Hello and welcome back to Otaku Friday! To those of you thinking wait—“wait. Isn’t it Otaku Thursday?” : shhhh child. It is otaku Friday this week. Today we’re going to get deep with our anime review, because today I’m coming at you with a first impression of the much talked about show, To Your Eternity. I am deeply sorry for the lack of banner (or photos) but I swear I will come add them later! Star and I are just away from the apartment and therefore my desktop. But without further ado, let’s get into it!
So. To your Eternity. I was not at all sure what to expect when I started this show. I feel like it’s something I knew had a lot of buzz around it but I wasn’t like super certain what exactly the premise was. I just knew it was going to potentially be safe and heart warming. So, you can imagine my surprise in the first episode where we introduce “The Orb”. And I’m like…excuse you? Then I thought that the kid was ACTUALLY going to be our main character. So imagine how shook I was throughout the first episode as I essentially watched as he pretty much had the worst and saddest death. I was so sad honestly. It was honestly heartbreaking to me, especially as The Orb took his form. I clearly didn’t read the synopsis of this close enough, because I was not prepared.
Which honestly was the story of the entire show. I feel like I expected it to be quite…slow but deep (judging by the first episode). And I feel like it lived up to that expectation in like…ways I had never thought. I didn’t expect the show to be about The Orb becoming more human, and I certainly didn’t expect to cry at random times. Like honestly, it wasn’t full out, I’m so emotional sobbing because it was so sad. Instead, I’d often feel like—wow that was heartbreaking but why are my eyes leaking? It was really peculiar just what kind of scenes got me. Like at the end of the cringe apple scene, or the bears death, or when homeboy from the first episode kept cheering when he found a waystone even when he knew it lead to death. Which leads me into the fact that I feel like in a way, this show is really brutal. Not with blood and grotesque things (well, kinda) but mainly in how cut throat the world they present is. It’s interesting that it’s not an anime that is trying to portray humanity and nature as necessarily beautiful, but rather it shows the harsh realities and how we can make beauty from it. Like how connections can be beautiful, how dreaming can be. Despite the heartbreak, the world—and people—are complicated and broken but we can still be good and beautiful and warm.
I will say that in a way, the show can be a little slow or cringe at times, but it has to be. It has to be cringe because The Orb is learning human ways and therefore is like a child (sometimes worse) because it only knows what it has learned, and it will slowly learn things, like to share food and not slap it out of people’s hands. To actually care about other people. It also has to be a slow story because this isn’t an action. This is clearly a slow-paced, drama-based, character driven story. Which, yes, I am aware is not for everyone. But I personally love it. I love character driven things, I love the creator of this (also the mastermind behind one of my favorite movies, A Silent Voice), and I also love the premise. I also find it super interesting that The Orb can take the form of people and things that it forms a strong connection with (whatever that connection may be). Not only does it give it “power ups” to survive, it’s like a weird but cool way of seeing those things and people live on.
Overall, I really like To Your Eternity so far. I know it’s not for everyone, not only based on things I’ve heard about it, but also because of how the story is structured, however, I like it. I like it a lot. And I would recommend people to at least try watching it. If it’s not your cup of tea? Great move on. But just in case it is, you should definitely give it a try!
Well, that’s it for today! Sorry again that I couldn’t do any images, I swear I’ll add them later on. I am just away from desktop. Anyway, thanks for hanging around for Otaku Friday! See ya’ll next time!
Stay weebtastic!
xoxo
Luna
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