To Your Eternity ep. 15 – Return

Posted on by Irina

To Your Eternity is an early contender for the best new anime of 2021. Considering that I had been waiting for this anime since mid-2020, it makes me very happy to be able to say that. This said the competition is stiff. I’m having a very good anime year and I’m there are still loads of titles I haven’t even started yet. Revengers looks awesome and I’m super curious about Wonder Egg… We’re not here to talk about those.

We’re here to talk about Fushi and how he managed to get his family back. In a way.

Last week I mentioned that Parona was dead and a reader pointed out that we don’t actually know that for sure. We’ve seen Fushi turn only into characters we’ve seen die but that’s not absolute proof. I had taken it for granted for some reason but that is true. We don’t know that a characetr needs to die to become a vessel.

And even though both Fushi and the Observer talked about Parona being dead in the opening sequence of this episode, even that’s not proof. Fushi doesn’t actually know how his powers work. Several times he has been genuinely surprised by the things he can do and it took Gugu experimenting to figure out half the stuff. It wouldn’t be out of character for Fushi to have just assumed that someone needed to die to become a vessel, just like I did, without actually knowing that for sure. As for the Observer, he’s a proven unreliable narrator.

For the record, I do think that Parona is dead and that people probably need to die to become vessels. Simply from a narrative logistics point of view. If Fushi becomes able to turn into whoever he wants, it drastically changes the rules by which the story has been playing and makes this already immortal character even harder to write compelling obstacles for. Moreover, the universe of To Your Eternity is already sort of tricky, with a lot of subtle rules. I think a clear and easy-to-understand limitation for the vessels makes sense and won’t overwhelm the audience. But in practice, nothing in the story so far would make Parona have to be dead.

Once again, I wasn’t crazy about Tonari’s character development in this episode. I thought the humour of their odd-couple fell a bit flat and I just wanted to get to the action. But oh boy, the action!

Maybe the Nokkers are just that good nemesis. I do like an uncomplicated evil once in a while. In any case, as soon as the attack started, I was riveted. I loved the entire fight sequence. I thought it was exciting to watch and choreographed really well. Those scenes where Tomari and Fushi are running along the cliff and you see the huge stone Oniguma towering over them in the distance, only his head visible beyond the edge. Chef’s kiss. Those were so visually arresting and beautifully animated. And I really liked Tonari’s involvement once the fight happened. It felt more in tone with the rest of the story.

By the end of it, I was pretty psyched. That was a great last third. And now I want to see the next episode!

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6 thoughts on “To Your Eternity ep. 15 – Return”

  2. I’m fairly sure now, from narrative progression rather than worldbuilding, that Parona is dead (though there’s a tiny chance that there’s a suprise in store, it’s very unlikely). I was hoping Hayase would witness the Nokkers this episode (and maybe she has; I’m pretty certain at that point that Hayase lured them here), but it makes thematic sense that Fushi’d learn to rely on teamwork this episode. (He’s basically learning stuff the way a child would – family – friends – colleagues…). I’d expect Fushi to manage to save Pioran, as she’d be the perfect character to teach him about human life expactancy. So far, all deaths he witnessed were sort of premature; he mightn’t have a good grasp yet on all creatures dying anyway.

    For me, this easily the best show of the year so far. No contest. The only thing that comes close so far would have been Odd Taxi.

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