English Dub Review: Fruits Basket “Wait for Me, Tororo Soba!”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

With the start of the summer break, Tohru and the Sohma boys head to the department store for shopping and to check out a new attraction at Momiji’s behest. It turns out to be a haunted house, though Tohru is the only one to be terrified at all the contraptions. Meanwhile Arisa meets up with Kureno Sohma by coincidence, the pair having previously met once before at the convenience store she works at.  But just when you think romance potentially blossoms, You almost forget that Kureno is a Sohma which makes him wary of what that means given their cursed zodiac bloodline…


Our Take


Aside from the debut of this character, this felt like two completely different episodes mashed together, with no real consistency or tonal connection between the two parts. At first, The Kureno and Arisa stuff was easily the most interesting part of the episode, not least because of the potential implications of Arisa getting involved with a cursed Sohma family member when you take into consideration that their Matriarch Akito has such a shitty track-record with her own family members, in combination with the fact that this is considered normal by Japan’s creepy age of consent law as there’s obviously an age gap since the episode also doesn’t make you forget that Arisa is still in high school, and the last scene of the episode with Kureno helps recontextualize things…