by Nicole F.
When I was in middle school I discovered the world of anime and like all things that you love when you’re young, it consumed me. I started finding more people whop watched anime and taking recommendations from them and falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of new and old series. I needed to watch everything I could get my hands on and somehow, in all of that chaos I stumbled upon a gem called Fruits Basket.
The premise of the show was pretty simple. It was about a high school girl named Tohru, who lives in a tent after her mother passes away and ends up moving in and living with the Sohma family. But the Sohma’s have a secret and certain members can turn into one of the twelve animals of the zodiac, plus the cat from the old fairy tale, when their bodies are under stress or when they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex. The story then follows Tohru as she navigates the Sohma family curse, while also becoming close to Yuki Sohma, who is the rat, and Kyo Sohma, who is the cat. To me, it sounded like the perfect romantic comedy anime to binge so I started it.
Boy, was I wrong.
After finishing the anime and then going on to read and finish the manga, I learned that Fruits Basket was far more than just a run of the mill rom-com anime. It was actually a deep character study that looks at the way different people handle abuse, grief, and PTSD. All of the characters in the show are battling their own demons on the inside, even if they seem perfectly fine and cheerful on the outside.
As the viewer, you grow to love the characters and you really feel for them when you hear about the horrors of their past. Sometimes, you may even relate to a certain character and their story because the things the characters are struggling with are things that anyone could be struggling with. Bullying, death of a loved one, verbal abuse, physical abuse, abandonment, and a variety of other things are all explored in this series in a way that is both respectful and realistic. Because of these things, even characters you start out hating can quickly turn into ones you love once you learn about all of the things their struggling with under the surface.
So why am I talking about this anime if it came out in 2001? Well, starting this month, Funimation has decided to do something that rarely ever gets done. They decided to reboot the series and this time tell the whole story. Not only that, but majority of the original English voice actors made the choice to return to the series and see their characters stories out to the end, something that is almost unheard of in a reboot eighteen years after the original.
So, as this new reboot begins to air, I wanted to take a moment to recommend to anyone reading this, to watch the series. Fruits Basket is a rare gem of a story that somehow manages to explore the darker side of the human experience and some of the hardships and struggles we all face in our daily lives. It’s a series that makes you stop and rethink everything you know about the people in your life. Is your coworker really a bitch, or is she going through something just under the surface? Is that little kid being difficult because they want to make your life harder, or are they being bullied and just don’t know how to tell you? These are the kinds of questions this show makes you ask.
Experiencing Fruits Basket, as dramatic as it sounds, fundamentally changed who I was as a person and is honestly probably a major reason why I am the way I am today. Seeing it rebooted as meant the world to me and all I want is to see this story go to all of the places it was always meant to go. To check out this beautiful reboot of a very impactful story, you can either visit Funimation where the show is being released with the English cast simultaneously with the Japanese or you can download Crunchyroll and watch the show with subtitles. So do yourself a favor, and experience the world of Fruits Basket.