To Your Eternity Episode 2

To Your Eternity Episode 2

A Rambunctious Girl

I was quite surprised to find that To Your Eternity isn’t actually going to be an episodic anime. Going into Episode 2, I was expecting to see March’s entire story. But, as it turns out, it’s going to continue next week, and maybe even the week after that.

But, just who is March? She’s a young girl who lives in what the boy from Episode 1 would call “paradise.” The village March lives in is located in a tropical jungle environment where fruit trees are plentiful. And, as we learn, her village isn’t the only one around.

Before I get into the society in which March lives, I do want to go back to my comment about the boy from the first episode. His dream was to reach “paradise” and taste the fruit there, which the Being succeeded in achieving. So is that how each arc of the story is going to progress?

March getting excited from the anime series To Your Eternity
March getting excited

Anyway, back to March. From what we’re told, there are a number of villages located within the forest. We don’t actually get names for these villages, but we know there’s a region called Ninannah and a region or village called Yanome.

What makes Ninannah and Yanome a bit confusing is that it’s unclear exactly how they’re connected. Ninannah is definitely a wide region that includes multiple villages. But Yanome seems to both be the “capital” of Ninannah as well as existing outside of it.

We’re told that it’s the Yanome people who select a girl to be sacrificed so that the Ninannah region can experience peace. But at the same time, March and Hayase both differentiate between Ninannah and Yanome as places, implying that Yanome doesn’t lie within Ninannah.

To Choose Freedom

As Hayase explains, a child is selected from one of the surrounding villages each year to be sacrificed to Oniguma-sama. Oniguma-sama is the giant bear we saw kill the Being at the beginning of the episode, and its name (鬼熊) literally means “demon bear.”

While it’s unlikely that these sacrifices actually solve anything, they don’t necessarily appear to be forced on the villagers of the jungle. Obviously, nobody wants their child to be sacrificed. But March’s parents also accept her fate.

I bring this up simply to say that it doesn’t seem like the Yanome people are invaders who are collecting sacrifices to keep the people of Ninannah under control. These sacrifices are a part of their collective culture that likely originated out of their fear of Oniguma-sama.

March and Lalah from the anime series To Your Eternity
March and Lalah

March is in an interesting position as the chosen sacrifice for this year. There were only three children in her village, herself included, who were candidates. The other two were March’s friend Lalah and March’s younger sister.

That means that if, for whatever reason, March isn’t able to be sacrificed to Oniguma-sama, either Lalah or March’s sister will be selected to go in her place. Because of this, March originally goes along with the plan for her to be sacrificed. She doesn’t want to be the cause of someone else getting sacrificed.

However, in the end, March decides that she doesn’t want to die. And honestly, I can’t really blame her. She’s a young child, and so shouldn’t be expected to have to consider who’s going to be sacrificed in her place.

But, I do think it’s very possible that March will be sacrificed by the end of the arc — unless the Being previously killed Oniguma-sama. I’m fairly confident that every arc is going to end with the death of the primary supporting character as part of the Being’s development.

The Immortal

The big thing we learned about the Being from this episode is how its reincarnation works. When we saw it get crushed by boulders and killed by Oniguma-sama at the beginning, I was wondering how its immortality was going to work.

After all, if it gets eaten by something, it no longer has a body to simply revive in. Luckily, it was all explained in an easy-to-understand way: Magic. It doesn’t matter if its body has been crushed, digested, or rotted away — it will simply repair or remake its body out of thin air.

Considering that how the Being’s immortality works isn’t actually important in this series, I don’t mind that the explanation is a magical one. I’m just glad that it was explained at all. It would have bothered me if its immortality was just left as a complete mystery.

The Being resurrecting from the anime series To Your Eternity
The Being resurrecting

Another thing about the immortal is that, as we saw in this episode, it doesn’t instinctively know how to behave as a human despite taking that form. With that in mind, I wonder how long it’s going to take before the Being can actually communicate and speak.

It might learn a few basic words from March. But I don’t see it being able to fully communicate by the end of this arc. What I do expect, however, is that March will finally give it a name so I can stop referring to it as “the Being” or “it.”

To me, it makes sense for March to be the one to name it. She’s always wanted to grow up and be a mother. But since she’s getting sacrificed, that dream can’t come true. Instead, she can at least view the Being as her “child” and give it a name before she dies.

Conclusion

What do you think about To Your Eternity Episode 2? Which of the three children would you sacrifice to Oniguma-sama? Do you think March is going to survive to the end of this arc? And do you think she’s going to name the Being? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 3 is available.

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