Fruits Basket (2019) 12
フルーツバスケット 12
Furuba episode 12

Story Summary/Synopsis

The spring session starts at school, meaning Tohru and company are now second year students. When Uo-chan learns that there are two Sohma teens among the first years, she orders Kyo to fetch them. Kyo doesn’t want to, so Hana-chan brings home the point. He still doesn’t want to go, but Tohru talks him into it. They head to Haru’s and Momiji’s class. While they wait for the two to come out, a couple of guys attempt to hit on Tohru, only to have Kyo chase them off.

Kyo is not happy to see Momiji wearing a girl’s uniform top. Yuki joins them and is also not amused with Momiji. Student Council president Makoto arrives with his two female council officers. He too objects to Momiji and to Haru’s dress. Haru turns into his Black form and goes off on Makoto. He is able to prove that his black and white hair style is natural, leaving Makoto stunned. Having been defeated, he retreats with the two girls. Haru attempts to hit on Tohru, but gets punched by Yuki and Kyo, returning him to White form.

Tohru heads off as Momiji warns Kyo and Yuki that Akito is on campus. Meanwhile, Tohru runs into Akito. The two exchange greetings before a horrified Yuki arrives. Akito is not happy that Yuki skipped on New Year’s celebrations. As Akito talks to a terrified Yuki, Tohru pushes Akito away, saying they have to get back to class. Akito leaves and Yuki feels better. After class, the four Sohma teens, Uo-chan, Hana-chan, and Tohru play a chaotic form of badminton.

Thoughts/Review

The excellent adaptation of source materials continues with Fruits Basket (2019) 12. This time, chapters 19 and 20.

Still Loving the Adaptation

I’m pretty sure I’ll sound like a tired, old record by the time this series is through. Nevertheless, I can’t help but really love how Fruits Basket (2019) 12 adapted the source material. For example, I really loved the moment where Kyo sends the two guys packing who were looking to hit on Tohru. It was a great moment in the manga, and it is great in the manga.

Speaking of Kyo, the anime actually made one moment with him superior to the manga version. That was when he glared down at Akito.

Its hard to express, but I just really enjoy watching these episodes. I know the manga story quite well, so it is lovely seeing that story (and not some other story) being told fairly faithfully. In doing so, TMS is making the great manga story come to a new life rather than be mangled into someone else’s vision.

Changes to the Source Manga

Once again, TMS takes a light approach to the adaptation of the source material in Fruits Basket (2019) 12. There were only two real items of significance, and one less so.

First, there’s an added moment where Tohru sees the car with Akito in it drive into the school grounds. But she doesn’t recognize the car and doesn’t see Akito get out. I think we could have seen this without Tohru noticing, but that’s a VERY minor thing.

Second, there’s a tiny, added moment to the Yuki flashback scene where we see the caged Yuki pleading with Shigure to free him. In the manga, we are left to imply that it was Shigure to whom Yuki plead since Shigure was talking to Hatori. The anime clears that up nicely, which I liked.

The only other change of real note was having the girls with Makoto have more to do. They were were often blocked by speech bubbles or the like in the manga, so I liked that we had a better look at how enthralled they were with Momiji, even when they left with Makoto.

Adaptation Stuff

As per usual, CR’s subtitles have crappy adaptation choices. No doubt, we’ll be stuck with these forever. So no doubt I’ll complain about this forever. 😅 Nevertheless, we are still stuck with “localizing” the English word orange for carrots ’cause “reasons.” And we are stuck with localizing the English word black for dark ’cause “reasons.” 🙄

My new complaint in Fruits Basket (2019) 12 was that the adapter decided to drop honorific usage IF the speaker in question used someone’s full name. Since Makoto addresses everyone by their full name and adds the “-kun” honorific afterward (male or female), that meant that the adapter decided to change this quirk of Makoto’s ’cause “reasons.”

But, there was another moment when Akito addresses Tohru by her full name with the “-san” honorific. I guess the politeness Akito used for Tohru had to be dropped in the English subtitles ’cause “reasons.”

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Fruits Basket (2019) 12 continues TMS’s good track record of late in properly adapting the source manga material. Shame the official subtitles can’t follow that proper aspect.