Fruits Basket

Episode 30

That darn summer vacation arc has been foreshadowed in the opening theme for over a month now, but at long last, the final day of the semester arrived for our Furuba friends. As the entire student body erupts with excitement, Hanajima remarks that they've all been liberated to soar away from school like birds on the breeze. But little does she know that not all fowl can fly so freely...

Before we get to meet that last remaining Zodiac member, Momiji decides the gang must celebrate their vacation right away with some shenanigans at the local department store's pop-up haunted house. Unfortunately, Tohru is too faint of heart to handle anything popping up at her in a dark hallway, not even papier-mâché puppets on squeaky springs. This spooky excursion might seem like total fluff on the surface, but in classic Fruits Basket fashion, there's yet another clever lesson about empathy hiding in Haru's improvised tale of a young man who was abandoned by his mother. As children, sometimes our parents may hurt us in ways that we won't be able to understand until we grow older, but reconciling that pain in the present can be difficult when that suffering has already molded the way we interact with the world--

Nah, I'm just messing with you. I don't think there's any deeper subtext to this haunted house vignette that kicks off the Soma family's summer vacation. It's just a refreshing slice of comedy in a progressively darkening story, and a great reminder that Fruits Basket can still indulge its wacky side with gusto. Considering how much melodrama consumes this story in its cloudier moments, a little sunshine for its own sake is more than welcome. I guess if I had a complaint about this silly segment, it's that Yuki and Kyo don't add much to the episode, falling back into their old dynamic of bickering so hard that they leave poor Tohru in the lurch, but honestly, that's fine for now. Momiji and Haru deserve their time in the spotlight too, especially since the Ox has so many brownie points to make up after his implosion in the previous episode.

It can be tempting to criticize Kyo for acting so overprotective of Tohru, until episodes like this remind us how helpless she gets when she's out of her element, constantly face-planting while trying to convince everyone that everything is fine. (No Tohru, please stop, it is not fine to incur a concussion because you decided to go through a haunted house with your eyes closed.) And it's good to know that I'm not the only person who used to concoct elaborate stories about weird mannequins and props I saw on display as a child. Haru comes up with such a compelling little drama for these animatronics on the spot that I have to assume he does this everywhere he goes. He may be a few cards short of a full deck in terms of street-smarts, but there's a genius storyteller buried somewhere under that fluffy cloud of hair. If any of these kids were to write a biography about Tohru and the Soma curse, I might even bet on Hatsuharu over Shigure—at least he'd beat the Dog to the deadline.

Anyway, once Furuba gets that goofiness and property damage quota filled, the episode shifts back to melodrama and foreshadowing, with the reveal that Uo's mystery crush was Kureno Soma, the Rooster, all along! Their meet-cute is more intense than expected, as both of them respond to their chance encounter with powerful mutual infatuation. Even the nosy waitresses at the soba restaurant assume these two have a more complicated relationship than simply being strangers on a first date. Like fairytale lovers, they've barely spent an hour together before almost sharing their first kiss—then Kureno's better judgment takes hold and he runs away like Cinderella instead. (Might want to wait a few months until she's legal first, you cocky lad.)

Of course, their age gap is not the reason Kureno balks at taking things further with Uo, and it's easy to understand why these two gave each other such extreme butterflies. Uo's made no secret of her passionate feelings for Tohru, so put her best friend's kind yet clueless personality in the body of a towering himbo, and the wedding invitations practically write themselves. (He even starts speaking too familiarly with Uo right away, because he's not used to using formal terms of address with the only other people he talks to, his family members. Lucky for him, that's another Uo turn-on he shares with Tohru.) And from Kureno's sheltered perspective, any woman who pursues him so aggressively, exudes so much honest emotion in his presence, and cuts straight through his fake smile to perceive his deeper sadness, well, she's bound to blow his mind after 26 years in the Soma cage. Neither of them have ever been in Love like this before, and the opposite ways they respond to being twitterpated tell us even more about their characters.

Uo may have grown a lot since her middle school days, but it's not like her quirks and coping mechanisms have changed completely just because she's matured, so history repeats itself when her Big Feelings kick in over Kureno, just like they did toward Tohru and Kyoko. For Uo, sadness and anger go hand-in-hand, and sorrow still tends to overwhelm her when she encounters happiness that she feels like she doesn't deserve. She's not actually mad at Kureno when she explodes over his innocuous remark that he was just "pointlessly wasting time" when they met; she's angry at herself for daring to think that this hot guy might like her as much as she's already fallen for him. Just like when she turned on Tohru after being shown too much kindness too quickly, Uo protects herself by lashing out in anger, only allowing herself to cry honestly when she's away from the emotional "threat". It's easy to assume she picked up this defense mechanism from the macho culture of her old delinquent gang. Fortunately for her, that aggression is exactly what Kureno fell in love with, since it's blended so completely with her equally unguarded expressions of joy. He never sees anything like this fearless emotional freedom within the cold walls of the Soma estate.

But unlike Uo, Kureno can't afford to express his emotions so freely, and that's where the dark side of his resemblance to Tohru becomes clear. He gets carried away just enough to tell Uo that he hasn't been able to stop thinking about her since they met, and this rush of shared happiness—real happiness like the kind that irreversibly melted Hatori's heart—possesses him so completely that he forgets his place, leading to the unguarded smile and the aborted kiss. Then the bird remembers that his cage is still waiting for him, and the daydream fades into guilt. Kureno's sad smile creeps back on to his face as he reminds himself that he must be grateful for the protected life Akito has given him. It would just be conceited of him to want anything more. It's the same smile we saw on Tohru as she struggled to survive in a rustic tent, and the same smile the Foolish Traveler wore as goblins tore her body into pieces. Kureno's own body belongs to someone else, and he can't fly too close to the sun by seeing Arisa Uotani again.

Even though this episode told us little about him, simply meeting the Rooster has locked dozens of pieces in the Soma puzzle into place. Whereas Rin is too wild to reach out to Tohru like the other Zodiac members, Kureno is too tame, a tragic reminder of the fate that a vulnerable bleeding heart like Tohru's would have suffered if she were born into the Soma family. Just as Yuki paid the price when Ayame fled the Soma estate, Akito was in need of a new companion when Yuki's absence opened a void in his life, so the family head quickly took advantage of the kindest member of his circle. This may be what the Old Maid from last episode was upset about, since the Rat is meant to sit at the head of the eternal banquet, not the newly-favored Rooster. Perhaps she blames Akito's instability on Yuki's absence or fears this disruption in tradition will impact the Zodiac curse somehow, especially with loose cannons like Shigure and Rin playing games on their own terms. It's all too complicated to speculate on yet, but one thing's for certain: Tohru's not the only outsider entangled in the Zodiac curse anymore.

Stray Details Lost in Adaptation This Week: Originally, Tohru was present during this episode's okonomiyaki dinner with Uo, Hana, and Megumi. When Uo mentions that there's a nine-year age gap between her and Kureno, Tohru adds that her parents bridged an eight-year age gap, drawing another direct parallel between Crimson Butterfly Senior and CB Junior. (And we also know that Tohru's father Katsuya was tall, well-groomed, and spoke with great politeness just like Tohru and Kureno.) You may also be relieved to learn that the haunted house manager re-mounted the mother's severed head next to her child after hearing Haru's touching story.

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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.