Fruits Basket

Full Title: Fruits Basket
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Slice of Life, Supernatural
Episodes: 26
Uploaded By: Mavrik
My Age Rating: PG (Mild Language, Violence)

I feel like I'm stepping into a minefield reviewing this one, but here goes... (Have mercy on my soul!)

Torhu Honda's life is anything but a daydream. Her father died when she was little, and a terrible accident just claimed the life of her loving mother. To make matters worse, her grandfather is having renovations done on his house so living there is not an option. Alone and too selfless to consider asking her friends to take her in, she decides to live in a tent out in the woods by herself. That is, until the day she discovers she is living on property owned by three boys in the Sohma family. Feeling compassion for the girl, they allow her to stay with them. Complications arise however, when she accidentally embraces them, and they instantly become various animals of the zodiac. The result of an ancient family curse.

Although this series takes an obvious lean toward female audiences, it is chalk full of hilarious moments for whoever watches it. The banter back and forth between the characters is among the best in any anime. Awkward moments and bizarre occurrences are played off just right and a cheery atmosphere resides over the majority of the series, mostly thanks to the infallibility of Tohru's good nature, but under the fluff lies a very touching and (many times) incredibly sad story about acceptance (or lack thereof). If I have one complaint about the series, it's its lack of any sort of romantic development. It starts getting good at the end, and then it ends; forcing me to spend an entire day reading the fricken manga to figure out who eventually ends up with whom. Furthermore, the curse is not solved in the anime, she just earns some sort of acceptance into the family, so if you like stories to have proper endings expect to be reading some manga after your done watching this one.

Overall, this anime is very enjoyable. As I said earlier, the dialog is hilarious, and comedic timing is dead on. Overly girly storyline and atmosphere may deter some viewers and some of the later episodes (especially those dealing with the Yuki Fan Club) can be downright annoying, but the series is, for the most part, smooth flowing and easy to get caught up in. When, in the last couple episodes, it drops its cheery attitude and starts playing out all the tension it has been slowly building up, the viewer is in for a ride no matter what anime genre they like. The credits are well done, the music is spot on for the most part, and the characters are all fascinating. I recommend giving this anime a try.

My Rating: 8.3/10 (Excellent)