Fruits Basket(July 5, 2001 – Dec 27, 2001), Furuba 
Director: Akitaro Daichi Written by: Higuchi Tachibana
Romantic-Drama, Low Fantasy, Comedy, Reverse Harem,
Key Words: Bishōnen, Body Switching, Slice of Life, Love Triangle, Zodiac,
Studio: Studio Deen American Licensed Publisher: Funimation Entertainment

Episodes: 26

My Thoughts: The story is rather cute and sweet. A rather slow moving story with a lot more in the way of talking and cutesy moe look. It’s sad that they didn’t stay true to the actual manga and in fact, they messed up a gender since the manga wasn’t finished before hand. I won’t spoil it but those who read the manga, you might be able to guess. Unfortunately, when they did this, they changed the reasoning behind how they act and it just messes up the story since it’s a pretty big roll in it. The story does keep the fact that it starts out really fun and then to the later middle and ending, it gets a bit more down and depressing. Just a little bit of a warning.

The characters are fun and lively with their personalities but each one seems to be a stereo typical to an anime standard. Tohru reminds me a lot like myself, her personality and how she takes care of anyone but she is a saint not to act like a crying little girl for what she had to go through. Now sometimes I do have a problem with just how she acts though. I want to yell at her ‘JUST CRY ALREADY!’ It’s a pain just how sweet and innocent she is. 

The Animation is pretty good though once in a while it seems to break a bit, but one thing that they didn’t get rid of was the way the actual artist draws the chibi ghost characters when something funny happens. I love that about the art in the manga and keep the two together even if the story is a bit different.

The Music is really cute, though the opening is really two slow and annoying. I always wanted to skip it because it was both that and depressing. The English dub is a tiny bit better but not by much. The music in the background is good though some of the slice of life stuff is a little worse for wear in that it plays a little too often for my taste. 

The voice acting in both the Sub and Dub are good but I lean much more into the English voices since they are better then the Japanese (my own opinion) though I still don’t like it all the way. The voices are a little hard to listen to when you marathon it and you might want to take a brake between it. The show as a whole has much to be improved on but it is not a really bad show. 

Rating:    
I say rent in instead of buy the DVD.

Link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruits_Basket 

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