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New Fruits Basket Anime Reveals Cast, Character Designs for Arisa, Saki
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The official website for the new television anime adaptation for Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket manga revealed two new cast members and character designs for the anime on Friday.
Atsumi Tanezaki (The Ancient Magus' Bride' Chise, Liz and the Blue Bird's Mizore) as Arisa Uotani
Satomi Satou (K-ON!'s Ritsu, Fairy Tail's Wendy) as Saki Hanajima
Both voice actresses and the rest of the announced cast members below will attend an event for the anime in Chiba on March 16.
The new anime will have an entirely new cast and staff, as per Takaya's request. The new anime will cover the entire manga's story. The previously announced new cast includes:
Manaka Iwami (Tsuki ga Kirei's Aira Miyamoto, Maquia's titular character, Tada Never Falls in Love's Teresa Wagner) as Tohru Honda
Nobunaga Shimazaki (Waiting in the Summer's Kaito, Date A Live's Shido Itsuka, Scum's Wish's Mugi) as Yuki Sohma
Yūma Uchida (Macross Delta's Hayate Immelmann, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans' Ein Dalton, Banana Fish's Ash Lynx) as Kyo Sohma
Yūichi Nakamura (Fairy Tail's Gray Fullbuster, The irregular at magic high school's Tatsuya Chiba, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind's Bruno Bucciarati) as Shigure Sohma
The anime will air in Japan on TV Tokyo in 2019, and Funimation will stream the anime on FunimationNow. Funimation has also licensed the home video rights.
Yoshihide Ibata (Pikaia!, FLCL Progressive) is directing the anime at TMS Entertainment. Taku Kishimoto (Silver Spoon, Haikyu!!, 91 Days, Hanebad!) is in charge of series composition. Masaru Shindō (Macross Delta, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU) is drawing the character designs. Takaya herself is serving as executive supervisor.
Takaya serialized the original Fruits Basket manga in Hakusensha's Hana to Yume magazine from 1998-2006. Tokyopop released the manga in English from 2004 to 2009, and Yen Press re-released the manga in 12 updated omnibus volumes beginning in June 2016. Yen Press describes the story:
After a family tragedy turns her life upside down, plucky high schooler Tohru Honda takes matters into her own hands and moves out...into a tent! Unfortunately for her, she pitches her new home on private land belonging to the mysterious Sohma clan, and it isn't long before the owners discover her secret. But, as Tohru quickly finds out when the family offers to take her in, the Sohmas have a secret of their own--when touched by the opposite sex, they turn into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac!
The original manga inspired a television anime adaptation in 2001.
Takaya launched a sequel manga titled Fruits Basket Another on the free "HanaLaLa online" website in September 2015, but it moved to Hakusensha's Manga Park website and app in August 2017 along with the other HanaLaLa online manga. Takaya ended the manga on December 3 but also plans to draw one-shots for the manga afterward. The third volume will be the final volume.
The manga takes place after Tohru has graduated high school, and it features a girl named Sawa who has just entered high school.