Fruits Basket (2019) 06
フルーツバスケット 06
Furuba episode 06

Story Summary/Synopsis

The culture festival at Kaibara High School is underway. Tohru’s class is selling onigiri, helped tremendously by an unhappy Yuki in a dress. Meanwhile, the blonde boy Tohru had met earlier shows up with an adult. She learns that this is Momiji, a half-German, half-Japanese member of the Sohma family. He introduces his chaperone as Hatori, also a member of the Sohma clan. He is also Yuki’s doctor.

In private, Momiji takes advantage of the situation to hug Tohru. This causes him to transform into a rabbit. Yuki has to cover for the fact that Momiji is missing. Later on the roof, Momiji is scolded for his rash actions. Yuki shows up and Hatori gets a picture of him and Kyo for the head of their family, Akito. Yuki is upset that Tohru saw him in such a shameful state. After hearing Tohru speak about things, he feels better, but warns Tohru about seeing Hatori in private since he has the power to wipe memories.

Still later, Tohru accidentally reveals she’s living with Yuki and Kyo to Uo-chan and Hana-chan. They arrange for a visit. While there, Shigure reveals he’s a published author of both serious and trashy works. Shigure excuses himself and pays a visit to Akito. Meanwhile, Tohru produces a pack of cards so they can play Dai Hin Min. That night, Uo-chan and Hana-chan come to realize that the Sohma understand Tohru and approve of her living there. The next morning, the two vow to return someday.

Thoughts/Review

With Fruits Basket (2019) 06, source manga chapters 9 and 7 (in that order) were adapted. While there were some minor changes to the story as presented in the source manga, it is mostly fine and the episode was rather enjoyable. One elements of the Crunchyroll adaptation was not so enjoyable.

Anime Modifications

The first significant change Fruits Basket (2019) 06 made to the original story is having Motoko be the one protesting Yuki wearing a dress. To be honest, it actually makes way more sense for Motoko to be the one who may like seeing Yuki in a dress, but also wants to protect him. In the source manga, it was just some random third year senpai girl. And having the Prince Yuki Club members act as a barrier to keep Yuki from being thronged also made sense. So good modification there.

A minor change is having Tohru and some of the others wearing Onigiri shirts and aprons. In the source manga, they just wore uniforms. I enjoyed the change, namely ’cause “Onigiri” is spelled out in English letters. No doubt, the “rice ball” people had strokes over this. 😉

The private meeting Tohru had with Hatori in the source manga is cut. It is replaced by Hatori calling Tohru at Shigure’s home later. I understand why it was done in terms of drama effect and the fact that the story with Hana-chan and Uo-chan visiting came earlier in the manga. But if Yuki or Kyo had answered the phone, I doubt they’d have let Tohru speak with him. That’s my problem with the call. It relies on luck whereas in the source manga, Hatori arranged things so that he could privately speak with Tohru.

The Biggest Anime Modification

The most significant modification Fruits Basket (2019) 06 makes to the source manga is playing the events of chapter 7 after the events of chapter 9. On one level, I don’t mind this at all. It allows Hana-chan and Uo-chan to have more time to observe Tohru and her interactions with Kyo and Yuki. Thus it is only natural that they’d confront Tohru over whether she was dating one of them.

The part I didn’t like was Tohru accidentally revealing she was living with Kyo and Yuki. The source manga simply had Tohru wanting to tell her friends the truth of her living situation. Here, even though Torhu has pledged to keep a secret, she blathers out the secret of her living arrangement. Granted, that’s not quite the same as giving up the Sohma secret, but it made Tohru look weaker as a person. Even though she’s a bit spacey at times, she never once let the Sohma secret out. And I just don’t think she’d blather about her living arrangements either.

Still, TMS had the hat scene in correctly, so I can give them a pass on this, right? 😉

More Fun With “Localization”

Although I’m glad the Crunchyroll subtitles are using Japanese honorifics, I couldn’t help but notice that it is somewhat hit-or-miss on whether they’ll show up in the subtitles. That’s a bit annoying to me, as long time readers of this blog will know. 😅

The thing that really irritated me was the localization decision to change how Uo-chan addresses Kyo. In Fruits Basket (2019) 06, Uo-chan calls Kyo “Mikan” when she’s talking to Hana-chan and Tohru. For those who don’t know, a mikan is a Japanese orange. Later when Uo-chan is at Shigure’s house and tweaking Kyo, she calls him “Orange” to his face. Yes, she used the actual English word “orange.”

Unfortunately, whomever translated/adapted Fruits Basket (2019) 06 decided that Kyo cannot be “Orange.” No, we must “translate” both fruit names of mikan and orange to the vegetable “carrot” ’cause “reasons.” 😠 Seriously, why the bloody hell did this need to be changed? This is why I prefer “accurate but readable” and loath “localization” when it comes to adaptations.

I get that sometimes, what’s actually said in Japanese does not translate well into English. The standard greetings for coming home, leaving home, or the standard saying before one starts eating are prime examples of this. And in those situations, I don’t have a problem with the adaptation coming up with something in English that means the same thing. But in this case, “mikan” can be directly translated as “orange”, and the fruit “orange” speaks for itself. So there’s ZERO reason to change this other than the adapter thought they had to rewrite things ’cause that’s what adapters are supposed to do. 😑

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, thought I had a few problems with it, TMS mostly does a good job of adapting the source materials used in constructing Fruits Basket (2019) 06. So in terms of story, I rather enjoyed it. My only real complain was Crunchyroll’s adapter changing “mikan” and “orange” to “carrots.”