Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 3

Time Skip and New Character Designs?

Let’s start off this review of Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 3 by taking a look at the OP. I don’t remember where I saw this, but someone pointed out that Momiji Souma has a brand new character design in the OP for this season.

Now, we’ve already seen Momiji in The Final Season. Wasn’t he just in the previous episode? And there, he looked the same as he always has. But in the OP, it looks like Momiji has finally hit puberty. So, does that mean we’re going to get a time skip?

At the very least, I think it must mean that we won’t see Momiji again until the following school year — this one just ended. However, that doesn’t seem like enough time for Momiji to grow as much as he appears to have in the OP.

Momiji’s new design is really messing with my expectations for this series. It would be really strange for it to have a time skip of a year or more right now. And I doubt this series is going to extend beyond Tooru, Yuki, and Kyou’s graduation. But at the same time, it looks like Momiji is 3 years older.

Also, Momiji isn’t the only character with an upcoming change in design. If you paid attention to the ED (which apparently I did more than the OP), you’ll have noticed that Isuzu Souma is shown with short hair.

At the end of this week’s episode, it was implied that Akito caught Isuzu sneaking around the Souma estate, had her confined, and cut her hair off. The last time we saw Isuzu, she was with Ren. So I guess whatever those two were planning didn’t go well.

I Hope It Snows Soon

Previously, Kagura Souma was probably the best girl of the series in my eyes. And to her credit, she’s still definitely up near the top of my rankings. But over the course of the 2nd Season and the few episodes we’ve had so far in this season, Isuzu may have surpassed Kagura.

Character design definitely plays a role in how I view characters, though. So once we actually get to see Isuzu’s short-haired design within the series, we’ll see if I still like her as much. Generally, I prefer longer-haired female characters.

But, there’s actually a third character vying for the top spot. I’d call her the dark horse of the competition, but that’s literally Isuzu. Of course, I’m talking about Machi Kuragi. I think this episode did a lot for her character, both in terms of development and just making her seem cuter.

Machi has a very simple character design. But I don’t dislike it. I especially liked the outfit she was wearing within her apartment. She’s wearing dark, dull colors. And while you might at first think this is because she can’t be bothered to wear something “nicer,” it’s actually quite fashionable.

As for her character, there was a decent amount of development added for Machi as well. Yes, we got scenes of her being embarrassed, which was cute. But more importantly, we got an explanation for why she acts in the seemingly erratic way she does.

It’s not that Machi is a delinquent in any way, or even crazy. Her adverse reactions to thinks she perceives as perfect or flawless are symptoms of her past trauma. And I loved the scene toward the end of the episode of Yuki snapping the chalk that was placed in front of Machi. It shows her that someone understands.

Graduation Confessions

Since this episode takes place during graduation season, there were a couple of love confessions that people made. But, what’s different about these confessions compared to regular ones is that since they all involved someone who was graduating, the confessors had no expectations of a “yes.”

Why does this matter? Well, it was a good way to tie together a few different characters’ arcs. And it did so without the trope of someone confessing and having the other person apologize because they actually like someone else.

In a lot of other romance anime, there would be a focus on these failed confessions. But Fruits Basket doesn’t really care about those. Of course, there are failed confessions, such as Arisa confessing to Kureno. However, there are some strange circumstances surrounding why Kureno rejected her, and I feel like they’ll still end up together.

Other than that one, I don’t believe we’ve seen any other failed confessions. We know they happen because girls confess to Yuki (and probably Kyou) all the time — as do boys to Kimi. But failed love doesn’t really seem to be what this series is all about.

Back to the confessions within this episode, though, neither were really confessions. First, we had Motoko Minagawa “confessing” to Yuki by telling him that he made her high school life enjoyable and that she hopes he has an enjoyable future — Motoko is the one graduating.

After that, we had Naohito Sakuragi do the exact same “confession” to Motoko. And, while normally you’d expect someone like Motoko to reject Naohito because she already loves Yuki, she doesn’t. She wishes for him to have a good future as well because she understands exactly what he’s doing, the same thing she did with Yuki.

Conclusion

What do you think of Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 3? Do you think there’s going to be a time skip now that the school year is over? Has your favorite character changed over the course of the series? And what did you think of the “confessions?” Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 4 is available.