Fruits Basket

Episode 28

I think this remake has struggled with Ayame stories. Nine times out of ten, Furuba 2019's more relaxed direction and pastoral style has supported its focus on nuanced characters expressing their ugliest emotions in a healing atmosphere, but in the rare moments when the series returns to its early roots of madcap comedy, this more naturalistic style can't summon enough energy to make Ayame shine like he did in the manga. The same dialogue we see delivered over flat two-shots in this episode is more enthralling and exhausting in comic form, where Ayame's tacky flourishes and speech bubbles bleed over panels to drive home how he dominates a room. This was also true of Ritsu, but the anime's decision to downplay the Monkey's mania turned out to be an improvement, as a less cartoony treatment of his anxiety and dysphoria humanized him enough to destigmatize his very serious problems. Ayame is a totally different case, as the Zodiac member with by far the lightest heart. His biggest problem is that he has trouble relating to other people, so making him less a force of nature than an annoying theater kid does water down his comedy potential in episodes that are meant to be mostly laughs.

That's not to say I found this episode bad or even disappointing. I love Fruits Basket through and through, so if we're lucky, this adaptation won't have anything close to a "bad" episode. But I wanted to get my gripes about the lukewarm comedy delivery out of the way first, because my main issue with this episode has more to do with its dramatic structure. Ayame wasn't kidding when he told Mine that he talked "at some length" with Yuki—episode 28 tries to cram two very different meetings between the brothers into one short teatime chat with uneven results.

But for now, let's begin at the beginning. Yuki's nightmare gives us our first glimpse of his mother, a stern woman who seems irritated that her son cares so much about being used by his family. "So what if you are a tool? What does it matter?" Given everything else we know of their relationship—Yuki was sold to Akito, isolated and abused for years, and only escaped with the passive help of Shigure—the context of this conversation becomes more clear. This is probably the moment that Yuki closed his heart off from his mother, the moment he realized it was impossible to get her to see him as a human being. It was the moment that allowed him to selfishly break away from the Somas' control, but it also crushed his ability to open up to others until he met Tohru. Of course a shock like that would continue to haunt him for years, but given the subject of the episode to follow, perhaps the most notable thing about this nightmare is that Ayame wasn't in it. Ayame hasn't been in Yuki's thoughts at all until recently, which makes the older brother's passionate overtures even more irritating. He's trying too hard to make up for lost time, as he feels the weight of time and guilt seep in much faster than his comfortably numb younger brother.

So when Yuki, in his renewed effort to become strong enough to try new things, gives his brother an inch by asking to see his workplace, Ayame busts out the yardstick to turn this visit into a flamboyant production, overwhelming his brother with his love of fetish-wear, cross-dressing, and all manner of debauchery too powerful for Yuki's fragile virgin brain. It doesn't help that both Tohru and Ayame's assistant Mine are enthralled with all the beautiful clothes (that would no doubt look different under a blacklight), leaving the Rat stranded in a sea of discomfort. But even this negative attention is fine with Ayame, since he'd rather Yuki scream at him than keep his distance.

As he got older, Ayame came to the conclusion that the opposite of love was not hatred, but apathy—a theme we see explored throughout Fruits Basket in Yuki and Kyo, whose mutual admiration and curiosity was warped into hatred by their family curse. But at least Yuki and Kyo are still communicating, while Ayame fears he's being pushed behind the same door in Yuki's mind that shuts out his parents and Akito. Since Ayame was apathetic to Yuki's pain for their entire childhood together, he's only grown more remorseful as he sees the consequences of his selfish past reflected back through Yuki's vacant stare. Given his unique circumstances, it's hard to punish Ayame for this as much as he seems to punish himself. As a cursed child in a terrible family that wanted to exploit him for money and status, Ayame was only protecting himself by keeping his distance. He was lucky to have enough confidence, talent, and personality to make his way in the world without his family, and he couldn't take his weak little brother with him on this fabulous journey of self-discovery. He probably thought he was doing his best by choosing not to get involved in the Somas' power plays, but this may have made things even harder on Yuki, as his family doubled down on trying to control their second child where they had failed with the first.

Ayame was never emotionally sensitive by nature, and being raised by the Somas certainly didn't help, but he's clearly grown into a good person who treasures his relationships with others. I love that his bond with Mine seems to have made the biggest difference in his life—she's like a weird otaku version of Tohru, just one normal person outside the Soma cage who encouraged Ayame to face his deeper feelings and made him a better person. Plus they're such an adorable couple; imagine finding someone who shares so many of your fetishes that you can start a smut business together! Unfortunately, Yuki doesn't appreciate Ayame's decadent interests or his pushy attempts to bond with him, so the whole boutique visit ends on a lighthearted anticlimax and a little romantic teasing with Tohru in a beautiful dress instead. Even if the wounds between them heal with time, Yuki thinks that he and Ayame will always be too different to get along. Ayame is only able to shine a faint light through the cracks of Yuki's doubts by asserting that their differences could also bring them together, which happens to resonate with Yuki's personal mission to push himself beyond his comfort zone. It's just a tiny step forward in their relationship, and Ayame wistfully admits that he might have been the only one who enjoyed their time together, but Yuki really did his best to understand him, and that's enough to give him hope.

At least, that's how this chapter played out originally, but episode 28 decided to wedge a much bigger emotional climax right into the middle of this visit that may have overloaded the end result.

So now it's time to take up way too much space whining about my minor complaint with this episode's adaptive structure. There's literally one dozen chapters between the two different Ayame visits spliced into this episode, and to be fair, this hasn't usually been a problem for the Fruits Basket remake. It makes sense to consolidate Ayame's pre-summer-vacation material into one episode; both of his visits with Yuki share a number of running gags, and on the surface, this episode melted those two chapters together seamlessly. The brothers just talked over tea for a much longer time, and no continuity was broken in the process. The problem has more to do with emotional rhythm than continuity, because the conversation these two share about their parents and passions (from much later in the story) is far more intimate and powerful than the theme of respecting each others' differences that acts as its bookend.

This episode's surprise emotional climax kicks in after the subject of parent-teacher conferences comes up. When Ayame suggests acting as Yuki's guardian for the meeting, you'd expect him to be comically mortified as usual, but instead Yuki draws an emotional distinction between his parents and Ayame for the first time. Mere moments after being shocked silent by Ayame's handiwork, Yuki is openly discussing his strategy for re-opening communication with his mother, talking about her in the same way that he talked about Ayame to Tohru back in episode 13, something like "I don't hate them, but I want nothing to do with them anymore, so it's painful and exhausting when we're forced to interact, and I don't feel confident that I can handle their dominating personalities." If it's not alarming enough that Yuki would be so open and articulate about these complicated feelings with his slippery brother, the conversation then crescendos in a beautiful moment of unity between them, when Ayame reveals that he became a clothing designer for the same reason that Yuki created a garden: he just needed to bring something good into the world with his own two hands. It was a desire born from loneliness that lingered even after he found someone who accepted him, turning it from a coping mechanism into his life's passion. Mine helped Ayame to blossom and embrace what made him happy, until he was strong enough to share that joy with others, just as Yuki is motivated to take better care of his garden so Tohru can cook what he raises.

It's clear that Yuki is deeply moved by Ayame's moment of vulnerability; it's the first time he's ever truly related to his brother. Beyond just accepting one another's differences like in the past, Yuki seems to understand that Ayame has overcome the same Zodiac trauma and sadness he experienced in very different ways. Then Ayame gets even more personal, promising Yuki that his life will get better, he's bound to find more people who accept him, and at the very least he won't ever be alone anymore (implying that Ayame will never abandon him again).

Then Ayame clears his throat, changes the subject, and rewinds the story back to a less intimate place from many chapters before, where Yuki is constantly exhausted with him and they can barely communicate their feelings without yelling. By the end of the episode, Yuki has come to some depressing conclusions about interacting with Ayame, and it almost feels like the episode's true emotional climax didn't even happen. To be fair, this disjunct blend between chapters isn't so bad for a couple reasons. For one, this could easily happen in an organic real-world conversation; maybe you reach a profound moment of insight with someone but you end up fighting again ten minutes later. Of course that can happen. And for two, all of this material between the brothers is still great stuff; both the frustration and the catharsis are relatable and believable on their own merits. The entire problem comes from placement, squishing the episode's obvious emotional climax into the middle before sanding it over with milder emotions being overplayed in the last five minutes, complete with a swelling overactive soundtrack that doesn't seem to fit that sentiment of "maybe we're just too different to understand each other", especially after we just saw how untrue that assumption was.

Ultimately, it just felt like too much of a good thing. There was so much character development between these brothers in too short a time that the rhythm of the final result was thrown off, creating a more convoluted emotional statement than necessary (and a longer episode review than necessary). There are so many complicated emotions swirling around in Fruits Basket that episodes with a more focused thesis tend to be the best, and I think My Dinner With Ayame's two emotional goals—"I can't understand you at all but that's okay" versus "I'm moved that you survived this same thing I'm going through"—were slightly too at odds to mesh in an otherwise heartwarming excursion for the series.

Stray Details Lost in Adaptation This Week: The "breakthrough" part of Yuki and Ayame's teatime conversation originally took place in Yuki's garden, after Ayame promised not to leave his brother's side all day. Unfortunately, the summer heat is too much for the Snake to handle, so he spends half their chat in serpentine form, lending him an extra air of vulnerability while Yuki fearfully discusses his mother and Ayame flashes back to adolescent regrets. He changes back to human just in time to repair Yuki's torn shirt, which prompts Ayame to explain his love of fashion while literally surrounded by Yuki's love of gardening. And in recognition of their newfound intimacy, Yuki ends their conversation not with dumbstruck silence and a change of subject, but a backhanded compliment for his brother: "You may be an idiot, but you're no fool." It was obviously a better setting for the scene, and I'm sad to lose it, but they had to make cuts somewhere. There was also more absurd slapstick on the sides, like Ayame wanting Kyo and Tohru to disrobe so he could embroider their clothes, and a few more dramatic touches, like Shigure shaming Ayame for not even being able to remember Yuki's name in middle school. Finally, in an adorable moment that I wish they'd kept, it's revealed that crab and peaches were Yuki's favorite foods when he was little, driving home again how Ayame is trying and failing to be thoughtful. He should probably just ask what Yuki prefers to eat now, without insisting on staying over to help eat it himself!

Rating:

Fruits Basket is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.

Jacob enjoys yelling about anime on Twitter and YouTube. If you're thirsting for more Furuba content, he also co-hosted a trio of podcasts that covers the entire manga.