Fruits Basket (2019) 18
フルーツバスケット 18
Furuba episode 18

Story Summary/Synopsis

Tohru and Yuki are waiting for the rain to stop so they can walk home with the groceries. A soaked Haru shows up with a bundle. Inside is a tiger cub, the transformed version of SOHMA Kisa. Tohru tries to introduce herself, but gets bitten. Later at Shigure’s home, Haru starts telling them about Kisa’s troubles since Kisa hasn’t spoken in ages. She bites him, then runs off. Tohru goes after her, but gets bitten again.

Kisa’s mom shows up, weary and wondering why Kisa didn’t tell her she was being bullied at school. Tohru recounts her own experience with bullying and not wanting to tell her mom. As such, Tohru figures Kisa is going through the same thing. Kisa returns to her human form and hugs Tohru. It is decided to let Kisa stay at Shigure’s home for a while to give mother and child a break from each other. During this time, Kisa becomes attached to Tohru, following her around. Tohru finds this adorable.

At school, Momiji tells more of what happened to Kisa. After school, Haru brings a letter from Kisa’s teacher, the contents of which he finds repulsive. Yuki opens up to Kisa about his own time where he stopped speaking. And he cites Tohru as a positive element in their life. This causes Kisa to finally speak. That evening, Kisa comes with Yuki to greet Tohru, where she addresses Tohru as “Oneechan”.

The next day, Tohru, Haru, and Mimiji see Kisa off to her school. Meanwhile, Yuki decides to stop running away from things. As such, he accepts the offer to become the next student council president.

Thoughts/Review

For Fruits Basket (2019) 18, we jump back in the source material to grab chapters 27 and 28. There are some changes made, some for good, but others are more puzzling.

Changes to the Source Manga Story

Here are the changes Fruits Basket (2019) 18 made to the source manga material.

• Because of the leap forward to grab Uo-chan’s story, this meant that all of the dialog and flashback to the trip to the lake was cut.
• What I always have believed to be Kisa’s inner monologue after transforming back to human form is cut.
• Other inner dialog I thought was hers during this scene was not stated when she hugged Tohru. Instead, we get a flashback from Yuki where he thinks this other dialog. This replaces his actual final thoughts in chapter 27.
• When Kisa first spoke to Haru and Yuki, we are shown an image of Akito. However, this is where the manga was massively confusing as it spread Yuki’s inner monologue over multiple pages. The anime clears this up by having Yuki think all of his thoughts later, complete with the Akito image.

But otherwise, the anime adaptation is pretty spot on with the manga.

FUNimation’s Subtitles

As is pretty standard, FUNimation continues to incorrectly use “dark” in place of “black.” It never ceases to amaze me how the English word “black” needs to be translated (or worse, localized) into “dark” ’cause “reasons.”

While the FUNimation subtitles have used honorifics, they are inconsistent as to their usage. As such, most of the time they were used, but there were a couple of instances where they weren’t.

Transversely, I liked that they retained Haru properly addressing Hatori as Tori-nii in the subtitles. But then they don’t have Kisa address Tohru as “Oneechan.”

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

I always loved Kisa’s story in the manga. Thankfully, Fruits Basket (2019) 18 helps give her story more of an emotional impact.