Fruits Basket (2019) 17
フルーツバスケット 17
Furuba episode 17

Story Summary/Synopsis

Uo-chan thinks back on how Tohru saved her from other yanki girls. Back then, Uotani realized that she was lonely and desired a family life like Tohru had. As such, she started coming by Tohru’s house more and more to spend time with her and her mom. Students and teachers at school aren’t convinced Uotani isn’t bullying Tohru. However, Tohru continues to stand by Uo-chan.

In the present, the three younger yanki girls challenge Uo-chan, who puts them off. Uo-chan recalls leaving her gang and the beating she took as a result. She was saved by Kyoko-san and brought home to a waiting Tohru. She learns that her Akimoto-senpai alerted Kyoko-san.

Back in the present, Uo-chan finds Hana-chan holding off the three yanki girls with her denpa powers. Uo-chan stops the lead girl Ishi-chan and gives her some advice. This causes the girl to give up and address Uo-chan with a very respectful Ane-san title. Everyone goes home, and the the yanki girls decide to show respect for Uotani in their own way.

Thoughts/Review

Uo-chan’s backstory concludes with Fruits Basket (2019) 17, which gets its material from the rest of chapter 40 and all of chapter 41. And it is more impactful in the anime than the manga.

Minor Changes, More Impact

For the most part, the adaptation as presented in Fruits Basket (2019) 17 is fairly faithful, which is normal for TMS. One thing that fans of the manga will notice is that the anime version contains many more visuals when it comes to monologues being delivered. This is a very good thing. It allows for these moments to have much more impact.

The trip home that Uo-chan took with Kyoko-san is modified. Instead of traveling through a residential neighborhood, this time, the two take a cliched walk down a street that runs parallel to a river. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, their trip had way more emotional impact in the anime version than the manga version. It just goes to show the power of a proper anime adaptation.

Developing Photos

One of the amusing changes from the source manga is the passage of time. In the manga, the yanki trio stalk Arisa at the restaurant, but they are very distracted by being enamored of Yuki and Kyo. That happened in the anime as well. Only in the anime, they use a smart phone to grab the pictures rather than a camera with film. As such, a gag about them having to go get the film developed had to be scrapped for Ishi-chan trying to get pictures taken. That swap works.

At the end of chapter 41, Ishi-chan is upset that none of the photos have her Ane-san (Uo-chan) in them while the other girls are dreamy over the pictures of Yuki and Kyo and decide maybe going to school isn’t such a bad thing.  In Fruits Basket (2019) 17, obviously there weren’t going to be photos. However, I thought that we’d see a similar joke made over no pictures of Uo-chan in Ishi-chan’s smart phone. Instead, we got a sequence where two of the three yanki girls are mega enamored with Uo-chan and all three have come to respect her in wildly different ways.

To be honest, this change really disappointed me. I like the original gag. For starters, it ties in with the girls having originally been distracted by Kyo and Yuki. Secondly, Yuki and Kyo became the motivation for the other two girls to want to do right, leading to more jokes. But alas, ’tis not to be.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap things up with a few bullet point topics.

• I was disappointed, but not surprised, that the FUNimation subtitles scrapped Ishi-chan from saying “Ane-san”. However, having her say, “I’m not worthy” as a substitution made my eyes roll. Ishi-chan addressing Uo-chan as “Ane-san” is her showing respectful submission in a gangster sense. Who knows how FUNimation’s subtitles will address this in the future.
• Speaking of names, none of the yanki trio had names in the manga. The leader was addressed as Ishi-chan or Ishitchi.
• Ditto for Uo-chan’s senpai. She was just an unnamed girl whom Uo-chan addressed as “Senpai”. Now she has the name Akimoto. I wonder why the anime adaptation decided to give her a name.

In the end, Fruits Basket (2019) 17 is a pretty good episode. Outside of the post-credit scene with the yanki trio, I felt it really it the mark.