August 23rd, 2019 
AstroNerdBoy Fruits Basket (2019) 19
フルーツバスケット 19
Furuba episode 19
Story Summary/Synopsis
Shigure’s editor, Mitsuru, is at Shigure’s house for his manuscript. Since there’s no answer, she calls him, only to learn he’s out eating. In reality, he’s hiding in the house. Mitsuru leave in rage, running into an apparent woman in a kimono. Tohru arrives to find the kimono person attempting to pick up books. She helps the kimono person and realizes this is Ritsu (Ritchan-san) based on the person’s constant apologies. Once inside the house, Shigure teases Ritsu.
Yuki and Kyo arrive separately. Their interactions with Ritsu causes more mayhem, resulting in Tohru bumping into Ritsu. Ritsu turns into a monkey, stunning Tohru because Tohru thought he was a woman. Ritsu returns to human form and the others go change. Mitsuru returns, so Shigure sends Ritsu to deal with her, telling him she’s a stalker. Mitsuru is ready to kill herself when Tohru helps bring sanity to the moment.
Shigure produces his completed manuscript. Mitsuru is very relieved by this. However, Ritsu accidentally causes coffee to be spilled over some of the pages. As such, he goes to the roof to apparently commit suicide. Tohru follows, despite her fears, and talks him down. That evening, Ritsu and Mitsuru go out to get takoyaki for Shigure, where they chat. When they return, they have become friends. Mitsuru freaks out when she comes to understand Ritsu is a guy, but they are still friends.
Thoughts/Review
TMS decided they can contain themselves no longer. After another amazing skip of source material, Fruits Basket (2019) 19 contains a lot of anime-only material, taking bits and pieces from the end of chapter 43, chapter 44, and chapter 45. The result makes for a much weaker, and shorter, Ritsu story.
A New Ritsu Tale
Because TMS basically made an entirely new story for Ritsu, there’s not much point in showing the changes to the manga. That said, had TMS properly adapted Ritsu’s story, it would have been two episodes. Early on, I was informed that Fruits Basket (2019) would have 50-something episodes (can’t find where I was told that). But at the time, it was speculated that some manga material might need to be cut to fit into that episode structure. And here we see the first evidence of that.
On the bad side, the new Ritsu story that TMS has crafted is quite week. Fruits Basket (2019) 19 essentially tells the same story points as the manga. The difference is that the anime version is rushed and lacks the build the manga had. It tries to evoke emotions, but to me, it fails. We don’t get to see Tohru being accidentally injured by Ritsu. And Ritsu’s roof injury is transferred to Tohru for whatever reason. As a result, I was highly disappointed at how Ritsu’s story got slashed like this.
On the positive side, TMS did heavily improve the story of Ritsu and Mitsuru meeting and becoming friends. However, had they faithfully adapted Ritsu’s story, then added these improvements to that version, I would have been in a state of bliss. But alas, ’twas not to be.
Leaping Forward
Assuming TMS is wanting to save the big Kyo story for Season 1’s final episodes, I can understand them doing a bit of story shuffling from the manga. However, what I don’t understand is why Fruits Basket (2019) 19 skipped all the way into volume 8 of the manga. Kisa’s story is in volume 5, and there are still two chapters that haven’t been adapted yet (at least as far as I know).
Also, this means that Ritsu meets Tohru before Hiro does. Based on the kind of person Ritsu is, it makes sense that he’d be the 3rd to the last one to meet Tohru. And Hiro meeting Tohru first makes way more sense, based on how his story goes. But we’ll see how TMS plays Hiro’s story. It should be another 2-episode deal, but I’m having a hard time trusting them now.
FUNimation Subtitles
I was happy to see Ritsu properly address Shigure as “Shigure-niisan” in the subtitles. And yet for bizarro reasons, when Ritsu just addresses Shigure as “Niisan,” well the adaptation goes with “Shigure.” 🤬🤬🤬 So they can have Ritsu use “Niisan” if it is an honorific, but not if it is used in lieu of a name? The logic here escapes me, mainly because there is none.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, Fruits Basket (2019) 19 was very disappointing to me since it cut Ritsu’s story short.
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To be honest, Ritsu is, like, the most unimportant member of the zodiac. If I remember correctly he never shows up again in the manga after the few chapters centered on him.
The episode was a bit lacking in the “surprise” department, from the voice it was easy to tell that Ritsu was a man. The rest worked fairly well. To be honest, I couldn’t remember too much of his story, the roof scene and his bonding with the editor are the only things that stood out in my memory. All in all, it felt a bit truncated, but in the bigger picture of the story Ritsu is just not important.
It feels to me like TMS is trying to introduce all members of the zodiac as quickly as possible now. These are back-to-back episodes of zodiac introductions – Kisa, Ritsu, HIro.
Can you remember when the horse (Rin) showed up? Even if was later in the manga she might appear this season, too. The rooster (Kureno) has to remain a mystery, of course.
She shows up at the end of volume 8. She needs to be delayed ’cause (1) she’s trying to avoid Tohru and (2) it allows for Hiro to get more time.
In the manga, Hiro was introduced before Ritsu. And that made sense, considering his relationship with Kisa. It doesn’t really make sense for Ritsu to come out of his shell before Hiro meets Tohru.
But what do I know? 😅