Given the target demographic of shoujo manga (teenage girls and young women), most shoujo-mangaka tend to tread a fine line between drama, comedy, romance, and, but not always, tragedy. The reason why Furuba became so popular and found its place in the pantheon of one of the best shoujo manga of all time was that it was able to balance the elements of drama, romance and tragedy with such exceptional panache that the series was appreciated not just by women but by men as well. This long-lasting popularity explains why, despite the source material, being over 20 years old was picked up for a complete adaptation. Alas, all that giddy excitement, was for naught.
Due to the large cast of the series, the writers struggle in developing the characters beyond caricatures throughout the series. Given the large cast of characters, this is not too surprising. Most characters get just 10-15 minutes of screentime in each episode. A typical episode runs as follows: a Zodiac is introduced and is usually shown as acting obnoxiously towards Tohru. Her friends (Yuki, Kyo, Arisa, etc.) are shocked but Tohru, being the saintly character, is unfazed. We are then shown a flashback in which the character’s painful past is shown and the character after being awestruck by Tohru’s kindness changes his/her ways.
If this were to happen just once or twice, such a story telling formula could be tolerated. But given that this formula is used more than 15 times, it becomes evident that the writers are using the flashbacks not to flesh out the character getting the screen time but are using them as a plot device to develop Tohru, Yuki and Kyo instead. In other words, the side characters add little to the story other than to give Tohru and her coterie of friends and impetus to develop. However, this in and of itself, is not the anime’s gravest sin.
What makes the adaptation bad is how it squanders these main characters (i.e., Kyo, Yuki, Arisa, etc.) that it painfully develops in the first season in the subsequent season. After episode 7-8 of the second season, the writing quality takes a turn for the worse and all the characters begin acting as if they were cast out of a particularly bad Korean melodrama. They don’t act as real people but instead act like billiard balls, whose trajectories and actions, can be predicted simply by knowing which two characters are on screen. One can easily predict that this is when a character will cry, this is when they will run away, this is where a misunderstanding will occur and so on. In other words, Furuba the anime, does exactly what Furuba the manga, didn’t – it can’t find the balance between the drama, comedy, and romance. In the process, it destroys beloved characters and ends up devolving into a bad melodrama.
By episode 20 of season 2 (i.e., episode 45), I had come to the painful realization that had I continued to watch the anime adaptation my fond memories of the manga version of Tohru/Yuki/Kyo would be replaced by an inferior anime version of Tohru/Yuki/Kyo. That is something that I’d rather not happen and so I dropped this series. I can imagine that viewers who haven’t read truly great shoujo manga series (like Nodame or Mars) may think Furuba the anime is the best series ever. Sadly, it is not.
Not recommended. Season 1 gets a 3.5/5, Season 2 gets a 1.5/5.
