The reboot of the beloved manga series Fruits Basket returned in August 2020 for its second anime season with even more characters and emotions than the previous season.

After a highly rated first season in July 2019, the anime Fruits Basket returned with its second season in August 2020. The Fruits Basket anime is an adaptation of the original manga series, Fruits Basket. Although there was a previous anime adaptation of Fruits Basket in 2001, it missed many crucial developments of the original manga series. Therefore, Funimation (an animation company) sought to create an anime adaptation more accurate to the original plot line by working with the author Natsuki Takaya.

Fruits Basket follows the story of an orphaned high school girl named Tohru Honda, who is taken in by her rich classmate, Yuki Sohma, after he finds her sleeping in a tent on their land. As she is taken in, Tohru gets to know and understand the different characters of the Sohma household, as well as their family secrets. In Season 1, Tohru learns that the Sohma family is cursed by the Chinese Zodiac and transforms into their select animal when they are touched by the opposite gender. 

Season 2 follows Tohru getting to know more of the other zodiac members not previously introduced in the first season and further developing her relationships with all of them. There are a total of 25 episodes in this season. The anime isn’t afraid to go into the darker aspects of the story, such as detailing Akito’s (the Sohma head of the house and God that controls each of the zodiac members) abuse towards each of the zodiac or other Sohma’s painful backstories too. Tohru also realizes that she wants to defeat Akito and break the zodiac curse for the Sohma family. Also, spoiler alert because I will be talking about the contents of Season 2 past this paragraph!

Overall, I genuinely loved this season. It was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time and it made me cry almost every episode. The animators know how to tug at your heartstrings. An episode that resonated with me the most was episode 18 titled, “Do You Wanna Kiss?” Although the title implies it’ll be fun and romantic, the episode delves deep into Rin’s (the Zodiac Horse) backstory and how she became traumatized by her parents’ and Akito’s abuse. The scene where Rin is pushed off the balcony was especially painful to watch and made me truly realize why she was so cold and reserved. The following episode shows her going to where Tohru resides and finding comfort in Tohru. 

There are also some major plot twists revealed by the end of the season that genuinely shocked me, such as when Kureno (the Zodiac rooster) revealed to Tohru that he no longer was cursed by his zodiac animal. Although he was no longer bound to the zodiac curse, he remained by Akito’s side because he felt guilty for losing their “bond”, despite Akito’s abuse towards the entire Sohma family. I remember bawling my eyes hard here.

Fortunately, there will be a third and final season for Fruits Basket coming soon in 2021. I am looking forward to the next season and can’t wait to see what happens. I hope that Tohru breaks the Sohma family from their curse so that they can all be happy together, despite the odds.