May 28th, 2020 
AstroNerdBoy Fruits Basket Season 2 07
フルーツバスケット S2 07
Furuba (2019) S2 episode 07
Story Summary/Synopsis
Hiro gets the news from his mom that she is pregnant. Tohru and Kisa congratulate him. Shigure reveals himself and asks Tohru on a date. This annoyed Kyo and Yuki, who have returned with Haru and Momiji from the store. The group, sans Shigure, return to the house to enjoy the watermelons purchased at the store. Tohru is excited and starts to tell a tale about her mom and her trying to smash watermelons. However, she cuts herself off after remembering Hiro’s words to her on her mom.
Later, Hiro, Kisa, and Momiji fall asleep in the house, so Tohru covers them. Yuki goes for a walk. Kyo talks with Tohru. He sensed that she was holding back on talking about her mom. She recounts a story where her mom attempted to smash a watermelon and destroyed a pot and the shrine to her deceased husband. Tohru inquires about Kyo’s family and learns that he’s estranged from his dad and that his mom is dead.
Shigure shows up and says that Akito has arrived and wants to see everyone, sans Kyo and Tohru. At the guesthouse, Hatori arrives to have words with Shigure. They pay their respects to Akita, who’s with Kureno. Akito sends Kureno away as Akito doesn’t want the other zodiac to see him. Then Akito goes to greet the other zodiac, save Yuki, who’s still out for a walk.
Kyo and Tohru have pancakes. Tohru is worried about the others and heads out. She encounters Yuki, who chats with her. They watch shooting stars as Yuki continues to speak, recalling his encounter with Tohru as a child.
Thoughts/Review
Work has had me insanely busy, so I’ve not had the time to work on anime reviews like I’d like. (They take way longer for some reason.) But after getting a ton of sleep on Tuesday, I was finally able to watch Fruits Basket Season 2 07. And thankfully, we are back to a mostly good adaptation.
Changes to the Source Material
The way TMS jumps all over the place in the narrative, it really is difficult to keep track where the smeg they are going to cherry pick story elements from the source manga. But for Fruits Basket Season 2 07, the story starts with a bit from chapter 59, then drops back to chapter 58 before returning to 59.
- Hiro and Kisa’s conversation regarding his mom’s pregnancy is cut.
- Tohru educating Kyo a bit on her pancakes is cut.
No doubt, those two moments were cut for time constraints. Those would be moments to be put into the DVD/BD release of the anime. Thankfully, no other scrambling of the story was done.
Skipping Haru’s Story
I promise I won’t spoil anything for those who’ve not read the manga. That said, I’m somewhat torn on whether or not I like that the story before Hatori comes to the beach house is being skipped. I suspect TMS will put it back, but the events of that story impact Hatori’s experiences at the beach house in Fruits Basket Season 2 07. Well, at least they do to me.
As I see it, what happened to Hatori prior to his arrival at the beach house are partly why he sought out Shigure. And it also plays a role in why Hatori doesn’t get angry with Shigure for Shigure’s scheming. I kinda get why TMS wanted to skip it as they wanted to stay with the beach house action. The skipped story almost plays like a side-story. BUT, it is a crucial story for Hatori.
Assuming TMS does adapt the story (and I can’t see how they could skip it), we’ll see if they can have it be meaningful or just the facts of the event.
Subtitle Issues
Ugh. The official subtitles are such a mess. Believe it or not, I’m not even going to complain about “Oneechan” being “Big Sister”, but “XXX-neechan” being acceptable. No, in the case of Fruits Basket Season 2 07, we get something mind b0gglingly whacked in the subtitles.
The character Hiro transforms into a sheep in this series. He’s not a goat, nor could he be mistaken for a goat. Further to that, when the group discuss Hiro’s mom and her acceptance of her cursed child, the Japanese word for “goat” is not used. The word for “sheep” is used.
Yet for some unearthly reason, the awesomely awesome localized subtitles decide that “sheep” should be “goat” ’cause “reasons!” This is why I despise it when adaptations don’t go for accurate but readable subtitles. Don’t rewrite things ’cause “reasons.”
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, Fruits Basket Season 2 07 was a pretty good adaptation of the source material. Outside of a couple of scene cuts for time, it was spot-on, which is always going to please me.
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“But one time at a Chinese restaurant I saw a placeholder that said the zodiac animal is a goat, so that’s more accurate than the actual words they use in the anime!”
Or at least that’s my best guess. Thank you for calling this out, it was a big “wth?” for me.
Skipping chapters 56-57 leaves a deceptively-small hole in the story that I’m not sure how they’ll patch. It set the stage for Hatori to call out Shigure’s meddling and be truly angry – which put an exclamation point behind his backing down and tacitly approving after the scene where Akito claims to have traumatized Yuki. And it was important tone-setting when (minor spoiler for 57) [spoiler]the old hag (sorry, dunno her name) coddled the way Akito wallows in misery and forced others to cater to it.[/spoiler]
If Takaya-sensei thought it was worth making readers wait two months to create the biggest impact… imo, it’s certainly worth making viewers wait a week. I think they lost some important shading that makes coming events more believable. They appear to have tamed down some events already, such as Akito’s angry demand that they bring Kyou, and they may have to tone down coming events even more. And worst of all, I have a bad feeling they’ll mostly gloss over or omit 56-57 – so at the end it’ll appear to be one more (spoilers for Hatori plus two side endings) [spoiler]awkward Pair the Spares, like Hana/Shishou and Ritsu/Editor. (I’d bet Takaya-sensei had plans to fill out their stories too, but cut them for brevity. If she thought this one was worth explaining, I’d hate for the anime to decide otherwise.)[/spoiler]
Just a side note: They also borrowed from chapters 60 and 61. (vague spoilers for 56-57 and coming events) [spoiler]And the more I looked through 56-61, the more I think they really barfungled the tone Takaya-sensei was setting: A hopeful calm in 56-57, followed by dark clouds looming before a storm in 58-61. Heck, she even has Shigure describe the events of 58-61 that way at the end of 61. I think 56-57 were deceptively important, to raise our hopes and make 58-61 more ominous by contrast.[/spoiler]
Haha! You probably are more right than you even know.
Yeah, my thinking exactly. That’s why I’m never a fan of an anime adaptation not being accurate to the source material. Sometimes, shifting things around can work for the better. RINNE springs to mind.
I haven’t seen RINNE, but could easily believe it given Takahashi-sensei’s propensity to wander all over the place. She often focuses much more on “entertaining episodes, loosely connected” than she does on “coherent, overarching story”. (Urusei Yatsura would be the clearest case-in-point.)
Of what I’ve seen, only one example comes to mind where screwing around with source material was a definite improvement: Kare Kano. I don’t ~think~ Anno screwed with the plot elements too much… but the humor (which I gather Tsuda-sensei HATED) not only made it much more enjoyable, it lightened up the Very Serious Romance to the point where you could get emotionally invested.
(If SHAFT took a cue from his success, and it’s part of why they drench pretty much everything with their oh-so-clever-practically-trademarked style of humor, it’s a shame – but that’s another rant.)
I want to read the Urusei Yatsura manga at some point. But I’m already so pressed for time.
I agree. That aside, the manga ended up getting lost in the weeds. I’m all about exploring backstory and such, but I wasn’t that interested in doing as much back exploration of the parents.
BTW, sorry this was delayed. I didn’t get a notification and so missed there was a post for a while.
No worries at all. “Lost in the weeds”… what, you mean you weren’t a fan of the happy wacky “This baby is gonna be my soulmate!” incest ending? (^_~)
(Soooo many reasons “lost in the weeds” is true, but that’s the first thing that jumps to mind. That, and the time she apparently became peripherally involved with some band and wasted a long tangent on it.)
I can’t even remember the manga ending for KareKano. 😅 But for me, the manga got lost in the weeds when the series abandoned the two main characters and decided to spend volumes on end going on about the parents of the two MCs when they were teens.
(imagine the guys hanging out by the fence in King of the Hill)
Yup.
Yyyup.
Yyyyyup.
Looking forward to the explanation of how [spoiler]Akito’s fingernails are tipped with razor blades, so that what looks like a gentle caress can draw a lot of blood.[/spoiler]
As “storms” go: The manga felt like black clouds building up until it’s as dark as late dusk, followed by a brief but heavy downpour. The anime felt like grey clouds ominously covering the sky – then eventually drizzling a bit.
Man, I’m so behind on everything. 😅
In this case, I dunno if there was much to say other than “Yyyyyup”. (^_~)
Haha! For sure. 😅
I take it back. After today’s episode, now there’s more to say than “Yyyyup.” (^_^)
Whoa! I’ll try to watch over the next three weeks.
Man, I’m so behind on everything.
Just curious, did you wind up deciding to drop Fruits Basket for now?
Because of my vacation and severe lack of Internet, I ended up deciding to wait until I got back home to do Fruits Basket. As soon as I finish the last Princess Connect episode, I will jump back to Furuba though. Those reviews take longer since I’m comparing manga to anime. 😅
It probably fell into the moderation queue or something, but I’m gonna be so pissed if my browser ate my TLDR discussion comment instead of posting it.
Edit: Nevermind, there it is. XD
Yeah, WP simply flagged it for moderation.