To Your Eternity

Series Overview

To Your Eternity (Fumetsu no Anata e / 不滅のあなたへ) is a supernatural, drama, adventure anime that follows an immortal being as it interacts with and takes on the forms of people and animals in the world.

The story is structured in arcs that each focus on one main supporting character with whom Fushi (the immortal being) forges a bond. There are five arcs spread over 20 episodes, though they aren’t all evenly spaced. For example, the first arc is just the first episode of the series.

One of the great things about To Your Eternity is that you can get a pretty good idea of the whole series just from the first episode since it’s an entire arc. I don’t feel like this is one where the “three-episode rule” applies. If you like the first episode, you’re probably going to like it all.

The series still has highs and lows, so liking the first episode doesn’t mean you’ll like every episode as much. But I do think the high points (usually the ends of arcs) of the series definitely make up for any low points (usually in the middle of arcs).

I think the best example of this is the arc that focuses on Gugu as the supporting character. To me, the middle portion of that arc really started to drag on. But, I’d also say that the conclusion of that arc is the highlight of the series.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s all downhill after Gugu’s arc. Even the final episode of the series was great and I’d consider it one of the best. Overall, I really enjoyed this anime and I can’t wait for another season of it to come out at some point in the future.

Main Characters

Fushi is the protagonist of the series. I guess he technically doesn’t have a gender since he’s just an immortal blob, but I’m going to be referring to him as a male since his primary human form is male.

When someone or something imprints strongly on Fushi, he can later become or create that thing. For example, if he gets hurt by a knife, he can then create that knife. Or if he has a strong emotional connection with someone, he can take on their form (as long as certain other conditions are met).

March is the first major supporting character. She’s a young girl whose dream is to grow up and become a mother. However, it would seem that she’s never going to achieve that dream because she was selected to be sacrificed to a local bear-god known as Oniguma.

Pioran is another character introduced in the same arc as March. She’s an old woman who ends up crossing paths and traveling with Fushi multiple times throughout the series. After Fushi himself, Pioran probably has the most screen time of any character.

In the following arc, we’re introduced to Gugu, who’s probably my favorite character of the series. If not him, it’s a character introduced in March’s arc named Hayase. Anyway, Gugu just has some amazing character development and the end of his arc is perfect.

Finally, we have Tonari, a young girl who lives on a prison island. Tonari has a gang of four other kids, and together they work so that one day they can make their way off the island. She’s kind of a terrible person, but I did warm up to her a bit over the course of the arc.

I think Tonari’s biggest issue, though, is that she has to follow Gugu. Anyone’s going to look bad when compared to him.

World Building in Pieces

To Your Eternity has some very good world-building on account of how many different regions of the world Fushi travels to. He meets all different kinds of people, is immersed in multiple different cultures, and sees a variety of locations.

That’s obviously great from a world-building perspective. The problem is that throughout the story, we’re bouncing from one location to the next without any real understanding of how these places relate to one another.

We know Yanome controls Ninannah, Jananda Island is somewhere between Takunaha and Sarlnine, and there’s a port we may or may not have been to called Zedan. That’s about it as far as named locations go.

The issue is that once the story has wrapped up in one location, we tend not to return. The individual arcs are very compartmentalized for the most part. Aside from Yanome and Ninannah, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of formal connection between the various locations.

So while we learn a lot about the people and locations of this world, we’re not getting all that much when it comes to the big picture. Many of these regions are so disconnected that things we learned about one region don’t exactly apply to the next.

And, something I think we’ll start to have an issue with in the future of the series is the passage of time. It’s not a huge part of this first season. But, we have to keep in mind that Fushi is immortal. Eventually, so much time is going to have passed that the information we have on some of these locations is going to be outdated.

Maybe in the future, Fushi will find himself back in Ninnanah, but 200 or 300 years will have passed.

Conclusion

To Your Eternity was my favorite anime of the spring 2021 season, which is when it began. It wasn’t my favorite of the summer season, when it ended, but it was still up there. Overall, I think it’s an 8/10. It has some very high highs — you just have to get through some low parts too.

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My review of Season 2 is available now.