I guess it says something for Fruits Basket that it can still drive me nuts, twenty damn years after I started my relationship with it. There’s definitely a quality of “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” to it – some truly sublime emotional crescendoes along the way. But we’re long past that point by now, really. This last lap is really one heavy sigh after another, nothing but tsuris as far as the heart can see. But the door has always been there, and I’ve never chosen to use it. I guess that says something too.
This episode would fool you, because after the mad rush to get here it seems so penultimate – you’d think next week was the finale, rather than the antepenultimate episode itself. This was, if I’m honest, mostly a mix of stuff I don’t care about (and never did) and stuff that just flat pisses me off. Anything related to Yuki and the student council is the former, including the Machi angle. Same with Kureno and that whole romance drama, too – he’s just such a foolish man that I can’t identify with anyone seeing him as a catch. If that’s your bag, great, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it.
Kyou is the main driver of the piss-off portion, and the part of the episode that really matters. That last “fight” between Kyou and Yuki didn’t do any more for me than the rest of them have, because they always amount to the same thing. And Yuki being the one to shame Kyou into going to see Tohru – that never sat right with me. Let him have his moment, for cripes sake – even at the climax of Kyou’s character arc Takaya still has to have Yuki commandeer it. I get where she was going but that was written for a segment of the readership of which I’m not a part.
As to Kyou’s dad. well – the laundry list of scumbags in Furuba is an impressively long one. But this guy – what a piece of work he is. So what happens? Kyou gets denied his moment again, that’s what. All the things he’s rightfully felt get superseded by his taking pity on a man who doesn’t deserve it. I hate that Kyou’s transitional moments come as a result of Yuki and his father, two people who’ve treated him reprehensibly for the entire time he’s known them. Why should Kyou have to forgive his father to forgive himself? He has nothing to forgive himself for, and his father doesn’t deserve to be forgiven any more than Akito does.
That sums it up for me, really. I think when Akito casually says “Kureno is here, because I stabbed him” and there’s no mention of the police or anything else, you know all you need to know about this final act. Forgiveness is great – as a concept. But so is personal responsibility. And the latter seems to play no role in Fruits Basket’s denouement at all, really. It’s a fact that I still care enough to be disappointed by that, but I wish I didn’t have to be.
Jeremy Smith
June 9, 2021 at 10:59 pmWhile I don’t share your opinion on many of the characters being boring, I won’t bother arguing with you about it either since everyone has different tastes. I do want to give my opinion about two things though. I don’t believe Kyo’s visit with his father had anything to do with forgiving his father at all. I believe it was just about closure and moving on. Also I’m pretty sure Akito is taking personal responsibility for her actions.
Jeremy Smith
June 9, 2021 at 11:12 pmAlso, as I mentioned in my comments on the previous episode review you gave, I believe prison works better on the unrepentant or those who, either as result of addiction or sexual impulse, are at risk of recommitting the same crime than on those who truly regret their crimes. Those who truly regret their criminal actions should spend their life trying to make up for their past crimes rather than spending time in jail. Prison isn’t really a punishment if the person believes they should be in it.
Guardian Enzo
June 10, 2021 at 6:28 amIrrespective of whether you believe people should be held legally responsible for committing serious crimes, the fact that Takaya chose to totally ignore that aspect here is pretty laughable. Two people show up at the hospital with stab wounds and there are no cops asking questions?
Jeremy Smith
June 10, 2021 at 7:48 amThe Hospital is owned by the Soma Family and due to the fact that the head of the family is involved they would obviously want to keep it hushed up to avoid a scandal which is probably why there are no police since they were not informed.
Rasu
June 10, 2021 at 10:26 amSo corruption is good, lack of professional ethics from all the medical personal too, and we shouldn’t condemn it neither give a f#ck about laws and how society should work <>?
Yeah…no. Laws doesn’t exist just because. We also aren’t living together as humans just out from pure idealism. Granted, we’re a social species, but while achievieng a common goal, rules to protect our shared harmony and keep security are needed. No matter what, violence shouldn’t be overlooked.
Good for Tohru. She’s so conveniente, but she’s not being responsable towards society.
Jeremy Smith
June 11, 2021 at 2:39 amI never made any comment on the cover-up being either good or bad. I was just answering the question on why the police don’t appear to be investigating the situation.
Kim
June 10, 2021 at 10:10 amPutting Yuki and Kyo’s father in the same sentence as treating Kyo reprehensibly is just so wrong.
Kyo is my favorite character in the series (even named my cat after him) but your bias against Yuki is just way too much sometimes in my opinion. Both Kyo & Yuki treated each other badly at times.
Personally I think them coming to the realization that they were jealous of each other and admired one another makes sense. Again it calls back to Tohru’s line from earlier in the season that you can’t see what is on your own back only someone else can. That is the perfect analogy for Kyo & Yuki. The curse made it hard for them to see each other as anything but “enemies”. But living under the same roof, both caring about Tohru eased them into realizing what was right in front of them the whole time. That Kyo & Yuki really aren’t so different and both wanted to be the other one.
Guardian Enzo
June 10, 2021 at 10:31 amCertainly, the degree to which Yuki and Otousan mistreated Kyou is very different. But they both did. And this false equivalency Takaya tries to establish between Yuki and Kyou rings totally false. That’s the real problem with that whole sequence for me. Their relationship is not and has never been equal, and neither is the way they’ve been treated by the family.
Rasu
June 10, 2021 at 10:33 amInstead of being charming that decision to meet with Machi sounded pretty bad to me, like “you’re my is better than nothing”. Also, the whole fake Edipo syndrome didn’t sound convicing (again) with those screams.
Anyway, I’m guessing Uo is suppossed to play “Kyouko par 2”, but they aren’t really alike neither is her relationship like the one Kyouko shared with Honda (Father).
Chris
June 11, 2021 at 5:37 pmI too felt quite frustrated watching this episode. It could – or it should, really – have been so much better. It is the 10th episode of a 13-episode final season, so yes, viewers can legitimately have high expectations. It took me 3 viewings to actually enjoy the “best” bits of the episode (the Kyô-centered parts, obviously), which I think goes to show that it was not written that well; mind you, it could have been worse, if some of the bits that were edited from the manga had made their way to the screen.
To me, the main issue is one of balance. It seems that Kyô, as a character, has pretty much grown on his own and out of the writer’s control. He is such a powerful character and has become the driving force of the show, that most of the others pale in comparison. So when you decide to write an episode that has important Kyô moments, but want to include other characters’ moments, the latter are bound to look flat. And they do.
All the bits with Akito are a disaster. You can’t be an all-controlling, god-like psycho for 20 odd years and become a meek little lamb in 2 days. Even less so when you’ve not even started to address the elephant(s) in your room (Ren, your relations with the zodiacs…). It doesn’t work. Even if you feel crushed by guilt and your own responsibility (as you should), you have so many years of bad habits and behaviors to fight against that there’s no way you could transition so smoothly. It took 50 to 60 episodes for the main characters to acknowledge and come to terms with their inner demons, Akito can’t be seen as getting away with it in just one episode.
And what is it with the Uo / Akito hug??? It seemed weird in the manga, and totally out of place on screen. So does the whole Kureno / Uo bit, to be honest.
Now… Yuki. Sight. He could have been such a great character. But to me it seems his best traits were not actually shown and developed, other than through the eyes of his oh so many groupies (Haru comes to mind, obviously), which makes him less relatable. His words and feelings sound empty to me, as they are not supported by enough facts to make them feel realistic. With that in mind, there is no way he can ever be a match to Kyô. There is no way I can actually believe he ever wanted to be in Kyô’s shoes. You can’t portray a character as being under Akito’s influence and control for years, and have him say he envied a person destined to be locked up till the end of his life. However hard Yuki’s struggles were, and there’s no denying he had it pretty bad, they are nowhere near Kyô’s. Yuki’s struggle are mainly Akito- and family-centered. Remove Akito (or move Yuki out of Akito’s immediate grip), and all Yuki needs is a bit of a push to realise life is not a pitch-black hole of gloomy darkness. Yuki has support, and while Tohru certainly helped speeding up the process, I get the feeling he would have been able to heal eventually anyway. Kyô, on the other hand, was always trapped within himself, and that makes all the difference.
All of this to say that, while I agree the episode is frustrating and certainly poorly paced and not well thought out, I don’t think Kyô ends up being deprived of all his moments. Mind you, like I said, it took me 3 viewings to come to this conclusion. The Yuki / Kyô fight looks the same as all the others, but it is not. It certainly seems Kyô is quite passive and defeated as usual. But if you look carefully (thrice…), you come to realise that he is not so. Something clicks in his brain, and he becomes the adult in the room. Not Yuki. He stops Yuki’s fist as Kazuma does. Even if he’s on the floor. Game over. I’m not sure he’s really listening to Yuki by that time any more. He has won the fight. It feels like he totally could have beaten Yuki to a pulp just then, but he chose not to. While it does seem that Yuki is ordering him out, I believe that Kyô had already made up his mind. Yuki’s words just help him snap out of his own head and come back to earth, but Kyô did have his moment.
Likewise, Kyô’s moment with his father is more about gaining closure and realising what had actually happened to his mother. If anyone is forgiven, it is Kyô’s mother, and Kyô himself really. Certainly not his father. To me, Kyô’s confronting his father stems from his win against Yuki. He won, the cat can beat the rat after all, the curse is not that all-powerful unless you let it be so. Therefore, why should he be forced to spend the rest of his life in prison if he doesn’t want to?
These 2 scenes, however, feel oddly paced and underwhelming. They lack this spark of intensity that would have made them more straightforward and clear. Again, if it takes 3 viewings and a bit of (over)analysing, then you’ve probably done something wrong bringing them to screen. Last but not least, if you really want to give intensity to your episode, don’t end it up with your main character running away. If Kyô was ever denied a moment in this episode, this is the one. Just cut when he comes to terms with the depth of his feelings, and leave the weird sprinting game for the opening of the next episode (even more so when you’ve edited the whole “she will run away cos she thinks you dumped her” bit).
Well this was a bit long… ooops… Guess I went a bit overboard… Thank you for your blog and great analyses
Guardian Enzo
June 11, 2021 at 6:58 pmThank you for that very interesting comment. I just want to touch on that Uo/Akito hug, because I was likewise especially struck by that moment. “I stabbed the love of your life and nearly killed him.” “Oh? You look like you need a hug.”
Chris
June 12, 2021 at 12:06 amExactly. I can’t wrap my head around that one. Is Akito giving Uo her blessing or something? Is this what we are supposed to understand? I honestly cannot find a proper reason for this gesture, or for their whole conversation for that matter. Akito and Uo hardly know each other and *BAM*, one confesses attempted murder and years of psychological torture, while the other goes around giving free hugs. Doesn’t even begin to make sense.