Fruits Basket 1st Season

Tooru Honda has always been fascinated by the story of the Chinese zodiac that her beloved mother told her as a child. However, a sudden family tragedy changes her life, and subsequent circumstances leave her all alone. Tooru is now forced to live in a tent, but little does she know that her temporary home resides on the private property of the esteemed Souma family. Stumbling upon their home one day, she encounters Shigure, an older Souma cousin, and Yuki, the "prince" of her school. Tooru explains that she lives nearby, but the Soumas eventually discover her well-kept secret of being homeless when they see her walking back to her tent one night.

Things start to look up for Tooru as they kindly offer to take her in after hearing about her situation. But soon after, she is caught up in a fight between Yuki and his hot-tempered cousin, Kyou. While trying to stop them, she learns that the Souma family has a well-kept secret of their own: whenever they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex, they transform into the animals of the Chinese zodiac.

With this new revelation, Tooru will find that living with the Soumas is an unexpected adventure filled with laughter and romance.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Souma, Kyou Main

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Honda, Tooru Main

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Souma, Yuki Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Souma, Hatsuharu Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Souma, Momiji Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Souma, Shigure Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Souma, Ayame Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Souma, Hatori Supporting

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Hanajima, Saki Supporting

Satou, Satomi Japanese

Souma, Isuzu Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yamauchi, Mirai Producer

Itou, Genki Producer

Shimada, Akira Producer, Planning

Reviews

Aug 18, 2025

DigiCat

Recommended

(This review is for all 3 seasons of Fruits Basket)

It may look like the soap opera of the anime world at first glance, but trust me when i say Fruits Basket is truely a lesson in not everything is as it seems...

While romance is for sure a central theme of the series, it is far from the only one, being intertwined with deep psychological elements that'll both intrigue your mind and pull at your heartstrings, how the zodiac curse is used as a metaphor for the complex and dysfunctional relationships of the Souma clan is pure genius

The tone shifts quite dramatically as we go from ... s1 to s2, with the perfect fusion of both culminating in the final season. Each arc with it's distinct flavour contributes to the show's impeccabel character developement and engaging writing style

My only nitpicks are that at times the pacing was a bit on the slow side for my taste and there's some things i wish would've been done differently in the final season, still it remains one of the best shoujo anime i've seen by far

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Nov 11, 2025

chocomoonpie

Mixed Feelings

Kind of like the Demon Slayer of the slice of life shoujo world...(in terms of plot, mystery and humour)

I think Fruits Baskets has a lot going for it: It is rich in character complexity, metaphors and style. The animation style is pretty and quaint which I find very fitting for the main character Tohru. I like her origin story, and how that led to her hardworking and resistant personality.

Not to go into a full psychoanalysis, but Tohru is a prime example of a people pleaser. While most shoujo heroines have that trait, to some extent, the series makes it a point to explore her paradoxical ... selfishness. Covert and overt selfishness are represented by Tohru and Akito. Since Tohru's characterization is central to the premise of the plot, I do not have any complaints about her moral nature. However, making her cry and spiral into self-hatred every couple episodes is truly redundant, and it does a disservice to her character development. The drama that's worthwhile in the show is found in the psychology, the tension and the polarity of the characters; but it often steers towards melodrama (i.e. long gloomy crying scenes, omnipresent self-blame, etc...).

I liked that every episode had a purpose. Moreover, each character gives their interpretation of the themes: grief, self-doubt, trauma, hierarchy, traditionalism and conservatism. Of course, the series is not above the classic "pure maiden who's kindness which transcends humanity fixes abused men" trend of the 2000s.

It's a difficult series to complete-- It's a slow burn which uncovers more and more grime as the series goes on. There is a lot a viewer can reflect on from watching this, but it is also at times childish and unfunny. That is why I feel like the combined mystery and childish humour makes this the Demon Slayer of slice of life shoujo

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 15, 2025

Shineix

Not Recommended

I just finished watching this and needed to write a review to vent out my frustrations, this might be the most unsatisfying anime I've ever seen and I'll explain why. At the beginning I saw the potential of this show, a broken family that Tohru the perfect girl wants to help and fix right seems good. Only until it becomes insanely stale, repetitive and generic

Firstly, literally every character is so forced by the author to be quirky and broken and for some reason only Tohru can help everyone, the perfect girl that everyone loves right there to always help because for some reason everyone else ... is a bully or lack empathy. Already pretty dumb but the more you watch the more annoying it gets, the anime tries to ignore this by giving her fake difficulties and while her backstory was good her current character is just trash. Some of the side cast are actually decent but that's it, they're not good at all and feel like a child wrote their characters.

The only thing good I can think of is that if you're looking for a slice of life and kinda comedy anime this is it, but that doesn't mean it's good, in my opinion it's such a waste of time and 25 episodes were way too much for this.

In conclusion, don't watch this unless you have spare time or nothing else to do.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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