English Dub Season Review: To Your Eternity Season One


Based on the ongoing manga series by Yoshitoki Ōima, “To Your Eternity” follows the story of an immortal being, named Fushi, a formless immortal ball of light from outer space with almost godlike powers, who starts out at being emotionless, but gradually develops sentience and a personality as a result of interacting with humanity, young and old alike. Fushi also uses shape-shifting powers to take on multiple forms, including that of an abandoned white-haired village boy and his white wolf in order to stimulate as it learns about the human experience.

Unfortunately for Fushi, not everyone he meets is an ally or friend. These include the dangerous Nokkers (supernatural creatures in their world) and also encounters the obsessive Hayase. A psychotic fangirl who evolves into a more twisted character, and the polar opposite of Fushi’s evolution. In many ways, Hayase represents the worst & grotesque aspects of humanity. The way she fascinates about immortality and develops a twisted love for Fushi is what separates her from any human character in the show. In later episodes.

From a Technical and sometimes narrative standpoint To Your Eternity is unsurprisingly deceptive. It markets itself as a pretentiously deep series with an unusual premise and neat-sounding themes with timeless concepts such as survival, loss, and humanity. Set with an almost completely atmospheric fantasy setting, it promises a compelling and philosophical journey about a blank-slate of a person developing and becoming a sentimental individual through the involvement of other people and events along the way. The soundtrack was phenomenal, especially the last episode with Utada Hikaru performing the series’ opening theme song “Pink Blood”, while Masashi Hamauzu composed “Mediator”, which was used for the ending. it’s also noteworthy that the animation team known as “Brians Base” of “Baccano!” and “Durarara!!” fame manages to keep things consistent to a certain degree.

Any fan of Anime knows quite well that with any piece of fiction, a story capable of conveying emotional resonance can be a wonderful thing and make any form of fiction if well-executed, amazing. And the anime industry is often capable of effectively utilizing a gamut of emotions. With that being said, To Your Eternity’s unique style is quite appealing, hence its high popularity and reception, but it’s those very same qualities that also serve as a double-edged sword capable of bringing itself down. And unfortunately, this is where the show shoots itself in the foot…

To Your Eternity is an astoundingly colorless blatant example of emotional manipulation and exploitation at its worst.  And through its own profoundly ridiculous ways, it keeps itself from being dramatically interesting. Even worse,  it falls victim to the same tropes of Joss Whedon and George R. R. Martin’s mean-spirited styles of writing by introducing characters, then at a brisk pace, superficially fleshing them out despite what little screentime they’ve had, only to needlessly murder the shit out of them. Emotional manipulation by itself isn’t necessarily bad, but how it’s utilized can beget many issues. When used the right way by pairing it up with a profound message and efficient thematic presentations, it can turn out extremely powerful and well-earned as exemplified by the Nicholas Sparks classic “A Walk to Remember”. But sadly we don’t get that here, as the series consistently fails to give us any genuine deeper incentive for us to actually give a shit. At best, every relevant character attempts to play an important role in Fushi’s development in an effort to further shape his humanity. But at worst, it makes characters we’re supposed to care about feel almost interchangeable.

Overall, this series went from being one of the most anticipated anime adaptations in 2021 to an absolute disappointment. It wasn’t egregiously bad like Akiba’s Trip, but when most of the story wasn’t filled with plot holes, It had plot conveniences & contrivances in combination with an arguably bland antagonist with the most bullshit plot armor I have seen in a while. Whatever messages or themes it tried to convey are simply wasted or almost never touched upon in any meaningful way. In that regard, this series was so poorly written that I struggle to believe that this was the same Manga author who also wrote the critically acclaimed “A Silent Voice” but it remains to be seen if the recently announced season 2 will ever redeem itself to some capacity because they can’t all be winners right?