Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 1

Akito and Ren

Way back when the first season of Fruits Basket was airing, I reviewed the first 10 episodes weekly before eventually dropping it from my review schedule. Obviously, I continued to watch it despite not reviewing it, though.

With that in mind, I’m not sure how long these weekly reviews of the Final Season are going to last. If the season is more than one cour (I don’t know how long it’s going to be), then I’d at least like to review every episode from the first cour.

Anyway, let’s start off this discussion of the first episode of the Final Season by going over this whole thing with Akito and Ren Soma. Akito being a woman wasn’t a surprise to me, but the introduction of Ren is a bit of a twist.

While I believe the actual reveal about Akito’s sex came in the final episode of the second season, I’m pretty sure I’ve known about this since some time during the first season. You know, because people on Twitter love to spoil things.

I don’t remember who spoiled Akito’s sex for me. But I do remember one of the English dub voice actors tweeted out spoilers for which characters were which Zodiac members, and of course, Twitter promoted their tweet and showed it to a bunch of people who weren’t even following them.

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think Akito’s sex is a big deal. There are Zodiac members of both sexes, so I don’t see why Akito’s would matter. Ren, on the other hand, is a twist because I have no idea if I’m supposed to view her as a villain or not.

Akito has been built up as the villain of the series, and Ren opposes her. But at the same time, Ren also seems villainous.

Everything’s Frozen

I understand that the portion of the episode in which Tooru learns about Kureno’s situation and why he can’t be with Arisa was supposed to be the emotional part. But honestly, most of the emotion from that scene was lost on me for a few reasons.

First of all, I didn’t remember anyone’s names. I was getting Kureno and Hatori mixed up, I forgot that Uotani’s first name was Arisa, and on top of that, Isuzu and Ren look somewhat similar. All of that’s not really the anime’s fault. However, I’d argue that this was a terrible place to start a new season at.

Why would you split an important conversation across two seasons? While paying attention to the new information Kureno was giving us, I was also trying to remember all the information we got from the previous episode six months ago. At least he reminded us that his curse is broken.

The second issue I have with this scene is the animation when Kureno is walking away from Tooru once he’s done talking to her. He awkwardly shuffles away and it was extremely distracting. It basically invalidated any emotions that his story may have brought up.

Finally, and this is an issue I have with a lot of the more “emotional” scenes in Fruits Basket, there’s the way the characters talk. Normally, the characters in this series speak, well, normally. However, when a scene is trying to be more emotional, their speech changes.

They slow their speech down, almost begin to whisper, and pause multiple times mid-sentence. Do you have any idea how annoying it would be if people actually spoke like that? I guess it’s their attempt to give the anime that “ethereal” mood that a lot of shoujo manga have during these scenes.

Nightgown Festival

My final complaint from the Kureno scene also applies to the “nightgown festival” scene as well. But, other than that, I thought this was a pretty good scene. Maybe that’s just because I like the Tooru/Saki/Arisa combo though. Oh, and I guess Megumi is pretty good too.

The main reason I like this season is that it gives Tooru some good character depth and development. We’ve known from the start of the series that she’s not someone who particularly enjoys asking for help from others — such as when she attempted to live out of a tent before moving in with Shigure.

But, Tooru also does recognize that even though she doesn’t ask for help, she receives a lot of support from her friends. And this fact causes her to feel as though she needs to support her friends in various ways as well.

What she still doesn’t really seem to realize is that her very existence is all the support her friends need. Tooru is the one who brings everyone else together and brightens their days. She doesn’t need to go out of her way to support them in additional ways.

I don’t think that Tooru will ever truly accept that, though. She’s not just going to listen when other people tell her to stop trying to help them. However, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t developed as a character at all through this scene.

Rather, I think this scene shows us that Tooru is beginning to understand that there are some things that she can’t do no matter how much she wants to or how hard she tries. And, while she won’t see that as a good thing, it’s an important lesson to learn.

It may help her focus on the things she can do.

Conclusion

What do you think of Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 1? Did you remember the events of the previous episode? Do you have the same issue I have with the way characters’ speech changes for certain scenes? And, would you participate in a nightgown festival with Saki? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 2 is available.