Fruits Basket

Episode 27

As Fruits Basket's second season pushes further into the larger story's second act, the formula that Froob Fans were familiar with is radically changing. Just like episode 26 (and probably every episode leading up to the gang's summer vacation), episode 27's adaptation of its source material is technically combining events that were a half dozen chapters apart from one another in the manga (it's easier to do that with a slow-paced character drama), but this revised second-act structure will still seem odd to viewers only familiar with the 2001 anime. The days of Tohru playing therapist to a cuddly new animal every week are over. Not every episode can end with a tidy lesson and peaceful catharsis anymore, because the more involved Tohru becomes with the Soma family, the more she will realize that their problems run deeper than she's able to solve—especially as her own troubles start bubbling to the surface too. She's given so much emotional support to the Somas already, and it's time for them to start giving back.

This shift in focus is driven home hard by an episode centered around a fear of the future that bonds all our characters together in paralysis. When due dates start looming for their school's year-end career goal forms, almost no one in the cast knows how to respond. College, entering the workforce, getting married—all these possibilities seem equally overwhelming for kids who are already dealing with so much drama. This is especially true for the Zodiac members; it's painful to even consider making a choice that will inevitably be vetoed by Akito. The only thing scarier than not knowing what your future holds is being forced to wait out the days until you finally get the news that you can't have the future you secretly wanted. Even Momiji, probably the strongest of the Soma kids, isn't ready to talk about his dream career, because admitting his desires out loud will make it easier for his family to take them away.

The Somas' inability to discuss their own dreams, without even knowing if those wishes are in conflict with the futures their family has chosen for them or not, once again reveals Natsuki Takaya's striking insight into abusive family structures. While a healthy family will encourage their children to express their desires early on and then make any disagreements about them clear in response, abusive families do the exact opposite. Families like the Somas rely on a lack of communication to consolidate power upwards, discouraging independent thinking by "punishing" it with decisions that would have been made anyway, but can now be blamed on the child's insubordinate actions. Children like the Somas learn early on that they will be punished for expressing themselves, but the "rules" about how they're actually supposed to behave remain unclear, because in truth, the only rule is to stay close to home and obey the patriarch, however that needs to be enforced in the moment. Akito isn't so much trying to control what the Zodiac does, but who they think they are. For example, when I was growing up, I would hesitate to bring up a trip I wanted to take with friends for fear of being punished for "hiding" it, and when I had to reveal the truth a week or so beforehand, this gave my parents the opportunity to "consider" it for days before taking it away the night before because of some "sinful" thing I had recently done, disguising the fact that they always intended to say no. This lack of communication makes it easier for the Somas to blame themselves instead of Akito, both for not hiding their unacceptable desires well enough and for not being well-behaved enough to potentially be allowed them. When Kyo talks about doing "well enough" in Akito's eyes to be allowed to take over his master's dojo instead of rotting away in a warehouse, he's playing an unwinnable game designed to keep him from wanting things at all until he ends up as complacent as Kazuma's grandfather.

At least the Zodiac spirit facing down the darkest fate has a parent who will fight to defend his child's future. Kyo's relationship with Kazuma is such a refreshing splash of warmth in the Soma hive of dysfunction, as we revel with Tohru in the adorable tales of Kyo's kitten days to his perpetual embarrassment. Beyond the fun teasing, stories about baby Kyo serve to remind us of how much he's changed, and Kyo's internal monologue makes it clear that he wants to keep growing past his fears now that Tohru has accepted him. Kazuma's love and support has even made Kyo more capable than Yuki or Momiji of discussing his anxieties about the future out loud, and in that split-second flashback of Akito telling the Cat that he will be confined until he dies, you can actually see Kyo's fist gripping the family head's collar! It's amazing what a little genuine love from a caring parent has done for Kyo's self-expression and willpower compared to his cousins, even if his fight seems like the most hopeless of them all. And I can't get over how cute it is that Kazuma finally cut his hair in recognition of Kyo's transition to adulthood. This may be a coincidence, but baby Kyo being deeply upset by minor changes to his environment is a trait he shares with actual housecats. If you move your kitty's litter box or scratching post to another corner without warning, you're going to have a bad time.

Anyway, speaking of a bad time, this lovefest unfortunately gets interrupted by Kyo's ex-father, or as I like to call him, Evil Kyo. It's even more striking in anime form how much this guy's facial expressions and body language mirror his ex-son's, making it easy to imagine the kind of person Kyo would have become without Kazuma in his life. As if to prove that emotional growth has everything to do with effort and nothing to do with age, Evil Kyo blames the loss of his wife entirely on his son—and presumably the loss of his fortune, since he still lives in the Soma compound, but without the stipend that Zodiac parents receive. He refuses to refer to Kyo by name, only as "it" or "that monster", and he warns Kazuma that he will push for Kyo's imprisonment the second he reaches adulthood. His weakness and hatred are so blatant that Kazuma is able to take him down better than I could, so instead I'll point out an interesting characterization tweak made by this anime adaptation. Originally, this meeting was held in a nondescript tea room, as set design is often minimalistic in Fruits Basket, but Evil Kyo's room was changed to depict him as a hardcore audiophile in this remake. Beyond the obvious symbolism of a "broken record" in the background, my guess is that this is meant to illustrate how Evil Kyo surrounds himself with beautiful distracting stimuli to avoid ever having to sit with the silence of his painful thoughts and feelings. It's a nice touch that I feel humanizes Kyo's ex-father, because his refusal to slow down and look inward is one he happens to share with our beloved heroine! They may seem like opposites because he oozes hate while Tohru exudes love, but they're both riding the momentum of powerful emotions to escape smaller, far more uncomfortable ones.

The cracks in Tohru's facade of perpetual optimism have been starting to show for a while, but the emotional climax of this episode brought her walls crashing down hard. In a reversal of their dynamic from episode 10, Tohru even tells Kyo to stop asking about her feelings, because the pain of her buried anxiety is still too much for her to bear. It was brutal to watch the time-lapse of little Tohru growing bigger as her home and family grew smaller, another anime addition that stomped my heart into a pulp. She's so afraid of losing her family and home again that she overworks herself to be as cheerful and useful as possible (she cooks two meals in this episode and talks about preparing breakfast for the next morning), but her grief and self-doubt comes spilling out at the slightest suggestion from Kyo that she might not be as happy and confident as she appears. For as much as Tohru encourages others to open up, she's obviously carrying deeper fears that she's not ready to reveal, making her trademark therapeutic pep talk come off very differently from before, as she begs Kyo between sobs not to bottle up his own feelings around his father. It's like whenever she's asked to believe in herself, Tohru shuts down and pours her energy into believing in others instead.

We still don't know enough about Tohru's past to understand why she values herself so little, so on a lighter note, it's heartening to see how much closer Kyo and Tohru have gotten after she accepted his true form. (Since Tohru's shoulder wound seems to have healed up, we're probably never going to get the scene from the manga where Kyo apologizes directly for hurting her, making this anime adaptation's addition of The Yeet even more egregious. But for what it's worth, that did happen in the source material, and it was an important moment of growth for their relationship.) Beyond all the quality time and friendly banter, these two are also touching each other near-constantly now, and Kyo doesn't even flinch when Tohru grabs his bracelet and yanks it back and forth to distract from her aborted moment of emotional vulnerability. Their ship is plowing full-steam ahead into uncharted waters, and if Yuki wants to compete with Kyo (and Hana) in that race to win Tohru's hand, he's got a lot of catching up to do.

Despite how close they've gotten, Tohru's still not ready to share her darkest feelings with Kyo or the audience, so Shigure steps in to offer sage advice that's bound to resonate with everyone. He may be a dubious role model at best, but he does have a decade up on these teens, and life experience is the best teacher when dealing with fear of the future. I think Shigure delivers a fantastic metaphor for managing anxiety, one I've relied on many times to get me through the day: just wash the laundry around your feet, and before you know it, you'll see the sky again. Fruits Basket has often encouraged us to see Shigure as lazy, but considering that he's been trying to make some mysteriously impossible dream come true since he was a child, maybe this shiftless stinker who spends half his day sleeping is more determined than we thought. It's possible that Shigure's just been "doing the laundry at his feet" in his own way, minimizing his stress and conserving his energy each day so he can gradually chip away at a monumental task. Or maybe he's just a slacker who exploits his family's wealth to live in a nice cottage and not do his work. Either way, it's a metaphor worthy of a delicious dinner.

Due to the shift in format leaving each episode of Fruits Basket more open-ended than before, it's hard for Tohru to tie this tale of anxiety up in a neat little bow, but the best she can do for now is take a break from worrying and enjoy soumen with her friends. It's hard to say what the future holds for these kids yet, but Uo just might beat everyone else to a little summer loving! It seems she's got the hots for a mystery man she met at work—a man who's just like Tohru? It's easy to understand why Uo would be into that, but it's also difficult to imagine what a male Tohru would be like. I'm sure we'll learn more about him soon enough...

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Fruits Basket is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Jacob enjoys yelling about anime on Twitter and YouTube. If you're thirsting for more Furuba content, he also co-hosted a trio of podcasts that covers the entire manga.