To Your Eternity – 20 (Fin) – Goodbye For Real

It’s a quiet, contemplative finale for To Your Eternity, as Fushi tracks down Pioran and finds that she’s barely scraping by. Yet he’s reluctant to reintegrate himself into her life, as he fears she’ll simply be the next victim of the Nokkers, as Uroy, Oopa, and Mia became.

Fushi happens to have assumed all three of their forms, and he’s in Mia’s when Pioran finally gets wise to his, well, tentative stalking. He may be in the form of a girl, but Pioran immediately identifies him as Fushi, her old immortal friend. Just when he was trying to say goodbye for real, Fushi ends up back in Pioran’s orbit.

The creator narrates that he’s watched over Fushi, Pioran, and the donkey for a good while, and watched as Fushi continued to develop a full sense of self. When Fushi asks what Pioran wishes more than anything else, Pioran says she’d like to be young and beautiful as she once was. Fushi feels a nobility in Pioran, and being by her side is a noble enterprise.

But eventually the Creator’s warning comes to pass: eventually all mortal things wither and die. Pioran develops short-term memory loss and dementia, periodically cursing Fushi while begging him to kill her or leave her behind. Fushi doesn’t; he simply continues caring for her as they travel nowhere in particular. One day, Pioran is nearing death, but lucid enough to call out “the one following Fushi around”—the Creator.

She begs him to let her be reborn into something “that can be more useful to Fushi.” One thing I’ve always wondered is who is the girl in the OP with the purple-grey hair strolling on the beach. Now we learn, it’s Pioran, made young and beautiful again by the Creator, if only for a brief time before dying…and being transformed into an orb like Fushi.

Fushi mourns the loss of Pioran, and when he conjures the paper and pencil he uses to document his days, he comes across a parting note from the departed Pioran: “Do what you want to do, like I did!” He seems to take those words to heart as several decades pass. We encounter an adult Fushi having apparently just defeated a Nokker and laughing over his victory.

This is the end of the story of Fushi…but apparently only until Fall 2022, as a second series is planned for that time. We’ll see how his struggle with the Nokkers progresses, who else he meets who changes him and whose form he eventually assumes, and how many other ways this show will make me cry like a baby. If Pioran is still around in some form, it would be great if they could reunite. Fushi and Nokker!Hayase…less so.

While many episodes suffered from an untenable schedule and pinched production budget, and the Jananda arc was ultimately the weakest, this final episode marked a successful return to the series’ exploration and reflection on mortality, morality, and family, and made me excited for what’s to come.

To Your Eternity – 19 – Killing With Kindness

We begin the penultimate episode of To Your Eternity with Hayase…doing a good deed?! That’s right, she’s using her not inconsiderable combat prowess to defeat the Nokker Zombies before they can kill innocent men, women or children. When a Nokker tries to infect her, she flexes—both literally and figuratively.

The Nokker stops in Hayase’s arm and seems to listen when she tells it that appearing before Hoshi in such a gross, unpleasant form is Doing It All Wrong; if it wants Fushi as she does, it will have to treat it with kindness. Their little confab is broken up when Oniguma!Fushi steps on Hayase…but once again stops short of killing her.

While Fushi doesn’t kill her, he’ll wish he had restrained her in some way before the day is out. Perhaps he’s distracted by the fact Tonari and Sander are in mortal danger. He bails them out of a bad way by using his Gugu form to burn the entire corpse pit. But while the bulk of the immediate Nokker threat is neutralized in those flames, his Creator tells him three Nokkers still remain on the island.

Those Nokkers were once Oopa, Uroy, and Mia, but you can’t really say it’s them anymore, as we already saw them chilling in Paradise last week. Nevertheless, it won’t be easy for Fushi to put their overthrown bodies out of their misery.

That’s when Hayase, who as I said wasn’t sufficiently neutralized, scoops up both Tonari and Sander, drugs them both, and threatens to toss them into the flaming corpse pit…unless Fushi accepts her offer. You see, she wants to keep him “clean” and “pure” as a being who can neither kill nor be killed. She’ll gladly kill and sully herself for him.

But Hayase never picked up on the fact that her go-to sedative doesn’t work on Tonari for long, and Tonari decides to pull Hayase down into the flames with her. With three of her friends dead and what she perceives as a lifetime of missteps to answer for, ridding Fushi of his greatest adversary in exchange for her life seems like a square deal.

Fushi disagrees, swooping out to save both Tonari and Hayase from certain death. And for once, he’s the one to knock out Hayase with the same poison he once accidentally knocked out the others.

Speaking of the others, when Tonari gingerly picks up a sword with tears streaming down her eyes, ready to put down the husks that were once Oopa, Uroy and Mia, Fushi steps in to do it, having both summoned the courage and not wanting Tonari to have to do the deed.

During a solemn private memorial, one of the elder islanders asks their ostensible leader if she has any words for the people. Tonari says to stop the killing…especially after everyone saw what became of them making piles of corpses.

After wandering the island offering foot and supplies to anyone who needs them, Fushi takes his leave from the island, knowing it’s only a matter of time before the Nokkers return again. He bids Tonari and Sander an very understated farewell, if you consider how many pitched emotional moments they shared previously. Maybe that’s the point; they’ve been through, and lost, a lot. They’re tired.

One person who is tireless in her obsession with Fushi is Hayase, who wakes up elated to find she’s sharing a boat with Fushi. She confesses to Fushi how much she loves him and has always loved him ever since she first saw him, and offers to show him what that love means.

Fushi is understandably repulsed by Hayase and her offer, and pulls a trick I’d say would be cruel for anyone other than Hayase, considering the shit she’s pulled these last nineteen episodes. Fushi clones the rowboat and paddles away, leaving a tied-up Hayase stranded in a becalmed sea nowhere near land.

But as he returns to the mainland (and to Pioran) guided by Tonari’s owl, a Nokker core—perhaps the very one who spent some very formative minutes inside her arm—hops onto her boat and attacks her. Is this finally the end of Hayase? I’m loath to predict that, but the preview suggests the fighting may be over, even if the dying isn’t. But then death, like pain, breeds growth.

To Your Eternity – 18 – Paradise Bound

Tonari, who has become somewhat fond of Fushi beyond his utility as a tool for advancing her interests, wasn’t about to leave him to the tender ministrations of the “hag” Hayase. So she rows back to the island to save him, only to discover he already freed himself from the pit, which wasn’t half as deep as Pioran’s prison wall was high. Faced with having to explain why she’s there, Tonari tries out her best tsundere act.

The seas aren’t suitable for heading back out by boat, so Tonari and Fushi spend the night in a cave beside a campfire. Tonari asks about what exactly the man in black is. Is he a thoughtful god, trying to stave off the world’s destruction by creating Fushi? Or is he a demon, and the Nokkers are the servants of the real God(s) tasked with stopping him?

She also owns up to her father having been a murderer, and how she came to see him no differently than any other lowlife on the island: deserving of death. But she doesn’t see herself any differently, as in her mind she kills anyone she doesn’t like. She believes the island has poisoned her heart.

Fushi tries to cheer her up by saying that even if both their “parents” are or were demons, the two of them still do what they want to do. Being in that cave is proof of it: Tonari wasn’t about to let herself be saved at the cost of Fushi, while Fushi wasn’t about to let himself live out his existence as Hayase’s toy.

That night, Tonari dreams a familiar dream of a happy home with a living mother and father proud of her for the books she writes. Upon waking up, Tonari decides she’ll need to come up with a new dream, a new story less grounded in the past. She envisions herself, her crew, Fushi, and Pioran all relaxing and loving life on the beach.

It’s a lovely, idyllic image, and also the last upbeat image to appear in the episode; it’s all downhill from there. That morning when about to cast off, the Creator notifies Fushi that the Nokkers are attacking the town. Despite everyone worth saving on the island already off of it, Fushi heads towards danger, turning his back on an exasperated Tonari.

To his credit, Fushi isn’t doing this because the Creator is goading him to do it—it was Fushi who asked him to warn him when the Nokkers returned. It’s just that Fushi always has and probably always will blame his existence for the death of all the people who’ve died around him. If he can lesson that even a little, he must try.

The thing is, Fushi is cursed to be just too goshdarn likable to be left alone by those who enter his orbit. When he arrives at a hellish scene of corpses being reanimated into zombies by the Nokkers and wreaking havoc, it isn’t long before Tonari comes to help, and the rest of her crew also show up to help the both of them.

It strains credulity just a bit that they not only returned to the island so soon, but knew exactly where Fushi and Tonari were. What should be a devastating emotional climax is once again undermined by the fact barely any of it is animated, as with two episodes left the show is blatantly running on fumes.

Finally, the fact we’ve seen Mia, Oopa, and Uroy as Nokker zombies every week leading up to this episode, so we knew exactly what would become of them. Thile their souls may have passed to a paradise similar to the one in Tonari’s new dream, their bodies remain on Jananda; shambling nightmares Fushi isn’t strong enough to put down.

To Your Eternity – 17 – Her Pet Immortal

After knocking Fushi out with her Morning Glory potion, Hayase gives a somewhat baffling speech to the throng about how she’s going to build a new army to protect the immortal boy from the Nokkers, and immediately ceding the leadership of Jananda she won to Tonari. This immediately makes Tonari a target, and she and the other kids make themselves scarce.

Despite having no interest in ruling Jananda, Hayase very much seems to want to control Fushi, who is clearly more valuable than the entire rest of the island. Her repeated licking of his face is akin to marking her new precious property, and by disrobing she seems intent on becoming one with him. It’s very twisted…and very Hayase.

Her fun is interrupted by Tonari & Co., who come to Fushi’s rescue only to be met by Hayase’s Yanome guards and Captain Skyfish, who can see which way the wind is blowing and knows he probably shouldn’t be on the wrong side of someone as evil, dangerous, and unhinged as Hayase. In fact, he’s probably there specifically to makes sure Tonari and the other kids don’t throw away their lives in a futile effort to save their immortal friend.

Fortunately, the kids inadvertently buy time for Fushi to sneak up on Hayase with a sword to her neck, having created an empty husk of himself for the guards to carry away. Hayase is unmoved, but agrees to his proposal to remain on Jananda with her if she lets the kids and Pioran leave safely. New Leader Tonari announces to the rest of the island that all small children will also be boarding the ship, to grow up somewhere where they’ll have more choice in their lives.

Tonari is among those on Skyfish’s ship, though of course Hayase can’t resist drugging her and her friends to keep them from getting up to something. Interestingly, Tonari’s body is extremely efficient at filtering out poison, as she’s the first to come to, hours before the others. Enlisting the help of her boss (with an assist from Skyfish), she boards a dingy with Ligard, who apparently wasn’t badly injured by Hayase’s arrow.

Determined to add to the story within the thick tome tied to her belt, Tonari is resolved to rescue Fushi, alone if she has to, so he can be a part of her future. Watching Parona!Fushi get so mad at Hayase over killing the real Parona showed Tonari that Fushi wasn’t just a peculiar immortal thing, but a peculiar immortal thing with a measure of humanity she saw in herself.

While it was great to see evil old Hayase throw her weight around, this was the first episode where I couldn’t not notice the frequently cruddy character modeling, sketchy animation, and use of still images that all spell budgetary and time constraints. Between that and Hayase’s rather scattershot actions and intentions, this episode just barely held together…but it definitely had its moments.

To Your Eternity – 16 – What’s the Story, Morning Glory?

Fushi just won a huge victory, aided in no small part by Tonari’s crew and other people of Jananda. He has March, Gugu, and Oniguma back, a group I’d call family but his creator calls his “past.” By the way, that’s the last time I call him “the creator”, as some guy calls him “the asshole in black” and that’s a much better name for him!

With the Nokkers out of the picture for the time being (but those OP images of Tonari’s crew Nokker-ified still fresh in my mind) it’s nice to see Fushi simply relax, drink some blood, drink some more blood, then conjure a sumptuous feast for his new compatriots. Unfortunately, the food he conjures is from the night March and Parona were drugged by Hayase using Morning Glory-based sedative. Talk about foreboding foreshadowing!

Tonari is the first to wake up from her food coma, and notices Fushi wandering off, as is his wont. For what I believe to be the first time, she apologizes to Fushi for bringing him there. That said, Fushi glimpsed an entry in the big red book that contains her thoughts, her dreams; specifically the entry where she says she’s going to invite him to share a meal with them.

Tonari starts writing in the book again, and regales us with her story so far. She’s always dreamed of “surprising” her dad, who was wrongly accused of killed her mom and sent to Jananda. Faced with the choice of being an orphan and going with her father, she chose the latter.

Eventually, however, her dad got caught up in the leader tournament, and warned his daughter that it wouldn’t be safe to be around him. That turned out to be true, but more to the point, in participating and eventually winning the tournament, Tonari’s father became someone that her seven-year-old self simply couldn’t recognize as her father anymore.

By the time they met at the port as they promised, he was already succumbing to the poison he was given by his rivals in the unending struggle not to lead the island, but simply to have control. Her father’s parting gift to her on her birthday was the book she writes in to this day. The years went on, and she met her found family and eventually, Fushi.

Speaking of Fushi, with March back in his repertoire, he’s able to easily scale the wall and enter Pioran’s cell. While she had urged him to leave her be earlier, now she can’t mask how happy she is that he’s there.

While he could smash the prison walls with one swipe of Oniguma’s paw, he intends to win the tournament, become the leader of the island, and leave the island with Pioran, their heads held high. It’s a good plan, and Pioran is right that he’s become much more reliable.

All he has to do is win the tournament final. Now armed with a reason for fighting, he walks down the corridor to the arena without hesitation. Tonari is there to see him off, worried he wouldn’t show but very glad he did. The two honestly don’t interact much this week, but this is the most tender moment they’ve shared yet. It figures that this comes right before yet another huge setback for Fushi, though fortunately not one that involves the Nokkers.

Then again, who needs the Nokkers when you have the evilest, most badass villain in the whole show in Hayase? Turns out she’s the one who urged Tonari to get Fushi on a ship to Jananda, all so she could eventually face him…and, incidentally, lick his face.

Fushi already has plenty of reason to hate Hayase considering she killed poor little March with an arrow to the back. But Hayase wants to make sure Fushi also understands that his Parona form is “her gift” to him: she tracked Parona down and murdered her by sloppily beheading her so she suffered. This riles Fushi up, and he comes at her with everything he’s got…but it’s not enough.

As Hayase puts it, Fushi is immortal, but feeble. His murderous intent is just one more simulacrum; it can’t hold a candle to her ruthlessness. Also, if we’re honest, Fushi hasn’t had much of a challenge in the tournament thus far, and all of his past opponents had no idea what he was. I guess Hayase doesn’t either, but she knows how he operates, and she knows his gentle nature.

She also knows that when he’s in human form he can succumb to a poison just like any regular human. She sticks him with some morning glory sedative (like I said, simply devastating foreshadowing), and just like that, she is the new leader of Jananda—presumably free to lick him all she wants. At the end of the day, Hayase isn’t the kind of villain who wants to destroy Fushi. Rather, she intends to possess and control him completely. I Imagine Tonari and her crew will have a couple things to say about that!

To Your Eternity – 15 – A Victor Without Victims

Having Parona’s form brings Fushi nothing but grief, for the fact he has her form almost certainly means she died, like March, far to young. His Creator tells him not to get so worked up every time someone dies—literally everyone in the world except the two of them will die, after all—but Fushi tells him to piss off, and to the very hands-off Creator’s credit, he does.

As for Fushi’s new self-appointed bestie Tonari, she’s absolutely jazzed by Fushi’s new form, complimenting his hair and skin, glomming on him like she wants to possess him. She claims to want to be the bow to his arrow, but her constant spewing of half-truths and false faces remains extremely disorienting to Fushi. Combined with the whole kidnapping Pioran thing, he insists she leave him alone. She doesn’t.

As for the Creator’s credo of Pain Promotes Growth, Fushi replaces it with his own: Fuck Pain. On a island where the intricate social organization of humanity is blended with inhuman savagery, Fushi may be the most human one there, thanks to the quintessentially human people who helped shape him into the good and kind orb he is. It’s why he wants to save Pioran, his family, even though she insists she’s where an old criminal belongs.

So dedicated is Fushi to the cause of honoring Parona and Gugu’s memory by putting himself to good use protecting others, as she did, he even protects his own opponent in the third round from the arrows of impatient staff and spectators. This flummoxes the fighter to no end, but after he’s laid up with an arrow back home, both we and Fushi learn he too is a human in this place that is both inhuman and as human as humanity gets.

Some veteran islanders come by to protest Fushi’s way of doing things, insisting that he brings dishonor to everyone he fights by not killing them. Tonari shields Fushi from them, only to get punched in the face by a man who is then shot with a poison dart by one of Tonari’s crew.

But far greater than the threat of the islanders are the Nokkers, who rise out of the ground, stab Fushi, and steal Gugu away so he can’t use fire on them. Now down to the boy, the wolf, the crab, Parona, and the mole, and with a shitload of potential bystander deaths, Fushi runs, and warns Tonari and the others to run in the opposite direction. They don’t.

Fushi tries to burrow into the Nokkers as the mole, but he’s quickly tossed out and loses that form. Tonari grabs Fushi by the scruff of his coat, beaming widely and in absolute awe of the giant stone bear, while her crew launch diversionary attacks.

Tonari has a meta moment, asking Fushi who he thinks she is: “a side character who just runs away?” Then the earth opens up and it looks like Tonari is history, but Fushi grabs her and pulls her back onto land, where she orders her crew to execute a certain plan.

This plan involves explosive arrows. That works perfectly for Fushi, since his Parona form is quite comfortable with a bow. He can also infinitely create more bows and arrows when the crew runs out. The islanders, once rearing for a fight with Fushi and Tonari’s crew, restrain the bear with huge ropes and join the fusillade.

In the end, the Nokkers are defeated, and Fushi is able to regain both the form and memories of March, Oniguma-sama, and Gugu. It is an unqualified victory, but he could not have done it without help from Tonari’s crew and the islanders, all of whom he hated when the sun came up that day, but now probably has a new appreciation for, seeing as he got his forms, his family back.

For the first time, Fushi reacts to Tonari’s constant goofing around and bullshitting with a genuine thank you, which catches the girl completely off guard. Tonari repeats to him that to change fate, sometimes you have to work with others, and their victory today was proof of that.

It looks like Fushi, Tonari, and the crew will get to enjoy a bit of rest and celebration after quite an impressively action-packed episode imbued with ample emotional weight due to the stakes—and eventual spoils—of victory. But the final round of the tournament lurks, and crazy-ass Hayase lurks along with it, so that rest probably won’t last long.

To Your Eternity – 14 – Hail to the Chief

Fushi finds himself ensnared by the mysterious Tonari, who pushes him into a arena battle royale before he even knows what a battle royale entails. Once he realizes it’s kill or be killed, he decides not to kill, and since he can’t be killed, he ends up winning when the last non-immortal fighter standing passes out from a hangover.

Fushi wins the adoration of the crowd, as well as an entourage in Tonari and her young friends. In the episode’s very expository second act, Tonari and the others explain The Way Things Are on this prison island now essentially run by the convicts. The island burns through chiefs, but Tonari sees potential in an “eternal” chief to bring some kind of stability and dignity to her home.

Fushi is mostly disgusted by this island full of death and enslavement, and wants nothing to do with Tonari and her pals who he says aren’t “normal” if they can laugh, smile, and joke in such a place. He asks the Creator to take him to Pioran, but the Creator won’t do anything for him that won’t help him grow.

The creator tells Fushi that a plain fact of living with mortal humans is that sometimes they’ll choose how and when to die, as Gugu did, and as the arena combatants do. Fushi can already be said to have caused the deaths of many humans so far, so what’s a few more who have already chosen to die? As for one life he wasn’t able to take—Hayase of Yanome—she’s on the island, and marks her quarry in the night by licking his face.

The day of the second round of the arena tournament, Fushi has little interest in participating despite Tonari’s prodding. He turns into his dog form, accidentally kills a mole, then becomes the mole so he can dig underground. But he’s snatched up by an owl and dropped right in the middle of Tonari’s posse.

Forced into a one-on-one battle, Fushi tries to intimidate his opponent, but as the Creator told him, that opponent has already decided on only one of two paths: victory or death. Neither becoming a wolf-dog or a flame-spitting Gugu has any effect. That’s when Fushi suddenly remembers Parona, transforms into her (despite her still being alive, as far as we know), and is amazed at how light and nimble he’s become.

He’s able to defeat his opponent and move on to the third round. The crowd goes while, and Hayase licks her chops in preparation for a confrontation in the near future. Whatever Hayase’s intentions, Fushi is about to be tested like never before, as the Nokkers have surely followed him to this island. They’ll either take more of his memories and forms, or he’ll reclaim the ones they stole.

To Your Eternity – 13 – Acquiring Something Invisible

Less than a week after Fushi left Booze Man’s home and his found family, he wears a variety of facial expressions, wrestles with his grief, and questions his purpose. He even summons the Creator and puts the question to him, and obviously the Creator has an answer: Move Forward. Become Stronger. Defeat the Enemy.

This isn’t because Fushi was created to be a perfect weapon. It is because he is a mechanism placed on this world to collect and preserve information. If the world is destroyed by the Nokkers before he can do that, it would be an immeasurable loss. Fushi, having spent so long as a human, is understandably rebellious towards his “absentee dad.”

The Creator says at some point he’ll be gone, while Fushi will remain, so he’d better figure out how to deal with the Nokkers on his own in preparation for that time. Shortly afterwards, Fushi encounters Pioran once again, who left Booze Man, Rean and Shin to be Fushi’s “walking stick.” She knows the dangers they face, but “living on the edge” has more appeal to her than a quiet life.

Fushi is initially reluctant to have Pioran accompany him on his journey, but he soon re-warms up to her, as likely so many people have. They go to a town where she has a feast, and all the while Fushi is worried about the Nokkers following him and causing more harm. He realizes his Creator meant for him to bump into Pioran, knowing he couldn’t help but want to protect her.

When Pioran catches Fushi talking to no one she can see, she eventually coaxes him into telling her about the Creator. Pioran takes the information in stride, just as an old lady like her takes everything in stride, as she must. Then one day, she spots some ripe fruit in the trees, and tells Fushi to change into March…and Fushi doesn’t know who she’s talking about.

Pioran thus learns that the Enemy has stolen his memories of March along with her form—a second death, when you’ve been forgotten by everyone still alive. It’s the antithesis of what he was created to do: to collect information so it is never forgotten.

Fushi and Pioran’s travels eventually take them to a busy port full of seedy individuals. A cheerful girl guides them aboard a ship that turns out to be run by human traffickers. Fushi and Pioran are separated by gender and are sailed to Jananda Island to be processed.

Fushi’s brand heals almost instantly, however, so when a guard notices, the same girl who lured him and Pioran aboard the ship rescues him, successfully claiming to the guard that a mistake was made. Fushi goes with her, but eventually stops her to ask where Pioran is; she tells him he shouldn’t bother; there’s no getting her back from those people.

Fushi insists and tries to climb a massive sheer stone wall using conjured spears, but ends up slipping, falling, and dying. As his smashed head reassembles, the girl who doomed then helped him watches along with her four young friends, who are simultaneously grossed out and greatly impressed.

The green-eyed girl tells the newly-healedFushi that there is a “realistic” way to free Pioran, and it’s to fight in the Arena. For Jananda Island is a Prison Island, where any and all favors are never given, only taken. It’s a new arc, with a new collection of immediately lovable characters who will surely meet their untimely and heartbreaking demise by the arc’s end. Hopefully we’ll have some good times with them before then!

To Your Eternity – 12 – Crushmore

Don’t let the punny review title mislead you; this episode did indeed crush me emotionally, just as it emotionally crushed Fushi and Rean and physically crushed poor Big Gugu. From the moment the outcropping balcony crumbled from beneath him, I knew this would probably be the final act of the Gugu Arc.

It’s funny how when I first met Gugu and later Rean that I couldn’t imagine becoming as attached to them as I did March and Parona…but here we are. Such is the power of To Your Eternity’s straightforward yet compelling storytelling and beautiful character development.

Proving he is and always has been a good orb thingy and friend to humanity (heck, for four years he was a human), it only takes a moment after he is warned by his Creator to transform into his Giant Bear form in order to buy Rean’s party guests time to escape the crumbling mansion.

Also, in what is a nice touch, Gugu is rescued by a group of people brought by Rean, including her own husband-to-be. But not before one of the Nokker’s weird flesh tentacles sticks itself into his armpit and does…something, and whatever it is it can’t be good.

No sooner is Gugu saved than he runs into the wrecked mansion where Fushi is still holding on for the sake of Rean’s injured parents, who Gugu snatches up and takes to safety. Rean wants the boy she loves to stay with her from that point on, but Gugu breaks free from her grip; he has a brother to help, and Fushi, now back in his original younger Snow Boy form, is happy for the help.

That’s because he has no idea how to beat the Nokker this time. His creator didn’t bother him when he was determined to live as a human, but that turned out to be a two-sided coin: Fushi wasn’t ready for the Nokker’s new tricks, and the delay nin dealing with said Nokker costs him dearly.

At first, even Gugu’s new flamethrower mask can’t penetrate the Nokker’s stone armor, but with some help from March!Fushi and a steady supply of conjured spears, he’s able to open a crack in the armor large enough to shoot his booze flames, shocking the Nokker.

Unfortunately, he only made the Nokker mad, because it returns as a stone Giant Bear arm, plucks March!Fushi from the rubble, and squashes him like a bug, stealing the March form from Fushi once again. Just as the Nokker is about to crush Gugu, Rean leaps out of nowhere to push them both out of the way, paying him back for the now two times he did the same to save her.

As Fushi comes to in Snow Boy form, he realizes he is feeling pain, but it’s not his own, it’s Gugu’s. Whether due to their familial bond, the Nokker’s armpit injection, or both, Fushi can feel what Gugu feels…and it’s not good. Gugu’s broad back and trunk-like arms are the only things keeping untold amounts of rubble from crushing Rean to death.

It’s a situation that ironically and heartbreakingly traps the two in what is physically a very romantic and intimate position. Gugu takes the time to reassure Rean, even as blood starts to drip from his open mask. She sits up to kiss his face. He tells her he loves her. Then he dies, but we don’t see the moment it happens. Instead, we know it to be true for a fact because Fushi transforms into him.

Despite being distraught over losing his brother and best friend, Fushi wastes no time using his new Gugu form to fight the Nokker, blasting it repeatedly with flames and eventually getting it to leap into the ocean to chase him, where it eventually self-destructs, leaving only the weak, squishy core to slither away into the depths.

Fushi’s Creator appears to tell him which way the Nokker went, and tells him to go after it. He doesn’t, and once again the Creator doesn’t force him to do anything, though he does ask if it’s really already for the Nokker to make off with “a part of him”. Right now that doesn’t matter to Fushi, who has already lost a part of himself in Gugu, who died saving Rean’s life one more time.

In a scene reminiscent of Adult March after she died, Gugu finds that his face has healed and he has reunited with everyone: Booze Man, Pioran, Rean, Shin…but wonders where Fushi is. That’s when the illusion crumbles. After his soul spends a little while longer with a distraught Fushi, telling him he has no regrets, Rean runs back to the Booze Man’s house as soon as she’s healed from her injuries.

Fushi panics, not wanting to appear as the younger Fushi before Rean, but with his March form stolen by the Nokker the only other human form he can assume is Gugu. Rean mistakes him for the real thing and tells him she loves him. After they share a hug, and Fushi wonders Why am I me? Rean asks where Fushi is, and Gugu!Fushi tells her he died.

Booze Man, who already knew Fushi would be taking his leave in order to protect them from his enemies, prepares some food and money for him, and while Rean is told Gugu is only “going shopping”, a part of her surely realizes this is the last time she’ll see him, as much as she doesn’t want that to be so. So she’s glad when he refuses to take her ring back from her, as he tells her to keep it so she’ll always remember him.

A little later, Rean’s father finds her lying out in the field of purple flowers she and Gugu promised to pick together. She tells her father she won’t be getting married, because she’s in love with someone. That someone isn’t around anymore, but she’s sure Fushi is with him.

GODDAMN TEARJERKER™ CERTIFIED

To Your Eternity – 11 – The Life Platonic with Steve Gugu

It’s been four years. Gugu is now hu-huge, while Fushi has aged, since he hasn’t changed form since Gugu saved him from the Nokkers. Rean still comes by often, teaching Fushi needlecrafts while asking him about Gugu on the regular. Fushi has been around humans long enough to know the blindingly obvious: Gugu and Rean like each other.

The problem is, Rean is betrothed to someone she’s never met, and shortly after her sixteenth birthday (which is coming up soon) she’ll be married off. Also, while larger in frame Gugu, remains as bashful than ever about that kind of thing. Also, his brother shows up out of the blue. Gugu isn’t interested in reconciliation; he has a new family now, so he asks his bro, who is at least doing well, to buzz off.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see him again, but he was a delivery vessel for The Ring, as in the ring Rean gave to Gugu for finding her lost dog. That Gugu’s brother returned it to him means he was the boy she met in the market. She runs out to where Gugu is just sleeping in a pile of purple potatoes, stares at him longingly.

After trying to fit the ring on his chunky fingers, she wakes him up, then tells him now’s his chance to make a move. She also asks if he’s really okay with her being married off, considering how he loves her and all. Thing is, Gugu doesn’t remember his offhand confession four years ago because he was so drunk on Booze Man’s stomach hooch.

Rean is hurt by his lack of remembering, but is still looking forward to seeing him and Fushi at her birthday party. Her house is freakin’ palatial, while most of the guests are snobs and pricks. Even so, Rean is happy to see them and that’s all that matters!

Gugu and Fushi stopped by the market on the way to Rean’s, and Gugu purchased a purple dream bellflower, which happens to be the same flower Rean was holding when she had her accident. Everyone gives Gugu the stinkeye for traumatizing the birthday girl, but they have it all wrong.

Rather, Rean comes to a stunning revelation: since the only time she saw such flowers was when she had that accident, it must mean Gugu was the one who pushed her and saved her life. But before she can go to him, she’s introduced to her future husband, and forced to chat with him for an inordinate amount of time, pretending to enjoy herself.

Once that’s all done with, she rushes back to Gugu, who happens to be standing out on a balcony overlooking the sea. She drops a number of other details from that fateful day and confirms that it was Gugu who saved her at the cost of his face. That he felt worse about the wound she incurred than what happened to him only makes her blush more.

She seems poised to tell Gugu she likes him, but the balcony cruelly and almost comically separates and falls off the cliff. Gugu once again pushes Rean to safety while taking the fall himself. Hopefully that helmet will keep him safe, because as the Creator reports to Fushi back at the buffet, the Nokkers are back, and they’re going to kill Gugu if Fushi doesn’t stop them.

To Your Eternity – 10 – The Grand Gugupest Hotel

When the Enemy is about to attack Gugu, Fushi springs into action and shields his brother from the twisting branches by creating a number of spears to parry them. I guess he has learned a few things since his last battle! Gugu wants fight beside him, but is very lucky to survive when the Enemy throws him across the forest.

It may just be the still Booze Man installed in his stomach that saves him, as he proceeds to barf out all of the liquor stored there. When his torch ignites the liquor-vomit, Gugu gets an idea for how he can help Fushi, and races home. On the way, he turns completely red, drunk off the liquor that escaped the still, while Rean is about to be carried off by her helicopter parents.

Drunk Gugu is naturally a less inhibited Gugu, so he doesn’t mince words about loving Rean more than anyone, no matter to whom she’s betrothed. In any case, he’s not there to solve her family drama, but to get a refill of Booze Man’s best booze.

Pioran, the only other person to have witnessed the terrifying power of Fushi’s Enemy, insists that Booze Man do as Gugu says. The old man fills Gugu up with his strongest stuff and sends him on his way, while Pioran stops Rean’s parents from taking her and leaving…because it’s not safe out there.

Gugu, having sobered up, arrives to find the Enemy has absorbed Fushi’s Giant Bear form, and there is no sign of Fushi. But it’s soon apparent that the Enemy, essentially being made of wood, is vulnerable to fire, and Gugu has a fresh bellyful of fuel to play with.

Using his boozy fire breah, Gugu burns the Enemy to the ground, freeing Fushi, who is only flowing light and energy before transforming into a rock, his first form. When Gugu picks him up, he transforms into a wolf dog, and the two tussle mirthfully…though Fushi keeps his promise to bite Gugu if he came back!

The next morning Gugu and Fushi return to the Booze Man’s house where everyone is very confused about what happened (though Pioran probably has a pretty good idea). Gugu celebrates his return by cooking up a feast so delicious, Rean’s parents deem him better than their professional chef.

Fushi, back in the same clothes and with the same rope as the boy when he died since he “reset”, greets his maker, whom no one else can see or hear, outside. The creator tells him in order to become stronger, he cannot be sedentary, but like Rean with her parents, Fushi protests. He wants to stay. The creator tells him that’s also an option.

Back inside, Rean prepares to leave with her folks, and Gugu dispenses some precocious wisdom: The people who keep us alive aren’t necessarily good people, but we aren’t so weak that we can’t endure it. Granted, he’s had to endure a lot more than Rean, but it’s all relative!

Fast forward…four years. Gugu is no longer a pot-bellied boy, but a swole young man, having never stopped his fitness regimen. He continues to assist the Booze Man and feed him and Pioran (who still starts eating before everyone comes to the table). Rean still “runs away” from home on the regular, to see Gugu and Fushi.

And Fushi, having watched Gugu and Rean grow, has himself grown “older”; his hair growing longer and even gaining a slight stubble on his face. He also speaks a lot more naturally, which isn’t surprising considering his teachers and how long he’s been with them. The tenth episode of a planned twenty ends on Fushi’s new family happily enjoying a meal together. If only that happiness could last…

To Your Eternity – 09 – Gugunrise Kingdom

Fushi has rescued, reunited and made up with Gugu, and for the first time he uses his powers…strictly for fun. For the sheer thrill of scaring the shit out of random townsfolk or thrill-seeking teenagers. Gugu has no intention of going back to the house of a man who put a still in his body without his consent, and Fushi doesn’t care either way s long as he’s with Gugu.

As time passes, the penniless Gugu grows hungrier and weaker. Fushi, obviously, needs no sustenance other than stimulation. But his stimulation thus far has prepared him for this eventuality, as he is able to create the pear-like fruit March fed him, along with dango and fish, thus saving Gugu from starvation.

When Meer, who obviously knows Gugu’s scent at this point, shows up at his tent, Fushi calls the sickeningly cute and good boy Joaan, the name the boy gave to his wolf-dog. Fushi describes to Gugu how “his first person” stopped moving and “became empty”, so he “became” him. Gugu hypothesizes that both physical and emotional pain affect his bizarre friend.

He posits that if he were to die and Fushi became upset, he would become him. Gugu thinks this is seriously cool…because, well, it is. But for him specifically, it would mean even if he died, Fushi would still think of him. Gugu describes a life where he had three square meals a day, a soft bed, twin older siblings to play with, a mother and father to care for him, and an older brother to look up to.

Gugu is describing his early childhood, when, for at least a few beautiful, fleeting years, he thought he was part of just such a family and living that kind of life, where a lot of people were thinking of him. As he grew older, he began to realize he and his brother were merely the children of servants to that family. When those servants moved on to a new job, they didn’t take Gugu or his brother with them.

Gugu asks Fushi, the only one who came for him and the only one he can call family, to become him if he dies, then passes out and stops moving. For a second there, I thought that was well and truly the end of Gugu—perhaps succumbing to the nasty side effects of having a still in your gut. Fushi even seems to contemplate absorbing Gugu’s form for a hot second.

For a certainty, To Your Eternity wanted you to think Gugu had died. Then Rean pokes her head into the tent, having finally found the two runaways, and Gugu springs back to life, blushing. Turns out Fushi wasn’t the only one thinking about him or the only one who came for him. Rean tries to drag Gugu out of his ragged tent and back to the Booze Man’s house, but Gugu doesn’t wanna.

Of course, Rean’s motivations aren’t 100%honorable. She says she, Pioran and Booze Man love Gugu, but really they need to bring someone back who knows what they’re doing in the kitchen. But you know what? As someone who likes to cook for my friends and family, I’m fine with part of the reason people love me is that I cook them good food. It makes me happy when they like my food!

Rean is also unconcerned with Gugu’s appearance, and insists that he show her what he really looks like. Gugu doesn’t acquiesce to this, which means Rean doesn’t get a real look at him. It may be because of this she can reveal her own horrible disfigurement and declare with a straight face that if he casts his gaze upon it he’ll see that his own wound isn’t that bad.

The thing is, Rean’s horrible wound is nothing more but a tiny, fading scratch on her arm no more than three inches long.

It is a rare show indeed that makes me laugh and cry with such intensity, but this might just have been the funniest episode of To Your Eternity yet. Of course, tragedy and comedy have gone hand-in-hand since the dawn of storytelling itself, it’s just gratifying to see it so effortlessly pulled off here. Just like Fushi, the stronger and more diverse the viewer’s stimulation, the more is learned.

Rean goes on to tell a story that, for her, is a tragic tale of a girl who was never given agency or independence; a girl assigned a role and personality for which no expense was spared to maintain, despite the fact she had zero say in it. It is an obvious mirror image of Gugu’s sob story, told from the POV of the child of the employer, not the employee.

Even so, I do not doubt that from Rean’s perspective, she has suffered, because just like Gugu but through very different (and cushier) circumstances, she was denied the chance to be the best her she could be, which is the one she wanted to be. The grass is always greener, etc.

When Rean tells Gugu how she got her wound—saying that someone pushed her from behind out of malice—Gugu is crestfallen, as this girl misinterpreted him rescuing her from a runaway log as having assaulted her to get back at her family—simply because she never saw the log.

But just as Rean doesn’t care how it looks that someone as rtich and privileged as her is complaining that her life is too comfortable, she also doesn’t gcare whether Gugu is a monster or a human. To her, he’s just Gugu, a weird little boy she’s taken a liking to, so he should come out of the tent and enjoy the wind with her. And if he wants to cover his face, she brought him a pot with eye-holes to wear.

With Fushi having run off to find Gugu’s original mask, he and Rean agree to go looking for him. Their search takes them into town, where Rean is promptly snatched up by a goon hired by her family to retrieve her. Gugu, who later states he doesn’t care about his “circumstances” anymore, commits to simply being himself.

That happens to be someone who will barrel into someone twice his size, catch the falling Rean, and lead her by the hand to safety. As he does, Rean smiles, not just because Gugu is being Gugu, but because she’s living precisely the dream she hoped to live after running away from home. I am seriously loving this tender story of young love, which reminds me of Moonrise Kingdom, itself likely inspired by rom-com anime.

Fushi ends up finding them after retrieving Gugu’s old mask (it’s nice when you can transform into a wolf-dog, complete with a wolf-dog’s sense of smell) and locates Gugu and Rean, who is now wearing the pot to hide her identity from those sent to find her. It isn’t long before they come across a maid who is most definitely not fooled by Rean’s disguise.

It’s here where Gugu and Rean rely on Fushi to cover their retreat, which he does non-lethally by assuming the form of March and writhing on the ground before the maid, who sees the little girl’s arrow wound and has no choice but to tend to her before going after Rean.

While searching for Gugu’s mask, Fushi’s creator paid him a brief visit, warning him to keep his guard up. As the maid carries March!Fushi, he’s suddenly snatched up by a tentacle of the “unspeakable” enemy he was warned about. His creator even narrates that this was bound to happen, as Fushi has failed to gain any sophisticated tactical skills since his last scrape with the enemy, and thus the enemy was always going to strike first.

Even so, something happens that neither the enemy nor indeed the creator might have foreseen: Gugu coming to his rescue. I’m not sure what he can possibly do when he’s just a small human boy and even Fushi seems helpless before the enemy’s power. Indeed, as we’re reaching the halfway point of the 20-episode series, Gugu’s days are surely numbered. But even if resistance is futile, I’m glad he’s there for his friend and brother.

To Your Eternity – 08 – Gugu Unmasked

“Skip Intro” is a well-established and often useful feature to our world of streaming entertainment, but I make it a point to watch every second of To Your Eternity’s OP every week. I can’t not, and not just because “PINK BLOOD” fuckin’ whips. Every time I watch I go through the heartbreak of losing both the arctic boy and March as well as Parona’s trauma all over again. The OP continues to grow more powerful as Fushi progresses on his journey and we meet more of the faces it presents.

Two of those faces are of Gugu (or rather his distinctive mask) and Rean, and the latter (voiced by Iwami Manaka, the voice of Honda Tooru) suddenly decides she’s going to live and work at Booze Man’s place from now on. Gugu isn’t sure what to think about this, because while it will be nice to see more of Rean, the fact she likes Fushi and not him will make things uncomfortable, if not painful.

Then again, pain promotes growth. When Gugu asks “what else” Fushi can do besides transform, he creates a spear. Gugu cuts him with a knife, and after healing, Fushi creates a duplicate knife. When Gugu burns him with a torch, Fushi can only create the stick, not the flame…at least not yet. In reaction to all this “experimentation”, Fushi produces a Marchface, indicating he doesn’t like this.

When Rean shows up bright and early, Fushi still hasn’t come in for work; we later see he’s assumed his wolf form and is sleeping away the day. Gugu asks Booze Man for something Rean can use on her wound, and the coot unexpectedly uncorks part of Gugu’s face and bumps out a strange liquid. When Gugu learns the Booze Man gave him a “new organ” where liquor is stored and ferments (hence his distended belly), Gugu is furious, and runs off.

As usual, the old people are only thinking about themselves. Booze Man wants the valuable booze inside Gugu back, while Pioran is worried about who will cook their meals. Rean is loath to go looking for Gugu since she’s not yet an established part of the “family”, while Fushi outright refuses, still sore over how Gugu treated him in the kitchen, and rightfully scared of the forest besides. He volunteers to cook, but ends up simply boiling a daikon with no salt.

Still, no one comes to look for Gugu, who returns to the tattered tent he and his brother once shared. He gets his job tilling the land back from a kindly father who even invites him to join his family. Unfortunately his kindness and empathy weren’t inherited by his sons, who know about the rumors around town that Gugu is a monster.

Gugu agrees with Chan that he can’t be in a family if the members can’t love one another, and removes his mask to determine if they’ll be able to love what they see. It goes about as well as you’d expect. Later that night while sulking outside, some older kids steal his mask and throw it in the stream, but after realizing the mask doesn’t actually do anything, he throws it right back in, walking through town the next day. Let the people gawk in horror…the faces they make are funnier than his!

Fushi’s attempts to cook, clean, mind the shop, and work the fields all end in failure, but when he asks Pioran (by name!) to teach him those things, she soundly refuses, not moved by the March-inspired dirt balls he offers as tribute. For one thing, she’s got better things to do with her time—sitting around drinking her lover’s excellent booze, for example. For another, she doesn’t want to spoil him, and the best teacher he could ask for isn’t her. It’s Gugu.

Gugu settles back into a routine and puts on a little muscle working in the field, but Chan visits his tent and splashes water on him, telling him not to come back, saying it’s because his dad is such a good man that he doesn’t want Gugu causing trouble with his freakishness. Without work, Gugu runs short on funds, but remembers he has the ring Rean gave him.

It’s clear from the look of the merchant that it is indeed worth enough to ensure Gugu never has to sell produce again, but Gugu can’t see what a monster like him would do with that kind of wealth. So when he discovers his drunk, emaciated brother lying in an alley, he gives the ring to him. Even in his current state he’s better off with the ring than a monster. But while he gives Shin the ring, he doesn’t acknowledge him as his brother. He doesn’t have a brother anymore.

Of course, that’s just not true…he has Fushi! Fushi needs Gugu, and as we see when Gugu is scooped up in the night by bandits prepared to sell him to people a taste for freaks and the cash to spend on them, it becomes apparent Gugu needs Fushi as well.

Fushi bowls into the bandit carrying Gugu in his wolf form, and when the guy and his partner stand their ground, he transforms into the Bear, who, let’s be honest, no one other than Hayase would ever think about fucking with!

With that, the Monster Brothers Gugu and Fushi are reunited. Gugu resented Fushi for being admired by Rean, while Fushi resented Gugu for cutting and burning him willy-nilly, but they’re able to get past that, because that’s what brothers do—well, good ones, anyway…