gweber - 2015-10-12 05:26:24

Such a beautiful story line with powerfully good messages.

clint89 - 2015-08-30 22:43:42

All over I think the anime was an funny, cute and emotional at same so, it was an relate-able story with interning characters. 

thea.klocko - 2015-07-07 19:35:25

Fruits Basket is one of those anime that get people into watching anime. It is a perfect starter anime for anyone who is hesitant to watch the genre because the main character, Tohru, is just so likable. And the story has a little bit of something for everyone. Even though it is seen to be a shojo, I think that this anime is one of those rare few that can appeal to all ages.

Tohru Honda is just one of those girls that you want to be best friends with. She has the best kind of personality ever and is so easy-going for the most part. But beneath that smile, she has a broken past. Kyo Sohma is the traditional tsundere character and a total bad-ass. At least, that's what he thinks. Because there also happens to be Yuki Sohma, his cousin, and the prince character. The two are polar opposites but happen to be living under the same roof. With their pervert of a cousin Shigure rounding out the main cast, the story is a slice-of-life with a fantasy twist.

This anime is probably my all-time favorite. Though this show was created in the early 2000s, it has faithfully become an all-time classic in many people's books. The story is cute yet somber at times and beautifully told with just enough episodes to make people pine for more. A definite watch for those that love shojo anime and for those that are old-timers in anime terms. It will sure to delight.     

goodwin.kira - 2015-05-08 02:09:43

While still enjoyable like the manga, it was disappointing that the series ended in only 26 episodes. There was so much more character depth and development they could have shown if they continued the series further and ended it after many of the arcs shown in the manga. Overall, it was still well-animated and tied up the storylines shown so there were no loose ends. Unfortunately, in comparison after reading, it was incomplete.

linnie.bahringer - 2014-06-24 01:06:10

This anime is one of my first I got to own in dvd.  One of the few anime that has made cry , laugh and smile. While I haven't read the manga which I know has a lot details the anime didn't cover  I definitely love this anime .  Most of the character are very lovable and I think most of us can related to them in some parts.   For example I remember when the kisa episode came out I cried due understanding her situation. Anyway it is a really a wonderful anime that has a bit of everything and I do enjoy it so much.

omann - 2013-09-14 02:37:07

Fruits Basket follows a girl who is almost too pure and innocent to be believable but manages to charm you regardless. Tohru, a girl who seems to see the good in everyone and somehow fixes everyone with simple, innocent statements.

Logically it would fail to be believable but Fruits Basket does a great job of making you empathize so much with her that you don't care. The rest of the cast is equally charming and Fruits Basket does a good job of providing backgrounds to the large cast that it has.

From a technical standpoint Fruits Basket suffers in mediocrity - average animation, nothing too creative with the plot, and the music simple but effective.

You will find yourself quickly overlooking these flaws however and will shed a few tears while you do.

Though not everyone in the cast is lovable the few that aren't don't get much screen time.

Overall I recommend Fruits Basket to anyone looking for a good cry, and for those new to reverse harems since it doesn't contain much if anything that might steer people away from this kind of thing.

florian.blanda - 2013-08-19 21:36:02

I went into Fruits Basket with a lot of expectations. This was the anime that even boys and shoujo- haters seemed to like. I thought it would be groundbreaking, or at least superbly good. And it almost was.

The manga for Fruits Basket is among the most beloved of all time, and I've heard it is beautiful (I'm just starting to read it). The problem with the anime is, they took the manga and they stuffed it with sugar and just a bit too much slapstick, adding a few episodes that felt like filler and were so boring to get through (the ones were the spotlight was on Yuki's followers, if you care to know). However, it was still able to give strong punches of emotion and depth in certain moments---Momiji's and Hatori's past, for example-- that manage to resurface among the sugar, spice and everything nice. Those moments, and the last three episodes of the anime were pure gold to me. What a true masterpiece is made of. But overall, they were not enough to save the rest of the anime, which will forever lay in the shadow of its manga.

malvina.hermiston - 2013-07-08 06:23:17

Before you read, you need; 1. something to measure with 2. A brain to remeber how terrible this anime really is.**** warning, if you are a fanboy or a fangirl of this anime, you don't wanna read this. Because your thoughts of the world will collide with mine and create a black hole because of the paradox you have created. Ugh. I really cannot understand why a lot of people liked this anime. But if you do like it, i have nothing against you. ( let me just make this clear ).But I am planning on writing an honest review, and that is what i will do. This anime is so far the most uninspiring thing i have watched so far. What i strongly dislike about this anime, is its fail attempt at being deep and meaningful. From short preaches to overly sympathetic music, I really don't know where to begin. How about we start with the story? It's basically about a school girl who left without parents, rejected by relatives, and homeless. (And let me just point out the fact that you won't be able to attend school if you don't have a home. Where does she take a bath? in the river? Not likely. Plus in reality no family would reject a pretty highschool girl. It's not even possible for her mental state to be normal. And it doesn't make sense at all that she was socially acceptable. But these are just opinions, so lets move on to the story.)Until she finds a house that is willing to support a stranger. And again, she doesn't seem to be desperate for help. She rejects the offer at first, but later accepts. But there is some kind of a "attempted" dark atmosphere in the house. And later turns out to be that everyone has internal and external conflicts with either relatives or the fact that they turn to animals once in a while. But then again, there's just too much comedy to keep a dark atmosphere. And the anime tries to pull of this "They look happy and joke around, but they are actually LOLDEEP." MULTIPLE MULTIPLE times. So far, I'm already convinced that this anime is trying too hard to be deep.ART- someone wrote on their review that it is beautiful. I couldn't DISAGREE more.If you notice, (and i even used paint tools to measure their facial structures.) the girl's eyes is 70% of her face. I am sorry but that is not beautiful. That is what we call CREEPY. I never saw anything that made me whoaCharacters- ( i am dying to talk about this one)Lets start with the main character Tohru. The most fictional character i have ever seen. She is a goddamn SAINT. You cannot expect a person like this in real life. What really makes me angry is that whenever characters go through trouble, she gives them 5 sentences of counceling to make them fine. Her "theories" about the rice balls are just hard to agree. I wouldn't be surprised if they only gave 5 minutes of thinking to come up with this. And most of em are not even meanlingful. "keep up hope live life with bravery" ok herp derp.Also, she has no personalities. Prepare to be amazed as i describe her whole personality in 4 words;SHE IS RIDICULOUSLY NICE.She does nothing but live for others and thinks NOTHING of herself.and she keeps going on and on about this fruits basket story where she was rejected. That was a LONG LONG time ago. She had MUCH MUCH sadder events that happened to her and i cannot beleive she keeps bringing that crap up. And the anime plays the most ridiculously overly sympathetical music to be accepted FORCEFULLY.And i'd just like to say to the people who say this anime is full of meaning;this is like the most un-acceptable and the most fictional story ever. You cannot expect a girl to be fine with all these traumas. It's just ridiculous.It's like as if the writer was some guy who lives in la la land where everyone is happy and can be mentally repaired with 5 sentences of speech. overall; this anime is for little girls who wish to believe that the world functions with these ridiculously nice characters. If you are about to watch this, i must warn you that this is the most unrealistic, hard to agree, overly-sympathetic anime in the world. It would've made so much more sense if more bad things happened to her. This is not a masterpiece folks.But if you are to risk all this and watch it, please have a skeptical view and have a sharp mind.*puts on anti-flame suit*good day to you all.

thad.stanton - 2013-05-18 10:39:36

This anime reminds me of "Full Moon wo Sagashite" (to be abbreviated as FMwS from here on). Here's a list of things the two share in common:1)I think both are hugely overrated;2)they are both shoujo (duh!);3)They are both the heart-warming type of anime;4)They both have female leads that are so INHUMANELY nice that they can get a bit annoying.5)They both try (rather unsuccessfully, in my opinion) to be funny. Though "Fruits Basket" tries a lot harder than FMwS.And here's a list of things that the two anime differ in:1)FMwS's music kinda sucked a lot of the time despite the show being about music, whilst the music in "Fruits Basket" is almost impeccable, with the soft instrumentals never failing to inject emotion into the more moving scenes. I loved almost all the background music apart from the "drum roll comedy mode" it sometimes goes into. In fact, the amazing opening track is possibly one of the reasons why I didn't hate this anime the way I hated FMwS - how could I bring myself to hate an anime with such an amazing opening theme? :D2)Whilst FMwS has loads of blatant filler episodes disguised under the excuse of "character development" (pretty poor excuse to be honest, since I didn't find most of the episodes character developing at all), I found the story in "Fruits Basket" has a nice flow that is developing constantly.Which is better? Well, I'd have to say FMwS. Though plagued with fillers, FMwS nevertheless manages it to redeem itself a lot from its incredible last 10 episodes. "Fruit Basket", unfortunately, is full of "filler comedy" instead, and had no long lasting periods of awesomeness. The comedy used in "Fruits Basket" is the slap stick kind and not very witty for the most part. There's horrific overuse of super deformity to try and force a comedy moment when there simply isn't one. It's interesting to note that they went as far as completely immersing the comedy elements within the serious elements. But, I'm afraid it's not something that I can appreciate because in general, I simply... hate... this... kind... of... comedy. Besides, people rarely use comedy this way because you run the risk of diminishing the effectiveness of the serious moments with the comedy, which is often the case with this anime.Story and characters are the main strengths of this anime. I liked the way the story is developed in such a natural way. It's good that it chose not to do anything like the artificial "zodiac animal of the week" format that would have been so easy to fall into in this kind of anime. Instead, the characters gets introduced in a much more natural, unpredictable fashion. In fact, by the end, we don't even get to meet all of the zodiac animals... which may disappoint some people, but again, I think it just makes the whole thing seem less like an artificial character introduction process.Essentially, the theme of "Fruits Basket" is about being different, about the people who don't fit in with normal society. The focus of this anime all deals with these "different" people. In fact the title "Fruits Basket" itself is related to the backstory of the main character Toru being "different". It's a very moralistic story, and throughout the anime, I find myself sympathising with the characters as they tell their story such as the one told by Mimiji. Everyone seems to have a story to tell, and some were so moving they almost brought tears to my eyes - I particularly liked the story of the idiot traveller. These mini stories that are dotted across the whole series are mostly very captivating, but not all of them manage to hit the soft spot. I couldn't remember for the life of me the backstory to the "Yankee" (can't remember her name) cos it made such a light impression on me, and there were a few others that didn't quite work out. I got the feeling they were trying too hard to make a sad story for every character so some inevitably ended up feeling contrived, and I didn't really feel much at all for those characters. There are times where the voices sound like they're trying too hard to be emotionally crippled or something, and ended up sounding overly flat and apathetic instead, as though they are slowly learning how to read from a script. Speaking of flat voices... what a crap character that "Yankee" girl is. Another one of those deadpan emotionless characters - can she get any more cliched? For some reason this kind of character *really* gets on my nerves.Most of the characters are likeable, if a little annoying during the "comedy" moments. The only character who I find to be consistently funny is Shigure, probably because he doesn't rely so heavy on the super deformity humour, and is genuinely funny because of what he does and say in that sneaky way of his. I think that he is one of the most interesting characters in the cast - even though he acts like an idiot all the time, he is probably wisest of all. He sees through everything that goes on, but says very little of the things he sees. The main character Toru, with her pure, innocent personality, subtly changes so many of the characters over time. But the main problem, as I mentioned already, is that she is just too nice. The only time her infinite niceness is truly put to the test was during the last few episodes (again, just like FMwS). The last few episodes succeeds so well as a climax I had to watch them all in one sitting. They were undeniably exciting, but the motivation behind it is weak. It's painfully transparent that those events basically unfold just to give Toru a "final test", tougher than any she faced before, like a final boss in a game. But the main problem is that it makes no sense with respect to the plot - why, out of all animals, does the curse fall on that particular one? I can't really think of any reason why that animal would be special in that way, and the anime doesn't really provide any answers either. The result of Toru's confrontation with another character turns out to be boringly predictive too, and comes off as a bit of an anti climax - it feels like it's just all too easily resolved.Whilst I feel the cancer aspect in FMwS is played down too much and is very forgettable, the tragedy that happened to Toru's mother in this anime is given its deserved attention. Throughout the anime, Toru turns to the photo of her dead mother for guidance and strength. In fact, I think they may have overplayed it - it's all very convincing that Toru seeks to draw strength and comfort from the portrait of her mother, but to go as far as what she did in the bathhouse episode?! I think not. However much someone is devoted to their mother, I don't think anyone would do what she did in that episode... unless maybe they're too young to know better or not quite right in the head. Considering Toru's extreme niceness, I guess an argument can be made for the latterIn summary, Fruits Basket is for those who like an anime with lots of over the top comedy, and a story full of morals. But be warned, it contain characters that are so nice in a fairy tale kind of way that they'll annoy the hell out of people who don't quite appreciate niceness taken to those extremes. Some may even go as far as calling it "puke inducing". I wouldn't go that far personally, but the sweetness of the show is all a little bit too much. On a rating scale of Yes No or Maybe, I'd give this a Maybe.

lyda59 - 2013-04-25 22:18:23

I have only recently started giving girly anime's a chance, as plenty are boring in my eyes, yet 'Fruits Basket' quickly became a favourites.We meet a sweet young girl named Tohru, who has resently been, orphaned and homeless. Life isn't looking too well for Tohru, who also attends school and works evenings. To add to recent events, Tohru is then caught out as a trespasser.Tohru's luck then begins to change for the better, yet she is soon embroided in the bizzare family secret held by her new friends.Despite her hardship, Tohru is an optimistic soul who always seems to see the good in all people and situations. Her positive views are infectious and she quickly manages to change those around her for the better.'Fruits Basket' it a truely heartwarming tale with a supernatural twist.