Mu one word naming scheme sort of came back to bite me with this week’s To Your Eternity. There were so many great options. Enemy was an early contender, as was Flora, Alphabet, Wisdom and Promise. That last one needs some excplanation. Although he didn’t do it in so many wrods, Fushi did promise to remeber the boy. That’s a very abstract and I think very human thing to do. The need to be remembered. And when that was threatened this week, I do think something fundamentally changed.
I’m just going to lay it all out right now, I really liked this week’s To Your Eternity. And you know, the more I think on it, the more I’m liking last week’s episode as well. It was a bit too thick for me to enjoy in the moment but it works in retrospect. I also feel like Fushi’s story is actually starting now. Everything up until this moment was a set upé A good one and I wish more shows would take their time getting into the story.
There are very few things I didn’t particularly enjoy about this episode. I’m not sure I could name any. I guess the old woman’s slapstick act in the very beginning was a bit much but not enough to annoy me. Oh, in the recap at the very beginning, the narrator dais the Fushi experienced human death for the second time….and he found it stimulating. That’s probably not a good sign for us humans.
Never mind any of this, let’s get to the stuff I liked. I loved that Fushi was immediately fascinated by drawing and writing. He seemed indifferent to it a few episodes ago but he never actually saw the act of it. This time, he literally jumped on it. And that’s very telling. Out of all the great human innovations, I do believe written communication, whether through letters or drawings, is our greatest achievement and the one thing that has allowed us to get this far. Forget fire! Also, no one invented fire. Nah, words, that’s where it’s at!
And the fact that on some level Fushi could feel the importance of it, when he barely shows any interest in anything, well I think that is very telling. And kind of inspirational.
I also really liked the glyphs that they were using. They are simple enough to be commonly used by most people as writing, they seem to represent syllable sounds and they are different enough from each other to be clear. All of these are great basis for a written language that authors sometimes don’t take into account. They also look quite a bit like Inuktitut which brings us back to the origin of the show! Super nice!
Oh speaking of bringing back, there were a lot of mirror scenes. Fushi and March throwing fruit to Pyoran just like she was doing for him a few episodes ago. Fushi as a wolf leading the old woman on a journey just as the boy had led Joann. The scenes of them sleeping by the campfire also mirrored each other. The episode paid visual tribute to everything that led us here before moving on to something very different.
And Takuhana is very different. It’s not immediately visible but the tone of the colours does change once they reach the new land. Everything is just a bit cooler during the day but the night is warmer, much less blue tones a lot more neutral grey mixed in instead. I’m probably making too much of the colours but you know, even if it’s just a story I’m telling myself, I like this story. The story of a studio that wanted to tell a tale so much they waited almost a year to get it right and now are carefully choosing every paint pot with purpose and meaning. It’s a good story and it makes me love the show more.
As for the enemy in question. I have to say those were some chilling scenes. The action was great to watch as usual and I loved just looking at the movement on the screen. However, seeing Fushi get impaled so much was a bit grueling (not the worse this show has done) and this plant creature sent chills down my spine. The sheer inhumanity of it was great. To me, there was something that felt so deeply invasive and assaulting about Fushi having one of his personas (vessels apparently) forcefully taken like that. It certainly is the perfect way to add threat and suspense when a character like Fushi is around, who is generally invulnerable.
And am I the only one who’s very suspicious of the maker fellow. Hmmm.
I’m jumping all over the place. I almost forgot this, but Pyoran said something to Fushi: what are you thinking when you turn into her (March). And the narrator also mentioned that Fushi almost never turns into Oniguma because that form is almost constant pain. Fushi doesn’t heal any of the wounds the vessels have when he first takes their form either so it could be straightforward. Like all those arrows are causing him pain. But I don’t think so. I think Fushi associates a state of being, maybe a general mindset with a shape. A feeling if you will. And I’m not sure if that is something left over from the vessel itself or just something Fushi creates from his impression and relationship to the creature.
In many respects, Fushi seems the most comfortable as Joaan the wolf. Maybe that’s because he has no big emotional associations to that wolf so it’s the shape he can be the most himself in. I mean he was a rock when they met so you know, minimal impressions.
I feel like I’m rambling but there was so much this episode. I haven’t even gotten to all of it. Oh…Fushi sounded pretty much like I do when I try to speak Japanese so that was endearing!
I’m massively late, but the language written in Ninnanah is based on Japanese syllables, so bird is “tori” etc. In fact, I figured out that exact fact when observing the bit of the manga that was adapted into this episode and I was able to confirm that when I found someone (on Reddit) had already deciphered the entire language. I was gonna write a post on my findings way back when I thought it was just me, but…unfortunately, there’s not much you can say more about the deal than that. (Now if only I could decipher that language on the typewriter in the OP of My Roommate is a Cat…)
Yeah I saw that in the wiki. It’s a fictional script that changes the shape of Haragana but is apparantly based on many different alphabets. I still think it looks strinkingly like inuktuk as far as the glyphs go and since that’s also a phonetic script it does fit well.
Here’s the chart Isshie made on Pixiv https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv10967866. I think that’s what Reddit was using as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the maker just dropped a couple of orbs onto the ground, and that plant thingy was one of them. But, well, I think I remember him saying (implying?) that there’s an antagonist, and I’m not really sure why he’d have any need to lie about that, or why he’d have to do so in human speech. Might be some pantheon out there who wonder if they should wipe the slate clean and start anew or watch a little longer. Who knows? (The author, probably, but not me.)
On the other hand, the voice that said something like “Looks like someone came to play in my garden,” sounded an awful lot like the “Maker”. Maybe I just can’t tell the difference?
I really liked the episode, too. Now that Fushi actually understands the concepts of speech, generalising from “arigatou” and being taught, communication should be easier. Misunderstandings, too, should be easier.
I’m sticking with this being the show of the season for me, and boy this season’s loaded. This, Fruits Basket, Odd Taxi, Shadows House, Pretty Boy Detectives Club and Higehiro are all really good, and then there’s the Zombie Land Saga tier, which has a few shows, too, and that’s not a bad tier either. I’ve dropped a few shows I’d have definitely finished in a weaker season. And To Your Eternity still comes out on top, and it’s not even a question for me.
The voice did sound similar and hey maybe it was the Maker’s voice. Possibly the play in my garden bit had another meaning. I’m not sure yet.