There’s something to be said for never knowing exactly where a series is going next.  Fumetsu no Anata e definitely has that going for it.  To a  certain extent I’m taking it on faith that all this is building to something coherent, true.  But neither that or simple unpredictability would be enough in itself to keep me invested.  It has to be interesting along the way, and it is.  Ooima-sensei has a gift for creating characters both quite riveting and incredibly annoying, and Fushi is a compelling reason to keep coming back.  His journey is ours, and that’s what really makes this series work for me.

This latest chapter in Fushi’s story sees him finally starting to question his limitations and evolve, and that opens a lot of doors.  Caught in something of a dead-end with the ship, he decides (well, the wonder horse has something to do with it) to go looking for food and winds up finding a town.  There he tries his hand at charity, only to be condemned for being a dilettante getting his jollies out of it.  Eventually he stumbles across a freakshow wagon, and detecting pain from inside (that ability seems to have grown exponentially in recent episode) he finds two weak and starving children.  His efforts to pay for their freedom rebuffed, eventually he comes back after dark and busts them out.

The “clay pot people” thing is a completely new development, though they’re legendary enough that Kahaku has heard of them.  It’s not made clear exactly how but the girl (Hirohashi Ryou) seems to have the ability to share her memories via the clay pot she carries.  Unfortunately her brother dies on the way back to the S.S. Fushi (Bon still keeping his secrets, Fushi doesn’t know that he can resurrect him), but the girl quickly grows attacked to Fushi.  He calls her “Eko” for the way she mispronounces “cat” – the only word she seems able to say – and through the experience, Fushi learns the lesson of what the Man in Black has been trying to teach him about becoming one with his surroundings.

Spring Roll, meanwhile, has been visiting the great city of Renril, where he meets some resistance in his plan to evacuate the city and hold it with his army when the nokkers attack.  He’s also g0t it in his head that there are more immortals out there to be recruited as allies, which is pretty obviously a Chekov’s Gun even if Kahaku quite rightly asks what evidence he’s basing that belief upon.  The Fushi the two find when they return to the beach is quite a changed creature – a lot less human, as Bonchien points out.  That’s probably an inevitable development, as Fushi after all isn’t human, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?

This feels like the primary direction Fushi’s arc is headed from here.  To an extent the story for a long time was Fushi figuring out how to be human; now it’s Fushi figuring out how to be himself.  One wonders if there’s a balance to be found, since emotionally speaking Fushi remains more human than not – all his connections are with mortal living creatures, humans most of all.  As he fulfills the role his creator has set out for him and blossoms into the being he’s capable of being, can he retain his humanity – and should that matter?  Those strike me as the big questions Fumetsu no Anata e is going to be asking going forward.