The heart stopping drama is back for its fall 2022 season! To Your Eternity focuses on an immortal named Fushi who is tasked with preserving all of creation, but his enemies, monsters known as Nokkers, will stop at nothing until they destroy him. How do you destroy an immortal? Well, the Nokkers do it by ripping away Fushi's memories, leaving him what he was at his inception: a smooth orb.
Having lost so many of his loved ones, Fushi hid himself away on an island at the end of season one, and that is where he had remained until the start of season two, forty years later, where the main goal is to bring Fushi back into society to continue his quest. With this time skip, the viewer is welcome to meeting a host of new characters that one can only infer will suffer tragic deaths. The opening for season two features the same song from season one, "PINK BLOOD" by Hikaru Utada. It is styled the same way as well, featuring flashes of different characters Fushi has met or will meet. A notable part of the opening is the ocean imagery, that Fushi explains in episode one "Infatuation Reborn".
Looking for Fushi
Fushi has not shape-shifted in a while, appearing as an older version of his default form, the nameless boy. He is eating dead Nokkers and talking to the Beholder, his creator, about how he's hidden away at this island for so long. At one point, Fushi ran away to the ocean for two years and lived there as a crab, shrimp, fish, etc. until the Beholder pulled him back to the island to fight the Nokkers who found him.
The Beholder had commented on how Fushi is not properly fulfilling his purpose by hiding out here because he's afraid to get hurt again, and Fushi adds that he also doesn't want to hurt others. However, Fushi is resolved to leave when the Beholder tells him that the Nokkers are attacking a killing innocent people to draw him out. That's when he comes in contact with a fun new cult dedicated to him.
A group of armed individuals lead by a little girl named Hisame who are part of a group called the Guardians who are tasked with assisting and protecting Fushi. Hisame introduces herself as the granddaughter and reincarnation of season one villain, Hayase, who towards the end of the series, became obsessed with Fushi. Apparently, after Fushi spared her, she formed a cult dedicated to finding him and passed down the Nokker that lived in her arm to her descendants.
The Beholder also drops some world building into the episode by mentioning 'fye'. Also referred to as spirit or soul, fye is the essence of a person that escapes when their physical body is destroyed. If one's willpower is strong enough, their fye could stay or take on a new form, such as Hayase's spirit taking the form of Hisame.
The Guardians offer to travel with Fushi - as in they're following him as he makes his way off the island - and Fushi struggles with Hisame's presence. The Nokker in her arm and her relation to one of his biggest enemies push him to dislike her, but he also doesn't feel right about being needlessly cruel to a child who had no say in her lot in life. The Beholder recommends building up an immunity to her via exposer therapy which feels like an over arching theme of this show; getting close to something that hurts and doing it over and over again until it hurts less. Fushi has always taken every death and every injustice to heart, and he's so empathic that he can't eat fish anymore because he spent two years being one. It will be interesting to see how much he struggles with this advice later down the road.
After setting sail back to the mainland, they stumble across a town that has been ravaged by Nokkers who possessed the bodies of dead people in a true zombie apocalypse style situation. The Guardians go down to the town first to ask questions and acquire shelter, and in the time they're gone, Fushi meets two traveling doctors who explain in more detail the Nokker attack on the village. As always, Fushi takes every death as a personal failure. One of these doctors explain that the Guardians are more of a zealous cult that a protective detail with interest in owning Fushi.
Familiar Faces
The Guardians get them all a room at a local inn and provide dinner. One of the doctors and Hisame have been butting head this entire time, and it only escalates when Fushi and a doctor pass out from drugged drinks. The only doctor remained explains in detail the years she spent building her immunity to different kinds of poisons. When the other Guardians fall from the drug and an owl lands on the doctor's shoulder, Hisame is able to name her as Tonari, welcoming back another friendly face to the show.
While fast-paced, the first episode of To Your Eternity season two follows the same system we've seen in season one: Fushi wanders around, meets some people, and hopes no one dies, but we all know someone will.