To Your Eternity Season 2

Episode 1

I came into this review ready to make a groan-inducing joke about how it's felt like an eternity since we last caught up with Fushi and the Orb Corp, but one of the most surprising things about this brand new season of To Your Eternity for me was how quickly I was able to reacclimate to its world, not to mention how glad I was to be back. The final Jananda Island Arc of that first season was far from terrible, but its lopsided pacing and lack of truly memorable characters was a major step down from everything that came before it, and it ended up dulling my memories of the entire series as time moved on in its absence. To Your Eternity has such a wonderful, melancholy flavor that feels so refreshing and unique, though, and I've been pleased to discover how much I missed this story, after all.

One aspect of To Your Eternity comes back around to one of the biggest thematic cores that it has revisited again and again: The necessity of change and growth in a life well lived. Our poor boy Fushi has gone through a lot in his time as an immortal shapeshifting Orb Thing, but one thing that this premiere really puts into focus is how much he has grown and changed since that very first heartbreaking episode. A lot of that comes down to pure time; outside of a brief two-year long dalliance as a handful of barely sentient sea-life, Fushi has spent the better part of 40 years in stoic isolation on that same island that he and Pioran retired to at the end of Season 1, killing Nokkers for jerky and generally trying to avoid endangering anyone else by virtue of proximity. There's still an air of adolescent immaturity to his behavior, which only makes sense given the series of heartbreaking nightmare fairy tales that constituted his “upbringing”, but he's also made huge strides in every aspect of his being and expression. He's developed a nuanced and complicated understanding of his role in the world, and that makes him a much more interesting character than the relatively blank vessel that he used to be.

This is especially handy considering that he's currently being paired up with a tiny nine-year-old girl whose own stunted view of the world is going to make for…well, let's just say that calling Hisame's presence in Fushi's life complicated would be underselling it. It would be a lot for him to take in to simply learn that there is a whole cult of Guardians that is developing around the myth of his existence, or that the Nokkers have taken to attacking innocent villages to lure him out of his exile. On top of all that, his most intrusive ally is—and let me just take a deep inhale for this one—the emotionally compromised and possibly brainwashed prepubescent reincarnation of Hayase, the psychotic and obsessive murder priestess who ruined Fushi's life and killed his beloved friends before dedicating multiple lives to pursuing her twisted romantic fixation with an eternally shapeshifting god creature that hates her.

Oh, and Hisame's arm has been infested with the same Nokker that latched onto her grandmother over 40 years ago, which Fushi is just thrilled about. I can only thank the heavens that our hero doesn't seem at all interested in (or even aware of) the covertly possessive/romantic undertones to Hisame's behavior; I really do not need to see To Your Eternity attempt its own take on the old Usagi Drop curve-ball.

On a more serious note, if I'm not quite on board with the Fushi/Hisame dynamic yet, it would mostly be on account of this premiere's most glaring flaw: its pacing. Contrary to the slog that killed a lot of my enthusiasm for the second half of Season One, though, the main issue here is that everything moves way too fast. Between the half-hearted recap of Fushi's time as a crab/shrimp, the almost comical way that Hisame and her Guardians appear and integrate themselves into Fushi's life, and Hisame's very casual reincarnation reveal, it felt like we had at least two episodes' worth of material that got smushed down into one; there were even a few scenes that legitimately felt like someone accidentally hit the x1.5 speed button on the player. (Note to Crunchyroll: For the love of God, do not add a speed multiplier to your player).

While I'm addressing my criticisms of the episode, I also have to note that the show's production remains, if not outright bad, then underwhelming at the very least. I'd have to go back to old episodes and play Spot the Difference to note any meaningful changes based on the switch to a new director (Kiyoko Sayama) and studio (Drive), so I suppose it's good that the show doesn't look or feel noticeably worse, but when we get scenes like the vicious Nokker attack on the village, it makes me wish we could see the version of To Your Eternity that got the cinematic production values that the story deserves. Also, I don't want to complain about getting to hear “Pink Blood” again for the OP, but recycling a song for a brand-new production feels awfully…cheap.

I can't say that those are “minor” concerns, exactly, but they certainly don't negate my overall positive feelings now that To Your Eternity is back in our lives. I mean, for as mixed as I am on the Jananda Arc, I was always going to appreciate an episode that gave us a badass middle-aged Tonari who has become some kind of wild poisons master. With Fushi finally starting back down the path of adventure, I'm eager to see what new directions he will be headed next (and I'll keep handkerchiefs handy, just in case I end up bawling my eyes out again sometime along the way).

Rating:

To Your Eternity is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.