‘Fruits Basket -Prelude-’ Shows What Came Before Tohru and Kyo, but I Can’t Decide if It Even Needed To
2.5/5 trips to the beach
Spoilers for Fruits Basket (series, manga, and movie)
Fruits Basket – Prelude – tells the story of Kyoko and Katsuya Honda, the parents of the series’ protagonist, Tohru Honda. When we meet Tohru in the series, we know that both of her parents are dead, but she’s trying to keep an upbeat outlook on life and do right by her parents – particularly her mother. From the photographs Tohru has of her mother, Kyoko appeared to be where she got that “my smile is brighter than the sun” personality, which is why it’s surprising when you learn about her past. Kyoko actually used to be about that gang life and was known for being a violent, troubled teenager until she met Tohru’s father. This movie centers on Kyoko’s past, her relationship with her husband, and how Tohru became a highlight in their lives. The story beats are all there. The execution, however, is something to be desired.
Summary
Before there was Tohru and Kyo – there was Katsuya and Kyoko. Discover the turbulent beginning of Tohru’s mom’s dark past, and the man who breathed new hope into her. Watch the evolution of their love story and the birth of the Honda family, as this chapter completes the full adaptation of the heartwarming Fruits Basket story.
What actually worked for me
The idea of having a film show how Tohru’s parents got together was interesting to me. At the same time, I wasn’t sure we needed one, as the series does a good job showing just enough of Kyoko and how she influenced the lives of those around her. Still, I was interested because for years Kyoko Honda has been pretty high on my tragic anime mom list as you only get to see her in flashbacks, so the thought of seeing her life before she became a framed photo was something I wanted to check out.
Before I get to the stuff that didn’t work for me, I want to talk about the stuff that did. The few moments we see of Kyoko and Katsuya’s relationship are cute (I’ll get to that few part in a moment). Their banter can be fun at times, and moments like Katsuya reassuring Kyoko about her pregnancy and how they should treat their child (ie: WAY differently than their parents treated them) feel heartfelt. I will say that the age gap and student (Kyoko)/teacher (Katsuya) dynamic between the pairing may turn newcomers off – so much so that Kyoko points it out in the movie. To be honest, Fruits Basket isn’t exactly a series that shies away from problematic pairings (Sohma family members in love with each other, age gaps, unfair power dynamics, etc.), so if you made it through the anime and manga, this plot element probably isn’t going to stop you.
Something else I liked was how the movie depicted things like grief and Kyoko’s concerns about being a mother. What we get of Kyoko in the series is this sort of “she smiled all the time” mother vibe since we only really see Tohru’s memories of her. Even when it’s revealed that Kyo met her, she comes off as a kind, nurturing woman because it was well after the trauma she’d gone through as a kid. Same with Tohru’s friend, Arisa Uotani, who idolizes Kyoko from her gang days… only to realize that she’s calmed the hell down as a mom. So when you see Kyoko in the movie and she’s terrified about being pregnant, it shows a new side of her. Her reaction to losing Katsuya is heartbreaking, and realistic because she truly doesn’t know what to do after having so many people either toss her aside or die.
This all leads to her becoming the person we see glimpses of in the series, and the person who would instill the values that Tohru has in the series. We even get to see the payoff in a brand new way as the movie shows us what Tohru is up to after the series with Kyo.
What didn’t work for me
As I said earlier, the story elements are all there for this movie, but the execution is the part where it fumbles the bag. The first thing that felt off to me is that the movie doesn’t start out with Kyoko’s perspective, or even Tohru’s. The first half-hour of the movie (a significant chunk as the film is only an hour and a half) is a recap of events from Kyo’s perspective. We see a young Kyo talking to Kyoko, who feels a connection with him because she knows what it’s like to be the mistreated outcast of your family. However, this part is primarily clips of the series as Kyo narrates his feelings over them. In a movie that’s supposed to focus on Kyoko and Katsuya, it felt like an odd choice. According to Hoai-Tran Bui over at SlashFilm, the Kyoko and Katsuya plotline is in the manga, but it’s seen during the events of the story, not after (note: I’ve only seen the anime so I didn’t know).
The thing is, the Fruits Basket team kind of shot themselves in the foot when they chose to cut out Kyoko and Katsuya Honda’s love story from the anime series. In the manga, the story is recounted by Kyo in the midst of one of his angstier existential crises (he had realized he was in love with Tohru but had accepted his fate to be locked away forever once he graduated high school, and was using his remaining time to be as close to her as possible), and played nicely as a parallel to Kyo and Tohru’s doomed romance, while revealing more about Kyo’s troubled past than we could have possibly fathomed. But we’ve already reached our happy ending. There’s no more story left to tell.
In that context, getting Kyo’s perspective makes sense. The problem, as Bui points out, is that the story is already over. Kyo and Tohru are already together and happy, so it feels like this half an hour recap is being shoehorned into the movie in an attempt to create the effect this story has in the manga. Bui goes on to say, “The film only starts to feel like it’s getting into a comfortable rhythm when we reach the end of the recap and what feels like should’ve been the natural starting place for the film: Kyo and Tohru visiting Kyoko’s grave, looking to the future together, while pondering what past Kyoko really meant in her last words to Kyo.”
I agree with Bui. When we got to this moment I thought, “We could’ve just started here,” instead of trying to retell all of Kyo’s trauma in 30 minutes in an attempt to connect it to Kyoko’s story. It felt unnecessary, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it when we finally did get to Kyoko’s point of view – especially because of how her story is told.
Kyoko narrates the rest of the movie after Kyo which, essentially, takes away the framing device of Kyo thinking about Kyoko? Because now we ARE getting Kyoko’s perspective? There’s even a title card when the movie switches to her POV. She tells us about her terrible life as a teenager in a gang. The truth is, she was trying to find the love and support she didn’t get at home. Here’s the thing, though. We don’t actually see much of this violent, hostile gang life she’s led. When you see Kyoko she’s already miserable. She’s unhappy in the gang, unhappy at home, and unhappy at school. We don’t get to see how her parents’ attitude pushed her toward a gang, we just see the aftermath where they already want her gone. We don’t get to see any potential comradery she initially felt in the gang, she’s already unsatisfied with them and everyone else. I wanted to see some build-up of her thinking being in a gang brought her happiness, which leads to her doing bad things and leads to her parents being even harsher than they already are.
There’s one scene of her at school that shows her being angry at her teachers. It’s that part in the trailer where she grabs a chair. But just when I thought we were finally gonna see this terrible person, she immediately meets Katsuya who actually listens to her, so she crumbles. To me, that half an hour recap should’ve been used to show us more moments of her with her gang so we could see her go from this is fine to this isn’t what I actually want. Instead, she just… tells Katsuya. And, in return, he eventually tells her how he’s only teaching to keep his father happy. He’s got a turbulent familial relationship (or so we’re told, the one family member he interacts with is supportive) and this connects the two of them.
Their story, to be honest, feels a bit too fast-paced. That’s because their major moments are surrounded by trauma with few happy moments to give these scenes room to breathe. For example, Katsuya’s marriage proposal comes at an extremely vulnerable time for Kyoko, and I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. It’s supposed to be sweet, but all I could think about was the fact that Kyoko was a kid who’d been tossed out by everyone because “she’s bad” and, I dunno, maybe this isn’t the best time to tell her “choose me” because she’s in a fragile state right now? But there’s no better example of rushed, disappointing storytelling than the aftermath of Kyoko’s grief when Katsuya dies.
As I said earlier, the movie illustrates her grief in a painful way, and I can attest to feeling that sort of hollowness when you lose a loved one. Kyoko ends up getting out of it because of her feelings for Tohru, and… that’s it. We don’t get to see HOW her love for Tohru made life worth living for Kyoko, she simply hugs her, then narrates her feelings. There’s a quick image of the two smiling at each other, but I really wish we could’ve gotten just as much quality time between mother and daughter as we did with the grief, especially since Kyoko’s love for Tohru is what shaped her into the person she’s seen as in the anime.
Honestly, there aren’t too many of these uplifting moments. The ones that are there are very short in comparison to the time dedicated to showing Kyoko’s depression, uncertainty, and feelings of hopelessness. As bleak as Fruits Basket (the series) would get, there were always moments that balanced it out so it didn’t feel like too painful of a story. Kyo has a truckload of angst, but there was always someone to guide him out of it – and we’d SEE it happen on screen instead of having Kyo tell us that Tohru was his saving grace.
I just wanted a bit more time to feel like I was getting the image in the movie poster, and since the movie starts with a whole thirty minutes of content that already exists in the series, it feels like I was cheated out of moments we could’ve gotten. There are a couple of scenes that I do like, but they aren’t enough to carry the movie for me. As it stands, I’m fine with what the anime has offered (and now feel the urge to read the manga and how it tells this story).
(Image: © NATSUKI TAKAYA.HAKUSENSHA/FRUITS BASKET PROJECT)
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