[TL;DR: Fruits Basket has the hallmarks of an interesting story with great visuals and presentation, which ends up slowly drowning in a swamp of awful writing, bad tropes, too many characters and just mountains of needless melodrama. There are some really interesting bits about the supernatural, the Zodiac curse and the people involved, stories about redemption, reconciliation and a painfully slow buildup to an epic finale...that never comes. The whole franchise is an ultimately unsatisfying dive into a pit of dark melodrama peppered with bad slapstick and a whole lot of unresolved childhood trauma. Unless you are prepared to wade through this emotionally and literarily confusing mess for three whole seasons, look for something else to watch.]
"Bad Parents: The Anime", which should've been the title of this series, since it has absolutely nothing to do with fruit or baskets (or fruitbaskets) in the slightest, but a lot more with just the worst parents in the history of forever. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
*Some light spoilers ahead. No specific plot points, just overarching theme*
The story revolves around the "Chinese Zodiac animals" and the curse/story connected to them, if they were real people living today. It's a really interesting concept and it's effects and repercussions are introduced very early in the series. Meaning two effects actually. One, the Zodiac people turn into their respective animal forms if they are ever hugged by a female. Yes, it IS Ranma ½ level of cringe, and while it's mostly used for comic relief purposes early on, it's completely forgotten by end of the first season, and later only comes up to serve as a dark reminder of how they are "forbidden to get intimate with anyone" or something. The second repercussion is that all the Zodiac animals are bound by the curse to Akito, their God-analogue, to obey, love and worship her for all eternity. Or not. Or just kinda. Or just some of them. Or...who the hell knows, really. Supposedly the main pillar of the entire story, this "bond", The Curse™ is so vague and badly defined, it's rules are constantly changed and contorted in contradictory ways for plot convenience all throughout the series. It's not only confusing and ruins any buildup but goes to show how the anime can't even adhere to it's own rules, which will be a constant theme in the series going forward.
Okay, let's get this "Bad Parents" thing I mentioned before out of the way first. Except for one important exception, every single parent in the anime is the most horrendous, incompetent, evil, abject human trash the world has ever seen. Every single notable character in the series suffers from the worst possible childhood traumas you can imagine (and some you can't), which scarred them for life in various horrific ways. The vast majority of the drama in the entire series comes from this metric F-tons of unresolved mental and emotional baggage that would give second-hand PTSD to even the most seasoned therapists. All these parents are so unrealistically cruel and vile to their children, it sometimes borders on hilarity. Failing to live up to impossible expectations, being used for monetary gain, parents trying to vicariously live through their children, blame them for their own failings or even the deaths of loved ones, the good old "I wish you were never born" schtick, etc. You get an entire smorgasbord of just the worst mental anguish you can imagine which comes up sooner or later with each and every character and addressed in great detail.
The whole series is basically a bunch of fundamentally broken and borderline crazy people yelling/crying at each other about real or perceived atrocities and their hilariously awful upbringing preventing them from living a normal life or having basic human connections. This doesn't just affect the Zodiac people, but most other side characters as well, each bringing their own special blend of fucked up to the table.
Now, the anime tries to turn this whole mess into one giant redemption story, where our Mary-Sue protagonist Tooru, a simple highschool girl, uses the power of Being Nice™ (and crying, like, a LOT of crying) to magically resolve their respective traumas (which would normally need YEARS of hard therapy) and show them they are all worthy of love and respect, facing their past and yaddy-yadda, boom, you're magically cured. The whole series is swimming in incredibly drawn out melodrama. There is yelling, pain, anguish, anger, fighting and oh, did I mention crying? There's a metric fuckton of crying, like oceans of tears and sobbing set to sad music and rain. Which is sometimes rudely interrupted by some awfully placed comic relief bits, but I digress.
Everything I just said still wouldn't be so bad if the series didn't move at an absolute snail's pace. The pacing of the story is all over the place, sometimes speeding through important parts while spending criminally long stints at forgettable side stuff that never comes up again and lingering on scenes that outstay their welcome really quickly. Not to mention some of the character's incredibly dumb decisions and remarks of "we talk about this later", "this is not time for this", "when right time comes" bullshit, that only serves to drag out the runtime. All that, coupled with the insanely droll and drawn out bits of melodrama just makes watching Fruits Basket a real exercise in frustration. You can skip through entire episodes of crying, shouting and flashbacks and you wouldn't miss anything. The whole series could easily be edited down to half the episode count and you'd still get the complete experience, without all the unnecessary slack (which will hopefully happen in the upcoming Fruits Basket: Prelude movie).
***For those concerned: No, I will not address the rampant insinuations of rape, pedophilia, grooming, physical and psychological abuse and other vile acts that may or may not be in the franchise. It's not my place to do so and there's enough awful shit in this mess without me having to go there, so don't ask. 'Nuff said.
The one saving grace of Fruits Basket could be the art style, which is not incredible by any means, but it's pleasant to look at and has some really nice sceneries, decent animation and real production quality to it. The music and sound are also really good additions and enhance an otherwise pretty lackluster story.
In closing, all I can say is, that Fruits Basket had real potential. A really good premise with nice art style, that ultimately got dragged down to a confusing, plot-hole-ridden black hole of incessant melodrama and bad pacing. I know many people absolutely adore this series (judging by all the 10/10 ratings here alone), and I don't mean to invalidate anyone's enjoyment of the franchise, but some things have to be said out loud when it comes to this anime. If you've enjoyed it, more power to you. If not, it's time to move on to different waters. Thanks for reading!
