It pains me to think about all the people who haven’t given Fruits Basket a chance due to its very ‘2005 era DeviantArt weeb’ reputation. However, I maintain the only people who laugh at the series are people who’ve never read the original manga or even watched the old early 2000s charming but incomplete anime adaptation. For the last half a year, a high-quality remake called Fruits Basket 1st Season has been airing and it’s just about perfect. Alongside the final episode of season 1 airing, a special announcement confirming the 2020 release of Fruits Basket 2nd Season had been made to the public.
Included with the announcement comes two snapshots of characters who’ve been never before animated. If you’ve never read the manga, you have no idea who they are. If you have? You should be double excited; Fruits Basket gets increasingly real as it goes on and these two characters are some of my favorite from the entire manga. Knowing that Fruits Basket 2nd Season will do them justice, at least according to how good 1st Season was, brings me great joy and anticipation as to how they’ll be received by new audiences. Not that they’re the only thing to look forward to in part 2, of course.
Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket is an absolutely essential shojo manga that goes so many more places that you’d expect a ‘cute boys who turn into animals’ story would. It’s original early 2000s anime has quite a lot of charm, directed by auteur Akitaro Daichi, but it got nowhere close to completing the story. The new manga faithful Fruits Basket 1st Season has been a delight this year and I’m sure Fruits Basket 2nd Season will be every bit as good. No, in fact, it should be better as the manga only ramps up as it goes on. Warning, it will probably be a tad less cutesy
Fruits Basket 2nd Season will air in 2020.