If you only ever watch one shojo anime for the rest of your life, make it Fruits Basket 2019. It is SO. DAMN. GOOD. There's a reason it's been the only shojo to go into the MAL top 10 (and it even hit #1), and is at the top of many "best of" lists. Most fans read the manga and/or watched the 2001 anime as a teen. But I discovered it in my 40s with Fruits Basket 2019, and it captivated me to the point that my family decreed I was obsessed. My teen and I discovered it together, and we both read the manga once and saw the show three times (once in Japanese and twice in English—the dub is fantastic).
STORY 10/10 -
At first it seems like a fun teen story about a clan whose members can turn into zodiac animals, and the girl who stumbles upon their secret and befriends them. But as it goes on, it barely can stay categorized as shojo and really goes into josei (adult) territory because of its extremely deep and sometimes very intense themes and events. The story hit me more deeply than most adult-targeted stories have ever done. Although somehow, the whole way through, it perfectly balances the hard parts with humor and lightness (just like real life often does). And those themes do apply to many teens' lives who experience trauma or difficult family dynamics, so in a way, they are still a (or the) main target audience. But who of us hasn't experienced these things? It gave me the impression that the mangaka must have gotten a degree in psychology, to be able to portray so many different aspects of life and the human psyche so very, very well. But she didn't – she's just extremely insightful. She herself said that the zodiac element was a "hook" to be able to delve into these things in a more engaging, unique way. And she succeeded spectacularly. Yes, you will cry, a lot. I should have bought stock in Kleenex while the show was airing. But there is also a lot of laughter. There's one episode my teen and I watched 5 times because it is so funny.
CHARACTERS 10/10 -
The characters are all interesting and unique. Even though there are a lot more of them than are usually focused on in a manga or anime series, they and their stories are each distinct enough to be remembered easily. Their personalities and actions are all very realistically shaped by their life experiences. The more central characters do, of course, have the most complex stories which get revealed bit by bit over the course of the series. (I would consider these to be Tohru, Yuki, Kyo and Akito.)
PRODUCTION 10/10 -
The art and the music is gorgeous and emotive. As soon as we put the OVA in the player tonight, the menu music evoked the same feelings in us as it had while watching the show. The OP/ED songs and visuals are all great too. The translation from manga to anime is excellent.
CRITICISMS-
1) The pacing of the anime could have been better. Season 1 (24 ep) was very slow (to the point that some people weren't interested enough to continue to where it really picks up the pace and depth). Season 2 (24 ep) was paced about the same as S1 but the story itself had gotten more complex by then. Season 3 (13 ep) was paced at the speed of a bullet train, and some parts of the story that most fans consider to be important, especially as the story neared its end, were cut out. (There is actually a video on YouTube of a viewer-only reading in shock the parts of the manga that S3 left out.) If in the first two seasons the pacing had been a bit faster and some less relevant parts had been cut out, the speed and deletions in S3 wouldn't have been necessary. The OVA covers one backstory that was left out.
2) Some characters' behavior in a few specific scenes was worse than it was in the manga, seemingly to make it more visually dramatic. So people who only watched the show could get the wrong impression of those characters due to this. For one example, a character hits another so hard that they get flung several feet into the air into a shallow pool and could quite easily have been seriously hurt, and doesn't apologize later. In the manga, the hit only pushes the other a few feet backwards, and there is an apology later.
3) The age gap relationships. This is a huge trope in shojo, and it was worse when the manga was written. The producers could have lessened the gaps to improve on that issue without fundamental change to their stories. At least since they are all "side stories" they don't take up much bandwidth in the series. There are four of them, and while the relationships are very interesting if you set the ages aside, this aspect is a detraction/distraction. Some people consider all four to be pedophilia. I actually researched the legal definitions of this to find out more about it, and my conclusion was that with two of them, it depends on what age the female was when she slept with them (which we don't know—it could have been when she was a legal adult). With the third one, the girl is 17 and the man is 26 when they meet, and they start dating when the girl is 18. With the fourth and most problematic one, the girl is 14 or 15 and the man is 22 when they meet, and they get married a year later. Nothing actually happens before their marriage, he isn't a pedophile in general (with other minors), and once married they have a respectful relationship, but this is very unlikely in real life and could mislead teen readers. (Although some fans have said that in their countries where marriages like this are more common, this outcome is not that unrealistic.) The OVA focuses on this last one, and although for some reason I was able to overlook it more when reading the manga, it was definitely uncomfortable to watch the pre-both-adults part of it.
Overall, Fruits Basket 2019 is an absolute must-watch for any anime fan, and I can't recommend it enough.
