When discussing the Fruits Basket anime, I almost like to regard season one as a prologue. This is not because the story and themes shift heavily from where they begin, but rather due to a dramatic tone shift that occurs roughly a quarter into Fruits Basket S2. While S1 had its flashes of more sobering, dark moments, for the most part, the series maintained a comedic and lighthearted tone. S2, after a brief set of episodes designed to set up events for later episodes, essentially reverses this—Fruits Basket becomes a character drama, with flashes of comedy to relieve tension. If you enjoyed S1 for cute zodiac antics and are uninterested and uncomfortable with themes of domestic abuse and a whole lot of trauma, you probably don’t want to continue with Fruits Basket.
With that said, however, the tone shift does not come out of nowhere. As Fruits Basket is a character drama, it develops along with the characters, and strengthens the themes established in S1. It dives deeper into its complex and quite frankly beautiful characters. Excellent characters are complicated people who feel real and motivated—their goals are clear, and what they need to grow and change is evident to the viewer as they witness their arcs. Season 2 expands on these characters’ wants and needs as it begins to answer the series’ questions of family and the future. Tooru is perhaps the best example this. In Season 1, what Tooru wanted was to find a place where she is needed and to care for the ones she loves. Now that Tooru integrated into Shigure’s makeshift home, her motivations expand to wanting to hold onto that, in spite of everything that comes her way. This is also how we, the viewer, learn more about the inner workings of the Souma family and the motivations behind the cursed characters and their own familial ties. In this way, Tooru’s motivations contrasts the cursed Soumas—in them, she found solace and family, and yet, for the zodiac members themselves, such a curse ties them to their family and restricts their futures. This contrast is what creates the true conflict in Fruits Basket… Tooru working to maintain the life she loves against the familial ties that work to ruin it.
While Tooru’s arc continues, the cursed characters get a lot of expansion on their own characters as they approach their future as a cursed zodiac. Among the supporting cast, certain Soumas, like the briefly introduced Isuzu, get more of a focus than others, though all tie neatly together in a beautiful, complex patchwork that is the Souma family. In terms of the main cast, the show quickly gets to addressing Kyou’s own feelings directly after the True Form Arc that wrapped up season one, discussing how he contrasts his own role as the exiled cat with someone like Tooru caring for him. This results in some beautiful episodes and moments that were, for me, some of the highlights in an incredibly strong season.
In particular, though, most of the latter half of season two gives some much-needed development to Yuki. While Yuki was never a simple character, season one focused more on Tooru and Kyou than Yuki. Season two gets very deep into Yuki’s own perceptions of himself and his role as the “strongest” zodiac member. Yuki’s arc is excellent and filled with some incredible turns throughout. They really inform his character and even recontextualize his actions in season one. This arc introduces Yuki’s student council duties, as well as the four colorful characters who make up his staff, including the ever lovable Kakeru. Kakeru is a great new foil to Yuki, and seeing their relationship grow into one of the most likable and interesting dynamics in Fruits Basket was an excellent experience. In particular, though, what I really love about Yuki’s arc is the way that Fruits Basket addresses the age-old romance trope of the “flawless prince” character. It goes deep into how and why Yuki would present as such a person, and what it does to his own ideas of self-worth.
One thing I love about all of these arcs is Fruits Basket’s approach to link them all. Instead of covering one character’s growth before switching to the next, Fruits Basket opts to show bits of arcs between others, making one, connected interpersonal story. While this might bother those who prefer faster pacing or feel character moments must have instant gratification to be meaningful, Fruits Basket shows how strongly such characterization can work to expand the complexity of a story. In fact, I’d consider certain moments from this season to be a masterclass in setup and payoff—every important moment from the start of the season (and even things from season one!) return to inform the story and reinforce its themes. This makes the series feel incredibly gratifying.
In terms of visuals, Fruits Basket remains gorgeous. While its animation is nothing too complicated (there’s not many action scenes here to show off), the visual design is detailed and consistently great. Characters are expressive, and the show compliments its dialogue with great, subtle indications of emotion. The backgrounds remain stunning as well, and the show’s lighting and color design have some standout moments, like the numerous beach scenes in the first half of the season.
Music also remains well-utilized in the series, as it often serves as a means to cue and foreshadow upcoming events. The first opening as well is a great song, and one I highly suggest listening to all the way through! The seiyuu work is equally strong as last season’s, with Nobunaga Shimazaki’s Yuki and Takuya Eguchi’s Kakeru being particular standouts. The series also has a dub, and, as someone who tends to be quite lukewarm on dubs, I’m happy to say this dub is excellent. I was incredibly impressed with the quality as I watched it alongside the sub, and even prefer some dub performances to their sub counterparts. Laura Bailey’s Tooru comes to mind in this regard.
One unfortunate note I have add is that the main translation floating around, Crunchyroll’s subs, have a number of awful mistranslations that vary from removing character vocal quirks to blatantly rewriting lines. This changes their meaning and harms the characterization of the speaker. As dialogue matters so much to this series, this is incredibly upsetting. To emphasize how bad certain translations got, Natsuki Takaya, author of the original manga, found out about one particular mistranslation and commented on it. The dub, somehow (I’m assuming they work from a different, better translation?) managed to actually fix most of these issues, putting character quirks back in and fixing mistranslations. So, if you’re the kind of person who can stomach dubs, I would suggest it on translation alone as the more accurate version of the series. If you do opt for the sub, I would make note that if a character said something wildly out of character, it’s probably a mistranslation.
Overall, though, Fruits Basket’s ability to expand on its sweet, episodic first season into a complex character exploration is something you rarely see executed this well. The show’s combination of fully realized characters growing and changing over the course of their arcs set the stage for an upcoming bombshell of a third season that will (hopefully) live up to what’s established in season two. If you can handle the darker themes, I cannot suggest this series enough.
[TL;DR]
+ Excellent, fully realized characters who grow more complex as their arcs continue.
+ Strongly paced arcs that weave together naturally.
+ Great visuals, with good character expression and stunningly detailed backgrounds.
+ Well-utilized music with good OP and ED themes.
+ Excellent voice cast who add to their characters and a solid dub.
- Crunchyroll’s subtitles are horribly mistranslated at certain parts, harming characterization for a number of important characters. Dub translation corrects these.
- Transition from comedy-leaning to drama-leaning results in some much darker themes that might upset certain viewers who prefer their anime lighthearted.
Recommended? Yes
9/10
