Review of Fruits Basket

Death, loss, losing a loved one: These are not easy things for anyone to deal with. How do you cope when a tragic event like that occurs? Are you in denial? Do you accept that person’s death and try to move on with your life? In Fruits Basket, we learn about how to deal with such sad things. -Story & Characters- Meet Tohru Honda, a young girl whose mother passed away and now lives in the woods by herself in a tent so as not to “bother anybody”. On a typical day, Tohru is out for a walk and notices a small house. She decidesto investigate and learns that it is the home of the Sohmas, a family where each member actually represents an animal of the zodiac. Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure, the residents of the house, talk with Torhu for a time and think that a young girl should not be living outside in the wilderness and instead invite her to stay with them. While initially skeptical, she agrees to their offer.

The rest of the anime moves along and becomes more or less a slice of life. I usually don’t care for that genre, but here, I was entertaining for various reasons. For one, whenever a member of the zodiac makes full-body contact with someone of the opposite sex, they temporarily transform into their respective animal. This makes for some amusing scenes when someone accidentally transforms in public, for example.

While a lot of the anime stays on the lighthearted side of things, there are more than a handful of instances when the show turns much darker, mainly pertaining to the backstories of the characters, particularly that of Momiji. The last three episodes, though, are when the show completely drops its silliness, and becomes rather sad. These episodes were the best part of the show.

Speaking of which, the characters themselves are easily the highlight of the show. Each of them have diverse personalities and interact with one another in interesting ways. My only real complaint is that there are way too many characters. To be fair, this anime is actually an adaptation of a manga (Which I have yet to read), so I’m sure that it worked a lot better there, but this is a review for the anime, and it was bothersome. But surprisingly, even the characters that get a measly one or two episodes of screen time will leave some kind of an impression on you.

The overall story is hard to talk about without spoiling anything because it’s very simple. Not that there’s anything wrong with that inherently, mind you, but it’s something to keep in mind. If you’re looking for a thought-provoking story filled with twists and turns every which way, you’re going to be disappointed. However, the story is still charming, the characters are loveable, and that’s what matters.

-Visuals & Sound-
This is an old anime, coming out more than 10 years ago, so it’s hard to knock on its visuals too much. It hasn’t aged all that well, but it has a nice art style. I haven’t watched that many old animes, so I can’t really say much here.

The show’s voice acting, however, is really great. Laura Bailey nails Tohru perfectly, and I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to do her voice. I’ve never even heard of most of the other actors here, and they all performed extremely well. I highly recommend watching this anime dubbed.

As for the music, nothing really stood out. It did its job, and never felt intrusive or out-of-place, but there was never that one good song. The show also features only one opening, and I found this opening to be extremely dull and boring. The song itself is serviceable at best, and the actual animation (Or lack thereof) is very underwhelming. Nothing exciting or interesting happens in the opening, and I found myself skipping the opening whenever I booted up an episode.

-Conclusion-
Overall, Fruits Basket is a very nice show. It’s not one that will blow you away, but it’s a very nice, warm, feel-good show that you can’t help but love. While the show is actually catered more towards females, there’s no reason why males can’t enjoy this. The show is mostly lighthearted and fun, but it’s also god a handful of dark moments to spice things up, and the last three episodes will definitely leave you teary eyed.

Highly recommended.

+Nice, fun, charming story
+Some very dark moments
+Loveable characters
+The last three episodes are very powerful and emotional
+Great dub
-Hasn’t aged well visually
-Nothing sticks out musically
-Too many characters

Final score:
8/10