To Your Eternity Episode 17

The Defeated

To Your Eternity Episode 17 was another good episode. This time around, I think Hayase’s character is what made the episode good. I really wasn’t expecting her to be as interesting of a character as she turned out to be.

The majority of today’s review is going to be focusing on Hayase, so let’s start off by taking a look at her actions after winning the tournament. The first thing she does is relieves herself of her newly won status and grants it to Tonari.

Why does she do this? Because she knows that the people of Jananda island won’t blindly follow some outsider just because she won the tournament. So she deflects their hatred away from herself and onto Tonari, who now has a target on her back.

But, you may have noticed that just because Hayase gives up her right to rule over the island, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t crave power. Instead, she attempts to appeal to the people of Jananda another way.

She claims that they’ve been chosen by the gods to serve Fushi, and as Fushi’s caretaker, her by extension. Obviously, this won’t work on everyone, though. And so she also marks herself as a citizen of Jananda by cutting her own hand. She does this as a way to show her allegiance to the people of the island.

Now, is she really aligning herself with Jananda island? Probably not. She still controls Yanome soldiers. But if she can gain followers from the island, that will only give her more power. Also, notice that she didn’t give herself the prisoner marking, but only the “family of a prisoner” marking.

I’m not sure if that was intentional on her part, but it’s interesting to consider.

My Immortal

Originally, I was thinking that Hayase was on Jananda island to capture Fushi and bring him back to Yanome, probably as a way to redeem herself. After all, she failed in her duty to sacrifice March to Oniguma and then lost all of her captives.

But now that we’ve seen Hayase claim Fushi as her own and declare that the Jananda islanders should help her “protect” him, I think something else may be going on. It’s possible that Hayase has been exiled from Yanome and that the soldiers who still follow her are simply a faction loyal to their former commander.

This seems to make more sense within the context of Hayase’s recent actions. So what we’re really seeing Hayase doing right now isn’t restoring her honor, but rather building up her own power and army by using Fushi as a tool.

Now, although it seemed a bit strange at first, Hayase’s apparent attempted rape of Fushi actually makes sense with all of this in mind. At first, I thought she was just being a creep by licking his face (which, to be fair, she probably was). But once she got undressed, I realized there was more to it.

Hayase wants to use Fushi to gain power. But Fushi isn’t someone whom Hayase can easily control. So how could she be able to use his immortality to her advantage even if she doesn’t have him specifically? Well, she could have his child.

If Hayase bears Fushi’s child, and that child retains Fushi’s immortality, then Hayase can raise an immortal being who’s completely subservient to her. She would effectively be known as the mother of a “god.” That seems like a pretty good way to gain a lot of power and influence.

Fushi Fights Back

Now let’s take a look at how some characters are fighting back against Hayase. First of all, we have Fushi who decides to stay behind on Jananda with Hayase so that his friends can go free. He does this knowing full well that he’s going to escape from her at some point.

Pioran and Fushi even make plans to meet up at the port in Zedan. I believe this is the first time we’ve heard the name Zedan, and I can’t be sure exactly where it’s located. However, I do have some ideas based on previously known locations.

Either Zedan is the port city where Fushi and Pioran were put onto the ship headed for Jananda, or it’s where they would have landed had they made their way to Sarlnine as intended. My guess is that it’s the former since they’re both already familiar with that location.

Obviously, we also saw that Tonari has escaped from the Skyfish ship and is heading back to Jananda to save Fushi. I bring this up for two reasons. The first being to point out that Fushi and Tonari have both probably built up a resistance to the poison Hayase uses.

Remember, both of them woke up earlier than expected. Why is that? Because Fushi is able to create food with the poison in it from his body and Tonari has previously eaten that food. It’s a small detail, but I wanted to point it out.

And the other reason I’m bringing this up is that, as I stated in my review of Episode 16, I think Tonari is going to be the one who ends up killing Hayase (and dying herself).

Fushi’s Next Transformation(s)

Here’s a bonus section for you this week because there was one other thing I thought of while writing this review. Previously, I’ve assumed that Fushi would gain an owl transformation via Ligard. After all, we see an owl in the OP and ED alongside the wolf and bear.

In fact, I was even going to write in the previous section that I think the owl that saved Tonari at the end of the episode was Fushi and not Ligard. It would just mean at some point Fushi hurt himself with Ligard’s talons and then gained the transformation after Hayase killed him.

But what if Hayase didn’t actually kill Ligard? Based on what Tonari said, she thought Ligard was going to die, but she never actually saw him die. If Ligard is still alive, then I actually have a new theory that involves Fushi not gaining him as a transformation (at least not yet).

I’ve kind of taken for granted the idea that Tonari is going to die and Fushi is going to gain her as a transformation. That’s what happened in the previous arcs. But then I thought, “What does Tonari actually bring to the table? What makes her a useful transformation?”

The answer I came up with is Ligard. Perhaps Fushi doesn’t gain the owl as a transformation but instead gains Tonari as one, and through her, Fushi can control Ligard. Basically, Ligard would follow Fushi’s orders as Tonari, and maybe she has the ability to order other animals around too.

Also, what if Fushi gains Hayase as a transformation too? That would be the first time he gains the transformation of someone he hates, and that alone could be very interesting. I’d love to see how he deals with that.

Conclusion

What do you think about To Your Eternity Episode 17? Is Hayase a good character? Is Fushi capable of having immortal children? And what transformations do you think Fushi will gain by the end of this arc? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 18 is available now.