English Dub Review: Fruits Basket “I’m… Home”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Kureno tends to Akito, who asks him if he knows what’s in a mysterious box. He says he doesn’t know, and Akito tells him it’s her father.

Hiro is doting on Hinata while his mother and Kisa’s mother discuss Isuzu not returning from the hospital. At school, Yuki asks Haru about Rin. He explains Tohru is worried, and while Haru is glad Rin has made a friend, he doesn’t know her whereabouts.

The hunt for Rin continues throughout the episode, with Haru confronting Akito about it, and Kureno asking a servant mysteriously taking food to the Cat’s Room.

Akito’s attempts to keep the Zodiac members close are starting to fray at the seams, which makes her all the more desperate to maintain her grasp. Unfortunately, that may come at a serious cost for one of the female members of the Zodiac.

Our Take:

The flashbacks in this episode are gorgeous, sweet, and effective in presenting much needed context. However, the visual impressiveness, much like Tohru’s positive impact on the Sohma family, has its limits.

We see that with the reveal of Rin’s location, and (currently) misguided attempt to break the curse.

While all the stories of the Zodiac Sohmas are tragic, and most members are being manipulated by Akito to some extent, Rin’s situation always seemed particularly sad.

Not only is she attempting to break the curse for noble reasons, but she’s been given unreliable information on how to do that. This slows down her progress, worsens her health, and of course, gets her even more entangled in Akito and Ren’s standing grudges.

While Haru’s love for Rin is admirable, and ties in to the overarching theme that love can overcome any obstacle, his interactions with Akito are some of the more disturbing in this series by far. While his intentions are good, and it could certainly be argued that Akito’s previous actions have warranted such a serious response, it’s always hard to watch their confrontation unfold.

Overall, this episode is an important one for covering some of the darker aspects of the Sohma curse. The art remains as high quality as ever, even for comic moments, like Haru’s reaction to Yuki in the beginning, and the “sparkles” around him when he thinks about Rin having made a friend.

It was a bit of a tough watch story-wise, but necessary for things to progress. I’m looking forward to a slightly more light-hearted episode next week.