To Your Eternity Is So Close to Being One Of The Greatest Anime Ever Made, But It Made One Big Mistake

To Your Eternity is one of the more unique titles in recent years, offering an emotional exploration of what it means to be human through the lens of Fushi. His existence begins with a being known as The Beholder, who placed an orb on Earth that would later become the anime's protagonist. Fushi is an immortal being who has the power to transform into those he comes across after they pass away and replicate items he received stimuli from.

At its core, To Your Eternity follows Fushi’s growing relationship with others, memory, and loss. However, despite the philosophical undertones, the anime’s inclusion of intense action scenes takes away from the reflective nature of Fushi’s story. While action scenes are typically used to create higher stakes, in To Your Eternity, it takes away from the best part of the anime: Fushi’s ever-evolving connection with humanity.

The Heart of To Your Eternity Lies in Fushi's Connections

Fushi’s Experiences With Friendship, Love, And Grief Add To His Understanding Of Humanity

Fushi’s evolving understanding of humanity and the connections he creates is the core aspect of To Your Eternity. Every encounter Fushi has added a new layer to his understanding of human experience, allowing viewers to watch Fushi’s evolution as he navigates the intricacies of humanity and all it has to offer. Fushi’s initial connection with the nameless boy and later more profound connections like March and Gugu create significant strides in Fushi’s development, allowing him to learn and witness firsthand what it means to live.

This is emphasized through the losses Fushi experiences and how he comes to terms with them. Each character that Fushi encounters on his journey offers him a valuable lesson about life and teaches him how difficult it is to say goodbye and yet how devastatingly necessary it is. It's this aspect that resonates powerfully with viewers as it’s a universal experience, and it enriches the narrative by allowing Fushi to bear witness to both the dark nature of humanity and the ever-powerful light nature of the people he surrounds himself with.

The Action Scenes Distract From Fushi's Journey to Understand Humanity

The Nokkers Are Pointless Additions To The Story’s Narrative

While the heart of To Your Eternity lies in its exploration of humanity and the connections Fushi forms along his journey, it quickly becomes overshadowed by the inclusion of unnecessary action scenes against unnecessary adversaries, especially in season 2. The battles Fushi faces with the Nokkers intend to heighten and add tension to the anime and provide excitement, however, all it ends up doing is stealing the limelight from more important themes the anime touches on.

The same tension and excitement supposed to be created by the Nokkers could just as easily be created through humanity and would have allowed Fushi to further experience the complexity of human existence. Instead of Nokkers, if there had to be action scenes, therse could have solely been by humans who wanted more power or had dark, twisted minds, such as Hayase. This would have set up the series to maintain the essence of Fushi’s exploration of the world around him rather than adding further supernatural elements that distract from Fushi’s evolution.

To Your Eternity Is a Missed Opportunity to Explore the Depths of Humanity

To Your Eternity Started Is Completely Different From What It Turned Into

The addition of Nokkers in To Your Eternity overshadows Fushi’s heartfelt journey. What could have been an endearing tale about humanity devolved into a story about Fushi’s battle against the Nokkers. The anime sets itself up as a profound reflection of life, death, and morality, but later adds the supernatural element of creatures whose sole purpose is to oppose Fushi’s existence. This shift to action completely changed the course of Fushi’s experience and ultimately led to missed opportunities for a deeper and more sincere exploration of human experiences.

In leaving behind the unique premise it had established, To Your Eternity ends up neglecting the emotional and heartbreaking journey Fushi embarked on and later disregards it entirely by granting Fushi the power of resurrection. Although his power is limited, it overwrites the emotional arcs he experienced during season one. In the end, To Your Eternity becomes a devastating loss of potential, taking what would have been one of the greatest and most introspective stories of humanity to be told, into a story about fighting against Nokkers and losing everything that made it stand out during its launch.