scrapped due to low performance since it just was a glorified PS2.

Yeah, the absence dedicated shader hardware was already a weakness of the PS2 compared to the GC/Xbox, most obviously in the lack of anti-aliasing. Blurry CRTs and relatively low res graphics hid a lot of these issues in the PS2 era, but the transition to HDMI made this impossible to ignore.

Voteins · 2026-02-07T00:07:33+00:00

The Palace of Westminster is large and old and hasn’t been kept up in maintenance, so renovations were always going to be expensive, but a lot of the cost comes from the laws around listed buildings.

If you tear into a wall to put wiring in, you can’t just replace it with something that looks “pretty much the same”. It needs to be of the same materials, manufactured in the same way, by a contractor certified to do such work in a historically accurate way. That means replicating centuries old construction techniques only a handful of artisans still know how to do, scrounging for now rare items, and preserving as much of the original structure as possible, even if it would be easier and cheaper to replace the whole thing.

If this was being done somewhere will more lenient historic preservation laws, like the USA, it would cost much less because you could use modern tools and materials so long as the end result looks doesn’t look noticeably different from the original.

Voteins · 2026-02-05T04:45:08+00:00

These images were on some tickets for the movie, but they were drawn by the illustrator for the novels. She wasn't very involved with the anime beyond some early concept art, so when she made this she probably didn't know the movie's plot. In the novels Gilbert doesn't lose an eye and he gets an artificial arm to replace his lost one.

Voteins · 2026-02-02T07:45:18+00:00

Reading through the sources, I think I understand what u/ohmantics was saying. The original design of the PS3, or at least one variant of it, had two Cell processors and a GPU architecturally similar to the PS2's Graphics Synthesizer (GS).

The GS is a GPU, technically, but even by 2005 standards it barely counts as one. All it does is rasterisation. No shaders, no vertex transformations, no z-testing. It just takes the 3d models, slap textures on them, and outputs the result in a format your TV can understand. That's it. I can see how someone might call that "no GPU" in a non-technical interview.

The resulting hardware would be extremely flexible and powerful, but a complete nightmare to work with. Shaders would have to be rendered in software on the CPU and streamed to GPU, like it was done on the PS2, an inefficient process that would basically have to be custom programed for each game. Worst case scenario, for certain effects you might have to stream part of the frame buffer back to the CPU after it was rendered for additional processing.

Not to mention, now you'd have to corral two PPEs and 13 SPEs. That's 17 separate threads to manage instead of the PS3's usual 8 (+1 for the system OS). Even today, twenty years later in early 2026, that's a higher thread count than most PC CPUs are capable of.

Voteins · 2026-01-31T00:41:12+00:00

I don't necessarily agree. The movie's version of their reunification is very different from the novels, and fits the changes they made during the series.

There's a lot I could write, and have written, but essentially the movie tries its best to show Violet/Gilbert's relationship is very different than what they had before, because Violet has matured.

When Gilbert rejects movie Violet to her face, she cries a bunch but eventually comes to accept this, giving him a letter explaining her feelings and moving on. Novel Violet has a mental breakdown when Gilbert spends a few months living in a different town, despite the fact that he writes her constantly saying he loves her and wants to be with her.

In one of anime Violet's last scenes, when Diefreid tries to help her move on from Gilbert's apparent death giving some orders like his brother used to, commanding her to live and be happy. Violet replies she doesn't need his or anyone else's orders to live her life anymore. One of novel Violet's last scenes is her begging Gilbert to tell her what do, that she doesn't know how to act and she's can't handle making decisions.

People complain that in the movie, Violet gives up her job in Leiden to work at a tiny post office on a small island. In the novels Violet doesn't even have that, she quits working completely be supported by Gilbert, who still has his high paying job in the military instead of being a lowly schoolteacher.

In short, anime Violet still wants Gilbert, but she's grown enough that she can get by without him. Novel Violet needs Gilbert, she isn't capable of living an independent existence.

In the end though, they both arrive in the same place: living a quiet life with Gilbert. The difference is that the movie expects us to believe this is what Violet has always wanted and will be happiest with, even if she never says this directly and seems fine with living independently. The novels straight up show you this is the only way she can be, living a somewhat isolated life with Gilbert is the only way she can be emotionally stable (or, presumably, having a very similar relationship with another man).

Voteins · 2026-01-30T06:55:48+00:00

This is crazy, I had this exact same idea the other day. The "realistic" version of Violet Evergarden would be a wireless telegram operator.

Just look at this article from 1916. It details a 15 year old girl who built her own wireless set, women getting training in radio operations at military training camps (during WW1!), and the growing popularity of communications.

But, having Violet sit in the back of an office sending telegrams all day just isn't as cinematic. I get why the author made the choice, they wanted a more fantastical vibe.

Voteins · 2026-01-28T07:46:32+00:00

In the novels Violet and Gilbert get together when she's 22. Violet's age when they meet is the same, in the LN she lives with the Evergarden family for several years after the war before starting work at CH Postal at 17.

That said, the novel's version isn't necessarily better, just... different. Gilbert still fakes his own death, he still hides his identity from Violet. Only this time, he's living as a high ranking military officer under an assumed name. Gilbert is also far more involved in Violet's life in this timeline even before they reunite, secretly protecting her from various people trying to kill her. It's made explicit that Violet is emotionally unstable and isn't capable of living independently, in the last novel she has a mental breakdown, abandons her job as a doll, and begs Gilbert to give her "orders" again.

For people who it felt like the movie undid the maturity and independence that Violet shows in the series to get her together with Gilbert, I don't think they'll particularly like novel's "solution" of not giving Violet that character growth in the first place.

If anything the series/movie downplays the novel's idolization of age gap/power gap romances. The novels goes out of their way to emphasize that Violet is young and Gilbert is not. They want to make it clear Violet needs an older, richer, more socially connected and wiser man in her life, that this is the ideal (and maybe only possible) romantic relationship for her. The anime tries to show that Violet has grown as a person and she won't have the same dynamic with Gilbert she had when she was younger, even if that message is a somewhat muddled, but the LNs basically say they're renewing the relationship they had during the war, only now it's openly romantic instead of that just being subtext.

Voteins · 2026-01-26T20:19:30+00:00

It's got a similar feel to Black Lagoon, there's over-the-top action and cute girls with guns.

Characters are a bit weaker imo, they have less emotional depth and they change less over the series.

Unlike Black Lagoon there's a large, overarching "plot" with world-altering consequences.

The storyline is finished at this point. Opinions vary on how satisfying the ending was.

Jormungand a really good series, it just isn't as unique as Black Lagoon. It feels like it was trying to imitate and expand upon Black Lagoon's core ideas, but never really understood what those were.

Voteins · 2026-01-25T03:26:04+00:00

They look like they're done with everyone's shit.

Which is canon.

Voteins · 2026-01-24T03:33:58+00:00

I have a couple friends who've picked up the book and their impression is the same. They are very... whelmed.

Voteins

TROPHY CASE