[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES]
"It's Not Always Easy To See The Good In People. [...] But If You Can Somehow, Find A Way To Believe, Sometimes That's All It Takes To Help Someone."
The complexity of human emotion is impossible to comprehend. Why do people act the way they do? Why do people feel the way they do? This is one of the hardest jobs a piece of media can take on. Most that do fail in some capacity—and yet. Fruits Basket: The Final not only showcases just this but also does it for so many characters that it’s an absolute wonder and accomplishment in writing. Fruits Basket seems to take the concept of “quality over quantity” and poses the question “what if we had quantity and quality?” Even with the challenge of fleshing out nearly all of the main members of the Sohma family, somehow Natsuki Takaya manages to make some side characters even more interesting and complex than the main Sohma family. In its own right, Fruits Basket: The Final absolutely excels as a brilliant season, but it also excels as the climax to one of anime’s greatest triumphs in romance. On its own, the final season accomplishes two things incredibly well: the pacing and themes of this season are near perfect for the final season of Fruits Basket. Taken in the context of the entire series, the final season also manages to be a stunning finale in how it resolves literally every character arc is presented in its runtime over the years.
The pacing of the final season was a massive change. People online have argued whether this is a good or bad thing. As compared to the slower and more surgical nature of the previous two seasons. First off, I believe it is a good decision to make the pacing as “fast” as it was. It feels as if the writers had to make some tough decisions when deciding how they wanted this season to pan out. The typical affair when it comes to anime seasons is traditionally 12 or 24-25 episodes. (It’s important I point out this next point is largely conjecture) It’s very rare we get a show with an odd number. So, the writers could have either decided on either of those. There might have been budget constraints that prevented them from making a longer show; I don’t know. That being said, I think the decision to make this a shorter season, rather than dragging it out for an extra 12 episodes was the right call. By making the season shorter, it’s almost as if they were able to make the emotional moments of this season hit that much harder. Good pacing is basically defined by how well an audience is captivated and engaged with a show over the course of its run time. There are many ways to do this; the final season does this with exceptionally captivating moments in the story. [As Reddit user u/MartyMcMcFly ]((https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/7nk4py/what_is_good_pacing/)says, “Good pacing is when the film feels like a good ride. It had nice build-ups and drops that keep your attention and focus. […]” This is exactly what the final season does perfectly. This season had so many impactful and important moments though out, and yet it never was uncomfortable overwhelming. The writers of the show really knew when to take the foot off the gas and offer some comedic relief or something more light-hearted following a scene of incredible and heavy emotions. The best example I can offer to exemplify this point would be the scenes where Ayame shows up. Although he was largely absent from this season, the scenes that he was in were always welcome. This is because he provided a distraction from what was to come, or what had already transpired. Breaking up the pacing was also achieved with some more feel-good moments as well. The scene where Akito finally accepts her femininity showcases this the best. Even though I knew deep down I felt as if Akito had not paid for her crimes in full, that didn’t matter. What did matter was how heartwarming it was to see someone who had repressed their femininity for all their whole life, come out to the people she had hurt the most with such beauty and grace. The story makes you forget about how you feel and really focus on the here and now. Of course, this would mean nothing without the big emotional moments of the show. What is important is that the final season seems to strike a perfect balance between these two extremes.
Coming to terms and accepting one’s self was what stuck out to me as being the main theme of this season. It is absolutely beautiful and wonderful to see. Although it might not be immediately evident at first, themes are monumentally important to the value of a story. [Sara Letourneau ]((https://diymfa.com/writing/theme-important)writes that “Theme helps a good story become a compelling one. It represents Katniss’ incentive to fight her way through The Hunger Games, Santiago’s desire to seek buried treasure in The Alchemist, and Frodo’s motivation to destroy the One Ring in the Lord of The Rings trilogy. Most importantly, theme allows readers to relate to the characters and their struggles – and to feel invested in the outcome.” The theme of accepting one’s self was ever-present throughout the final season but it was also carried out exceptionally well. Almost all the most important scenes of the final season had something or everything to do with this theme. In the scene where Akito comes out to all the Sohmas as a woman, Akito is coming to terms with her femininity by dressing up in traditional feminine Japanese clothing as she has never done before. She is also accepting it by showing the Sohmas, the people who she has hurt more than anyone else. In the scene where Kyo and Torhu confess their love to each other in episode 11, before he realizes his curse has been lifted. Kyo is coming to terms with and accepting himself by confessing his love to Torhu. He understands that he might be a burden and his life still might be full of difficulty, but that doesn’t matter if he can spend that time with the one he loves the most. Knowing it will be a difficult relationship because of the curse, he still decides to confess his love to Torhu anyways. I could go on, but that wouldn’t achieve much. The reason this is important is that it’s what really ties everything in this season together. Part of the reason the final season feels so complete is that there is this common theme between all the big moments and character arcs in the show. It represents the cursed Sohma members’ quest to keep on going. In a life filled with unwarranted suffering, the light at the end of this long, twisted tunnel is all of the Sohma members individually coming to terms with themselves and finally accepting who they are.
These are what I feel to be the most important points about why the Final Season is such a good piece of media on its own. What elevates it above and beyond, is what it does with the additional context of being the finale to this 63 episode series. Fruits Basket: The Final is elevated to legendary heights in the world of anime by satisfactorily concluding every one of its major character arcs.
Fruits Basket has an ungodly amount of main characters: 14 members under the zodiac curse, 3 student council members, 2 of Torhu’s friends, God, and 1 Honda Torhu san. There are others as well, like Kyo’s teacher and the Yuki fan club, but they are not as essential to the plot. Somehow even they had their character arcs resolved as well. As I alluded to before, the concept of “Quality over quantity” does not exist in the mind of Natsuki Takaya. The complexity behind each character in Fruits Basket is mindboggling. With one or two important exceptions each one of the characters I listed above had a fully fleshed out back story, unique struggles, huge character development, and a unique subplot dedicated to them. What the final aimed to do, was to wrap up each of them-- It succeeded. There is close to nothing left unresolved. Why was Akito so mentally unstable and why did he lash out so frequently at the Sohmas? Why is Torhu such a goody-two-shoes? Why does Shigure manipulate and take advantage of everyone? All the important questions were all answered and most things that were unanswered were left like that on purpose in order to leave the audience with something to think about.
What is important to understand about the final season is that this is the end. There is nothing after this point, meaning that the series had to end itself properly. Fruits Basket simply isn’t an expansive universe with many extra pieces of media it can produce. The series, chronologically, ended with the final season. As such, the series had to tie everything up nicely. Given this condition, the reason why the final season was such a triumph was because of how well everything was tied together. There wasn’t much that we were left wondering. Almost every character arc was concluded, every mystery answered, every confession confessed. On top of this, they all ended in a manner where the audience is left satisfied. It wasn’t a completely happy ending, as some character arcs ended bittersweet. However, everyone (mostly) got what they deserved.
Finally, this brings me to the few criticisms I will levy against the show. Although they are few, they are important enough for me to talk about. I said this previously, but it feels as if the directors for the Final Season had to strategically cut corners in order to come out with the product that they did. The aspect that suffered most because of this has to do with the characters.
It might seem odd for me to criticize the characters of the show when I was clearly wholly praising them before. Although I appreciate how the depth that each individual brings to the table with Fruits Basket, it is clear that not all of them got the attention they deserved. I would say a good half of the Zodiac members were sidelined for the final season. This isn’t a huge problem when their arcs had already been previously resolved in previous seasons. However, I don’t think that to be the case with a few characters: Ayame and Ritsu. Honestly, this is understandable given that this was a shorter season compared to first and second. However, that doesn’t really excuse how sidelined Ritsu was by the entire story. This was to the point that he literally didn’t even have a spot in the final season OP. He received close to no attention, only getting one episode dedicated to him in the first season. This, by no means, is a huge narrative problem, however, it did leave me wanting more of Ritsu. Compared to the rest of the cast, not only did he receive little to no development but he also seemed much more shallow. Obviously, if a character doesn’t have time dedicated to them, then it’s difficult for them to develop much. That being said, Fruits Basket has proven that it can craft a really loving and touching narrative in a very small amount of screen time (like Yuki and Machi). I am very glad that they decided to acknowledge him in the final episodes, as it not only tied into the core themes of the show but it was personally really heartwarming to see. However, if this is what is what it took for them to make the show as good as it was, I would much rather take the final season we got rather than extra Ritsu screen time. This is a common thread that I share with most of my criticisms, while I do take problem with it, I am still very content with the final season. If they had to cut corners to get to where they were, then so be it. Ayame shares a similar story with Ritsu, but to a lesser extent. Obviously, we got to spend more time with Ayame in Second Season and that just made his absence in the final season even more apparent. All the Ayame moments we had in the final season were absolutely spot on. The comic relief he provided was a necessary part of the final season, but it would have benefitted more from more Ayame.
While this is more of a personal gripe, the more I think about it, the more I realize how I’m not satisfied with how certain plot points in the show were resolved. To be clear, while I was watching the show, it’s not something that immediately jumped out to me until I sat down to think for a bit. Namely, the consequences that Akito and Shigure received seemed very light with respect to the actions that they carried out and the climax of the show seems a bit overly convenient. The fact that Akito literally emotionally manipulated every single cursed Sohma into depression seriously messed up a lot of their childhood development, and attempted MURDER to not directly receive any outside consequences is a bit ridiculous. Anything that Akito experienced while coming to terms with what he had done to the Sohma family was brought upon by herself. Most of the time, when crimes like that are committed, people are prosecuted under the law or the victims of said criminal punishes them in some way. However, in the end, Akito basically got away with everything she did. Granted, she does seem to learn from her mistakes and become a better person because of it and I found myself being genuinely happy for her. But I couldn’t help but feel that the punishment she got was like a slap on the wrist for some unimaginable crimes. The same thing goes for Shigure as well. Shigure manipulated nearly every Sohma member and Torhu in order to get what he wanted; this includes sleeping with Akito’s mom, Ren. He only did this to get back at Akito for something she couldn’t even fully grasp herself. He’s childish and immature to a fault, and, to be fair, that’s what people really like about him too. After doing all this, he didn’t learn a damn thing. Hatori and he had a conversation about this same subject and it boiled down to Hatori saying, “you got what you wanted in the end didn’t you?” It certainly made for an interesting narrative, and it’s entirely possible I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s possible Takaya tried an alternate ending where they received due punishment, only for it to end up not working the way she wanted or she just wasn’t satisfied. However, as I said before, this is just how I feel, and this section of the essay/review is more based on personal opinion than analysis, also hence why I am using the word “I” a bit more. Finally, one thing I’ve started to dwell upon is how convenient the climax of the entire series feels. I now know why the fandom likes to talk cliffhangers so much. Even though Torhu falling off a cliff yielded some amazing character interactions between the cast, the reasoning behind her actually falling off feels very underwhelming. The cliff just collapsed and she fell off, in other words, it was mere coincidence. The writing here just doesn’t feel up to standard with the rest of the series where everything seems to have sophisticated and well thought-out reasoning behind it. Even a simple explanation with some noticeable foreshadowing would have sufficed but in the context of the final season alone, it just feels shallow, convenient and underwhelming for me. This doesn’t mean that the scenes before or after this were bad, honestly, they were really good. Just the writing for that scene in particular struck me as poorly written, as it somewhat came out of nowhere.
Fruits Basket is very special to me. I watched the first season around the time I started watching anime and I was able to catch finish it by the time the second season started airing. Ever since then, I have fallen in love with each one of these characters. I personally feel like I can identify with Yuki and his struggles more than anyone in the cast, which is why his relationship with Machi makes me so happy. However, to a certain extent, I feel like every one of the characters in Fruits Basket has something about them that I can relate to. Kyo’s yearning for love, Hatsuharu’s willingness to break the rules for what he thinks is right, Kisa’s silence in the face of adversity, Akito’s world falling apart around him; all of these characters have something uniquely personal to them. The advantage of having so many well-written characters in a show is that there is something for everyone. I can confidently say there is not one person who cannot relate to at least one of the characters of Fruits Basket to some extent and I think that is truly special. While the slice of life genre may not be for everyone, Fruits Basket transcends the genre and brings so many new and wonderful things to the table. Even with all its flaws, nothing in the final season truly feels wasted. Questionable writing decisions are followed up by amazing character interactions; the characters I should dislike, I end up truly caring for. This is the power of Natsuki Takaya. The power to make you feel for characters you hate, the power to make you cry when you’re out of tears, and the power to make you feel like it’s ok to be yourself. It’s ok to truly open up and be yourself around the people you love. It’s ok to love and you are valid. There are so many things that Fruits Basket has taught me and I am so happy that I was able to see history being made in front of my eyes. Thank you so much Natsuki Takaya.
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