“As long as you live things will keep happening. As long as you’re alive wishes will keep being made.” - Tohru Honda
My personal journey through Fruits Basket can definitely be called a weird one. When news about a remake of this beloved Shoujo series got around, a large portion of the anime community was understandably thrilled. Having zero knowledge about the series, I was definitely curious what the fuss was about and decided to venture into the world of Fruits Basket. What I found was a world so beautifully crafted, with an interesting premise and many promising characters. Even though this is the case, slowly but surely I started to lose interest in the series due to its initial formulaic setup, whereby nearly every episode acts as a character introduction for a new Zodiac member. And with things becoming hectic in real life, I ended up forgetting about the series and stopped midway through the first season. That was roughly 2 years ago. Recently, I realised that the Final Season is topping the MAL charts and I thought to myself, “Wow, is the show really that good?”. Once again, my interest in the series piqued and I finally decided to set time aside to finish watching the series. And indeed, it really was that good. Slice of life as a genre has always been my personal favourite, with series like Kaguya-sama Love is War and Clannad AS being in my Top 3. And now I can confidently say, Fruits Basket is one of the greats in the genre.
What sets the series aside from other shows, is the amount of effort and care dedicated into crafting characters and building character relationships. We are introduced to the many Soma members early on, with the first half of the first season essentially used to introduce us to a wide range of characters. Each episode we watch as Tohru in one way or another form a personal connection with the members of the Soma family, which becomes the backbone of the series. As stand alone episodes, the quality was undoubtedly there, but what it lacked was a clear direction of where the series is headed. However, this was no doubt purposefully done to allow us as the audience to have an emotional connection with the big cast of characters early on. Some of the characters that I found most interesting are as follows - Kyou, Tohru, Yuki, Akito, Saki and Shigure, but I’ll be focusing on the main trio and their journey throughout the series.
xxxx CHARACTER SPOILERS xxxx
Let’s begin with our main heroine, Tohru Honda. Acting as the heart of the story, she represents the ray of sunshine that descends upon the Soma family. Her righteous personality can be so entrancing at times, that it may seem that she has no flaws. She was initially portrayed as a flat, one-trait character, in fact the majority of the cast is. But do not be deceived, for she is in fact one of the best written characters in the show, and is deserving of the title of main heroine. In the Final Season, the layers of facades were peeled back and we are introduced to the real Tohru, a girl with her own sets of insecurities. With the passing of her beloved mom, she was unable to move on. While she deceives herself and those around her, saying that everything is fine and putting up a smile, deep down she is continuously burdened by the trauma. In the memory of her late mother, she swore to always put her mom first in her heart. This sentiment that she has for her mom may seem lovely at first, but it ends up being an unhealthy coping mechanism, with Tohru being over reliant on her late mother. Watching her develop and mature as a person in the Final season is a really heartwarming sight. Now with Kyou being the No.1 in her heart, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love her mom. The love between her and her mother is unbreakable, and that is a fact that will forever be unchanged. Her mom wants her to find happiness even in her absence, and that’s what Tohru will do. To see the people that she helped along the way return the favour, and guide her to overcome this barrier that she imposed upon herself, I can’t help but be genuinely touched by the show. It is a perfect portrayal of what goes around, comes around. While not perfect, Tohru shows how far kindness can go, and how even the little things can rub off on someone and change them for the better.
Moving on, when we were first introduced to Yuki, he was renowned in the school for being the Prince due to his elegant looking face. Nothing could be further away from the truth. Being tormented by Akito since young, Yuki was an empty shell. Withdrawn from the people around him, lacking the courage to stand up for himself and unable to bring himself out of the darkness, Yuki was in a very pitiful and depressing state initially. And then comes Tohru, the ray of sunshine. Her entrancing personality was able to show Yuki the possibility, that just maybe, he too is able to love himself. I remember there was this one scene of Yuki in Season 1 episode 18 that really stuck with me.
Yuki: “Learn to love yourself?” What does that mean? How are we supposed to find something good about ourselves? The whole reason why we hate ourselves is because we can only see the parts we hate. So forcing ourselves to find “good points” feels hollow, like we’re making things up. It’s not like that. That’s not how it works. I think it’s only when someone says they love you that you’re able to start loving yourself.”
It is true that we are the only ones capable of helping ourselves, but sometimes, to even find the courage, the motivation to do so may seem to be a nigh impossible task. Others shouldn't be directly providing everything for the individual, instead what others are capable of doing is providing the environment, providing the platform for him/her to once again take courage and rise up. I find this to be a satisfying conclusion for Yuki’s character to come to, and is in fact quite wise of him. Yuki’s character growth throughout the Final season was just amazing to watch. Being able to look forward by overcoming his past ordeals, stepping out of his comfort zone when he joined the student councils, are amazing feats considering the short time span for all these events to occur.
Lastly, my personal favourite character of the series - Kyou. While the moments shared between Tohru and Yuki were very heartfelt, the moments between Tohru and Kyou were just on another level. From the very first season, it was already hinted quite explicitly that these two are essentially destined for each other. With Tohru’s favourite animal being the cat, and Kyou being the one ostracised from the rest of the Soma family, it only fits for the story to put these two together. That said, I do feel for people that believed that Yuki and Tohru should have gotten together, because the story often portrays a sort of rivalry happening between Kyou and Yuki as they fight over Tohru. But alas, it is ultimately revealed that Yuki sees her as a Mother like figure, essentially mother zoning her, which I find to be relatively hilarious. Thankfully, the story also gave Yuki a happy ending, with him finding love in Machi, creating a believable and cute chemistry between the two.
AHEM, back to Kyou. As a standalone character, Kyou’s character journey is an art form. Being born with the ‘accursed’ cat spirit, people are unable to distinguish Kyou as a person from the spirit, causing him to receive a heavy amount of hatred and spite. All of the Zodiac members suffer the same fate, but it is especially so for Kyou. With his mom committing suicide, it scarred Kyou emotionally and mentally, as the people around him force him to acknowledge that it is HIS fault for the suffering of those around him. The tragic circumstances as a kid caused him to develop 2 major traits. The 1st of which being self hatred, thinking that he is not deserving of any form of love. The 2nd being an unhealthy coping mechanism, in the form of burdening Yuki with his hatred, deeming him the one that caused all his misfortune.
Time and time again, he was met with situations where he inevitably hurt those around him due to circumstances he can't control. Even the toughest of will would have a hard time going through what he went through, which is why it is completely understandable for him to harbor such a deep rooted hatred for himself. However, that is not the narrative being told through Kyou. While it is easy to wallow in sorrow, to cry and loathe your own unfortunate circumstances, is it really going to change anything? Sure, it is understandable and even acceptable for us to blame tragic situations for how we turned out to be, but doing so we are ultimately unable to confront our demons and move on. The important aspect of Kyou’s journey is coming to acceptance of his own tragic past, acknowledging that while he may have a part to play in causing the suffering of others, he ultimately shouldn’t constraint himself to the past, that he should learn to forgive himself. Sometimes, the simplest solution is often the hardest. By no means is moving on an easy task, the many characters in Fruits Basket have proven that throughout the span of 63 episodes. Even so, we should not be afraid and limit ourselves to our own tragedy, after all there is no harm in trying to move on and live our lives to the fullest.
Kyou’s unhealthy coping mechanism was also ultimately resolved in the Final Season. Deep down he always knew and understood that his way of coping wasn’t good for him in the long run. In spite of the fact that he knew that Yuki wasn’t the cause of his misery, he continued to put him on a villainous pedestal, because it is easier that way. To know and understand something is different from accepting it. Kyou was initially unable to accept the fact that he was wrong, that Yuki isn’t the villain that he makes out to be. However, he got a wake up call in Tohru, the girl he has an unyielding love for. He was ultimately able to accept it, able to move on, and able to live his life to the fullest. It is interesting to note that Kyou's and Tohru's character arcs are not so dissimilar. Both had the same issues of having a bad way to cope with past traumas, and both managed to overcome them in the end. Kyou’s character journey in this series is no doubt my favourite, given the depth of his character and the amount of dedication and passion put into writing his arc.
But of course, characters can only be portrayed properly with proper visuals. Animated by TMS entertainment, the visuals are just stunning. While there may not be any jaw dropping Sakuga moments, the frames in this show are just inherently pleasing to look at. It is hard to find a single frame where the characters are off model, or the background looks bland. The beautiful visuals bring life to the wonderful characters of Fruits Basket, and I am so glad it got such a premium treatment. Throughout the series you can feel the effort the animators from TMS entertainment put into animating Fruits Basket, and I have to say their hard work definitely paid off. And to no one's surprise, the beautiful visuals are accompanied by equally beautiful music. The OSTs in Fruits Basket really reminded me of the melodic tunes from Clannad. If I have to choose, my personal favourite would probably be ‘I will protect you’ and ‘Spring will come when the snow melts away’, with them playing in a lot of the significant moments of the show, sending goosebumps throughout my body and tears to flow out. The Opening is also incredible. On top of the amazing shots of the characters in the background, the banger song ‘Pleasure’ really suits the vibe of the series. Not to forget the amazing voice actors that gave it their best to give us the most authentic experience this anime can give. There were moments where the characters shined through the collective efforts of the voice actors, going above and beyond to deliver their lines. The production value in this show is just crazy.
With the amazing production values aside, I do have some critics for the show. For starters, there are many scenes that involve showing the tragic past of the characters, which may be a bit overused for some people. For example, we are given multiple iterations of Yuki’s traumatic time with Akito. While it hammers home the point of Yuki being continuously tied to the past, this way of showing it may instead turn the audience off, given that they have already seen essentially the same scenes several times. This can also be seen as a way of over dramatising the characters’ inner turmoil which in turn gives the opposite effect of undermining the problem the characters face. That said, I personally did not have much of a problem with it myself, but it is something I undoubtedly noticed. Furthermore, due to the nature of the story, some of the characters are not fully realised. For example, we barely got any screen time of Souma Ritsu, the person that represents the Monkey, only seeing his character growth in one episode in Season 1. Given his importance as one of the Zodiac members, I thought it was a shame that he didn’t play a bigger role in the story. That said, I rather them focus on the main trio instead of giving these characters with minor roles to play more screen time, so I guess it was a fair trade off. Nonetheless, my point still stands that some of the characters introduced have wasted potential and could have been utilised far more efficiently.
Overall, Fruits Basket was a really wonderful ride, and the Final season was amazing. It's unapologetically genuine characters were a breath of fresh air in the current pool of anime shows. While Akito has always been a thorn in this beautiful story, even she can change. The idea of Fruits Basket is that we should never be tied down by unhealthy restrictive bonds, and instead choose a path to take for ourselves. Whether it is school, your job or your love life, you are free to choose as long as you don’t harm others along the way. It was a surreal experience and I am so glad that I sat through it all :)
A solid 9.5/10
