Review of Fruits Basket

Delightfully charming and serious when it needed to be too. Spoilers ahead. With reboots becoming much more common these days, I've subscribed to the "watch reboot first and then watch original for nostalgia's sake" club. I found this a satisfactory method when watching Fullmetal Alchemist and decided to do the same when watching Fruits Basket. I watched all 3 Fruits Basket (2019) seasons as they were airing and absolutely fell in love with the franchise. When it came to an end in June 2021, I decided to pick up the original because I wanted to consume every last bit of this franchise that I could. When Iwatched the original Fullmetal Alchemist after watching Brotherhood, I enjoyed it somewhat but was mostly bored and upset at all the cut characters and plotlines. I expected a similar situation watching the original Fruits Basket. That was not the case.

I see why this show was popular back in the 2000s. It was absolutely a joy to watch. The charm and humor that makes Fruits Basket so wonderful is still there, and while much of the drama that occurs later in the manga never made it into this series, the show still tackles serious themes well, and I think the last few episodes are testament to that. I laughed and cried and thoroughly enjoyed my time watching the original Fruits Basket. I think that if the manga had been completed and this series had chosen to tackle all of it, it might have done a pretty satisfactory job. Story-wise, nearly everything was the same compared to the reboot besides the ending and a few changes here and there.

There were, of course, some issues I still had. Obviously a HUGE chunk of the story is missing (the better chunk I would argue too), which is why I couldn't really rank this higher than an 8 since most of the 10 quality plots occur in later seasons of the Fruits Basket reboot. This series also really emphasized humor more than the reboot, and while that was enjoyable, I found I cried much less at this series compared to the reboot. Don't get me wrong, I love to laugh, but that sense of beauty and sadness so prevalent in the reboot was lost in the original series. Yes, I still cried multiple times, so this series was still adapting the wonderful story elements of Fruits Basket well, but I cried much less than I did even watching Season 1 of the reboot.

In terms of story elements, super strange having Akito being male, not a huge fan of Yuki's feminine voice, and yeah, the ending is as poor and vague as you would expect watching an anime trying to find an original ending when the manga is not yet complete. I have to give the anime credit for Tohru trying to reach out to and comfort Akito as it was very similar to what actually happens in the manga and reboot, but then afterwards everything is left extremely vague and there's no true closure (again, expected, but I would argue the vague ending of 2003's Fullmetal Alchemist tackled this same issue better). The animation really isn't great either considering this anime's older age and Studio Deen, but I was mostly here for the story, not the animation quality.

That being said, I did really like watching this, and while I never could imagine myself watching the original Fullmetal Alchemist again, I could definitely see myself rewatching the original Fruits Basket when in the mood. Of course, I will always give priority to the reboot for its better, complete story, but I see now why so many people enjoyed the original.

I'd probably still recommend that if you're on the fence between watching this and the reboot first, definitely watch the reboot and just pop this on afterwards for some nostalgia's sake. Both are pretty equal I would argue in terms of sharing the first few arcs of Fruits Basket, but obviously the reboot is going to be the one that gives you a more satisfying and complete story.