To Your Eternity Season 3

Episode 14

Well, folks, this week brings us to yet another unexpected parting. Once again, To Your Eternity managed to get knocked out of the weekly streaming votes partway through its season, which means that we'll be cutting these recaps short and wrapping the whole thing up with a full series review sometime in the future. I'm tempted to ponder whether or not this is due to the show's extended and unexpected hiatus, but it's honestly not worth the time to split hairs. Really, it is unsurprising that TYE has once again found itself slipping out of the larger public's eye. This is a weird, meandering, and tonally inconsistent story that has built a giant cast of characters across hundreds of years of in-universe time. There was probably never a chance that this third season was going to amass a giant flock of brand new followers from out of the ether.

It's a damned shame, too, because aside from the usual To Your Eternity pacing hiccups, this has been a very strong return to form from that incredibly messy second season. The production values have been fairly strong and, most importantly, consistently functional across fourteen episodes, which shows how valuable the team-up between Studios Drive and Massket has been for the series' overall health. The storytelling has also been really strong. The new era and complex twists on the age-old conflict between the Nokkers have allowed the show to explore the kinds of complex and fantastical dilemmas that this entire premise was built on. While we won't be checking in from week-to-week anymore, I'll be certain to follow the rest of this season so I can update everyone on how it all shakes out in the coming months.

At the very least, “Where One Belongs” feels like a very appropriate episode with which to send off these reviews. It brings the focus back to the one area where I felt like this Modern Era story was lacking, which is Fushi's relationships with all those friends he miraculously revived. Sure, we've had plenty of little check-ins with the likes of Tonari, Bon, Gugu, and the rest of the gang, but they've all mostly been hanging out in the background while Fushi does his whole “existential battle with an immortal race of monstrous parasites and also high school” thing. This week, Fushi is forced to finally take stock of how all of his loved ones are settling into this new life they've found, and the results are unsurprisingly complicated.

Fushi, being an immortal Orb-Thing that spent decades and decades just getting the hang of basic human sentience, is plenty used to the concept of rolling with the punches that changing times bring. He's a sweet, naive creature at his very core, which explains why he thought that all of his friends' problems would be solved by just popping them into a future where the Nokkers have been defeated. Naturally, he's been obsessed with taking the Nokkers down again because he sees them as the one thing that is keeping him from that happy ending he's been chasing for so long, but we here in the Meatbag Plane have known all along that it was never going to be that simple. From the very start of the episode, we see that all our old pals have been dealing with the same everyday struggles that every living person must adjust to, regardless of the era in which they live. Figuring out new customs; adjusting to the daily routine of just getting by; overcoming old psychological wounds alongside brand-new physical ones; fighting with bullies — when you think about it, most normal people have a hard enough time making sense of it all, and we don't even have to deal with the reality-shattering trauma of being revived into an altogether alien future society by the tendrils of a benevolent Orb-Thing.

It's a heartbreaking scene when Fushi begins to blame himself when friends like Gugu and Hairo start to get itchy feet and declare their need to find their own way in life. Fushi just wanted to create a paradise where his friends could live in perfect happiness together, but that was never going to happen in the way he wanted. In human life, suffering and conflict are not just inevitable, it is an undeniable force in shaping who we are. Fushi gave his friends another chance to live and breathe and share a world, but that by necessity means that they will all eventually be changed and defined by the new scars that this new world leaves on them. It's not all bad, because this also means that Gugu, Hairo, and everyone else will have the chance to find happiness, whatever that means for them.

The flashbacks to Gugu's old life that accompany his journey back to Takunaha are a brilliant and devious way to drive this point home. His life meant something, and an entire culture has been shaped for the better by the sacrifices he made as a scared and uncertain young man, even if it took an impossible journey across time to understand that. Gugu can make something meaningful out of this new life, too, just like Hairo can, and March, and Tonari, and the others. Fushi is beginning to see and understand the need his friends have to take their own, defiant steps into an unknown future that they must eventually leave behind to the ones who come after them. This is why “Where One Belongs” makes for such a powerful, beautiful, and achingly human sentiment for us to linger on, for now.

That doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye, though.

Episode Rating:

To Your Eternity Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.