The Happy Couple

In Episode 12, we learned that Kyou and Tohru are going to be leaving wherever it is they currently live. I’m not actually sure if we know where exactly in Japan this series takes place. Though, someone could probably figure it out from the scenery.

As Episode 13 is the last episode of Fruits Basket The Final Season, naturally it focuses on Kyou’s and Tohru’s last day before they leave. The episode doesn’t follow them the whole time, though. Rather, we get to see how everyone else feels about them leaving.

I don’t think that this was the greatest episode of the series. It was pretty average, overall. But, I did find seeing everyone’s reactions to Kyou and Tohru leaving to be interesting. For example, Kagura says that she’s going to see them off for Kyou, not Tohru — but we know it’s for both of them.

Momiji is another who I found interesting, as he’s kind of the opposite of Kagura. He loves Tohru. However, he claims that he’s going to find a great significant other just so he can show them off to Tohru and Kyou in the future to make them Jealous.

Akito’s response was a bit strange, though. She claims that she’s not going to see off Tohru and Kyou despite Tohru being her first friend. However, she does state that she can see them whenever she wants, which seems to imply she’s going to show up uninvited.

Also, at the very end of the episode, we get an epilogue that takes place in the far future when Tohru and Kyou are grandparents. Their granddaughter looks like Kagura, and apparently by this time, they seem to have moved back to Shigure’s old house.

Everyone Else

Aside from Tohru and Kyou, we do get to see what’s going on with a few of the other relationships in the series. Unfortunately, Tohru and Kyou are the only ones who we get to see in the epilogue. I wonder who else is still alive by then.

I was going to say that Shigure probably isn’t since it looked like they were living in his house. But, since he got together with Akito, he probably moved out of that house long ago. Still, he is significantly older than they are, so he probably died.

Anyway, Shigure and Akito end up together, obviously, but we don’t know much more than that about them. The same goes for Ayame and Mine. We know they’re together, but from what we saw, they’re still up to their old antics — wanting to put Yuki in dresses.

There’s not really anything to say about Haru and Rin or Hiro and Kisa. Their relationships are just as they’ve always been. However, Ritsu Souma is apparently in a relationship with Shigure’s editor. And more than that, he’s no longer cross-dressing.

As for Yuki and Machi, Yuki is going away to college while Machi finishes up high school. They’re still going to be in a relationship though, with Yuki even giving Machi a key to his new apartment. How cute.

Arisa and Kureno aren’t that interesting. They seem to be having a long-distance relationship while Kureno recovers. But, there was an odd shot of Saki and Kazuma (Kyou’s master) together. I don’t think they’re a thing. I think they were together because Saki is Tohru’s “mother” and Kazuma is Kyou’s “father.”

And the last person I want to mention is someone not in a relationship: Ren Souma. I would have liked a bit more of a conclusion for her. The last we saw of her, she was staring into an empty box.

Should Akito be Forgiven?

During the scene of Momiji, Haru, and Rin talking about Kyou and Tohru, Rin brings up the fact that Momiji and Haru seem to have forgiven Akito. I didn’t really get the impression that they forgave her. It seems more like Momiji pities her and Haru is indifferent at this point.

Rin mentions that Akito had done terrible things to both of them, and so she doesn’t understand why they would forgive Akito. But, did Akito really do anything that bad to Momiji and Haru directly? They definitely suffered, but I don’t think it was directly at the hands of Akito.

I believe we did see Akito being mean to Momiji in the past. But most of Momiji’s trauma came from his immediate family — specifically the fact that he was removed from the family and his mother’s memory of him was suppressed.

As for Haru, I don’t recall ever seeing Akito do anything to him directly. Maybe that was because Haru was too much of a wildcard. Out of all the Zodiac members, Haru is the one most likely to actually lash out and hurt Akito in return.

Instead, Akito hurt Haru by proxy. She hurt Rin because she knew that was how she could hurt Haru. In that regard, I could understand why Haru maybe shouldn’t forgive Akito. But I think his indifference is fine. He doesn’t need to forgive her, and it doesn’t seem like he has.

With Rin, though, it’s pretty obvious why she wouldn’t forgive Akito. I mean, Akito literally attempted to murder Rin, and Rin has a massive scar on her back to prove it. I wouldn’t forgive Akito either if I was Rin. Well, at least I wouldn’t have, but Akito is cute now so maybe I’d make an exception.

Conclusion

What do you think of Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 13? Was this an acceptable ending? Is there anyone else you would have liked the episode to focus on, such as Tohru’s family? And who else would you have liked to see in the epilogue? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman, Key Mochi~, and Rob for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika, Senpai, and Kouhai tiers respectively this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Yuki and Machi

Obviously, Haru and Rin are the best couple in Fruits Basket. But which couple is the second best? I went over a few of the couple in Fruits Basket The Final Season back in my review of Episode 11. So for Episode 12’s review, let’s rank them.

I’m tempted to say that Yuki and Machi are the next best couple in the series. Sure, their relationship is the most recent, but recency bias isn’t playing a role in my decision. Machi bias is playing a role. I don’t really care about Yuki, but Machi is cute.

If not Yuki and Machi, then the next best couple would probably be Ayame and Mine. I like their dynamic, as I explained in the previous review. I doubt we’ll get any Ayame x Mine content in the final episode, though. There’s a fairly good chance we’ll get additional Yuki x Machi content that will push them above the competition.

After those two, I guess I’d have to put Kyou and Tohru. I do like Tohru, but Kyou’s not all that special. And their relationship in particular is pretty bland. Though, that’s kind of to be expected from the main duo.

Shigure and Akito are fairly low on this ranking because their relationship is pretty messed up. Also, I don’t particularly like either of them as individual characters either. They both have interesting aspects, but they’re not great.

Hiro and Kisa are kids so I’m going to place them at the bottom of the ranking. And just above them, and below Shigure and Akito, I’ll put Kureno and Arisa simply because we haven’t seen much of them. I’m hoping they’ll be featured in the final episode as well.

Head of the Souma Clan

Even after everything Akito has done to the (former) Zodiac members, she still chooses to remain as the head of the Souma clan. I’m not sure who would have been the new head had she stepped down. I feel like Hatori would have done a fine job.

With Akito staying in power, it almost gives the appearance that she wants to keep ruling over everyone else. We know that’s not the case. But, I could definitely see it coming off that way to the former Zodiac members considering everything she put them through.

She was aware that if she had apologized to them all, it would have seemed like she was trying to avoid responsibility. So why couldn’t she recognize that remaining in power wasn’t a good look? She doesn’t need to be the head of the clan to do good deeds to make up for her tyranny.

One thing I want to touch on regarding Akito is her relationship with Shigure. I’ve seen some people say this is an extremely problematic relationship, and that it ruins the entire series. I clearly don’t agree with that, and neither do most people since this season is ranked as the #5 anime on MyAnimeList overall as of the writing of this review.

But, why does anyone think their relationship is bad? It all comes down to the fact that Shigure is older than Akito and expressed that he loved her when she was still a young child. To them, this is a sign that either he’s into children, or he groomed her.

Shigure never tried to get with Akito when she was a child. And he even kept his distance from her both when she was a child and an adult — so there was no grooming going on. It’s more likely that Shigure was attracted to Akito, at least initially, solely because she was considered special.

Kyouko’s Last Words

Way back in Episode 8 of this season, we learned that Kyouko Honda’s last words were “I’ll never forgive you,” which she said while looking at Kyou. Back then, we had no real context for those words, and to this day, Kyou still doesn’t.

Luckily for us, this week we got to see into Kyouko’s mind during her final moments. This added the much-needed context for the words she spoke — and it was also the first time that Katsuya (Tohru’s father) was featured as a character.

Why did I bring up Tohru’s father? Because when his name was first mentioned in this episode by Kyouko, I thought it was going to have something to do with her last words. It could have made sense for them to be directed at him.

Consider this: In her final moments, Kyouko sees her late husband when she looks up at Kyou. Upon seeing him, she says that she’ll never forgive him (Katsuya) because he’s not still around to watch after Tohru now that Kyouko is dying as well.

To me, that seems like it would have explained away everything. I knew there was no way that Kyouko would actually say that she doesn’t forgive Kyou for not saving her. And if this had been the missing context, I would have accepted it.

However, the true missing context is a bit different. Kyouko did recognize Kyou and her words were for him. However, she didn’t vocalize the first part of her final sentence, which was that Kyou needs to keep the promise he made to her about protecting Tohru. If he doesn’t, then she’ll never forgive him.

This context stays in line with everything we know about who Kyouko was, so I think it’s good.

Conclusion

What do you think about Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 12? Was there enough Yuki and Machi content? I would have liked a bit more. Do you think the relationship between Shigure and Akito is problematic? And what did you think the context surrounding Kyouko’s final words was going to be? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 13 is available now.

Together at Last

Now that Kyou and Tohru are a couple, it’s only a matter of time before Yuki and Machi become one as well. I’m guessing that’s going to happen in the next episode. It would feel a bit odd to hold off until the finale for that.

In fact, I think the next episode is going to focus heavily on Yuki. He’s the only Zodiac member who we haven’t seen have his bond broken yet. His wasn’t broken earlier, and he wasn’t shown in the montage of bond breaks in Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 11.

But, I want to talk about Kyou and Tohru right now. There will be plenty of time to talk about Yuki in the future. When Kyou and Tohru hugged in this episode, we didn’t have any idea what would happen. I assumed he wouldn’t transform, but there was no evidence to back that assumption up.

Once we saw that Kyou’s bond with Akito had apparently broken, it was pretty clear what was coming next. Since Akito’s character has already been redeemed, there was no reason to break the rest of the Zodiac bonds one by one.

However, what I found interesting was that Kyou didn’t realize his bond was broken until he didn’t transform when hugging Tohru. My guess is that Kyou and Tohru hugging is actually what broke his bond and then in response to that, Akito severed the rest of the bonds as well.

It’s a bit too convenient if Akito just so happened to sever her bonds with everyone right as Kyou and Tohru hugged. And, since we know that Zodiac members can tell when their bonds break, Kyou would have known if it happened earlier.

A Forgotten Memory

I think this episode is the first time that we’re getting a different origin story for the Zodiac. And it’s not like this is an alternate version of the story the Souma clan knows. This story is completely different and leaves out explanations for a few things.

In this story, the cat was the first Zodiac member. I feel like the earlier versions of the story put all of the members on equal footing, at least at the beginning. So already, we’re seeing that there’s a pretty big difference when you consider that the cat is now considered the outcast.

The cat was also the first Zodiac member to die, which prompted God to grant all of the Zodiac members immortality through reincarnation. But, the cat didn’t want to reincarnate and was disappointed that God forced reincarnation on it.

Although the point the cat was making is that life is special simply because it’s short, God and the other Zodiac members saw it as the cat turning its back on them. For this reason, the cat was shunned by the others, which we still see today.

But now that we know why the cat was actually shunned, the original story doesn’t add up. It was said that the rat wasn’t initially a member of the Zodiac until it tricked the cat. And it was also said that the cat was shunned because it was tricked or because it tried to get revenge on the rat or something.

So now that we know the rat was always a member of the Zodiac and the cat was shunned for not wanting to become immortal, we can see that the rivalry between Kyou and Yuki was built on a lie. They hated each other because they were the cat and rat. But in reality, the cat and rat didn’t originally have a rivalry of any sort.

The Final Bonds Broken

As I pointed out earlier, we didn’t get to see Yuki’s bond break, but we can assume it happened. So, that means that none of the Zodiac members are bonded to Akito any longer. It was implied that Akito herself severed these bonds, but we still don’t really know how the previously broken bonds came undone.

Hopefully, we’ll get an answer by the end of the series. I’d rather that not be left up in the air. It seems pretty important that some Zodiac members were able to be freed from their bonds earlier than others. And I can’t really see what they had in common.

Kureno, Momiji, and Hiro are all very different. They have completely different personalities, their relationships with Akito were all completely different, and they didn’t seem to have much interaction with each other. So why was it those three?

One couple (aside from the main two) that’s most affected by the Zodiac bonds being broken is Ayame and Mine. It’s been pretty clear, and maybe even explicitly stated, that Mine is in love with Ayame. However, I don’t believe Ayame ever reciprocated that sentiment.

I think in his mind, he didn’t want to tell Mine that he loved her too specifically because of his curse. It’s not that he would have been afraid of her finding out and leaving him, though. Instead, I think the opposite was probably true.

Ayame was most likely worried that Mine would still choose him and thereby stop her from ever falling in love with someone else whom she could actually be with. So for them, the breaking of the curse is a huge deal. For a couple like Haru and Rin, the broken bonds are more of a formality than anything else.

Conclusion

What do you think of Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 11? Was it the hug that broke Kyou’s bond with Akito? Or was that just a coincidence? Do you think the new version of the Zodiac origin story goes against the old one? And which couple do you think benefits the most from the broken bonds? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 12 is available now.

Arisa on the Move

I’ve been saying for weeks now that Arisa and Kureno are going to end up together by the end of the series. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be formally dating at that point. It just means that their relationship is clearly going to be headed in that direction.

But, for a moment in Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 10, I thought that might not be the case. When Arisa and Saki met Akito at the hospital, Saki said to Akito that Kureno had mentioned having someone he had to stay with and that he was referring to Akito.

Initially, I thought that this was going to lead to Akito and Kureno making up and becoming a pair again. However, that thought didn’t last long because I remembered that in the ED, Kureno is paired with Arisa, and Akito is paired with Shigure.

Then, there was also the part with Arisa saying that her time with Kureno was only brief, so she hasn’t exactly earned the right to be sad about losing him to someone else. This made me think that she was going to kind of give up on him.

I still felt like they would end up together. But I was thinking that Arisa would stop trying to be with him and instead it would be Kureno who took the initiative the next time. While this isn’t what happened, I like what did happen much more than what I expected.

Rather than give up on Kureno after realizing that she was only in his life for a small amount of time, Arisa chooses to be a bigger part of his life. She doubles down and forces her way in. I like it; she’s not messing around.

Yuki x Kyou Bromance

The Yuki x Kyou bromance has finally reached its pinnacle. First, Kyou admitted to wanting to be like Yuki. Then, Yuki admitted to wanting to be like Kyou. They both had something which the other didn’t, and which the other wanted.

It’s a lot like the dynamic between Gugu and Rean in To Your Eternity Episode 9, which I reviewed yesterday. Yuki was jealous of Kyou’s “freedom” and the fact that Tohru was always happy around him. Meanwhile, Kyou was jealous of Yuki’s place within the Souma clan.

At the end of the day, neither of them was in very enviable positions because of Akito. Sure, Kyou was free from the restrictions of the clan. But there was a time limit placed on that freedom. After graduation, he was to be locked up for the rest of his life.

As for Yuki, yeah, he got to be an official Zodiac member who was allowed to be part of the Souma clan. But he was also abused for Akito’s entertainment and effectively sold to Akito by his mother. I wouldn’t really want to be either of them.

The real hero of the Yuki x Kyou bromance, though, is Machi. Without Machi, Yuki and Kyou would still be fighting over Tohru and never would have been able to see eye to eye. Also, I guess Kyou doesn’t actually know about Machi yet.

I think that as far as Kyou knows, Yuki is still interested in Tohru. Some of the things he said to Yuki wouldn’t really make sense otherwise. I wonder what his reaction is going to be when he finds out about Yuki and Machi — or everyone else’s reactions for that matter.

Tearing Down the Souma Clan

So, let’s talk about Akito for a bit. She’s had a pretty drastic personality shift in the course of a single episode. But as I said last week, this shift in her character isn’t coming out of nowhere. Based on how her character had been being developed over the course of the series, it was bound to happen.

What’s surprising is that Akito is now moving to dismantle everything she previously stood for at a fast pace. I expected her to break her bonds with the Zodiac members, or allow their bonds to deteriorate (which hasn’t happened yet). But I didn’t really expect her to go out of her way otherwise.

For example, Akito orders that the Cat’s house (jail) is to be demolished. And beyond that, she personally visits the home of Kyou’s dad to inform him that Kyou will be free. These aren’t things she had to do. She could have left the Cat’s house standing and never enforced Kyou’s imprisonment.

As part of her dismantling of the Souma clan traditions, Akito also breaks away from her primary attendant who’s been around since before she was born. Her head attendant doesn’t want the way the clan functions to change because it’s all she’s known.

Akito’s response to that was kind of mean. But at the same time, I do understand why she said it. Basically, Akito says that if her attendant wants to keep living in the past, that’s fine. She’s just going to be left behind if she does so.

When you consider how the head attendant had kind of been the one pushing all of the clan traditions onto Akito, it makes sense that she wouldn’t really be sympathetic. Would Akito really have gotten into the bad position she was in if she wasn’t constantly pushed in that direction by her attendant?

Conclusion

What do you think about Fruits Basket The Final Season Episode 10? Do you like Arisa going on the offensive, romantically speaking? Or would you have rather Kureno made the move? Also, who do you think will have the best reaction to Yuki x Machi when their relationship is revealed? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 11 is available now.