To Your Eternity is my most anticipated anime of this season. It's an emotional story about Life & Death, from the author of A Silent Voice. The story follows an Orb which can transform to other things and the experience it gains from interacting with people.
To Your Eternity story is quite philosophical with many heart-breaking moments. If I have to describe it: It's a commentary on Humanity in general, but it's framed in a character driven story. In the perspective of some entity that strives to become more human.
The Japanese title: 不滅のあなたへ means "To you, the Immortal." I find it more fitting to the story & easier to connect to it, than the English version, which is also great in my opinion.
I have read the Manga years ago. I stopped around chapter 24 or so. When I heard the anime announcement, I decided to watch the story in anime form instead of going further for now.
[POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW]
The anime opening of To Your Eternity is so interesting I decided to dedicate this whole article for it: Pink Blood succeeds in both the emotional impact of the song, and the choice of the animation for it.
I was excited when I learned that the opening song is by Hikaru Utada. I can feel the similarity between this opening (Pink Blood) and Kingdom Hearts III's (Face My Fears.) They've got the same vibe if one is more emotional than the other.
Watch PINK BLOOD:
The only problem I have with the opening is the amount of Spoilers in it! Even then, I still it's an amazing opening for this story.
The opening takes a lot of events from the series and mashes them up out-of-context. It's the kind of opening that you can only call spoiler if you watched the events in it before.
Attack on Titan did a similar thing with it's 3rd Season's Second Opening. Only Manga readers thought that this opening was spoiler-heavy because they knew the context behind what they're seeing.
That's why the opening wasn't shown in the first episode, the only true spoiler that everyone will notice from the opening is the conclusion of that episode. Other than that, it's a bunch of Out-of-Context shots.
As long as you don't think over the opening too much, PINK BLOOD won't spoil the story on you. (At least, mostly...)
Still, I sometimes like to think over things too much. I already read the first three arcs of the Manga so I decided to dissect the opening even further.
I already have my predictions based on what I've read from the manga & the random shots of the opening, but I won't talk about those predictions here...
I noticed that the shots the opening linger on, were not chosen at random. All of them are references to the Manga Volume Covers! Which makes them less spoiler-y in context, considering that Manga readers seen similar things before reading the volumes containing the events.
- One of them is the older March from Volume 2's cover. Another is the party pictured on Volume 3. A third one shows the same scene on the cover of Volume 4.
Whether those scenes will happen in the story later is not as important as the fact that Manga readers probably got teased by the same scenes with the covers of the Manga.
I know that this and that are different things. I'm just looking at it from an artistic point of view without taking in part the audience reaction. If they have to spoil something it better be these right?
In the opening I also noticed the Zombie-like creatures. Considering that some of them appear human in other parts the opening with unique character designs, I assume they'll be important in the future. I haven't reach that part in the manga yet, and I have some fears regarding what they are...
I loved about how the opening starts slow and sad, and it ends fast and action heavy. That foreshadows that the show is a rollercoaster of emotions! What drives this home the most is how every one of the first four episodes feel like a different anime genre.
The last part of the opening shows someone holding the orb and on it shine the figures of the people the orb meets. This is most likely a spoiler!
What confirms it is how it started by showing the rock, the wolf and the boy. The first three forms the Orb took. It's a matter of pattern recognition to realize that the other reflected images are people who'll turn into forms of the Orb as well. Most likely, each one of them will die.
So, What do you think?
My conclusion is that this opening is amazing despite having heavy spoilers.
- If you're the type of anime watcher who likes to consume the series "blind," I strongly recommend skipping the opening.
- But if you're the type who likes watching trailers, I don't recommend skipping it.
The spoilers in it are vague enough that the scenes will still be impactful when you see them. Do you agree? Disagree? I'd like to hear your reasons! Either way, skipping the opening or not, the series To Your Eternity is really good!
- All images are taken from the opening. The opening video is linked above.
- This article is posted here on Hive & on Read.cash.