Fruits Basket
Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to continue Romance Month with a late review. Yeah sorry about that I was just behind schedule and I didn't finish the anime on time. So now a late review for all of you. Now if you're an anime fan chances are that you've heard of Fruits Basket. It's crazy popular and just about praised by almost if not everyone. Now first off, I HAVE NOT READ THE MANGA AND I'M NOT AT ALL REVIEWING THE MANGA!!!! I'll be judging the anime adaptation completely on it's own. So if I say something negative about the anime it's because I thought that it was bad and I don't care if the manga did better I'm reviewing the anime not the manga. Now with that out the let's begin shall we?
Story:
The story to Fruits Basket is an odd one indeed. We meet a young girl named Tohru as she lives in the woods. Yup. She lives out there so that she can stay out of everyone's way as she believes she can be a burden on people sometimes. She feels that she gets in the way of people ever since her mother died. So now she just kinda lives in the woods, that is until she find out that she's been camp out on Sohma property. The Sohmas are a family or clan depending on how you're looking at it, that usually keep to themselves. Tohru stumbles across their house and they obviously can't let the poor girl live out in the woods all by herself so they decide to take her in. It is in this turn of events that Tohru finds out the Sohmas actually have a bit of a cures on them that changes them into an animal from the Chinese zodiac whenever they get hugged by a person of the opposite sex. So yeah that's a bit odd. Then we follow Tohru and the rest of the Sohma family as they live their day to day life in all of it's comedic splendor. Now that is the best thing about this show is really freaking funny. It has a very good sense of humor and knows how to be funny as all hell. The show also knows how to do drama very well. It can range from very subtle moments to hardcore heart tugging drama and it can get very compelling. To a point. You see the show has a really bad habit of sorta cutting off some of the dramatic scenes and a lot of more romantic scenes with some random bit of comedy that actually ends up hurting the overall tone of the story. Another thing that ends up hurting the show a bit is the romance. Now the romance is pretty much half assed. They really develop Tohru's relationship with any of the male characters and keep everything in a sort of status quo. In where Tohru isn't in a relationship with any of they two male leads but it's obvious as all hell that they both like her and she likes them. It gets pretty damn frustrating seeing them dance around who Tohru might end up with instead of just giving of a nicely developed romance. But when the anime did a romantic scene nicely I will not lie and say that they did do a good job and the scene did come out looking very cute. So story is very much miss with the occasional hit.
Animation:
On the production side of things here I have to say that this show's animation is all over the place. It can go from normal character designs to fucking stick figures. Now anytime the show changes it's art style it's always for comedic purposes. This helps a lot in making the show really funny. Now on the opposite side of this funny as hell animation the character designs themselves are actually very bland looking. There's nothing really ugly looking about them at all but they just all look way too pretty. Like even the eleven years old look really pretty. It all looked so pretty that it became bland. So animation is also in the hit or miss category.
Music:
Holy crap I didn't like this show's soundtrack. Now don't get me wrong, the music in this show isn't bad but it's way too overused. The show doesn't have a lot of tracks to begin with so it's working on a limited range of music here. But the same could be said about Fate/Zero and Elfen Lied but they used there music wisely and was able to make very good use of there music. But in the case of Fruits Basket they about use all of the tracks they have in the first couple of episodes and continue to overuse said tracks even more throughout the show. You will most likely get tired of the same "funny moment" song or of the "sad moment" song. Me personally I got really tired of it. I honestly feel as though the music only did a little bit of a good job in the show for really only the dramatic parts but even those parts the music was also pretty repetitive as well. So music is another part of the show that isn't is strongest aspect.
Characters:
This is also another hit or miss part of the show. You see the show actually has some pretty entertaining characters and a lot of them have some pretty damn good back stories as well. But on the other hand you have some characters who have pretty weak back stories and are annoying as all hell. Take our main character for example, Tohru. She's an overly sweat girl that can forgive anyone no matter what they do to her, she's just a genital loving soul and that really makes her boring. She has very little meat to her character aside from just being really nice and still feeling the effects of her mother's untimely passing but even that is handled with her still smiling and being super optimistic. Also she gets really annoying with just how many times she goofs up and she just makes the most over the top reactions to everything. It's like when Hideaki from Chobits messed up and made himself look like an idiot except in Chobits they purposely Hideaki do something stupid or he just clearly didn't understand a situation so it was okay and funny whenever he did his over the top reactions. But Tohru on the other hand has a full grasp on society but still does these stupid reactions and even worse half of the time she doesn't need to response to the situation at hand like that she's just an idiot. They also give a lot of scene time to the character of Yuki Sohma, one of the male leads. He also rides on the same boat with Tohru in which he doesn't have a very interesting character overall. He's pretty much just a pretty boy who hates the Sohma family because he doesn't like it. It literally goes nowhere else than that and as you would expect it makes him a very boring character. But that's not to say that these characters kill the show. In fact the show makes up it in having a very solid supporting cast and a very good secondary main character. Not only are these characters well developed and fleshed out but they are also very funny to watch as all of them have very different personalities that work insanely well with one another. So even though the two main characters aren't very good all the other side characters and the third main character also having a very good back story as well as being a well developed character. But this show does fall very short one one character in particular.
Nitpicks:
Akito Sohma, the head of the Sohma family and the kind of main antagonist of Fruits Basket. He is told to be a very dangerous individual and he even caused one of the side characters to go blind in his left eye. He's also a boring ass character as well and his voice actor sound like he was high on horse tranquilizer. Akito is just a stupid little crybaby who feels as though everyone should respect him and that if you don't listen to him you should be punished and all of the Sohmas listen to him out of fear and respect but really I don't see why. He never has a menacing presence to him and I can't understand why everyone has to listen to him. He seems like he can get his shit kicked in by everybody and even more so the biggest villain moment he has is when he causes Hatori to go blind in his left eye. That moment was actually an accident so that doesn't make him as scary as very one says he is. Also he for some reason hate Tohru because she can always look on the bright side of things. That is the most lame ass excuse for you're villain to have something against the main character I have ever heard. This character was so flipping boring and I could not for the life of me see why he was such a intimidating figure to all of the other character.
Overall:
Well I guess to wrap up this review I can say that Fruits Basket was just a barely decent anime, The romance aspect was half assed but it had it's cute parts and even though some of the main characters where one note and generic all of the other characters made up for it in charisma and generally just being better written. So I guess I'll say that Fruits Basket has a lot of good and a lot of bad. Would I recommend it? Not really but at the same time I didn't regret watching it. So take that as you will.
Arcane Reviews gives Fruits Basket a 6 out of 10.
You can watch "Fruits Basket" on:
Funimation (Dub and Sub)
Animation:
On the production side of things here I have to say that this show's animation is all over the place. It can go from normal character designs to fucking stick figures. Now anytime the show changes it's art style it's always for comedic purposes. This helps a lot in making the show really funny. Now on the opposite side of this funny as hell animation the character designs themselves are actually very bland looking. There's nothing really ugly looking about them at all but they just all look way too pretty. Like even the eleven years old look really pretty. It all looked so pretty that it became bland. So animation is also in the hit or miss category.
Music:
Holy crap I didn't like this show's soundtrack. Now don't get me wrong, the music in this show isn't bad but it's way too overused. The show doesn't have a lot of tracks to begin with so it's working on a limited range of music here. But the same could be said about Fate/Zero and Elfen Lied but they used there music wisely and was able to make very good use of there music. But in the case of Fruits Basket they about use all of the tracks they have in the first couple of episodes and continue to overuse said tracks even more throughout the show. You will most likely get tired of the same "funny moment" song or of the "sad moment" song. Me personally I got really tired of it. I honestly feel as though the music only did a little bit of a good job in the show for really only the dramatic parts but even those parts the music was also pretty repetitive as well. So music is another part of the show that isn't is strongest aspect.
Characters:
This is also another hit or miss part of the show. You see the show actually has some pretty entertaining characters and a lot of them have some pretty damn good back stories as well. But on the other hand you have some characters who have pretty weak back stories and are annoying as all hell. Take our main character for example, Tohru. She's an overly sweat girl that can forgive anyone no matter what they do to her, she's just a genital loving soul and that really makes her boring. She has very little meat to her character aside from just being really nice and still feeling the effects of her mother's untimely passing but even that is handled with her still smiling and being super optimistic. Also she gets really annoying with just how many times she goofs up and she just makes the most over the top reactions to everything. It's like when Hideaki from Chobits messed up and made himself look like an idiot except in Chobits they purposely Hideaki do something stupid or he just clearly didn't understand a situation so it was okay and funny whenever he did his over the top reactions. But Tohru on the other hand has a full grasp on society but still does these stupid reactions and even worse half of the time she doesn't need to response to the situation at hand like that she's just an idiot. They also give a lot of scene time to the character of Yuki Sohma, one of the male leads. He also rides on the same boat with Tohru in which he doesn't have a very interesting character overall. He's pretty much just a pretty boy who hates the Sohma family because he doesn't like it. It literally goes nowhere else than that and as you would expect it makes him a very boring character. But that's not to say that these characters kill the show. In fact the show makes up it in having a very solid supporting cast and a very good secondary main character. Not only are these characters well developed and fleshed out but they are also very funny to watch as all of them have very different personalities that work insanely well with one another. So even though the two main characters aren't very good all the other side characters and the third main character also having a very good back story as well as being a well developed character. But this show does fall very short one one character in particular.
Nitpicks:
Akito Sohma, the head of the Sohma family and the kind of main antagonist of Fruits Basket. He is told to be a very dangerous individual and he even caused one of the side characters to go blind in his left eye. He's also a boring ass character as well and his voice actor sound like he was high on horse tranquilizer. Akito is just a stupid little crybaby who feels as though everyone should respect him and that if you don't listen to him you should be punished and all of the Sohmas listen to him out of fear and respect but really I don't see why. He never has a menacing presence to him and I can't understand why everyone has to listen to him. He seems like he can get his shit kicked in by everybody and even more so the biggest villain moment he has is when he causes Hatori to go blind in his left eye. That moment was actually an accident so that doesn't make him as scary as very one says he is. Also he for some reason hate Tohru because she can always look on the bright side of things. That is the most lame ass excuse for you're villain to have something against the main character I have ever heard. This character was so flipping boring and I could not for the life of me see why he was such a intimidating figure to all of the other character.
Overall:
Well I guess to wrap up this review I can say that Fruits Basket was just a barely decent anime, The romance aspect was half assed but it had it's cute parts and even though some of the main characters where one note and generic all of the other characters made up for it in charisma and generally just being better written. So I guess I'll say that Fruits Basket has a lot of good and a lot of bad. Would I recommend it? Not really but at the same time I didn't regret watching it. So take that as you will.
Arcane Reviews gives Fruits Basket a 6 out of 10.
You can watch "Fruits Basket" on:
Funimation (Dub and Sub)
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