English Dub Review: To Your Eternity “To Continue On”

Overview

Tonari returns to Jananda to rescue Fushi. Before setting out again, they stay the night in a cave, and Tonari shares her past…


Our Take

Once again, Fushi was in a really weird spot where he couldn’t do anything about a certain “Nokker” situation when the Nokkers learned a new trick up their sleeve. And consequently, the proceedings felt very contrived. And where do I even begin with the newest character deaths? It’s not that I don’t like them as people, it’s just that we were never given any sort of breathing room to know their backstories unlike everyone else that Fushi met and developed relationships with organically. Heck, I don’t even know their fucking names because they’ve been said maybe 2 or 3 times in the whole arc…

There comes a point within this show where we the audience will progressively stop giving a shit about new characters that are introduced. From a storytelling standpoint, death is supposed to have an impact, and while the previous deaths were effective to some extent, the frequent usage of death as a plot device in a show like this can lose its value when characters predictably drop like flies left and right which is something even the most talentless Hollywood writers are guilty of excessively doing in such a mean-spirited and masturbatory fashion (I’m looking at you Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, and George R.R. Martin).

The editing/directing was weird in this episode. The fact this could’ve been a rush-job from the animation team might’ve been a contributing factor of how lacking this was in terms of quality. Not to mention, the foreshadowed opening/ending visuals may have spoiled the whole shock factor to some degree. The more an author does shit like this, the fewer audiences become emotionally invested or shocked when we’re supposed to care about it, the character dies which leaves me to wonder how will any of this ever end?? Somewhere down the line, we’ll hopefully find out…