With everyone settling in, a little more of the past is revealed and new characters surface.
What They Say:
Tohru Honda thought her life was headed for misfortune when a family tragedy left her living in a tent. When her small home is discovered by the mysterious Soma clan, she suddenly finds herself living with Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure Soma. But she quickly learns their family has a bizarre secret of their own: when hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into the animals of the Zodiac!
Fruits Basket Season 1 Part 2 contains episodes 14-25 of the classic anime, reimagined and directed by Yoshihide Ibata, plus 3 Art Cards featuring artwork from the Japanese release and replicas of the Tiger, Rabbit, and Dragon zodiac figurines from Shigure’s home, as seen in the show.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in 2.0 form and the original English language track in 5.1 form, both which are done up in the Dolby TrueHD lossless format/ This helps to give it a bit more life and fullness but the reality is that the majority of the show is dialogue-driven that’s supplemented by some fights and occasional moments of chaos, which tend to be center channel based. The series is one that doesn’t have a lot in the way of actual big moments to it or anything but it has fun with the sound effects throughout it with the transformations and the comedic bits with the way the action and antics unfolds. There are cute bits throughout and the mix works some decent placement as warranted but it’s otherwise a fairly straightforward stereo mix. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout and we didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally airing in 2019, the transfer for this TV series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The twelve episodes for this half of the season are spread across two discs in a seven/four design with most of the extras on the second disc. Animated by TMS/8PAN, the series has a really great look where it takes the original designs but spruces them up for modern times and applies a lot of visual details throughout the backgrounds so it all blends together well. It’s a lot more fully realized than the original series was with its somewhat wispy ways and the end result is something more colorful with punches of vibrancy that really stand out. The character designs come across a lot better here as I always felt the original was softer than it should have been and that extra crispness here definitely helps. The show is one that feels as modern as it is in terms of production still captures some of that 90s charm so that it doesn’t forget where it’s from.
Packaging:
The limited-edition version of this release is done up quite nicely as we get a bunch of really fun pack-in limited pieces. Largely mirroring the first set, it’s done with a soft box to hold it all together where it has artwork of Yuki on the front while the back under the sell-sheet has the core trio together. There’s some little slotting inside in order to hold things in place for shipment but it makes it easy to store everything together as well. Within one of the box inside we get three more of the absolutely adorable figurines in their cute transformed mode for a couple of them and these suckers have a bit of weight to them. You could do a little damage with them if you threw them at someone as opposed to a lot of pack-in material that just feels light. In addition to that, we get three really nice art cards showing off the cast with some of the great key visual pieces we’d seen before.
Also inside the larger box is the DVD/BD case which comes with an o-card that replicates the case artwork. The set also comes with a Funimation Digital voucher so you can get it on their site. The front cover uses the same artwork as the Japanese side with a great visual of Yuki that’s expanded from the box itself with lots of colorful soft widgets around her. The back cover puts him in his uniform with the deep blue to the side and we get the standard rundown with the summary of the premise, the extras, and the digital copy stripe. The technical grid breaks down both formats cleanly and accurately in an easy to read way with it being purple on white even with a small font. The case artwork replicates the o-card as we mentioned but it also gets a reversible piece that has a wonderful two-panel spread of the cast.
The menu design for this keeps things simple with the right kind of elements as the majority of the screen goes for clips playing throughout it. This has a lot of good character moments it to as they unfold across the loop but we also get some good locations showcased. It doesn’t just go for bright and engaging sequences but has enough of the quieter ones as well with deeper colors so that it can present some of the weight that the show has. The logo through the middle works well since it’s a thin if stylish font that fits while the bottom has the navigation, which doubles during regular playback a the main menu. The layout for the navigation is pretty standard stuff and it works well in allowing you to move about with ease both during setup and playback. It’s not the best and brightest of menus but it fits the show veryl
Extras:
The extras for this release are nicely done up that should please most fans. The welcome basics are here with the clean opening and closing but we also get several of the Inside the Episode pieces which vary in length but have the cast and production talking about the show across multiple episodes. The big new extra is the interview piece which comes in at about seventeen minutes and incorporates some fun footage from the show as well. It’s done with new cast members to the show with Caitlin Glass running so it’s pretty fun. We get Mikaela Krantz, whose energy I just want to bottle up, along with Jad Saxton and Elizabeth Maxwell. This set also comes with a commentary track for the 18th episode with the dub cast on board to talk about it..
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The first half of the Fruits Basket series was a lot of fun to get into even if it was terribly familiar. With having read a lot of the original manga way back in the day, doing DVD singles, collections, Blu-ray collections… there wasn’t much that was truly new under the sun when it came down to it. I did like the way everything came together and that it was better animated with what felt like a bit more relaxed pacing that was appropriate to it. And with the character designs working more from original creator Natsuki Takaya’s later work than the early volumes helped as well, though everyone really is still essentially the same. With this set, we get the back half of the first season – which was out just last summer – just ahead of the second season streaming. It’s very well-timed and makes for an easy way to get back into the right mindset ahead of the material that moves past the previous adaptation.
This set opens with a bit of an anniversary because one of the driving factors of events has to be brought up every now and then. With it a year officially since Tohru’s mother died, we really do get to see how well she’s doing since befriending the Soma’s. She’s working, she’s going to school, she’s got friends that care about her even if some will deny it, and she’s moving forward with her life in sometimes the smallest of ways, which is important. The focus turns to her and Momiji for a lot of the opener as it delves into what he remembers of his past and the awkward relationship that exists with his mother. Because of the rejection of her son over the family curse, it was decided to remove her memory of Momiji so that she wouldn’t try to hurt herself or hurt him going forward since there were awkward moments. With the way Tohru deals with all the memories she has and the pain of many of them, it sets an interesting series of little conflicts for her to think and feel with in how Momiji’s life is.
As time goes on we do get some nice little diversions here and there, though a lot of it invariably helps to push the larger bonding narratives. A small vacation has the group going to the lakeside house the family has and there’s plenty of silliness that happens here but we also see the way that in the time knowing Tohru that some of the boys have had to mature-up a bit. After visiting the grave previously for Tohru’s mother, both Kyo and Yuki are a bit more respectful of Tohru and try to treat her a bit better and that sometimes in small ways impacts how the two young men interact with each other as well, though they have quite the history to begin with. But for Tohru, she likes the way they usually act – to some degree – because the arguing is their normal and having that in her life helps her feel normal. These are small developments but they’re all important in showing the growth of everyone involved and how teenagers often do have to be forced into learning emotions like empathy though direct experience.
There’s some good lighthearted fun along the way, including a bathing suit shopping sequence that we get a few episodes in that’s awkward for poor Tohru. We also get some cuteness in the introduction of Kisa Soma to the household. She’s the Tiger of the Zodiac and is definitely very much a girly-girl as presented here but is also extremely quiet as she first appears because of being bullied. There’s not exactly a feral aspect to her but it leans into that a bit with how she treats people, which makes Tohru an ideal person to try and reach through to her more. I do like that there’s mild conflict within the clan as to why she’s being bullied, whether it’s part of the curse or something else, rather than it being a set and finalized thing as it lets some introspection come in and for Tohru to kind of look past the blind spots that many of the Soma have because of how their lives operate.
There are a couple of others that we meet such as Ritsu and Hiro, but the show moves toward something a little more serious. Initially focusing on Tohru struggling with failing her finals and even coming across physically weak because of it, we get Kazuma Soma visiting, who is Kyo’s foster father. That brightens things up with Kyo in a way that we rarely do but Kazuma is there with a plan to help Kyo discover his true form by using Tohru. Though Yuki is often the one that’s viewed the most as aligned for Tohru, there’s always a strong case to be made for Kyo but the reality is that Tohru saves both of them (and others) in different ways and bonds with them through that. I really like what we get here with this as Kyo feels like he’s leveling up in a sense thanks to Tohru and it’s part of the overall series of character growths that we got throughout the first season, which while familiar to longtime fans are well-presented here and have the bonus of knowing that there’s another full season still to come.
In Summary:
While Fruits Basket was never a top of the line love for me as a property, it’s one that I introduced to my kids early because it was accessible and it had the right kinds of things it wanted to teach along the way – all while playing with the Zodiac and transformations. So it’s a delight to see it come to life again and to see them getting to experience it again so differently. This set shows the love and care for the show that Funimation has long put into it, going back to when it was one of the earliest series that they had put out that wasn’t a big shonen series. There’s a lot to like with this collection, especially those adorable figures, and Funimation delivers throughout when it comes to the discs and show itself with a great encode and a really fun dub experience. A wonderful complement to the first set and hopefully the second season will warrant more.
Features:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Language, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Fruits Basket: Interview with Cast & Crew, Inside the Episode, Episode 18 Commentary, Textless Songs
Content Grade: B+
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B+
Released By: Funimation
Release Date: February 11th, 2020
MSRP: $84.98
Running Time: 300 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
