Fruits Basket
, written by Takaya Natsuki, is a story that touched my with its characters. It had a great story, nice animation, a good soundtrack, and everything a good anime needs. I won’t be focusing on any of those in this review. In fact, I don’t know if I can call this much of a review at all. It’s more a ramble on 4 specific characters in this series, and how they, to me, have almost left the screen and turned into real people inside my head. There are decently heavy spoilers here, so watch out for that, and I hope you can bear with me in this ramble. Let’s just start with my favourite character, my rat boy Yuki.
Yuki
, in my opinion, still steals the show. Everyone else was great, and I’ll get to that later (a small part being a spoiler section), but I want to focus on Yuki first. From the very first episode of season 1 to the last episode of season 3, we’ve seen him evolve, get stronger, get friends, get a true life and real bonds with people, we’ve seen his life, his friendships, and most importantly himself just get so much better. From a cold prince to adore from a distance to a warm caring human being that you can talk to while knowing he won’t let you down. A man he always was from inside, but a man that needed a couple (or I guess maybe a lot) of nudges in the right direction to get it out into the open. More than any other character in the show, I adore him and everything he stands for, because he worked for what he got and deserves every single bit of it.
Akito
, the guy who was the most important factor in the suffering of all of the cast we know and love. The little child that emotionally and sometimes physically hurt people the second they didn’t fully do what he wished. The brat that almost killed multiple people, and drove others away. The unforgivable irredeemable boy that I hated so much in the second season that I could not watch all of it in a speed I would have usually purely because the sight of him made me want to puke and every single action he did was more vile than the last. Yet also, the little girl that was promised eternal bonds that could never break, raised to become the man of the Souma clan, the girl that was left with a father that loved his mother more than he did her, the girl with a mother that hated every single thing that that girl stood for, the girl who got manipulated and saw everything she ever knew fall apart in front of her own eyes. A girl that, in my eyes, still is irredeemable. And yet, a girl who has finally taken steps in the right direction. A girl who has to shoulder what she has done before for the rest of her life, but a girl that I hope from now on manages to walk the path she wants to and becoming a girl that is allowed to actually live. I can’t ever fully forgive her, but I am willing to believe in the new Akito Souma, and I hope that she (and her honestly way too old boyfriend, because who decided that that was cute?) will be able to turn into a person worthy of the unconditional love that was given to her by Kureno, and by Tohru. Speaking of Tohru, let’s talk about her and her new kitty- I mean boyfriend.
Kyo and Tohru
, where do I even begin? Slowly but surely, we saw them fall more and more in love in the first couple seasons, and while the romance was not at all in the foreground for most of the series, you could feel it develop as it progressed. Kyo has made mistake after mistake after mistake, but after a bit he finally started to not only own up to it, but also fully show his full true side. Still a dumbass, but a dumbass with a lot of things that have haunted him for so long. Things he has blamed himself for all this time, and some that would have made most people not be able to forgive him, even when knowing it’s not fully their fault. I don’t think I could, at least not immediately. Some of it are things you’d have to think over, even though you know that he did not want any of that to happen, that he is almost fully innocent, and that he’s just been through enough already. This all leads into Tohru being everything I’m not.
Oh Tohru
, How you have suffered so much, but how much you’ve gotten. With the best mother a girl can have taken so soon, having to shoulder all that on top of everything else you already have piled upon everything you’re carrying, and yet still pushing forward with that smile that cures everyone else’s souls of their burdens. A girl way too kind for her own good, that sees the good in other people to a fault, a way kinder person than I ever will be and most people probably should be. An angel for the Souma family she was, purely by her kindness and her inability to give up on other people. A perfect role model she is anything but, but for the Souma family she was the mother that many of them desperately needed. A girl that wanted to make everyone else happy before she allowed herself to be, which we were shown time and again, but a girl that needed that helping hand herself just as much. I’m happy that Kyo, Yuki, Momiji, and more of them were able to be those people. I’m so happy that she met Hanajima and Uotani as early as she did. I’m happy that they were there for her, I’m happy that all of them were. Oh Tohru, I’m sure that if your mother knew, she’d be jumping around in excitement about that being her little princess. I’m tearing up a little again just thinking about it.
Fruits Basket, to me, revels in its characters.
Almost every single one is fully fleshed out, and has managed to blow me away by just how great they are. I only named 4 of them here, but A lot of them I can say just as much about. I have almost nothing but praise for Takaya Natsuki, and her entire story. I know I didn’t say much about the story itself, and while it’s good it’s not what makes Fruits Basket for me. Fruits Basket is Tohru Honda, Kyo Souma, Yuki Souma, Arisa Uotani, Saki Hanajima, Hatori, Hatsuharu, Isuzu, Momiji Souma, and so many more (except Shigure. Fuck Shigure.) I hope that with this I was able to convey how much I think of the characters in this series, how much I care for them as if they were real people. Fruits Basket was a beautiful story, which I won’t forget for a while.
