To Your Eternity – S2 01 – Building Immunity

My first concern was that this second season of To Your Eternity wouldn’t feel quite right if the OP changed. Fortunately, the creators thought the same thing, and kept “Pink Blood”, just as House of the Dragon wisely kept the Game of Thrones theme for continuity’s sake.

When a village is suddenly attacked by Nokkers, there are those who come to protect the villagers, but Fushi isn’t one of them. He’s isolated himself on an island for forty years (two of them in the sea as various creatures), using his various forms to kill Nokkers as they come … and turning their dead cores into jerky.

Fushi thought the Nokkers were only interested in him, and so would only come to him, leaving the rest of the world safe from them. But one day the Beholder tells him that’s no longer the case. They’re attacking a village on another island, possibly to lure him out.

Fushi thought he was protecting humans by staying put, but now that he knows they’re still threatened, he doesn’t hesitate to make preparations to head there at once. But before he does, strangers arrive on his island, led by a nine-year-old girl with familiar eyes and hair.

She’s Hisame, the granddaughter of Hayase and a leader of the “Guardians”, a group that for the last forty years has been devoted to revering and one day supporting the Immortal One. While Hisame is a perfectly nice little girl, Fushi finds himself repelled from her, no doubt due to her connection to his former tormentor—not to mention the murderer of March and Parona.

Fushi keeps his distance, but one night when Hisame tries to sleep beside him, her grotesquely veiny arm reaches out as if outside her control. Turns out there’s a Nokker core within her arm, which was passed down to from her grandmother to her mother and now her. The Beholder explains that it contains the “fye”, or soul/spirit, of Hayase—and with it her will.

Fushi is weary, but he feels bad about regarding Hisame so suspiciously when it’s only that growth in her arm—a separate entity—that troubles him. He also can’t deny that he could use all the help he can get against the Nokkers. The Beholder suggests he get closer to Hisame little by little, building up an “immunity” to the negative feelings.

That night he builds boats for him, Hisame, and her party to take to the island where the village is being attacked by Nokkers. Hisame and the Guardians head into town first to get the lay of the place. While Fushi sits along from a high vantage point, he encounters two adult doctors who are there for the same reason he is: to help.

They also know Fushi the Immortal One well, as he’s become legendary throughout the land these last forty years. The female doctor closes in and warns him to stay weary of the so-called Guardians, who are only interested in one thing: possessing him, as Hayase did.

Hisame arrives in time to hear that and disputes it, and everyone heads into the village for dinner. There, Hisame insists the Guardians only want to help Fushi escape his “emotional prison” and aid him in defeating the Nokkers. She then asks her servants to serve everyone tea. The female doctor launches into a monologue about building up an immunity to the poisonous “silver bat”.

In the middle of her talking, both Fushi and her fellow doctor pass out, the result of poisoned tea. But she is still conscious, and even identifies the poison as morning glory. She asks for another cup of tea, which contains a different poison, but she’s immune to that too. Hisame calls for her comrades to seize her, but they’re all knocked out … by an owl.

Hisame then realizes who she’s dealing with: Tonari, who is now in her fifties and even tougher and more resourceful than her 14-year-old self when she first met Fushi on Jananda. She won’t let the reincarnation of Hayase and the Guardians have him so easily.

This second season had be excited for many reasons. First, Fushi can finally speak and act like a normal human due to all his past experiences and the benefit of time. He’s also a lot shrewder with his shapeshifting and better at hunting Nokkers.

I also like the big time jump. It makes sense that a forty years would hardly feel like anything to an immortal being, and I look forward to seeing how the world has changed since his absence, and who else besides Tonari may still be alive and well. And while the end theme did change, it’s very similar to, and just as trippy and weird as the previous one. I’ve missed you, TYE.

Kokkoku – 01 (First Impressions)

I love shows about distinctive families, be they rich or down-on-their-luck, and the Yukawas definitely fit the bill in lacking in the luck department. 22-year-old Juri works tirelessly to secure a job that pays enough to enable her to move out, but for now she lives with her NEET brother Tsubasa, 31, her laid-off (and seemingly defeated) father Takafumi, her older sister Sanae, 25, a single mother to young Makoto, and last but not least, their retired grandfather.

There’s an immediate tension between those who work in the family and those who sit on their asses, but also a close-knit feeling that things aren’t so bad they’ll all one day turn on one another. Tsubasa may be a layabout, but Juri is able to sufficiently shame him into picking up his nephew from school.

There, another kid immediately calls him out as a suspicious character and Juri jokes about it over the phone. She’s having a little fun at Tsubasa’s expense, but is also proud he gave enough of a shit to actually do something for the family. It’s neat little family-centric details along with their general underdog nature, that quickly endear the Yukawas to me.

Just when you thought they had enough to deal with, circumstances thrust the family into a crisis situation straight out of the movies, when a gang of toughs kidnap Tsubasa and Makoto and ask the impossible: for 5 million yen to be delivered to the designated location in 30 minutes time.

Knowing they don’t have the time or the money, Juri grabs a knife and prepares to head to the kidnappers, presumably to take back her brother and nephew by force. Her dad Takafumi, suddenly awakened from his slumber by the emergency, deems only he as head of the house should go (with his dad’s savings).

It’s Grandpa Yukawa, however, who presents an alternative: that they use the mysterious, ancient stone that’s been in their family for years…to stop time.

And that’s exactly what Gramps, Juri, and her dad do. Once time slows, we’re treated to a number of fast moving things freezing in mid-air, along with strange “beings” made of light within the suspended time. Suddenly with all the time in the world, they strike out into the “stopped world”, and Gramps explains what he can as they head to the exchange spot.

Juri, for her part, experiences memories of the stone from when she was a young girl, while Gramps also points out that anyone who can move about in the “Stasis” too long ultimately becomes corrupted by the power they have over those who can’t move.

The inter-family banter is again a winner here, with Gramps expressing both affection and disappointment in his son, Juri’s dad, and when they find Tsubasa and Makoto among their now-frozen captors, it looks like they’re going to come out of this on top, thanks to a little hereditary time magic.

Of course, things don’t go that easily, because there are other people who can move in the stasis, much to the Yukawa’s shock and confusion. They’re assaulted, forcing Gramps to pull out another trick from his bag: instantaneous transportation from one spot to a spot a few feet away in either direction.

It’s not a game-changing power, however, and they can’t take their still-frozen family members along for the rides. When two bored-looking men in suits arrive with a band of henchmen, it becomes clear there’s more to this than careless kidnappers who decided to target a family with no money. One of those suits is jealous of Gramps’ power, so it’s likely this whole ordeal was set up to draw Gramps and the Yukawas out.

Just when it looks like the Yukawas are done for, a gigantic tree-like monster emerges from the sky and descends on the henchman holding a knife to Makoto. Is this tree-dude a friend to the Yukawas; some kind of guardian for Makoto, or an enemy to all of the humans in this bizarre static realm? I don’t know, but his appearance sure does pump up the supernatural vibe. In any case, I hope the Yukawas can get out of this mess.

Stocked with both very realistic human characters and said bizarre baddies, Kokkoku struck a good balance of show and tell, drama, peril, and dark comedy, and was bookended by fantastic opening and ending sequences. This one’s a keeper so far.