To Your Eternity 2 ep. 12- Games

Fushi’s battle plan is coming into focus and it’s an ambitious one. An overly ambitious one. If I know this show at all, I’m thinking that Fushi trying to defend an entire city this size all by himself and stubbornly refusing help is most likely going to end in disaster.

Hopefully, he’ll come to his senses before the fighting starts because there are red flags all around.

I kind of assumed that when Fushi lost a vessel, he would still be able to remember it if he had other vessels associated with it. Maybe not his personal connection but the connection between people. Like if he lost March but still had Parona he would remember March as someone Parona knew and loved but not that he had ever known her himself. Does that make sense? But apparently, that’s not how it works. Currently, Fushi has lost Gugu but he still has Rean, the old man and Pyoran. However, it’s like Gugu never existed for any of them. His helm is just a random mask the old man collects for no particular reason.

It’s not a major plot point or anything. I don’t think it changes much in practice. But for some reason, it made me sad. I guess it did what it was supposed to because I’m a lot more eager for Fushi to get all his vessels back now.

I went on a little tangent. This episode of To Your Eternity served mostly to give the remaing new characters some backstories, starting with Messar. I have been convinced that Messar would not make it from the moment we first saw the character so I’m not getting attached. However, it was a cute backstory. It made me quite curious about Renril.

This is going to be a bit of an odd detour. I think that To Your Eternity has some decent world-building. At times it’s actually great and one of the strengths of the series. One thing it has done pretty well is to establish cultures and geography. Parona and March were clearly from the same place and people. Hayase had similar traits making her likely also from the same place but her clothing and bearing were different enough to visually mark her as a separate culture.

Generally the characters in To Your Eternity look like ethnic groups. Tonari’s band is a bit of an exception which is perfectly explained by the fact that they were on a prison island brought together from all different parts of the world.

So why does Messar look so different from everyone else? To the point that even as a tiny child he’s instantly recognizable? I get that Renril is a port city so they probably have more diversity but then why is he the only one that looks like that? Is there more to his backstory? Eko looks different but the explanation there is pretty awful.

We then moved on to Hylo. I’m still very curious about the Church of Benett. It seems that they’ve been pushed a bit to the side by the narrative but I’m glad that the story hasn’t moved on. Because everything we learn about this organization is bonkers.

I mentioned last week that Hylo doesn’t look like the members of the Church we had seen so far. Because all the clergy are pale with a specific shade of red hair. And indeed the sisters that took care of Hylo as a child were the same. Moreover, the Church seems to have an issue with people who have genetic anomalies. This isn’t exactly unusual. People have been known to call anyone different enough a demon. However, the Church of Benett is going out of its way to collect such people.

During Hylo’s story, we have the old trope that courage is not the absence of fear but it’s overcoming fear. That whole thing. And it’s not completely wrong but I’m not sure it applies here. Hylo repeatedly says that he’s not strong or brave, he simply doesn’t feel pain so he’s not afraid to get hurt. Something along those lines. So it’s not really courage.

But it’s not like he doesn’t feel any pain. He doesn’t seem to feel physical pain but he’s still clearly still hurt by the loss of his first “mother”. He is uncomfortable about being different and equally uncomfortable about having to hide it. He’s afraid that he’ll let the people around him down or that someone he cares about is going to get hurt. Physical pain isn’t all there is. We have plenty of drugs that can numb people to pain almost entirely but that doesn’t mean going into surgery isn’t still a very scary thing. It didn’t quite work for me.

Something is wrong with Fushi. Something’s weird. Since when does Fushi react to an eavesdropper by immediately threatening him with a sword? Fushi shies away from death whenever possible.

I said last week that Fushi is going into puberty. And that might be part of it. It’s a turbulent time in his existence. He’s learning to do new things with his powers and that might affect him on other levels . It’s also just a stressful situation to be in. Fushi is preparing for an actual war. That’s bound to put someone on edge. And he’s lost a lot of his vessels. We know from past experience that losing vessels really messes with him. Put it all together and it wouldn’t be surprising if he wasn’t quite himself.

But I think there’s something else to it. I could be completely wrong about this and I don’t really have anything concrete to base it on. However I thin that creating things saps a little bit of Fushi’s, for lack of a better word, sense of self. If he was human I would use humanity but I guess identity is what I mean. Not in a permanent way just in the moment. It requires him to put just a bit of himself into each creation. When he turns into a vessel there’s a synergy. The vessel gives something back. Fruits and currency aren’t very demanding to make so it’s no big deal but I guess if he had to make tons it might affect him. Right now Fushi is turning himself into an enormous city. The biggest one we have seen so far. He is literally sreading himself thin.

Last time we saw him turn into his environemnt he became a tree. He had to abandon his body an create a completely new one to be mobile again. He lost himself in his creation. This time, he doesn’t have that luxury. There’s a war approaching and he needs to keep his senses. So he’s going a bit mad in my opinion.

In any case we saw how exausted he is.

I might have seen that one scene of Fushi melting into the roof of a building and just made up this whole elaborate explanation to go with it. I think it has potential. It would fit with the lore of the show and explain a lot of things that are happeningright now. Or maybe Fushi is uneven and irrational because the writing had a hiccup. Both are viable explanations.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the pain and love sparkles. So far, the fact tha Fushi can “see” others’ pain and love hasn,t really come into play. It’s a little tacked on piece of information and they mention it so sporadically that I constantly forget about it. I know that it’s a visual illustration of Fushi developping empathy for those around him. Fushi is essentially a very slow aging child and we are along for the ride. But I think this device hasn’t really amounted to anything yet and for the moment is more distracting than anything else.

This episode was a bit uneven for me. It’s mostly set up so it’s hard to juge in isolation. Next week looks pretty interesting though. I do wonder how the people of the city are going to react to having an immortal demon in their midst. Are they going to destroy the houses he rebuilt? If so, how would that affect Fushi? There’s a lot of potential there.

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2 thoughts on “To Your Eternity 2 ep. 12- Games”

Dawnstorm says:

January 21, 2023 at 4:28 pm

Yeah, Fushi’s on edge, and he’s also spreading out: I mean he’ll watch all the houses he’s already built, so in a sense he’s never fully where his main body is. And he’s watching for enemies (nokkers). And he’s lost trust in Bon, which probably means he’s found out he’s naive, too… He’s not in a good spot.

I wonder, is Fushi agender or genderfluid…

I’m actually quite liking this arc. I still wonder what Eko’s role is, here.

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1. Irina says:
  
  January 23, 2023 at 12:07 pm
  
  I have no clue what Eko is doing here and I have even less clue why despite that I quite like that she’s here. I hope they don’t kill her off too quickly.
  
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