zodiac

The Turning Seasons

Fruits Basket Episode 23

After two weeks of digging into Hanajima’s past and her relationship with Tohru it was time to get back to the main group living in Shigure’s house and episode 23 does this with a bang. We do start at school with Tohru depressed because she failed one of her tests and has to take make-overs but we end up with Kagura and Kyo going shopping before returning to meet a visitor to the house. There’s a lot going on in this episode and clearly we’re gearing up for a climax.

There’s also a lot of character reminders as Momoji gets a moment to be adorable filling in for Tohru at work, Kisa and Hatori visit Tohru when she’s sick, and Kagura turns up to… well pretty sure she just turns up to freak Kyo out sometimes.

I wonder what it is like for those who haven’t seen the original and haven’t read the manga as we see Kyo coming back into focus this episode. For me this is a moment I’ve been waiting for since the reboot started and now I’m itching for next week to come to see how this more subdued and nuanced version of Fruits Basket decides to deal with it. However, this build up was fantastic to watch.

The first part of the episode gave Kyo and Tohru so many quiet moments together and we see how close he’s become to her even though he’s tried to keep a distance. It is a distance that Kagura reflects on later in the episode as she thinks about the fact that it is Kyo who keeps others away from him rather than others choosing not to be around him (and to some extent that is both true and false).

Affiliate Link – Manga

As we turn into the second half of the episode, we notice that Kyo is being severely affected by the rain. After being basically thrown out of the house to go shopping with Kagura, Kyo wants to know what she likes about him though we don’t end up getting an answer. The relationship between those two remains pretty complicated and from a romantic point of view pretty one sided from Kagura.

However, there’s no resolution in this episode as we’re mostly building up to what is coming and it was very nicely done even if it did leave me frustrated that I now have to wait another week for the next episode.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Fruits Basket. Dir. Y Ibata. TMS Entertainment. 2019.

The Tough Talker

Fruits Basket Episode 20

This episode of Fruits Basket is an interesting one because it gets us to that emotional feel good payoff that we love from the series but it does through the device of a really annoying character. Hiro is a well written obnoxious character because he is undeniably obnoxious and yet at the same time you can sympathise with how he ended up in that state, even if you can also sympathise with Kyo wanting to deck him about three times during the episode.

Following up on the adorable episode Kisa had back at episode 18, we now meet Hiro, who is about the same age and in love with her but feeling pretty bitter and useless because he couldn’t help her when she was being bullied. Worse than that, he feels responsible for her being injured by Akito because he told Akito that he liked her. For a kid, feeling completely powerless to protect or help the one you like is a hard emotion to deal with and in Hiro’s case he has most definitely developed a nasty and prickly exterior and he is most definitely unloading on Tohru who has done literally nothing to deserve it.

I do love how everyone in the show is more annoyed at Hiro for his actions and verbal abuse of Tohru than Tohru. While she isn’t exactly loving his actions, particularly when he stole a picture of her mother, she continues to maintain her stance on looking for the underlying reason for people’s actions and tries to understand Hiro.

I wonder if Tohru is going for sainthood or something because Hiro is incredibly aggravating.

Affiliate Link – Manga

That said, the relationship between Kisa and Hiro is pretty adorable and you can fully understand why Hiro feels bad about not being able to protect her. Does anyone else find it amusing though that the sheep fell in love with the tiger and the sheep is the one feeling bad about not being able to defend the tiger? I just found that kind of amusing.

Anyway, despite Hiro being an irritating character, it doesn’t take any shine off the sweet ending delivered in the episode and while last week kind of missed the feels that I love so much about this anime, Fruits Basket came back strong this week and made me smile while simultaneously making me want to cry so well done to it.

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Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
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Karandi James

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Would you like to read more about Fruits Basket’s feels?

Images from: Fruits Basket. Dir. Y Ibata. TMS Entertainment. 2019.

A Battle Between Apologists

Fruits Basket Episode 19

After watching this episode, I kind of get why this story and this character were left out of the original anime. In addition to being a re-run personality type, this episode uses suicide as a punchline multiple times throughout and ends with the two most annoying characters in the show having a heart to heart seeing who could apologise more. It kind of damages the calm healing this series has going for it even when it has used over the top humour previously.

However, I should probably start at the beginning of the episode where we realise that Shigure is once again playing with his editor. It is really a cruel game but honestly his editor might as well have ‘designated victim’ tattooed on her forehead. She’s a professional and should stop falling emotionally apart every time he messes with her. Honestly, I refuse to believe that his books sell so well that the publishers are willing to put up with this kind of unprofessional behaviour in the first place.

So we were off to a rough start right from the get go and then Ritsu showed up. Now, we’d met Ritsu’s mother before at the hotsprings so we kind of expected the personality we got but when paired with the editor’s wails and dramatic suicide gestures this whole episode just kind of puttered along. It isn’t broken by any means but none of what I find appealing about Fruits Basket is really on display.

Affiliate Link – Manga

Perhaps that’s why Tohru’s ‘find a reason to live’ speech on the roof is so incredibly heavy handed. Maybe they were trying to compensate for the lack of warm and fuzzy feels that this episode would deliver. I do know that the roof scene is problematic, not just because someone was threatening suicide on it.

I’m remembering the New Year’s episode when Yuki, Kyo and Tohru all happily walked around that roof without a care, all smiles, to watch the sun rise. Now Yuki and Kyo are freaking out that Tohru is up there and naturally she slips on a loose tile and nearly falls off. I’m struggling to see why a roof that was perfectly safe when it was likely damp from snow is suddenly a death trap other than a contrived bit of tension, but even then, Tohru barely pauses her speech so there’s not exactly any drama going on here.

Anyway, that’s literally it for the episode and no, it certainly isn’t my favourite, but it isn’t as though I hated it either. It was more just kind of on the edge of annoying without delivering that happy buzz I normally get from Fruits Basket.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Fruits Basket. Dir. Y Ibata. TMS Entertainment. 2019.

Love and Courage

Fruits Basket Episode 18

After two episodes that filled in Arisa’s back-story we now get a single episode that introduces Kisa, the tiger from the zodiac, and also shows us Yuki finding the resolve to take action. In this episode of Fruits Basket we learn that many of the children of the zodiac become victims of bullying and the events surrounding Kisa’s decision to stop speaking and then to run away strike a chord with Haru and Yuki, to a lesser extent Kyo.

However, as with Yuki and even Haru, Tohru’s personality acts as a soothing balm and Kisa, while not instantly cured, starts to find the strength to stand again. As much as nothing changed about Kisa’s situation at school and with her classmates, knowing Tohru gave her the resolve she needed.

Likewise, Yuki, through watching Kisa’s struggle and knowing how Tohru’s presence made all the difference, could reflect on himself and realised that even though he wasn’t still curled up alone in a room, he wasn’t really moving forward either. Again, Tohru’s presence in his life gave him the strength he needed to make the decision to act.

While the episode doesn’t deal with the outcomes of either Kisa’s decision to return to school or Yuki’s decision to become the next student council president, the mere act of them moving forward is all the resolution this episode needs.

Affiliate Link – Manga

And if nothing else, it is worth remembering that Tohru is practically the light at the end of the tunnel for every character in this series. Her very existence makes their world brighter.

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Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
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Karandi James

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Would you like to read more about Fruits Basket’s feels?

Images from: Fruits Basket. Dir. Y Ibata. TMS Entertainment. 2019.

A Night To Remember

Fruits Basket Episode 17

Two part episodes need to pack a punch to make them worth the mileage, and the wait if you are watching weekly, and episode 17 of Fruits Basket did just that. We hear the end of Arisa’s story about how she left the gang and ended up Tohru’s friend and so attached to Kyoko and it more or less reduced me to tears by the end. I do however find it odd that we’ve learned more about Tohru’s mother from Arisa than from Tohru throughout this series.

Arisa doesn’t relate the whole story to the boys though. She cuts off midway and we have a diversion with the girl gang who were following the group challenging Arisa to a fight. At first it felt like an unwelcome intrusion and then I realise how necessary it was in order for the quieter emotional points of this story to hit home. As a result, while I didn’t all that much like those parts, the episode as whole is better because of them.

And there are a lot of those quieter emotional parts. Whether it is Tohru and Arisa falling asleep in the apartment, Tohru making Arisa a cupcake, or Kyoko carrying Arisa home, each point lingers just the right amount of time and sets off the warm and fuzzy emotions that they are aiming for.

That the girls in the gang end up very much enamoured with Arisa and the post credits show them very much becoming Arisa’s fan club, is kind of sweet in a really goofy kind of way and feels like a nice way to end that part of the episode.

Affiliate Link – Manga

Alright, that’s about it for this week in Fruits Basket. It remains at its best when it is in the process of making me cry and it did that beautifully this week. I still think the new OP doesn’t really fit with that tone however and that’s probably the only sour note to speak of when it comes to this episode.

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Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James

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Would you like to read more about Fruits Basket’s feels?