James Nicoll Reviews

2017’s To Your Eternity, Volume 3 is the third tankōbon for Yoshitoki Oima’s fantasy manga. Originally published as Fumetsu no Anata e, the series has run since 2016 in Weekly Shōnen Magazine. The English translation of Volume 3 appeared in 2018.

Volume one was reviewed here. Volume two was reviewed here.

Having successfully fled the Yanome empire and escaped Hayase’s pursuit, the protean Fushi and elderly Pioran make their way to a distant community. Here, Fushi will continue its efforts to learn to be a person.

Key to the process: a boy named Gugu.

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2017’s To Your Eternity, Volume 2 is the second tankōbon for Yoshitoki Oima’s fantasy manga. Originally published as Fumetsu no Anata e, the series has run since 2016 in Weekly Shōnen Magazine.

Setting: a fantasy world that looks a bit like Tokugawa Japan (buildings, clothing, food). The geography, however, is not at all Japanese: high cliffs and pinnacles above flatlands. Featured: two cultures: the Yanome, who rule an empire with large cities, and the Ninanna, who live on the edges of empire and are the target of Yanome imperial expansion.

The Ninanna worship a bear god, Oniguma; they practice human sacrifice. In volume one, a young Ninanna girl, Marsh, was to have been the next victim. However, she has been taken under the protection of Fushi, a protean being with an as-yet rudimentary mind, and rescued from death.

A Yanome soldier (Hayase) carries off Marsh, Marsh’s friend Parona, Fushi, and a badly wounded bear said to be Oniguma; she is taking them to Yanome lands as trophies.

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2017’s To Your Eternity, Volume 1 is the first volume collecting a run of Yoshitoki Oima’s fantasy manga. Originally published as Fumetsu no Anata e, the series has run since 2016 in Weekly Shōnen Magazine.

A remarkable object — Fushi — falls to Earth. Able to mimic other objects, Fushi becomes a rock and then moss. Since neither rock nor moss are self-aware, it does not learn anything from these transformations. 

One day Fushi encounters a dying wolf. When the wolf dies, it copies the wolf’s form. This new proves far more educational than its previous forms. Chief lesson learned: while Fushi is immortal, the beings he meets have transient lives.

Warning: if kids dying upsets you, this is not the manga for you. It’s slightly less child friendly than Grave of the Fireflies.

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