Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 8

Kyouko Honda

Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 8 may just be the best episode of Fruits Basket so far, all seasons included. Why? Because we got to see Kyouko Honda: Twin-tails version. I know I’ve been simping for Rin, but Kyouko’s looking pretty good.

The only reason Kyouko isn’t in contention for best girl of the series is that she’s dead. It’s unfortunate, but I do have to take some points away from her for that. I like my best girls to be alive (generally). Obviously, if you’ve seen my ranking of the Monogatari girls, you know that’s not a hard rule.

Aside from the whole twin-tails thing, I do think that this version of Kyouko is my favorite one we’ve seen throughout the series. It seems like every time we get a character’s flashback involving her, she’s a slightly different person.

I’m not sure if it was intentional for everyone’s memory of Kyouko to be slightly different. Well, I guess it was probably intentional, but I’m not sure what the intent was. Is she different to each person because that’s how she actually was? Or is this everyone’s interpretation of what she was like?

For example, when we got the flashback of Arisa and Kyouko, that was a very different Kyouko to the one in this flashback with Kyou. And the Kyouko in the flashbacks with Tooru is also different but similar to the Kyou version.

Kyouko is always depicted as exactly the type of person the other person in the flashback needed to meet to have their life changed. The only thing she always has in common is that she accepts the other person for who they are rather than try to change them.

“I’ll Never Forgive You”

Last week, I pointed out that it was very unlikely that Kyouko told Kyou that she would “never forgive him” with her dying breath. Despite Kyou saying that’s what happened again this week, I’m going to stand by my original claim.

Tooru did point out that it’s pretty unbelievable that her mom would say something like that. She doesn’t deny that it’s possible, though, which I found odd. I don’t think it’s necessarily odd that Tooru wouldn’t deny it, but it’s odd that the episode ended with the doubt there.

As I’ve mentioned, Kyouko is someone who always accepted those she came in contact with regardless of who they were or what their circumstances were. And since she’s been dead since before the series began, she’s in a position to almost be deified in how people remember her.

So, it feels a bit strange for her character to effectively be assassinated like that. If Kyouko really did say that to Kyou, then that completely changes the image we have of her. I just can’t believe that her character would be thrown under the bus like that by the author in the end.

I’m expecting that in the next episode, or maybe the one after that, we’ll find out the truth about Kyouko’s final words. I’m not sure how we’ll find out, but it seems like a reasonable expectation. Either Kyou didn’t hear everything she said or he misheard what she said.

For example, maybe she said she’ll never forgive him for not becoming Tooru’s friend. That still sounds kind of bad as her final words, but maybe the intent was to push Kyou towards Tooru. Or maybe she just said something else entirely.

Tooru and Kyou

We’re now at a point in the series where Tooru has confessed to Kyou, Kyou has acknowledged her confession, and Yuki witnessed the confession as well. There’s no more guessing as to how the romantic lives of these three are going to end up.

We’ve known for a while that Yuki has gravitated toward Machi instead of Tooru. And the fact that he appears to be rooting for Tooru and Kyou at the end of this episode by chasing after Kyou reaffirms this. Yuki is chasing after him to tell him to go back to Tooru.

What’s interesting to me about this whole situation is that Kyou ran away because he doesn’t want to be forgiven by Tooru. He knew that Tooru would forgive him. But he doesn’t want to be forgiven because he views his inaction on the day Kyouko died as unforgivable.

However, as I just said, he knew that Tooru would forgive him before he said anything about his involvement in her mom’s death. He knows Tooru isn’t the kind of person to not forgive him — just as we know Kyouko isn’t that kind of person either.

Perhaps this is the path to Kyou learning that Kyouko didn’t say she’d never forgive him. Perhaps we’ll never actually learn what she said, but Kyou will simply realize that she couldn’t have said that, just as he knew Tooru wouldn’t say it.

Kyou running away here is just a copy of the first time he ran away from Tooru, which I believe was back in Season 1. He’s going to run away only to later realize that Tooru isn’t going to give up on him that easily. Oh, and Tooru is probably going to get injured again, but this time by Akito.

Conclusion

What do you think of Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 8? Which version of Kyouko Honda is your favorite? Do you think her character is going to be redeemed after being dragged through the mud by Kyou? Let me know your thoughts 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 9 is available now.