Yoshitoki Ima’s To Your Eternity (2021–) is a Japanese fantasy manga TV series that debuted on HBOMax. It tells a story of an immortal being named Fushi (Reiji Kawashima, Jacob Hopkins) who goes on a journey to experience humanity. He meets genuine and bad people and unknown creatures, along with events he encounters to prepare for whatever comes his way. His lessons during his journey are built with surprises, trials and errors, tragedy and happiness to keep the story moving forward.
An example is when Fushi and Pioran (Aikawa Rikako, Dorothy Elias-Fahn) are at Jananda Island, also known as Prison Island. Pioran is imprisoned by the islanders because of her former crime. Fushi tries to rescue her behind the wall by transforming into different forms he posses and taking Tonari’s (Eri Inagawa, Anne Yatco) option to get into the arena to fight against other prisoners. He enters the tournament and wins, only to find out that it’s no use. Later, he asks Tonari why, despite other prisoners not being imprisoned. She tells him about Pioran’s past, followed by a flashback scene and his distrust of her and her friends.
The dialogue between them reveals information about the two characters. Fushi approaches The Beholder (Kenjiro Tsuda, Cory Yee) for assistance when The Beholder is already assisting him, albeit in a different manner. The Beholder helps him by letting him go through trial and error and by clarifying what he doesn’t understand. On the other hand, Fushi doesn’t seem to think that he’s helping him since he still doesn’t know how to get Pioran out. The next day, Fushi climbs up the wall again and again, but he always ends up falling on the floor. Tonari tells him about the tournament and expects him to be there. She knows that she can count on him to win the tournament again since he knows his power. Also, she believes that he’s her only hope to make changes on the island or to escape the island. Fushi looks at her with disgust, but ends up being at the tournament and wins the fight again.
As time goes on, Fushi never thought he would want to kill someone until he sees Hayase, whom he’ll be fighting against in the arena. This surprises him as much as the viewer. Then again, it isn’t. Hayase has been obsessed with him ever since she imprisoned him and his friends in Episode 4. She and her guards saw Fushi’s wound was healing after someone stabbed him in the shoulder. Her guards asked if he was a monster or a god. Hayase didn’t know what Fushi was, but she knew that his unlimited power would benefit Yanome. In Episode 5, he and his friends escaped, and Hayase chased after them, especially Fushi. Why? She wants to control him and be on her side. In Episode 14, Hayase appeared on the island and licked his face while he was sleeping.
What’s surprising is that Hayase may have a bigger role to play in the upcoming season. After the Nokkers are defeated and their unpleasant conversation ends, Fushi replicates a boat by receiving stimuli from his thoughts. He gets on and leaves her in the other boat with her hands and feet still tied up. With no one around on a sunny day in the open sea, it’s assumed that she’ll find a way to escape easily, but no. One of the Nokkers comes for her and takes over her body without showing it. There’s only a scream, which is a pretty good idea that the creature has entered her bloodstream.
Now, the creature has an upper hand in using Hayase to advance their agenda, which is another turning point in the story. It also explains why the Nokkers were not after Fushi but Hayase when he was on the island in the previous episode. Fushi asked the Beholder why the Nokkers weren’t after him. The Beholder informed him that they had another plan, whatever that might be.
Season 1 is a good series. The beginning starts off slow, and it doesn’t get interesting until later on in the series. It also gets more emotional as the series continues since it reveals the bigger picture of Fushi’s purpose. The cliffhanger ending foreshadows that Fushi not only has to deal with Hayase but also with an unknown guy who may or may not burst out of one of the Nookers’ bodies.
Rating: 9/10
