Fruits Basket: The Strangest Day

Fruits Basket: The Strangest Day
TV Tokyo
October 29, 2002
Anime, Fantasy
DVD
B

Housekeeping:

• This covers a lot of genres, including comedy, drama, and romance, but I went with fantasy because of the basic premise, which I'll get to;
• I will sometimes use the popular abbreviation "Furuba" for convenience's sake;
• I've put the original network but the American airdate;
• It premiered in Japan in 2001, so there's not a huge difference;
• I usually listen to the American actors with anime anyway, but they are particularly well-cast in this series, so I want to recognize that.

The American voice cast (which will expand, but these will remain the core members):

• Laura Bailey as Tohru Honda
• John Burgmeier (who also wrote the English translation of the script) as Shigure Sohma
• Parisa Fakhri as Arisa Uotani
• Daphne Gere as Saki Hanijima
• Jerry Jewell as Kyo Sohma
• Eric Vale as Yuki Sohma

The premise: Tohru is an orphaned high school student who is temporarily living in the woods.  She meets two members of the Sohma family, one of them her classmate Yuki, "the prince of the school," who invite her into her home.  However, when cousin Kyo Sohma arrives, she accidentally embraces all three "boys"* and they transform into animals!

I reviewed the first volume of the manga by Natsuki Takaya here: http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2013/11/fruits-basket-volume-1.html.  I still believe that the anime is superior and I even thought I might give the premiere episode a B+, as I did for His and Her Circumstances.  However, while it's fine as an introduction to not just the characters but to the various genres, it does feel a bit like it's trying to provide too much information at once.  Akitarô Daichi is the Japanese director; I don't know who directed the American voice cast.

*Yuki, who's about 16, describes not only himself but the twentysomething Shigure as boys.