Friday Flashback: Fruits Basket (2001)

Fruits Basket (Anime 2001)

Where can I watch it? On Crunchyroll.

Hello, dearies! 🐾

I recently, barely, finished watching Fruits Basket’s original anime (or I would say the crazy 2001 version).

This anime makes no sense.

I’ll jump right into this one. Expect some rambling ahead, and some spoilers if you don’t know about Fruits Basket.

Fruits Basket – 2001

As I was saying, this anime makes no sense whatsoever, I’m sorry, and it’s not just because I watched the “reboot” of 2019, and already read the Manga before watching the 2001 version. No, even if I had watched this first, it still wouldn’t have made sense to me because it jumped from thing to thing, it didn’t explain why Shigure wanted Tohru to live with them, how come he asked her to do something or not in regards to Kyo, Shishou’s parental love was barely there, and he was talking to Akito? It was insane.

The anime didn’t show all Zodiac animals, didn’t even mention them.

They didn’t make a connection to Tohru with Yuki and Kyo, was Yuki in love with her? Was he not? It was clearer with Kyo, but the rest, it was a mess.

Now, comparing it to the Manga at least, let’s not go to the 2019 one, which at least makes more sense and it’s addictive to watch.

Description of the anime:

When a member of the cursed Sohma family is embraced by a person of the opposite sex, they transform into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac! When young Tohru stumbles into their life, she must promise to keep their secret or face the consequences!

Manga vs Anime (2001)

It’s like they took the names of the characters, the main plot, and then put it on a mixer and whatever came out it’s what they did with the anime. I apologise if there are some who like it, I’m sure I would have watched it normally back in the day, but I still would have questioned that ending.

They misrepresented Shigure, Haru’s loving nature was shadowed, Kyo growing up was completely off, Yuki becoming his own person was off, Mayu was completely erased, Kureno and Isuzu were not existent, the confusion that Yuki felt towards Tohru was not even there. No Machi, no Kakeru.

There are so many details to this story, that I understand that a 26-episode anime perhaps couldn’t encompass entirely, but they didn’t have to chop off the whole main story of it. I mean Akito ended up being crazy just because, and their true nature wasn’t even revealed. Ren was not a factor. The history of how the Zodiac and the Cat came to be ages ago was cut off as if it were not important.

I can’t, it was too many things.

That ends my rant and rambling, I will leave it here, or I will be here all freaking day talking about what was missing or how it could have been better. There were also like two or more episodes that were random clips that didn’t contribute anything to the story.

Anyway, I’m really done now.

Thank you for reading this one, and if you like the 2001 version of Fruits Basket, well, kudos. I would give it a 2 or 3 stars, but I won’t mark that anywhere because others might like it.

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