Welcome to the new type of review!
In this section we will take look at the shows I've watched and I will try to
give you a few reasons to watch or a few reason why it's not worth your
time. Sometimes it's hard to write a review for every show you watch, a
good review that is. But you can always make a list of things you liked and
disliked about the show!
I am covering a lot of the anime in Anime wrap-up or Down the memory
lane, but that's usually just to tell you my opinion and score.
In this section, I will try to address the strong and the weak sides of the
anime we're covering. Standalone series will have one post dedicated to them,
and series (OVAs, specials and sequels) will be done together as well.
This part will be updated once I finish the sequel(s)! Stay updated!
Fruits Basket: 1st Season (2019)
Quick summary:
Honda Tooru is a space cadet and a goof. She is too good for her own good
and honestly a bit of a pushover. All of that results in her living in a
tent - but she is found out by the boys of the Soma family and she finds
herself living with them.
But that's not the biggest surprise she is faced with. Soon she find out
that the story about Zodiacs her mom told her is true and the Soma family
is cursed - changing into their perspective Zodiac animals once someone of
the opposite sex hugs them.
Tooru's life is filled with joy and interesting interactions as she
meets the members of this clan... but something dark is lurking in the
shadows, and it isn't just one thing... Tooru's life might be in danger.
And not only hers.
Genres: Comedy - Drama - Romance - Slice of Life - Supernatural
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Season: Spring 2019
╭────────── · 𓆩🌻𓆪 · ─╮
╰─ · 𓆩🌻𓆪 · ──────────╯
👌 Cute girls, pretty boys and adorable animals
Fruits Basket is filled with pretty characters and thankfully the 2019
version is very visually pleasing. Tooru is a very pretty girl, just as
her friends. One by one she meets the cute prince (Yuki), the attractive
red-haired Kyo, Shigure who has that mature beauty to him, handsome
Hatori... I could keep naming for few more minutes.
It doesn't really matter who you pick, all of them are incredibly
adorable - so you can pick a few 'waifus' and a few more 'husbandos'. You
just won't get bored!
Also, let me mention that their animal forms are adorable as well. Even
the bigger animals are depicted in a cute way.
We all know a visually pleasing anime makes half of the joy of watching
it.
👌 You get trauma! You get trauma! We get trauma!
Not only the visual side is well done. Each character has their own (sad)
backstory which helps us connect to them on a deeper level. Given, we
didn't meet all of them and some of them had little time to shine - but I
just know it will come in later seasons.
It's not forced though. And it does not push the drama forward. It's
simple, yet shaping. It helps us understand the character, or it shows us
where the story will go and what to expect to come.
From those that are obvious - Toohru loosing her family, Yuki trying to run
from the Soma family and Kyo desperately wanting to crawl his way into - to
those that are only implied - who really is Akito? What is Shigure planning
to do with Toohru?
Now for some hidden spoilers: this section will tell you some of the
sad backstories but won't tell you what character it's about. If you
do not wish to have certain things revealed, please move to the next
point!
Some characters deal with the loss of a loved one - whether it's
moms that could never accept their son or it's a love that couldn't
be fulfilled. Some characters get bullied, some characters had
messed up families or childhood. Also the 'True form' plot twist was
very powerful in terms of character development. There are
backstories that aren't really that emotional but still have a great
value.
I can't stress enough how entertained you will stay during those
25 episodes!
👌 Being the target audience really helps
Given that I enjoy everything this anime is, tries to be and aspires to
be, I loved this show. I am one of those that gave it a 10/10 score
because of how much I enjoyed it!
But I have seen a lot of people trash on it or even drop it - mostly
because they felt like the anime was overdoing it with implications,
drama, sad scenes and so on. Which I totally see, I do understand
thinking that, or seeing it that way, I really do.
To me, however, it was the key to why this is such a good
series.
I've seen people disliking how everyone takes the supernatural
aspect of this show normally - which to them seem stupid.
But if you consider that in the supernatural universe not everyone has
powers and it doesn't have to be fantasy - it works really well. Tooru is
just a normal girl, a poor baby that has no special powers or anything -
while people around her are blessed (or rather cursed) with something
unique to them.
Which, again, works really great!
That means - ask yourself if you are really interested or just
want to watch something that is popular?
👇 If you imply everything, what will you really say?
Everything, really. It's a pity, but that's all. Having implied some evil
characters, curses or some higher powers in play works great. We might not
understand everything, and some things we might not even catch - but it
doesn't take away from the quality of Fruits Basket.
It is negative to not know everything straight away, and those that have
no self-control will spoil themselves everything before the shows gets to
tells us the way we were supposed to find out...
👇 NOT even ONE couple?!
With the romance tag and some love relationships being implied since 2nd
episode, I was disappointed to see that we didn't have any couples seeing a
happy end, nor any confession. Its in the genres! So how could we not get
anything?!
At the same time, I didn't mind. The story was focusing on more important
things and in the next season there might be space to focus on the
blossoming young love (as implied in this season) - or maybe not.
Fruits basket stands out more like a drama, and if we view it as one, we
won't need any couples to make this even better.
(I'm still taking imaginary points off for that...)
Conclusion: recommended 👍
╭────────── · 𓆩🌻𓆪 · ─╮
╰─ · 𓆩🌻𓆪 · ──────────╯
Fruits Basket: 2nd Season
Quick summary:
Things keep happening in the Soma household. Everyone has to face
the trauma from their past, and even though things are changing for
them, the curse is holding them back.
But what is this curse?
And can it even be broken?
With new characters on our screen,
the situation will just get more complicated... and the love that
blooms is a rose with thorns.
Who really are the Zodiacs? And
can they find their happiness?
Genres: Comedy - Drama - Psychological - Romance - Slice of Life -
Supernatural
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Season: Spring 2020
👌 Cute girls, pretty boys and adorable animals
Shigure opened the secret chamber - once he learned that Kyou,
Tooru and Yuki are going to a vacation house together, he hit them
with: ""You three have gotten so close. I can almost taste the
drama."
We are introduced to two characters that aren't Zodiacs, yet
they are kind of important to the story. Or at least this
season is trying to draw them that way. They have their own
drama going on, and I wasn't really that interested.
Rin is a very interesting character and her relationship with
Haruhase is very complicated, I couldn't wait to see where her
relationship with him would go. But in the end, I found out
that there is so so so much more to Rin than just her
relationship with Haru.
When she started repeating "Don't yell at me don't yell at
me" when Tooru found her (she felt sick). Her whole backstory
was gut-wrenching.
We find out a lot about Akito. She wants to isolate Tooru
because she is jealous of her. She is seriously fucked up. And
her issues make her think that everyone is going to abandon
her. Maybe that's why she's abusive... Anyway, that is not the
only thing we learn about her. We find out that Akito
is the god of zodiacs. Which wasn't
as unexpected honestly.
Can I also point out that Kyou always drinks milk from carton
- that shows he is a cat, but cat's can't drink milk...
👌 You get trauma! You get trauma! We get trauma!
You probably didn't notice, but a new genre was added tot he
description of this season. That genre is psychological. And it
makes perfect sense - I'm actually surprised it wasn't included
during the first season.
We continue with drama. From first episode, the whole first half is
filled with tears, yelling and disappointments. It doesn't even
include big characters, one of the girls obsessed with Yuki shows
her hatred towards Honda, because she has gotten closer to him. But
that wasn't explored much further.
This season focused on parent-child relationships a lot. Right in
the beginning we get to look into Kyou's relationsips - while
visiting the master, we learn that Kyou's biological father blames
his son for Kyou's mother's death but at the same time, we are
reminded that the master had always seen Kyou as his own son. He
even goes against the biological father, saying "He's my son and I
will protect him." not even admitting he could be a monster of any
kind.
A character we didn't expect to be dragged into this is Arisa. As
it turns out, she falls for a certain man, Kureno. The only problem
is that he is a Souma...
As if it wasn't enough, Sensei has more to face. Kana (his ex)
might be out of picture but Mayuko (her best friend and Tooru's
homeroom teacher) has been in love with Hatori this whole time. It's
bittersweet... but so so good.
By the way... the hat that Tooru got from Yuki belonged to
Kyou....
👌 Extra info & screenshots
.png)
|
|
[You can really tell their feelings to Tooru when asked
if they'd marry her.]
|
.png)
|
[Momiji using rabbit emojis!!! What a detail!]
|
I related very much to her in this scene:
This was one of the most important moments of the second season:
And this I just found funny:
I have talked about a lot of things, and I have talked about more
in the first section. So let me give you a few comments that don't
belong to any of those categories.
First of all, I loved all the openings and endings - they slapped,
had great visuals and I was really enjoying them all over
again.
But... in the end it was worse than first season because NOTHING
happened during the whole anime, we only got more trauma and some
edging, but the real plot ran between our fingers to the third
season (I hope).
I fount it interesting that people are payed for
raising a Zodiac kid... that shocked me, and made me kind of
uneasy.
We find out that the curse is the bond. The bond as in bond
between the Zodiac and the God, that they will always come back to
the God. Breaking this curse seems almost impossible... But Kureno
gives us hope that we might be able to break it after all.
This season gave me the chills. Some of the words uttered really
hit bad spots. One of them being "You're only here to make the
numbers match up." Brr!
Conclusion: mixed feelings 💫 but it still slaps!👍
╭────────── · 𓆩🌻𓆪 · ─╮
╰─ · 𓆩🌻𓆪 · ──────────╯
"I'll hold banquet after banquet, forever unchanging."
I thought the curse would be... heavier than that. More
impactful, more interesting-sounding.
I am not saying it's bad, I am just saying I expected a bit
more and this kind of disappointed me.
I do understand
it, after all, we have seen who Aki is as a person and this is
a way to bound the zodiac to them... Still, kinda meh.
The opening of the final season was the weakest of them all,
and I kind of disliked the song and the visuals. But they made
up for it with the ending. This mix carried me through the
whole last season.
I enjoy Fruits Basket and I understand what makes it great.
All the characters suffered way too much, and understanding
them or the link they had is a key component to understanding
the emotion that's passed onto us in this story.
At the same time though, they only focus
on some of the characters and even between
them there are only some that actually get
full in depth character dive. And that seems unfair.
I wanted to see more of Hatsuharu and Isuzu's
relationship.
I wanted to see more of Kagura's final words.
I wanted to see more of Hatori's life.
I wanted to see more of who Ayame is.
I wanted to see more of what Kisa and Hiro's bond is like
after the curse.
I wanted to see more of Kureno and if he and Arisa will
make it.
I wanted to see more of Ritsu whom I practically didn't
hear the whole freaking season.
I wanted to see more of what happens to Akito and... I will
say more about that soon.
I wanted to see more of all the stuff that was teased but
never got the chance to be explored properly - and that's
because all the focus went to the cat, rat and Tohru. But to
give some praise, I accept more of Shigure and what his
intentions with "some" people were.
But no.
I should be grateful for what I got I
guess...
And while I am at this. Akito. Akito is
the biggest disappointment of them all.
Ignoring his
"upbringing" I was so upset with the conclusion. Every single
person had bad family life, and many of them were abandoned or
abused. That doesn't make Akito stand out at all.
And
she's the main villain.
Instead, she gets broken by a
simple "you just don't want to be lonely... I know, so I
promise to always stay your friend" and everyone
suddenly understands and forgives her.
Everyone pretends like it makes sense.
What a
load of crap... and don't try to sell me that "bUT thEy HaVe A
BonD yoU CaN't UNdeRsTaND". Shut up. It's bullshit.
Was really giving us 3 minute sequences of their future
enough?
I loved the first two seasons, so so so so
much! But this "wrap-up" was disappointing. They did wrap-up
few of the plot lines nicely, but overall, I just think they
had much more potential than what they ended up giving
us.
I ended up being very passionate about this specific anime.
So here is the link for the official review.
"When did that promise become a curse?"
Conclusion: not recommended 👎
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png){kind=link}