To Your Eternity 2 ep. 10- Daughter

Posted on by Irina

Thinking back on the very first episode of To Your Eternity, I have the feeling that this is one of the sows that has changed the most through the seasons. Not in a chaotic way where you wonder how it got to this point. It was all smooth and organic. But honestly, I don’t think I could describe the first 12 episodes of To Your Eternity in a way that would still ring true to the current season.

At the very least, the experience of watching the show is drastically different for me.

We’re at a strange crossroads. Everyone is doing things that don’t suit them. Maybe except Kahaku. He’s pretty laid back and I think he’s just continuing his mission of fighting nokkers.

But Bon is an envoy trying to convince leaders of the upcoming war with the nokkers without proof or the privilege of his royal name. It’s a hard sell, to begin with. I certainly wouldn’t have emptied out my city state and let an unknown army have free reign just cause some guy told me it would be for the best. And Bond is not well suited t subtle political negotiations. Or at least he wasn’t. He seems to have…changed… in the last few months. He’s calmer, more put together, and better at judging those around him. I’m not sure it’s an improvement.

In the meantime, Fushi is trying to master his own powers through introspection. and while Fushi has lived on his own for long periods of time, he generally doesn’t look inward much, or at all really. I don’t know if this is because, in a very tangible way, he’s always been somebody else. It would make sense that he would look to others to figure himself out. And he’s not doing great trying to puzzle it out on his own.

And finally, there’s the man in black. Whi is characteristically unhelpful but oddly seems to want to help for the first time ever. Maybe I’m imagining it. But he gave advice that was almost good this time. That’s just weird.

Am I correct in assuming that all the money Fushi throws around is counterfeit. As in it’s just coins, he’s replicated, right? And if he keeps doing it he’s either going to get caught or wreak havoc on the local economy. Fushi is learning more about the world little by little but I think stuff like inflation is a bit beyond him still.

I don’t know what the scene with the angry poor lady was about. But if they are planning to add a serious economic theme to the story…actually, I’m kind of curious to see that. Go right ahead.

I think the princess or whatever behind that blue curtain is the pretty veiled lady we see in the OP. I don’t have any specific reason for thinking that other than the curtain and veil seem like visual parallels. he has a pretty striking presence in the OP, so I am assuming it’s an important character.

It took me a while to realize how important this sequence is for Fushi and the narrative. So far, Fushi generally just goes with the flow. He gets put into a situation, makes friends and then tries very hard to help those friends. Sometimes he just spends years with them. And when circumstances demand it, he makes decisions but more often than not, he remains fairly passive until his back is to the wall.

Deciding to buy/free a pair of kids spontaneously like that is something that’s actually new for him. When you watch it, you think well of course Fushi would free children that are held against their will, but would he have. He probably wouldn’t have quite understood what was happening for a while there and even after, he would have been worried to disturb the status quo. He was pushed by his newfound super empathy. It’s a big step for him. and it didn’t exactly work out. He took that better than he would have before as well.

Normally, I would be wary of a character like Eko. I mean look at how adorable she is. And she can’t speak, and she has a traumatic past and her name is a mispronunciation of the word cat (in Japanese). That is just a collection of red flags. And yet, I quite like Eko. I’m not sure why.

One of the things I like is that this is a completely new type of relationship for Fushi. Fushi has always been taken care of. Even when he’s rescuing people, there’s this sense that he’s still the innocent one. He needs guidance. Even Bon and Kahaku take care of him. And before that, it was more obvious. The closest we have had to seeing a child in an important role before was with March. And at that time Fushi was basically a baby so little March was definitely taking care of him, like a pet.

Eko is giving Fushi the opportunity to take care of someone else for the first time. I guess you could say he was taking care of Piyoran in her final days but I erased that from my memory. It was very sad. So with Eko, he has the chance to nurture and maybe even teach someone. These are aspects that are going to be new to Fushi and I’m intrigued by what they do with them.

I also like the fact that Eko communicates using a clay pot. I don’t understand the logistics of it but I enjoy how odd it is.

Fushi powers are growing exponentially. Or maybe his powers haven’t changed at all, it’s just that he’s finally learning to use them. As I said, Fushi isn’t exactly the introspective type. Bon pretty much echoed my thoughts exactly when he said Fushi doesn’t even seem human anymore. But the thing is, Fushi isn’t human.

It’s actually pretty key to the story that Fushi is a non-human in a human world. He’s the only one of his kind as far as any of us know and that isolation is one of the defining aspects of his character. He is the ultimate other. The reason we all comfortably ignored that fact all this time is that he was nice enough to only assume forms that are easily recognizable. People or animals. And that Fushi was essentially a baby. Considering the fact that Fushi has lived several lifetimes longer than any other character currently in the show, and is still ignorant of a lot of basic facts tells me that he either takes in things a lot slower (which would make sense for someone who essentially has all the time in the world) or that there are some more or less innate concepts to humans, that are completely alien to him.

So the question becomes, as Fushi gains more experiences and develops different types of relationships, will he become more or less human? And which would be better?

Season 1

Season 2

11 thoughts on “To Your Eternity 2 ep. 10- Daughter”

  1. I actually really like the fact that Fushi isn’t human, he’s a fun protagonist to follow around and learn the world organically. Also the new ending outro is amazing . my fiance noticed it sounded similar to a few Final Fantasy games , and wow , I looked it up and it’s by the person who did then music for Final Fantasy 13.

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  2. Personally, I view the changes as positive things. I think Bon & Fushi have learned from each other. The show doesn’t highlight it much, but over time, a kind of behavioral osmosis seems to have taken place.

    Bon has always shown great dedication & resilience. But he’s seemingly let go of his more selfish, frivolous side. He’s finally become a serious-minded man, who sincerely commits his efforts, in service of a higher goal. Just like Fushi.

    As for our reactive Fushi, we now see him taking initiative more often, and on his own volition. He also bounces back from failure more easily, where he’d previously be paralyzed. And he’s starting to display a good deal of self-confidence. These always were Bon-specific traits.

    We chatted a little about this in your Episode 4 post. You said those two make a great pair, and I’d have to agree. It’s my favorite thing about this season.

    (On another note, I would say that Fushi has finally become a fully-formed adult. But that’s a train of thought for another time.)

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  4. I was actually taken aback for a while by Bon’s statement that Fushi’s no longer human; I’ve taken for granted that he isn’t that I was actually surprised. But it’s just possible that people are assuming he’s a superpowered human or something; and I didn’t even consider this possibility. I’ve always thought of him as closer to the Nokkers than to anyone else in the show, his forms notwithstanding.

    As for Eko, I like her, too. They prettied her up pretty quickly, but her behaviour didn’t really change. I’m still a tad wary, though, I’ll have to admit. (I wish they hadn’t prettied her up, or had waited for Bon’s arrival for the impetus; I was a little surprised that Fushi thought of that, to be honest, and I’m still not sure if it makes developmental sense. It might [I’m vaguely thinking about the recent doll incident, though I’m utterly unsure where I’m going with this].) I’m also curious about those clay pot people; I hope we’ll meet them.

    I did think about the coins once. My thoughts were less about inflation (not sure how many coins he’d have to make for it to have a measurable influence) but what if he’d replicate coins with a serial number at some point? He makes exact copies, right? They could find him out. Might be an interesting plot line; Fushi learns abou economics. Currently, it’s more ecology, though, it seems – becoming one with environments.

    And now they’re looking for other immortals, which is interesting. Have they never considered that that might be exactly what Nokkers are, for example? I mean there’s no guarantee what any of those orbs grow into. Some of them might just enjoy being part of the circulation of water, for example. What did you do last Tuesday? Oh, I was raining over a desert. Everyone was so surprised. It was fun. (That’s the anthropocentric version for entertainment purposes.)

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    1. I think it really is from Bon’s point of view. The audience (us) have always known Fushi was nowhere near human but I guess it can be easy to forget sometimes.

      I think Fushi cleaned up Eko not to pretty her up. I’m not even sure if he thinks he did. I think he is mimicking what others did to take care of hm. I might be misremebering but I do think March washed him when he was still to young to communicate. The boy did as well hen he was in his wolf form. He may think washing someone is a human rite of passage without truly understanding the practical reasons. Maybe?

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      1. Ah, yeah, mimicry’s definitely a possibility I didn’t think of. Although when I used the word “prettied up”, I was thinking more of the show than of Fushi, my main question really was why Fushi would do this. (And I admit my intuition was that creator-pov trumped character-consistency in this case, but mimicry’s an interesting angle I hadn’t thought of.)

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