I think I’m not alone when saying that these last two episodes of Fruits Basket aren’t their best material. With the announcement that Fruits Basket is going to have 3 seasons, I can understand why. Episode 8 for instance is where Fruits Basket padded out its material too thin, with all the familiar narrative beats that we already experienced in episode 5 (when Tohru went back to her relative), with a much lesser effect. Episode 9 has different issues, that is in the name of the newcomer Haru. Just to be frank Haru character isn’t that interesting. While I’m not going too far to say that he’s a reverse Kaguya, he does have some similar traits. The way his affection lies towards Yuki (as the episode title clearly shows) is… obsessive just like that of Kaguya, and I don’t think I need another character who involved in constant catfight with Kyou. His most distinctive trait seems to be light/dark Haru, where light Haru is a absent-minded, oddball Haru and dark Haru (triggered by Kyou) is a crazy, hot-tempered Haru, and sadly I don’t find either of these remotely interesting.
There’s one character development that Fruits Basket nails it about his character, however, and that is his flashback towards Yuki. As the original Zodiac tale goes, Haru had always felt shame about the story of Rat using him to finish first in the race, to the point that he harbors a hatred to Yuki, even without seeing him. When he meets Yuki for the first time (and exploded all his insecurity to him), he realizes that Yuki shares the same pain he does, to a larger extend. It fits what we know about Yuki’s character, and it’s sad to see him suffers that loneliness even when he was a kid.
Sadly, that’s the only highpoint I can give to this episode. “Repetitive” is the main issue I have here. At this point the chemistry between the lead trio is solid, but it needs to break its current status quo. There’s only so much if seeing them enjoying their everyday life with Tohru being happy of being housewife and the other two engage in a constant juvenile fights. Speaking of the former, I found the early scene where Tohru buying groceries alone while the two boys waiting outside, doing nothing extremely dated and overtly traditional, which reminds me again how old this source material is. Speaking of the latter, I grow a bit tired of Kyou and Yuki fighting nonsense. Tohru’s character doesn’t fare any better as despite she has a solid character arc, her behaviours, or more like, her humbleness and her oblivion towards others’ feelings, don’t do Fruits Basket much justice. I would love to see the show tries more than just maintaining its status quo.
