English Dub Season Review: To Your Eternity Season Two

After seeing enough death and tragedy, the immortal Fushi secludes himself on an island, defending himself from enemy Nokkers. However, instead of attacking Fushi in isolation, Nokkers begin targeting the settlements outside of his reach in hopes of luring him out. Soon, a group known as the Guardians—led by Hisame, the descendant of the deceased warrior Hayase—finds Fushi.

Inspired by how Fushi protected Janada Island from the Nokkers years ago, the Guardians have grown a considerable following and are recognized throughout the world. Initially reluctant, Fushi allows the Guardians to accompany him to the site of the Nokkers’ recent attack. In their village, Fushi meets a few valuable allies, both new and old. But as the conflict with the Nokkers only leads to more loss, Fushi must find the inner strength to face his inevitable sorrow.

On the technical side, the series was originally animated by Brain’s Base, but now it’s replaced by another animation studio called “Drive” while Kiyoko Sayama replaced Masahiko Murata as the director. With Shinzō Fujita handled the series composition, Koji Yabuno designed the characters, and Ryo Kawasaki composed the music. Hikaru Utada performed the series’ opening theme song “Pink Blood”, while Masashi Hamauzu composed “Mediator”, which was used for the ending and both were repurposed from season one.

The plot this season was quite a mess. To put it lightly, the time skips are jarring, the pacing zooms, and with that, I’m left baffled at some of the writing decisions that potentially even took away whatever emotional moments happened during the previous season’s proceedings. At the very least, having Fushi is far more grown, making the difference in tone and direction much more visible, whereas Season One gave him the emotional depth of a coffee table.

Fushi learning emotions and how to speak was interesting, but him getting every single overpowered skill known to mankind, enough to become some sort of god-like protagonist. I also wasn’t nearly as invested. The direction overall has gotten worse, especially in regard to “selling” people on the characters. The new characters introduced are okay at best, with some being decent, and some being downright awful. Take Bon for example, his introduction was always rocky, but the expansions on his character were fumbled.

This Season wasn’t much different from the previous season outside of some character changes here and there during the proceedings, and certainly made this a very interesting product because of it. That isn’t a bad thing but lacks the very selling point this show had for those who like the overly melodramatic nature of Season One. Growth and change are hard to adapt to. A third season was announced in the final episode of the end credits. but whether or not 3 will top itself to some capacity remains to be seen…