Fruits Basket (2019) 05 (Good Filler)

Fruits Basket (2019) 05
フルーツバスケット 05
Furuba episode 05

Story Summary/Synopsis

Tohru moves out of the Sohma home and into her Grandfather’s home. She now has to share a room with her cousin as her extended family has also moved into her Grandfather’s home. The family expresses concerns over the fact that Tohru had been living with a bunch of males. However, their general poor attitude causes Tohru’s grandfather to defend her. Even though he addresses Tohru by her mother’s name (Kyoko-san), he gives Tohru a choice. Tohru admits that she wants to return to the Sohma home.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

Back at the Sohma home, Yuki and Kyo are not happy by Tohru’s departure. Yuki decides to go for a walk, taking Tohru’s note with her grandfather’s address. Kyo begins rummaging for the note. Shigure realizes what he’s doing and lets him know. Kyo angrily goes after Yuki. They find the home and hear how Tohru’s family are treating her. After they hear that she wants to return to their home, they enter to retrieve her. Yuki gets her things while Kyo takes Tohru outside. Kyo tells her its OK for Tohru to be selfish or complain if she wants. With that they return home, where Shigure teases Yuki and Kyo.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

Thoughts/Review

For Fruits Basket (2019) 05, the production team used chapter 6 of the source manga as material. Since a single chapter is not enough to fill an episode, TMS had to provide a great deal of filler. Fortunately, the filler ended up being useful stuff.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

Useful Filler

A lot of times, anime production companies have to use filler when they adapt some source manga or light novel. In the case of Fruits Basket (2019) 05, TMS took a single chapter of the manga, then had to create filler in order to have enough material to complete the episode. This started with a scene depicting a younger Tohru preparing dinner for her working mother, even though Tohru was sick. Although this wasn’t in the source manga, I felt it worked well within the framework of the episode and its theme.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

Next up, TMS took the tiny flashbacks shown in the manga and expanded this. Now, instead of Kyo and Yuki recalling one specific moment with Tohru, they recall several. I felt this made sense as they would remember different events instead of only one.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

Finally, the biggest amount of filler came from fleshing out what happened to Kyo and Yuki after Tohru left. The manga tells us what happened, and these tell moments are still in the anime. However, TMS then takes the extra step of showing us what happened prior to Kyo and Yuki coming to get her. And it all works and fits in quite well with how the source manga had told things. So I liked that.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Fruits Basket (2019) 05 shows TMS doing a good job when they needed to produce filler in order to have enough material to complete an episode. With this episode, all of volume 1 has now been adapted.

Fruits Basket (2019) 05

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2 Responses to “Fruits Basket (2019) 05 (Good Filler)”

  1. NullApostle says:

    A good episode.

    The part with Tohru returning to her relatives’ house was always the part I liked the least in the manga.
    I never really felt that Tohru “earned” her feelings for the Soma household, she’s been staying with them for what, a week? It would have fit in the overall narrative better if it happened later.
    After this we’ll never really see her relatives again (except grandpa IIRC). There’s some wasted potential there.
    I guess the mangaka wanted to focus exclusively on the Soma’s, who have all the issues anyone would want.

    I like this series. Except for some hiccups here and there it’s generally good and enjoyable.
    I dread the moment when we delve into full on tragedy mode.

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      I never really felt that Tohru “earned” her feelings for the Soma household, she’s been staying with them for what, a week?

      That’s an interesting point. I never really thought about that before. I guess because Tohru had been living in a tent, Yuki was a super popular (nice) guy at school, and Tohru knows this incredible secret of the Sohma family, that was enough to earn her feelings for them.

      I dread the moment when we delve into full on tragedy mode.

      Haha! I’m a bit behind (trying to catch up), but we should still be a ways from dealing with that.

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