That needed to be an entire episode?
That was another snoozer of an episode for Furuba, to be honest. I can only assume there’s going to be a hiatus between cours and TMS is looking for a logical landing spot, which is of course fine and good. But seriously, to spend four episodes (about 18% of the total screen time so far) an Ao and Hana’s backstories is really beyond the pale. Sometimes things don’t need to happen on-screen exactly the way they happen on the page – there are reasons why changes are made when adapting material to anime.
What really bothers me- well, a couple things really bother me about this side of Fruits Basket 2019. It’s in episode like this that one realizes just how emotionally histrionic and generally melodramatic Takaya’s writing can be, first of all. Everything has to be totally over the top to make a point we sort of got in the first two minutes a character is introduced. And that’s the other major problem – this series often takes 10 minutes to make a point that could be made in one. I don’t feel as if we know anything essential about Hana now that we didn’t know after last week’s episode, and very little apart from the existence of her brother that we didn’t know before either of them.
In truth, I find Hana to be marginally more interesting that Uo, despite both of them being pretty much devices more than characters. At least Hana has kind of a distinctive family story behind her, and her character arc has more to say in the larger sense. But this series just has so damn much padding that as good as the canon episodes are, when they finally roll around there’s so much weariness from the fluff that even they start to lose their impact.
It’s going to be a tough call whether to keep covering this series when the second (much less third) season rolls around. I almost feel like only writing about the episodes that matter and skipping the rest, but I’ve really never treated a series that way and I’m not at all sure it would work. I want to be here for the end, that’s for sure, but so much that happens along the way is likely to be forgettable that I’m just not sure it’s going to be worth it. That’s not a decision I’m going to make in the next three weeks, but I’ll have to confront it sooner or later.
Ceres
September 1, 2019 at 4:25 amI don’t understand first you don’t like it when anime has filler and doesn’t follow the source material but now when it does since it’s not going the way of the original you still don’t like it. It’s not the 2001 version and it never will be besides that version never even touched on arisa or saki’s backstories anyway.
Guardian Enzo
September 1, 2019 at 8:54 amI hate the word “filler” and try to avoid using it. And I’ve effusively praised several series of late (Dororo, Vinland Saga, Takagi-san among others) for making changes and using original material. So your criticism is, frankly, totally off-base. As for Furuba, I’ve said from the very beginning that the manga had very real flaws and needed help, and that the help the 2001 gave it made it a better series.
Ceres
September 2, 2019 at 2:07 amI get what you’re saying the 2001 version will always hold a special place for me however after the manga and the amount of things that were changed or cut entirely. It doesn’t bother you just a bit. I mean say if you were creating a story and it got an adaption wouldn’t you be pissed that they changed things from what you wanted in your story.
zeroantizero
September 2, 2019 at 8:50 amOn one part, I have to agree with you. Except for last week’s episode, I’ve skipped all the episodes involving Uo’s and Hanajima’s backstories (along with the Soma’s since Ayame; excepting Hiro). While important in Tohru’s development, they are still ultimately tangential characters.
And like you said, you know the stopping point is the same as the 2001 anime, without the original ending. And there’s only so much content from the manga to fill the remaining episodes.
On the other hand, not expecting melodrama and histrionics from a manga possessing almost a literal personification of both in Akito, seems more or less naive. I don’t think anyone coming to it having read the manga – and knowing how important it is to Takaya that the adaptation be faithful to her vision – can expect anything else.
I also think it’s harder for those of us who have been around since the first anime. We’ve already seen this before, and once the nostalgia waned, it was bound to be less engaging. But starting next season, we’ll have content that has never been animated before, and I think all of us will be more engaged because of that.
For that, I hope you will give us at least a few reviews whenever it airs, even if you ultimately drop it.
Guardian Enzo
September 2, 2019 at 4:37 pmI’m not going to drop it lightly. There’s a lot of stuff I’m looking forward to seeing animated. But the gap between the eps that engage me and don’t is unusually wide with this series – maybe uniquely wide – and that makes covering it a unique challenge.
Kim
September 3, 2019 at 6:48 amI think it should be noted this wasn’t cut from the first anime at all. This and the Ao back story happened Much Later in the manga.
The only thing this version did was move them up. I disagree they are not important with the main storyline or that they are filler. These two side stories of the past are central to the theme of the overall series
Personally I think they were moved up because they were flashback stories it doesn’t exactly matter when they occur and they introduce new manga only material to the anime. Otherwise for 2 cours most of what we are watching (except a few additional scenes here & there) would be exactly the same as the first anime
I mean I think it’s fine to say you like the first anime more but praising the first anime for cutting stuff like this doesn’t make sense when these chapters were in the later volumes the first anime didn’t adapt in the first place
Guardian Enzo
September 3, 2019 at 7:35 amBut honestly, that argument doesn’t hold water for me. Deciding what chapters to adapt, where, and for how long is exactly the issue under discussion here.
Kim
September 3, 2019 at 10:38 amBut the first anime pretty much DID adapt everything that was out at the time from the 1st 8 volumes of the manga. It didn’t really skip any chapters. The only thing it left out were small scenes here and there that couldn’t be expanded on later (like the hat scene). And then the ending scene was added to give a sort of conclusion to the anime.
I mean I personally disagree with you that those flashback episodes should be cut. Because while they may not be important to the present day plot as I said they reinforce the major theme of the story. And I don’t see why Tohru’s friends should be blank slates. They aren’t actually less important than the Zodiac members we continue to meet.
And even if you want to argue that a good adaption knows what to cut and what not to this is still irrelevant to how the first anime handled the manga material. And I say this and actually do think the 1st series handled a lot of the same material from the manga better. Though I do think it will be easier to judge this series when it gets past the 1st anime. Unfortunately that won’t happen until the anime comes back because it looks like this season will end almost exactly like the 1st anime.