It’s Valentine’s, After All

It’s Valentine’s Day in the world of Fruits Basket, and for those of you who don’t know, that’s February 14th. However, even if you did know that, what you may not know is that Valentine’s Day works a bit differently in Japan than it does over here in the U.S.

In Japan, Valentine’s Day is a day for girls to give chocolate to the boys they like, not the other way around. Then, a month later on March 14th, is a day known as White Day on which boys give chocolate to the girls they like. I don’t know why it’s called White Day, but I’m sure Google could tell you if you’re interested.

So what would we expect to happen in a Valentine’s Day episode of Fruits Basket? Well, we would expect the pretty boy, Yuki, to receive a lot of chocolate from his many adoring fans. And indeed that’s exactly what happens. Although instead of his locker being overflowing with chocolate, each girl threw out the chocolate of the girl before her so only one remained.

Even Kyo received chocolate from a single girl despite his bad attitude. But, he doesn’t have time to be happy about this gift for two reasons. The first is that Valentine’s Day is a dangerous time for male members of the zodiac because they never know who’s going to attempt to hug them.

However, the second and more important reason is because Kyo knows that Kagura is bound to appear at some point. And appear she does. But before I get into discussing how Kagura is the best girl in the series and how I liked her pink outfit, let’s talk about something more serious.

Yuki and Kyo

We know that Yuki and Kyo don’t get along. We’ve known this since the first or second episode, whichever one introduced Kyo. However, up until now it seemed like their feud was purely due to the zodiac legend in which the rat tricks the cat into being late for the banquet.

In this week’s episode some new information is revealed, which seems to hint that there may be more to their relationship. Sure, the zodiac legend still likely plays a role in their feud, but as we’ve learned from the likes of Hatsuharu, the zodiac legend doesn’t dictate who you are.

The reality is that Yuki likely doesn’t hate Kyo because he’s the cat zodiac. As we’ve seen in the past, Yuki doesn’t actually want anything to do with the zodiac. Instead, it’s likely that his hatred of Kyo stems from Kyo constantly trying to start fights with him and generally being annoying.

So why does Kyo do that? Is it really because he thinks he can take Yuki’s place as a true member of the zodiac if he defeats him? Unlikely. Instead it seems to be more about proving his own self-worth and strength.

In this episode we were shown a very short flashback in regards to Yuki and Kyo’s past, and in it I’m pretty sure we were shown a fight of some sort with someone getting injured. This could mean a lot of things, but my guess is that this wasn’t a fight between Yuki and Kyo.

Instead, I’m predicting that when they were children, Yuki stood up for Kyo and fought someone in his place. This likely mad Kyo feel inferior to Yuki, and now he always challenges Yuki to fights because he wants to prove that he’s not someone who needs to be saved.

Double Date

Alright, let’s be honest, as fun as it is to theorize about characters’ backstories, the real reason you’re here is to read about the double date involving Yuki, Tooru, Kyo, and Kagura. However, there are two unfortunate things about this double date.

The first is that Kagura was no longer wearing her pink outfit, and the second is that we didn’t really get to see all that much of their date. Sure, Kagura is cute no matter what she wears, but I liked the pink, okay?

As for their date, we know the group went to see some children’s movie and then went to a family style restaurant after that. But we didn’t exactly follow them around on their date, so there isn’t all that much to discuss. I was really hoping for a lot of Kagura content this week, but sadly that just wasn’t the case.

Though I do think this double date confirms the idea that if Tooru is going to end up with anyone, it’s going to be Yuki. Kyo and Kagura are already a package, despite what Kyo wants, so even if he seems to be flirting with Tooru at times I don’t think those two really have a chance.

Shigure Souma

And now back to some more serious content. While Tooru is out on her double date, Shigure volunteers to deliver Tooru’s Valentine’s Day chocolates to the main Souma estate. Specifically, Tooru made chocolate for Hatori, Momiji, and Hatsuharu.

It’s during this visit that it’s revealed Shigure has some sort of plot which involves Tooru.

Apparently when they were younger, Shigure, Hatori, and “A-ya” all had a similar dream which ended in tragedy for the latter two. However, Shigure’s dream has still yet to be crushed and he’s determined to do whatever it takes to fulfill it. That said, we currently have no idea what his dream is.

What we do know is that he needs to use Tooru to accomplish it, and he makes some sinister comments such as saying that he doesn’t care if a few people need to get hurt along the way. Even so, it doesn’t seem like he actually wants Tooru to get hurt, and I suspect this scene is actually intended to bait us into thinking Shigure is evil.

There are also some other interesting things we learn during this reveal. While it’s implied that Shigure’s plot is sinister, we’re also told that it’s somewhat opposite to Akito’s plot involving Tooru. But why is Tooru necessary for both of their plots? Only time will tell.

It also seems like perhaps there’s some romantic tension between Shigure and Akito. Earlier on in the series it seemed like Shigure really hated Akito when he would mention that she’s getting what she deserves, but now it seems like perhaps they have a more intimate relationship.

And, last but not least, we have this “A-ya” person. I don’t actually know what the -ya honorific implies as the only time I’ve ever heard it used before is by Trafalgar Law from One Piece (and I’m too lazy to look it up right now), but that’s not really what’s important here.

What’s important is what the “A” stands for. You would think it stands for Akito, but Shigure tends to refer to Akito by her actual name, so this seems unlikely. My guess is that once this mysterious “A-ya” is revealed we’ll also get a better understanding of the dream they, Shigure, and Hatori all had.

Conclusion

So what did you think of this week’s episode of Fruits Basket? Are you like me and wish there was more Kagura content? Or did you prefer that the episode focused on setting up more mysteries surrounding the various Souma clan members? 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 or schedule updates. I tweet out every time a new post goes live, so it’s the best way to stay up to date.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN 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.

I stopped my episodic reviews of Fruits Basket here, so instead of episode 11, check out my review of the first season.

Yuki Was My First Love

This week’s episode of Fruits Basket starts off exactly how you would expect it to, with Yuki and Kyo once again fighting over something completely unimportant. I think this time they were fighting over having to go shopping with Tooru, but it doesn’t really matter because it has nothing to do with the rest of the episode.

But, one important development does come out of this shopping trip, and that’s the fact that Yuki gets a cold. Normally in anime getting a cold essentially means that you turn into a vegetable, unable to get out of bed and with severely limited mental capabilities.

Luckily this isn’t how it goes this time around, because I find that trope to be extremely stupid. If a cold puts you in a near vegetative state with the cognitive ability of a two-year-old, it probably means natural selection is trying to weed you out.

Instead, what’s bad about Yuki having a cold is that the Soumas are prone to transforming into their zodiac animals when they’re weakened due to illness. Because of this, Tooru believes Yuki should stay home from school in order to get better.

However, Kyo learns that there’s going to be a race in gym class the next day and demands that Yuki show up so the two of them can compete. In the end Yuki opts to go to school so he doesn’t have to listen to Kyo’s complaining for the next week.

Cat and Mouse

Despite having a cold, Yuki is able to keep up with Kyo during their race. I typically think of Kyo as the more athletic of the two, despite Yuki being the stronger fighter, but this seems to prove that Yuki is just as fit, if not more so. If he can keep up with Kyo under these circumstances, imagine if he was running at peak performance.

But we never get to learn which one of them wins the race because it’s abruptly cut short by the intervention of another Souma clan member. Hatsuharu, the Souma who was introduced as Haa-kun in the previous episode, lays a trip wire across the path on which Yuki and Kyo are racing.

Before I get into discussing Hatsuharu for the remainder of the episode, I do want to take a moment to mention the girls’ side of the gym class race. There’s nothing too exciting about Tooru here, but her friends are more interesting.

For starters, Uo is nowhere to be found. Perhaps the reason for her disappearance was mentioned and I just happened to miss it, but I figured that of all the female characters, she would be the one most interested in this competition. Sure, she probably thinks school competitions are lame, but at the same time it’s still a competition and she seems pretty fit.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Hana, who gives up as soon as the race commences with a dramatic performance about how she can’t go on. She then proceeds to start up a poker game with the rest of the race dropouts (and eventually the coach and Shigure).

Hatsuharu Souma

So who exactly is Hatsuharu Souma? He’s one year younger than Yuki and Kyo, making him a third year middle school student (I’m not sure if I realized Tooru, Yuki, and Kyo were first year high schoolers). He’s also one of the Soumas afflicted with the zodiac curse, with his particular animal being the ox.

However, when he transforms later on in the episode it’s revealed that he’s actually just a standard cow, much like how Hatori is just a seahorse, not a dragon. And if I’m being honest, he’s not even a very attractive cow either.

He showed up to interrupt Yuki and Kyo’s race because he wants to have a fight against Kyo. He originally planned to have their fight during the New Years celebration, but Yuki and Kyo bailed at the last second so it wasn’t possible.

I think it’s also fair to say that Hatsuharu is to Kyo as Kyo is to Yuki. Kyo always wants to fight Yuki to prove his strength, and Hatsuharu wants to fight Kyo for the same reason. However, his relationship with these two is a bit different from their relationships with each other.

As far as we can tell, Hatsuharu is bisexual, and he claims to be in love with both Yuki and Kyo. In fact, the title of the episode, “Yuki was my first love” is something Hatsuharu says. This is why when Yuki suffers from an Akito-related panic attack, he stops his fight with Kyo in order to take care of him.

Dark Haru

But Hatsuharu isn’t just some bisexual guy who loves Yuki and wants to fight against Kyo. There’s more to him than that. Much like with Kagura, there are two sides to Hatsuharu, and they’re just as extreme, if not more so.

Typically Hatsuharu is a calm and laid back person, but when he doesn’t get his way he turns into Dark Haru. Dark Haru is essentially the polar opposite of Hatsuharu’s regular personality. Instead of being laid back, he’s extremely aggressive in just about every way, including romance.

The reason for Dark Haru’s initial appearance goes back to Hatsuharu’s childhood, during which he would get picked on by the other Souma zodiac members. In the zodiac story, the rat uses the ox to get a free ride to the banquet, and so everyone says that the ox was used because it was stupid.

This caused Hatsuharu to develop anger issues which resulted in his Dark Haru persona. He also initially hated Yuki before he ever met him because he viewed the rat as the reason why everyone made fun of him. But one day he met Yuki and realized that he had been mistaken.

Just as everyone who made fun of him were judging him based on the story and not who he really was, he had judged Yuki without ever getting to know him too. Yuki ended up being the first person to help Hatsuharu put the frustration he was feeling into words, which is why he now claims to love him.

Conclusion

Starting with this episode, the ox has now been added to the ED along with the monkey. Does this mean we’ll be introduced to the monkey next? The goat and tiger have been in the ED the entire time and we still haven’t met them either.

So what are your thoughts on this week’s episode of Fruits Basket? I thought it was a decent episode and it introduced Hatsuharu’s background well, but I’m beginning to get a bit tired of the series. I think once more is revealed about Akito it’ll start to pique my interest again.

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any upcoming content or schedule changes. I tweet out every time a new post goes live, so it’s the best way to stay up to date.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about becoming a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

See You When You Get Back

As some of you may know, I’m not a fan of English dubbed anime, or the whole English dub community in general (I’m sorry if that includes you). And, much of my dislike for the dub community comes from Twitter due to it constantly showing me tweets from English voice actors, who I don’t care about in the slightest.

Last week one of these English voice actors also tweeted out a spoiler for this week’s Fruits Basket episode, so that didn’t help either. In fact, it wasn’t even a spoiler that was revealed in this episode, so it’s not as if I would have known it had I watched the episode as soon as it aired.

I think half the fun of this series comes from trying to figure out which animal each of the Soumas are before it’s revealed. So for something like that to be spoiled by someone who “works on” the series pretty inexcusable.

Now, they only spoiled the zodiac animal tied to one character, but that’s still a pretty big deal when only six out of the 13 animals have been confirmed up to this point. But, don’t worry. I won’t spoil you. At least not yet.

In the final section of this review (before the conclusion) I’ll go over the spoiled character as well as some of my new predictions regarding the other Souma clan members. I really wish I could go through my new predictions completely blind, but I think at this point it’s just best to say that if you don’t want a minor spoiler, skip that final section.

New Year’s

It’s new years in the world of Fruits Basket, and as you might have guessed, that’s the most important holiday for the Souma clan. In fact, new years is a pretty big event in Japan for everyone. Why else do you think there’s a new years episode in just about every single slice of life anime?

But today I’m not here to write about the Japanese new years traditions, though we certainly see at least a few in this episode. No, instead I want to discuss how the celebration of new years effects the different characters in this series.

That said, since the new year is such an important event for the Souma clan, I’ll be going over how they celebrate it in a separate section.

This will be Tooru’s first new year without her mother, and her grandfather and his family decided to go on a trip to Hawaii without her. Sure, she might not have wanted to go with them anyway because they’re jerks, but she wasn’t really even given the option.

At least her friends, Uo and Hana, invited her to spend the new year with them and their families. And, after Tooru declines their invitations, they even offer to spend the new year with her by going on a camping trip together. Even still, Tooru declines and tells them to spend time with their respective families, something she can no longer do.

She even tells this to Yuki and Kyo, who initially don’t want to go to the main Souma household for the new year. However, after they realize that she wants them to spend time with their family before it’s too late, they accept defeat. Well, that is until they remember that she’s all alone and go back to Shigure’s house to spend time with her instead.

Souma Clan Banquet

So what do the Soumas do to celebrate the new year? Their celebration is actually two-fold: they have both a celebration with the entire family, and another celebration which only includes the 12 official zodiac members (so not Kyo).

We aren’t told exactly what goes on during the celebration for the entire family, but I think it’s safe to assume that it’s your standard new years stuff considering the majority of the family doesn’t know about the zodiac curse. Who knows, maybe they even have their own shrine they go to.

The important celebration is the one reserved solely for the zodiac members. Again, we don’t really know what they do during this event, but at the very least we know that there’s a banquet and at least one member performs some sort of dance (this year it’s Momiji).

Since 2019 is the year of the pig, you would expect Kagura to be the one performing this dance. But 1999 was the first new year of the original manga’s serialization, which was the year of the rabbit. I assume this is why Momiji is the one performing the dance.

This is also our first introduction to Hatsuharu Souma, though he’s not really introduced just yet. In fact, I had to look up what his actual name was because he’s only referred to as Haa-kun by Shigure, who likes to call Hatori Haa-san as well in order to confuse people. This is the character whose animal was spoiled for me.

We also learn that due to Yuki and Kyo’s decision to skip this year’s celebration in order to spend it with Tooru instead, there will be two Soumas who aren’t too happy. Obviously Kagura will be enraged because Kyo isn’t making an appearance, but we also learn that Akito will be mad due to Yuki no-showing.

It would make sense for Akito to be mad about Yuki simply because she seems to be a control freak and would want the entire zodiac gathered, but I don’t think that’s the main reason. It’s hinted that Yuki and Akito have some sort of more intimate relationship, so I think she might be his mother.

The Zodiac

Alright, now it’s time for some spoilers and some theorizing. I know some of you might want to read my theories without spoiling yourselves, but if you continue reading beyond this point after knowing that I’m going to include a spoiler, I can’t be held responsible.

So to get it out of the way, Hatsuharu is the ox of the zodiac. I honestly wouldn’t have guessed that from any content shown in the series or the OP/ED so far, but that’s just how it is. So now that we know that he’s the ox, that leaves six more animals unconfirmed.

These are the tiger, snake, horse, goat, monkey, and rooster. So, who do I think is who?

Let’s start with Akito. Originally I predicted that she would be the dragon, but that turned out to be Hatori instead. I then predicted that she would be the tiger due to the decorations in her room, but upon further inspection I believe this to be incorrect.

First of all, in the ED we’re shown the tiger and the goat together as two younger children, so I assume one of them must actually be the tiger, not Akito. But then what animal is Akito? My new guess is that she’s the snake, for a variety of reasons.

The main reason is that in the ED we see the boar chasing the cat, referencing Kagura chasing Kyo, and the snake chasing the rat. In this week’s episode we learned that there’s some sort of intimate relationship between Akito and Yuki, so if Yuki’s the rat then Akito must be the snake. Also, Akito seems to be the villain, and snakes are often seen as deceitful creatures.

So I’m guessing Akito is the snake, the girl depicted with the goat and tiger in the ED is the goat, and the boy depicted with the goat and tiger in the ED is the tiger. That just leaves the horse, monkey, and rooster, but we haven’t yet seen anything that hints towards which characters those might correspond to.

Conclusion

So what do you think of this week’s episode of Fruits Basket? Honestly I don’t think it was that exciting of an episode. We learned some new information regarding relationships within the Souma clan, but nothing else really happened. Also, have you already been spoiled on this series?

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. And, give me a follow over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. I promise to try not to spoil anything in my tweets.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN 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 the next episode is available here.

Spring Comes

This was the first episode of Fruits Basket which really followed some of the other Souma clan members rather than Yuki and Kyo. While those two did make an appearance at the very end of the episode (asleep), they were missing from the rest.

Instead, Momiji, Hatori, and to some extent Shigure were the Souma clan members in the spotlight. This was also the first time we, and Tooru, got a good look at the Souma clan’s main estate, which turns out to be a sprawling plot consisting of many buildings.

In fact, there are actually a lot of Souma clan members who simply have nothing to do with the zodiac. They don’t even have knowledge of the zodiac curse which their family members have. This is the first thing I found strange about the Souma complex as I’ll be calling it.

So there are probably 13 Souma clan members with the curse, and they make up only a fraction of the total Souma clan. And despite most of the clan not knowing about the curse, they still obey the Souma clan rules, such as living on the family’s property.

We’re also shown that while two zodiac members can hug without transforming, the same isn’t true for a zodiac member and a non-zodiac member even if they’re both Soumas. So why are the non-zodiac Soumas still kept so close?

My guess is simply that anyone born to a Souma could be inflicted with this curse, and so as a way to control all of the zodiac members, Akito needs to ensure that they’re all born under her watchful eye (I’m pretty sure Akito is a girl at this point).

Hatori and Kana

But the fact that the Souma clan is all kept in one place causes a bit of an issue: marriage and childbirth. Since a vast majority of the Soumas live within the same compound and are restricted from relationships outside the family, it means there’s probably a bit of inbreeding.

This became clear when the name of Hatori Souma’s former girlfriend was revealed to be Kana Souma, his relative. We don’t know how closely these two are related, but it doesn’t seem like they’re close enough for it to be an issue in the biological sense.

However, this also illustrates just how large the Souma family and complex really are. They’re in the same clan and live in the same complex, and yet they don’t seem to have previously known each other. Also, after they break up (which they do), they don’t appear to see each other frequently despite their aforementioned proximity.

So why did Hatori and Kana break up and what were the effects of their split?

They requested that Akito allow them to marry, but Akito refused and went into a fit of rage. I’m not entirely sure why since they’re both members of the clan, but either way, that’s what happened. During her rage Akito also injured Hatori’s left eye.

This injury is what really started the decline. Kana blamed herself for Hatori’s wound and ended up becoming depressed as a result. So, in order to relieve Kana from her troubles, Hatori sealed away her memories of their time together and made her think that he had rejected her from the start.

I think it was mentioned that two years have passed since then, and Kana now has a new fiance. Hatori still cares for her, but he knows that they can’t ever be together because it would only cause her pain once again.

The Souma Curse

There’s also some talk of a Souma clan curse in this episode, although it doesn’t seem to be in regards to the zodiac curse. But, before I get into this other curse, let’s briefly touch on the zodiac curse and how Hatori is affected by it.

So what’ zodiac animal is Hatori? He’s none other than the dragon, which I think I may have said would be the case last week. But I’m not going to pretend and say I always thought that. Originally I predicted Akito would be the dragon, and I believe I chose the Ox for Hatori.

However, even though he’s the dragon, he doesn’t actually transform into a mythical dragon of any kind. In fact, he doesn’t even turn into a komodo dragon. No, instead he turns into a seahorse and refers to himself as a sea dragon (he’s definitely a regular seahorse though).

Of all the zodiac animals so far, Hatori’s has to be the worst and most inconvenient. It doesn’t appear that he’ll die due to being out of the water, but he definitely can’t move on land while transformed.

But what about the other Souma clan curse? We still don’t yet know what it really is, but Hatori and Momiji seem to have a working theory. They believe, or at least Hatori believes and Momiji relays to Tooru, that the curse of the Soumas is that they bring misfortune to those they care about.

This is why Hatori warns Tooru to get away from the Souma clan as soon as possible. He doesn’t want to see her get hurt in the same way Kana was. And, although this seems like it’s probably just in Hatori’s head, perhaps this really is the Souma clan curse. Maybe this is why Akito doesn’t want the family to deal with outsiders; because she was once hurt too.

Akito’s Plan

Speaking of Akito, it should come as no surprise that she has some plan in motion that involved Tooru. We don’t yet know what it is, but we can assume it’s supposed to result in some of the younger Soumas, like Yuki and Kyo, no longer being able to trust outsiders.

Interestingly, while Shigure knows that Akito is up to something, he tells Tooru to her face that the Souma’s don’t have any devious plans involving her. Perhaps he was telling her this so she doesn’t worry and leave again, feeling like she’s causing problems, or perhaps he’s working with Akito.

I’m pretty sure it’s the former, but at the same time Shigure does seem like he’s the kind who’s just good at manipulating people. Still, it’s a bit strange for him to simply dismiss Hatori’s idea that Tooru should take care of herself first, and instead insist that everything is fine.

Maybe Shigure simply doesn’t believe in that particular Souma clan curse. We know he believes in some Souma clan curse, but maybe it’s not the same one Hatori believes in. Maybe there is no Souma clan curse and instead Akito has been lying to each of the clan members to get them to stay in line.

Conclusion

What did you think of this week’s episode of Fruits Basket? Do you think Hatori did the right thing when he suppressed Kana’s memories? Do you think there even is another Souma clan curse besides the zodiac one? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any upcoming content or potential schedule changes.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about becoming a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Perhaps We Should Invite Ourselves Over

I almost wrote about the new Boruto episode today instead of Fruits Basket, but once I actually watched the Boruto episode I decided against it. Sorry, Boruto fans, but I’ll start up those reviews once it gets out of filler territory. And now, onto the series at hand.

It’s the day of the school festival, and anyone who’s been around this blog for a while should know how I feel about school festival episodes. Luckily, the school festival isn’t the main attraction of the episode this time around, so I won’t have to complain about it.

Tooru’s class is running an onigiri stand which probably wouldn’t have been that big of a hit if Yuki wasn’t also wearing a dress. A large group of upperclassmen girls were begging him to wear it for the day, and in the end he agreed for a still unknown reason.

Perhaps he actually likes wearing the dress despite what he says. Or, perhaps he’s trying to get in with the older girls. Yuki, you sly rat.

However, the festival gets a bit crazy when too more members of the Souma clan show up to visit. And in the confusion, Tooru let’s it slip that she’s been living with Yuki and Kyo to her best friends, Uo and Hana. This is a big deal because had her friends known she was homeless, they would have helped her out instead.

But, rather than immediately insist that Tooru move out of the Souma home, Uo and Hana decide to investigate for themselves and determine if it’s a good environment for Tooru to live in. And to do this, they invite themselves over for a sleepover.

Momiji and Hatori

Before I get to the sleepover, let’s take a moment to discuss the two, newly introduced members of the Souma clan, Momiji and Hatori. The pair show up because Momiji wanted to visit Tooru, and Hatori was sent to be his guardian. It’s also said that Akito, the head of the family, wanted to go too.

So who are Momiji and Hatori? Momiji is the German boy who we briefly met earlier on in the series, and this time around it’s confirmed that he is, in fact, a boy as I predicted. It’s also revealed that he’s only half German, but that doesn’t stop him from speaking in German half the time.

We also quickly learn that Momiji is the rabbit of the zodiac, and that he doesn’t seem to be all that concerned with people finding this secret out. After confirming that Tooru already knows about the secret, he hugs her despite her entire class being present.

Hatori, on the other hand, is basically Momiji’s opposite. He’s an older member of the Souma clan and takes his position in the clan very seriously, so it’s no wonder that he was the one sent along with Momiji to the school.

We haven’t yet learned which zodiac animal Hatori is, but I’m going to make a random guess and assume he’s the Ox. Ox are strong, and as a responsible adult Hatori seems like someone who has to constantly keep other family members in line, which requires some form of strength.

He’s also the family doctor, though it’s unknown if he’s actually a practicing doctor or if he simply serves as the doctor for his clan. Either way, his role is an important one, as we learn that the Soumas may not be the healthiest individuals. Even Yuki, who seems to be healthy by all accounts, has some respiratory ailment.

But, possibly the most important role Hatori plays is in the wiping of memories. It was previously hinted that Akito has the ability to wipe the memories of those who learn the Souma secret, but as it turns out, Akito simply gives Hatori the order to wipe memories.

So, will Hatori turn out to be a minor antagonist?

Slumber Party

Uo and Hana show up at Shigure’s home some time after school ends for the day. Previously we’ve only seen these two in their school uniforms, so it was interesting to see how they dress themselves on their days off, specifically Uo.

During the course of their investigation, they determine that the Souma household is a great place for Tooru to live, despite her living alone with three men. Neither Yuki, Kyo, nor Shigure seem to be any threat to Tooru, and they all clearly view her as a member of their family.

In the end they allow Tooru to continue living with Yuki and Kyo, but make it clear that they won’t get away with hurting Tooru in any way. Even for Yuki and Kyo, I think Uo and Hana are formidable foes, so this isn’t just an empty threat.

During the sleep over, Tooru tells Uo and Hana a story from her past based around a memento she keeps, a hat. When she was younger she ran away from some bullies and ended up lost and alone. However, a boy appeared who led her all the way back to her home by having her chase him.

He then gave her his hat and was never seen again. While this kind of story would usually be easy to dismiss, it’s made pretty clear that this boy who led Tooru home on that fateful day was either Yuki or Kyo. However, their face and hair color were blocked out in the flashback so we can’t tell which.

My guess is that it was Yuki simply due to the hair style the boy had. But who knows, perhaps it was Kyo.

Akito Souma

Finally, we learn a bit more about the head of the Souma clan, Akito. In an earlier review I assumed that Akito was the dragon of the zodiac, but I’ve now determined that they’re actually the tiger due to the multiple tiger images on the walls of their room.

I know the two most powerful zodiac animals are the tiger and dragon, but I still fail to see how a tiger would ever be a match for a dragon. It just seems that common knowledge would dictate that the dragon is the master of the zodiac.

Anyway, another one of my predictions also seems to have been confirmed, which is that Akito allowed Tooru to stay with the Soumas because they hoped something would go wrong. My prediction is still that Akito is planning to use Tooru to “prove” to Yuki and Kyo that outsiders can’t be trusted.

And, when Shigure talks to Akito, it’s clear that he doesn’t like Akito all that much. But due to Akito’s position as the clan head, there’s nothing Shigure can do if Akito decides to throw Tooru out and have her memories sealed away.

Shigure also hints at the fact that Akito is sick. Exactly how sick we don’t know, but perhaps this is related to Yuki’s illness as well. There might be some sort of other curse afflicting the Souma clan that isn’t just that they turn into animals when hugged by the opposite sex.

Conclusion

What did you think of this week’s episode of Fruits Basket? And, now that we seem to know which zodiac animal Akito is, which animal do you think Hatori is? Part of me wants to say he’s the dragon, but I’m going to stick with him being the ox for now.

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My review of the next episode is available here.