Anime/Manga ► Fruits Basket (2019)

[alexis.anagram]

[video=youtube;yImLCDyxZjM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yImLCDyxZjM[/video]
Soooo!
This is happening. I'm giving myself permission to feel excited while delicately wrapping my childhood in a protective blanket. Probably gonna just keep it there for the first few months of 2019, to be on the safe side.

 

[Pokie]

I adored this manga! It just felt so fresh and creative. Not to mention it was so tragically sad at points, you couldn't help but feel for most of the cast of characters. I did watch a few episodes of the original version of the anime, but it was ...not good.

 

[alexis.anagram]

I adored this manga! It just felt so fresh and creative. Not to mention it was so tragically sad at points, you couldn't help but feel for most of the cast of characters. I did watch a few episodes of the original version of the anime, but it was ...not good.

Yeah, the original anime adaptation seems to be a lot more divisive than I realized it was. I see a lot of the flaws with it but I have a lot of appreciation for its quirky detours and generally colorful nature, and when it gets things right it gets them so right ("For Fruits Basket" as an opening is so perfect it's chill inducing). I feel that it actually manages to strike a nice balance between the shojo trappings of the story's premise and the subversive Freudian underpinnings lurking beneath the surface waiting to tear it all apart in spectacular, deconstructive psychodrama fashion. It was also one of the first shows I watched subtitled (the days of YouTube fansubs...) with something like a conscious awareness of and interest in it as a work reflecting elements of Japanese society (i.e. my first "real" anime) and I became totally immersed in it for the story and characters. Then my younger sister picked it up, and we read the manga together volume by volume while it was still releasing, so there's a personal and shared attachment formed around it, as well.

Hopefully this new series introduces folks to the series in a good way! As a completely new production, it has a lot of room to make its own mark, and finally give closure to all of us who have been waiting to see the back half of the story get the anime treatment.