ReviewBonfire

Fruit Basket - The Final

In the beginning, I was very skeptical if this anime would convince me, my fears vanished surprisingly quickly. These 3 seasons have given us a great time and were very enjoyable to watch.

Fruit Basket is undoubtedly one of the strongest shows, in the area of character backgrounds and in reflecting the fears of the characters. It has a very relaxing atmosphere and some quite endearing moments and amusing scenarios. As the season progresses, you learn more and more about the characters, their problems, and their backgrounds, as well as how they face them to go further into the future. All in all, this sounds very convincing, if that were all, unfortunately.

To that, I'm sorry to say that this anime doesn't stand out far from your average slice-of-life romance. The music is indeed very nice and the atmosphere is there, as well as having very convincing character backgrounds. But these are also the only strengths of the show.

The author has traded everything in his story to create the best possible backgrounds for the problems and characters, and to give many a certain depth of character. But as I said, this came at a price, because he neglected practically everything else and just let it drift. Dialogue, scenes, and relationships were all mediocre and often even less than that. The characters never had real conversations with each other, just cried or overreacted for humor. You didn't see the bond develop between them as everything happened offscreen. The only thing you had to do here is wait for no one to go around in circles and for a new background to be shown.

[Story 4]

The story reached its climax here, at least that's how you can tell from the description. Otherwise, the season was like any other. Mediocre character interactions, slow pacing, and some newly revealed background. Then came the final confrontation with Akito and yes, somehow that was it. For setting it up like that for 3 seasons, there was no real climax and the "bad guys" in the story didn't really get any karma.
I was at least looking forward to some kind of "redemption arc" for the bad villain. And when it finally happened, not much really occurred. In fact, hardly anything was happening at all. And most of the potential screentime of the character relationships was traded for that. When most of the romance pairings were finally revealed and many confessed their love, I actually just stumped the monitor knowing how little emotion was actually behind it. The final scene from season 1 with Kyo's transformation, held more weight than anything that happened after.

[Characters 7]

The only thing holding the characters back here is their lack of relationship progress and their lack of distinctiveness from the beginning. Most of the characters are either stereotypes or just immensely close. And then we have the dialogues, I really liked this show. But when the characters talk to each other, you don't feel any weight behind it. It feels like an NPC conversation, even if you skip or cut the scene you don't miss anything. Even though they are all supposed to be friends, it sounds like they are talking to relatives they haven't talked to in 10 years, creating this awkward atmosphere.

However, I must say that the respective problems, fears, and ways to overcome them were excellently presented by the author. It was not a black and white contrast, there were dark backgrounds and unfair ones. But equally rational and just plain unhappy endings. The way life is, not everyone has a sad story to tell. Not everyone has someone to curse, but equally, there may be someone hiding just this. These relatively even backgrounds made the whole story feel even more realistic.

I won't go into detail about each character, as they end up having similar strengths and weaknesses tied to their personalities. The only ones I will note here are Kyo and Tohru, Akito, and possibly Giga-Chad Hatsuharu.

Tohru at the beginning is the obvious goofy, naive but lovable girl that belongs in any anime of this type. At least, that's how I thought it would be. However, she is a walking wreck full of problems and tries to suppress her own traumas and disguise her own personality just to achieve those results. Her final self-reflection and confrontation with Akito were great in that regard.

Kyo is one of the few anime characters whom I can understand why they are the way they are. Every bit of his personality was revealed and every reaction he had to others and himself. His entire existence was a mistake in his eyes, which was constantly confirmed by others. A child who grows up in this way will not be able to think otherwise than blaming himself for everything. His constant misinterpretation of events and his later self-reflections added the perfect crowning touch to the whole thing. One of the few anime characters I could really sympathize with, even though I didn't exactly like him.

And Hatszharu, like everyone else, has some interesting backgrounds and motivations. But this all just pales in comparison when it comes to his Chad persona. He carries the humor of the show 50% of the time, is the most chill guy you can find, and gets everything he wants by practically seeing the best routes before his eyes. He's the guy who at 18 already has a business, car, wife, kids, and house. While even at 20-something, you're still pushing through school, and only through his will.
Normally he's the kind of character I would consider the most boring, but here he was oddly my favorite.

Akito was an obvious disappointment until the end. Whoever has already analyzed Akito in seasons 1-2, how their arc will go and how it will be concluded, has already known how it will end. In fact, it happens exactly as one would have expected. And nothing is made of it, even though Akito had immense potential.

[Music 7 / Animation 6]

The intro is average as is the outro but fits the show relatively well. The biggest problem here is the osts. They are good, they fit and underscore the scenes excellently. However, they are used so often, that virtually every episode is 70% background music or even more. The Kyo background episode permanently had a soundtrack that was almost as loud as Kyo, for 10 whole minutes. Something like that completely ruins the atmosphere. It's not even close to as bad as in the anime "Aldonoah Zero" but comes close.

[Conclusion 6]

I wish I could give this anime more, I really do. SO many Sice of Life romances I have seen so far. Most were okay, kind of likable, but none managed to have actual depth. It was constantly about building character relationships and developing romances weak dramas, but you never felt anything behind it.

Here on the contrary I got everything I missed there, I got backgrounds, deep characters, and emotions. However, most of the other points were neglected. Had this anime not left the plot lying, had better dialogue, and more focus on romance, it would have been by far a masterpiece in its genre. Unfortunately, this was squandered.

Nevertheless, I think that Fruit Basket is an absolute MUST for fans of this genre, an anime that is worth watching.

[Enjoyment 7]