I don’t know how, but somehow Fumetsu manages to keep upping the ante on weirdness. What’s wild is that it’s not a random sort of weird, like Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita or its ilk. This series actually tells a more or less linear narrative – it just does so in an extraordinarily weird way, Equally wild is that, for me at least, it’s kind of working. There have been moments to be sure, but I’m more or less bought in. For now at least – with Fumetsu you don’t buy any green bananas. But at the moment yeah, it’s clicking more than missing.
Fushi is, in his way, one of anime’s more tragic characters. He’s basically Sisyphus, poor guy. He keeps trying to do what he thinks is expected of him and the universe keeps moving the goal posts. He understands a lot but he never quite gets it. Humanity will always be a puzzle to him, I fear. To the Man in Black too, which may be why he made the choice he did (we’ll get to that shortly). Worse still, Fushi is eternally surrounded by weirdos. Some are benign of heart, like Yuki-kun, but even they can’t help cause him trouble. Others – like Mizuha and her line – are flat-out menaces in every way. Thank goodness for Bon, really – he’s a rock that Fushi can always anchor to, and a proactive advocate who doesn’t need to be told when or how to act.
Tonari and a Hayase clone being at odds is rough on me. I hate them both, pretty much – don’t force me to choose a side. But in this case I have to fall in with Tonari, whose instincts are on the nosey. Again, poor Fushi – the two great nemeses of his existence, Hayase and Nokkers, just won’t stay dead. Bon comes to Fushi with the news that he’s found another like Izumi, who’s had their body stolen. This time it’s the little girl we briefly met earlier, Mimori. Fushi knows what he should do here – but actually doing it is hard for one as kind as him. Even with the invisible real Mimori at Bon’s side urging him to do it.
This encounter ends badly. “Mimori” shows her true colors, Fushi looks like the bad guy, and nothing is resolved. But it does draw out The Beholder at last, who intervenes to prevent further tragedy. He’s now in the form of an 11 year-old boy named Satoru, who Fushi eventually tracks down to an orphanage or child care facility of some kind. Over a float in a glass shaped like a shoe (for some reason) Satoru brings his creation up to speed. He’s taken on human form, and in four years this body will forget his past. The Nokkers have indeed returned – or rather, they never went away. Rather they evolved – into a tiny form, undetectable by Fushi.
There are a lot of unanswered questions here. Satoru says the Nokkers have opted for co-existence, that the war is over – but it has the ring of indifference, not a declaration of victory. Is the Nokkers’ eventual goal to take over humanity from the inside, or do they really wish to coexist? Whatever the answers, Satoru seems little interested. But Yuki has been following Fushi (for an entire day, ROFL) and overheard everything. He repackages this is the straightforward if histrionic manner he trades in as a battle to save Mimori and Izumi, and maybe humanity. Yuki is sweet and totally naive, but his direct idealism is probably a good balancing influence on Fushi in some ways.
It’s Yuki who convinces Fushi that what he needs to grasp about humanity is love – not that Yuki is in any way capable of explaining it. Fushi goes off an another of his vision quests, this time turning into a sea turtle and going for a cruise in the sea. I have to say, even by Fumetsu standards this whole turtle sequence is seriously out there. Having Fushi randomly lay a bunch of eggs and break into turtle tears is certainly a choice. It’s so far beyond rational explanation that it seems pointless to call it a good or a bad one. It’s just Fumetsu.
This much I know – Fushi asking Mizuha to “teach him about love” is almost certain to end badly. Probably catastrophically so. Mizuha probably isn’t even aware herself of what a manipulative creature she is – this is just her DNA asserting itself. What she feels probably even is love, in her twisted way of perceiving the world. But if Fushi wants to understand humanity in a non-insane sort of way – a healthy grasp of love and how it drives our actions – there’s absolutely zero chance this is the right way to about it.
The post Fumetsu no Anata e (To Your Eternity) Season 3 – 06 appeared first on Lost in Anime.
