To start off, if you have not watched Fruits Basket this review contains multiple spoilers from Season 1.

I was first recommended Fruits Basket by a close friend and at first glance, I immediately thought that it wasn't something I'd personally enjoy due to hearing nothing about it prior. So going into it, I had quite low standards from the start. After the first few episodes though I was shocked, it genuinely blew my mind that I was actually loving this, episode after episode it was delivering, literally EVERY episode was quality.

To start, Fruits Basket is about an orphan named Tohru Honda who’s taken in by Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure Souma after they find out due to circumstances, she’s living in a tent near their home. Although this comes back to bite them after, when Tohru learns that when hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into the animals of the Zodiac.

The first few episodes of the anime mostly focus on the new relationship of Tohru, Yuki, Kyo and Shigure. At first after finding out their secret, Shigure had to inform the Soumas about Tohru learning about their secrets which is when we first learn about the possibilities of memory wiping occurring which will be an important detail to the story later on. The thing I loved from this was that clearly as shown multiple times, most people would be scared of them, and wouldn't be able to keep this secret but Tohru isn't scared, she even insists that she will keep the Souma's secret. Tohru isn't drawn to them due to them being special, but is interested them as people and wants to befriend them, this is exemplified when even if the worst case scenario comes and her memory is wiped, she still wants Yuki and the others to befriend her.

Basically, Tohru is the catalyst to most events in the story to unfold and to most character's development and her acceptance of this situation is what brings her to be appreciated by all characters. Tohru is invited to the Souma estate and that is when we meet Hatori Souma a complex character with a touching backstory, it is also when we get our first taste of the family head Akito through a flashback denying Hatori and Kana's love which escalates to Akito throwing a violent temper causing Hatori to nearly go half blind in his left eye and blamed Kana for this. This is the first time we actually see an example of memory wipe being used to relieve Kana's suffering and helping her to move on due to falling into a mental illness after the events unfolded. This paints the picture of how "powerful" Akito is and how cruel a family head he is ruling by fear. Even Yuki is shown to quiver in fear in the presence of Akito.

A big part of Fruits Basket is family relationships. We meet Yuki's brother Ayame who is at first presented as an over-the-top annoying character, but behind all that is regrets of the past. He wants to deepen his bond with his brother, but isn't the best at figuring how to do so which is touching as it is shown Yuki acknowledges it. Then we have a look at Momiji's relationship with his family which in my opinion is the saddest of them all. Tohru notices that Momiji's mother does not remember him, we are shown that his mother rejected him when she gave birth to him after finding out he turns into a rabbit in her embrace. This took a massive toll on her mental state as she even tried to kill herself, so as shown again Hatori wipes her memories, so Momo (his younger sister) doesn't even know she has an older brother.

The undoubtedly best part of Fruits Basket (2019) for me was Tohru Honda, unlike most of the characters. Tohru is an actual orphan, she's had to live life differently to the rest of them, she's had to grow up, learn things by herself and taken the lessons that her mother taught her before her death and put them into practicality. Tohru is a big sister figure to many of the younger Soumas, so she's their role model. Funnily enough, my first opinion of Tohru was that she was way too nice, finding out the Souma secret and just accepting it? Seemed that her niceness was just way too much and I still feel like there could of been a better reaction (at first) then to the point of her being so accepting of it.

This anime is very special at first it has his flaws but to me each of those flaws are later on looked at and turned into a strength and a driving factor for this anime, it's story is original and it was refreshing to watch.