Spoiler-free review:
To Your Eternity is at its core an emotional journey with great character development and philosophical inquiries. However, it suffers from elements that force the story and protagonist into a repetitive plot. Initially, it excels at drawing the audience into its narrative by using relatable characters, but it fails to keep the audience invested in newly introduced characters in the last arc. Most of its downfall is caused by its pacing and how the protagonist is forced to grow throughout the show. Nonetheless, To Your Eternity manages to regain audience engagement just before the end. 72/100Spoiler warning:
Let’s get the obvious out of the way, the first episode was a 10/10. Yoshitoki Ooima, author of A Silent Voice, created an emotional episode that was able to make a grown man like me cry. And she was able to recreate this multiple times throughout the show.
But let’s face it, the main antagonist of the show, the Nokkers, are boring, and most of the supporting characters introduced at the end are used by the author to feed the audience with weak tragedy scenes.
After the introduction of the Nokkers, I wasn’t able to relate to any of the supporting characters, even though I would have liked to. The way Fushi’s power work makes it obvious that most, if not all, supporting characters will, one way or another, get absorbed by him. If not, the Nokkers will get stronger over time and he will lose everything.
The combat scenes showcased some great moments, like when Fushi fought Hayase in the arena. We get to see how both characters grew stronger as the story progressed. However, for the most part, fighting scenes are cut short and won in unrewarding ways. Fushi is unable to protect most of the supporting characters and is saved many times, despite being the great immortal. Also, I would like to point out that the Nokkers only got stronger during Gugu’s arc but became weaker during the island arc, which I found disappointing. But I won’t focus too much on this since it isn’t the main issue of the show.
The main issue for me is the pacing. The boy arc and March’s arc were well-paced. But as we get through Gugu’s arc, the series slows down, and it gets even slower during the island arc. This is mostly caused by how repetitive the show gets.
Overall, To Your Eternity was great but could have been more than that. I would have liked more diversity in the story. The show was lacking mystery, as I was able to guess what would happen most of the time. I do recommend anyone to watch the first 5 episodes, and I also look forward to the sequel but with moderate expectations.
Thank you for reaching the end of my review. It's the first one I have ever written, so I guess I can only get better from here. Please let me know if you enjoyed it or if you have any criticism by clicking the link here.