REVIEW: ‘To Your Eternity’ Season 3 Episode 8 – “Trouble”

To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8, “Trouble,” sees Fushi (Reiji Kawashima, The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic) try to learn more about the Nokkers after his encounter with Mimori. However, few seem interested in helping him. To further confuse his situation, Fushi finds himself inadvertently hurting those around him through his actions. 

Since the Ord first morphed into a boy, it was obvious that emotional exploration would be a significant element of this series. As Fushi has grown, he’s learned a lot about people and has come to care for many of them. However, as season three continues, the protagonist’s latest round of growth is starting to fall short. The reason for this is simple: Fushi has become a jerk.

Now that Fushi would have stumbled toward some form of emotional maturity makes sense. After all, we all do in our growth as emotional beings. The problem with how To Your Eternity handles Fushi’s character is that he doesn’t seem interested in learning. He is capable of acknowledging when he has messed up, but he doesn’t seem interested in how or why. He does something inconsiderate, people get angry, and then he sulks. This cycle doesn’t seem to lead to any meaningful progress, leading to a general dislike of the character.

Fushi hits a frustrating roadblock in his emotional development.

Further aggravating the situation is the fact that Fushi has a plethora of characters he could reach out to for help, but doesn’t. Virtually every person he’s ever cared about is back with him, but why doesn’t he ask them? Or why don’t any of them do anything to reach out to him? On rare occasions, when one of the legacy characters other than Bon is on screen, they feel like little more than props. Something to get hurt by Fushi, or hand-wringing over his absence, but not actually participating in the plot. And To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8 does little to change that. 

Beyond the aggravations caused by the protagonist, To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8 tries to inch some of its plotlines along. The situation with the Nokkers continues to be investigated, but with little progress made. Mizuha (Tomori Kusunoki, Chainsaw Man The Movie – The Reze Arc) gets Fushi to agree to a date. Still, it’s clear that Fushi continues to bear little understanding of what is happening and is just enjoying seeing new things. The only real plot progression comes at the very end of the episode, when an unexpected arrival may indicate a path forward for Fushi in his search for a solution to the Nokker situation.

To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8 does try to deliver some heartfelt emotional moments, but undercuts them in unfortunate ways. The placement of humor makes light of the emotions presented, resulting in little impact from these attempts. There is a real struggle to see where the series wants to go, or what it intends to deliver once it gets there.

To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8 shows a series struggling for direction.

Adding to the disharmony of the episode is one of the most random scenes ever injected into an anime. In the middle of the episode, the story jumps to Hirotoshi (Tasuku Hatanaka, Clevatess) and the Nokker Mimori (Rumi Okubo, Dead Mount Death Play). We see Hirotoshi strung up while Mimori subjects him to degrading humiliations.

It makes sense that the story would want to depict the disintegration of their relationship, but it needed a better way to do so. It feels entirely out of place and is an especially awkward choice given the uncomfortable undertones of Hirotoshi’s character. It was this that made his interactions with Mimori uncomfortable in Episode 7.  

To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8 is a complete failure. The series has never managed to recapture what made its first run incredible, and feels further away with each episode. It’s flailing attempts at growth with Fushi, its disinterest towards an ensemble cast it brought back for apparently no reason, and bizarre choices make this a trainwreck to slog through. Here’s hoping something can be salvaged before the season ends. 

To Your Eternity Season 3 Episode 8 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.

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