Fruits Basket (2019) 07
フルーツバスケット 07
Furuba episode 07

Story Summary/Synopsis

Tohru goes to the Sohma estate to meet with Hatori. She’s met at the gate by Momiji. He leads her to Hatori’s office. She’s highly nervous, but looks around his office while waiting for him to join her. Momiji brings in tea and Tohru has a seat. Hatori warns her to leave the Sohma because of the curse. He’s called away, so Momiji tells Tohru what happened to Hatori’s girlfriend, Kana. Tohru says that she’s glad to have met the Sohma. Shigure shows up and assures her that everything is fine.

Shigure and Momiji leave, so Hatori walks Tohru to the estate gate. She slips so he catches her. This causes him to turn into a seahorse. Her panic causes Hatori to recall when he first transformed before his ex-girlfriend, Kana. Hatori remembers how Kana had been assigned to them, then they fell in love. Once his secret was revealed, Kana didn’t reject him. However, Akito became enraged, caused Hatori to be injured, and caused Kana great depression. Hatori was forced to wipe Kana’s memories.

In the present, Hatori gets dressed again. He remembers how Kana used to say that after snow, spring comes. Since it has started snowing, he asks Tohru what comes after snow. She also answers spring and for similar reasons Kana did. Hatori sees Kana with friends and overhears that she’s getting married. Hatori walks Tohru to the gate, where they are joined by Shigure. As she leaves with Shigure, she sees a car pass with Akito in it. She asks Shigure about the curse, but he declines to tell her more. However, he tells her to be herself. They come home to fine Yuki and Kyo asleep at the kotatsu.

Thoughts/Review

For Fruits Basket (2019) 07, the episode was adapted from chapters 10 and 12 of the source manga.While the events of chapter 12 end up being moved up in time, merging it with the material in chapter 10 isn’t bad.

Modifications from the Source

Since chapter 12 was moved up in the anime’s timeline of events to happen before the end of chapter 10, there were some modifications made to the source material in Fruits Basket (2019) 07.

• Tohru sat in a chair and Momiji on a couch in Hatori’s office rather than cushions on the floor. This is a rather minor change, but I think cushions are more apropos since the Sohma estate is full of traditional Japanese homes. But as I said, this is a rather minor change.
• Hatori’s brief flashback to his friendship with Shigure and Ayame was cut. Although it is a minor thing, I kinda missed it, especially since this brings the still unnamed Ayame into the manga, to be properly introduced later.
• In Fruits Basket (2019) 07, Akito is in a car when Tohru gets a glimpse of the head of the Sohma clan. In the manga, Akito is actually at home and Tohru briefly sees Akito in the window of one of the homes. Again, another minor change, but I like the manga moment more as it has more of a sinister feel. But the anime version lets us see Kureno, which is interesting.

As a side note, the anime allowed us to see the size of the Sohma estate, which was incredible. Love that. In fact, if I win the lottery, I want to get a Japanese architect to design me a big, Japanese mansion with lots of cool landscaping, including Japanese ponds.

More Fun With “Localization”

I’ve bitched about some of the adaptation choices Crunchyroll has made for its English subtitles. And Fruits Basket (2019) 07 is not going to be any different. This time, it is Momiji addressing Hatori as “Harry.”

In Japan, it is a common practice to shorten names or words. In the case of shortening names, its to make things more cutesy or it is something a child would do. As such, Momiji addresses Hatori as “Ha-ri” (or as The Twins translated it for TokyoPop back in the day, “Ha’ri”). And that makes sense. And it even goes along with Shigure addressing Hatori as “Haa-chan.”

Unfortunately, the Crunchyroll adaptation has Momiji address Hatori as “Harry.” Why? It makes ZERO sense for Momiji to rename Hatori as “Harry.” It’s bizarre and just clashes to me. The only thing I can see as a possible excuse is that the translator/adapter is unfamiliar with the source material. And since Momiji is half-German, and “Harry” can trace its roots to Germany, viola! But that still makes no sense.

I could be wrong, but I suspect this was a “localization” choice. Using “Ha-ri” or “Ha’ri” on screen is likely seen as not being good localization. As such, “Harry” being an English name would be seen as superior localization.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Fruits Basket (2019) 07 is a fairly good adaptation of the source material. Emotional scenes were more emotional in the anime, which was good. There were some minor changes, but only one on the American side was irritating.