Fruits Basket Episode 14 Review: It's a Secret

Fruits Basket starts into the second cour with a load of tears. Get your tissues ready. If you like the characters at even a little bit, you might need them. If you love them like me – especially Tohru and Momiji – I suggest you prepare a whole tissue box. Let’s check out what happened this week!

Japanese title: ヒミツだよ (Himitsu da yo)

Episode 14 – It’s a Secret

Momiji helps out Tohru at her cleaning work and because Tohru and her friends have been curious, she asks him about his parents. He talks with a smile on his face, but his words are dark. His mother is German, but she wasn’t able to deal with her child turning into an animal so Hatori deleted all her memories. Now she only knows her daughter and her husband while Momiji has to stay away from her. The next day we find out that it’s the first anniversary of Tohru’s mother’s death, so Uo-chan, Hana-chan, Kyo, and Yuki accompany her to her mother’s grave. Together they have a lot of unusual fun and talk about old stories of her mother, while something seems to be bothering Kyo.

Highlights

I don’t think there’re any memories okay to be forgotten

Give me my tissues; just writing this sentence down makes me cry so much. Momiji is a precious little baby and how his mother could not love him and his cute bunny form is a mystery to me. He says this sentence, and they incorporated it so beautifully into the whole episode with Tohru and her mother’s passing as well. I am so glad Tohru just hugged the poor child when he told her his family’s story because I wouldn’t have accepted it if she didn’t.

Tohru has the best friends in the world

No, listen, I know I’ve said it multiple times now: I love Hana-chan and Uo-chan. They are such great friends. They don’t get jealous (much) over Tohru hanging out with Yuki and Kyo. They support her when she needs it and know when to back off. They watch over her at all times and know when to give her something of their baggage as well. At the end, Hana-chan even felt like her dad, not wanting to give the daughter away to a potential husband. I adore this, because it’s a healthy friendship and there is no worry about them ever betraying Tohru in any way. We need friendships like this portrayed in series as well. I want friends like Hana-chan and Uo-chan.

New opening and ending

With the new cour there is a new opening and ending! I like the opening song; I like the animation in the opening, too. The umbrellas look a bit strange but the song is a bop and I like the concept of Tohru being the sun for everyone, making the rain stop. All the umbrellas matched the characters. Upcoming new characters are featured. It’s cute.

For the ending, I thought there was too little effort put into it? The song is nice. The animation however, while cute, wasn’t as good as all the characters sleeping and Yuki looking at Tohru all happy and… Bring back my old ending, please? And only insert the dragon into it. That was funny.

Comments

Graves

Usually when you visit a grave, you go there, put flowers in, put maybe some food down and light up incenses. You clap your hand, bow, pray and then leave the site after cleaning up old leaves and dirt around the grave. That’s at least what I have seen so far. Putting down a picnic blanket and eating with the dead? I haven’t seen that at a graveyard and I guess that’s the point? While you usually can put down food they liked, you hardly ever eat it with them. But I like that all her friends are there for her, doing it just because it would have made her mother happy.

Coming together

This was such a good episode, even though I hate crying in anime. From the beginning with Momiji’s story, I couldn’t stop crying and of course I am also so sad for Tohru. She really is a strong girl. What made me really appreciate this awesome episode is how it came together. Momiji started it off with his quote and his story and Tohru closes it by agreeing with him, that there just are memories you don’t want to miss, even if they aren’t pleasant ones. That’s perfect storytelling. I love it.

Hints

The hints couldn’t get stronger, and I think with the new cour we also get that next part of the story. The end of this episode was also a major hint and I would put it into my highlights as well, if I had more space. The hat re-appeared. Kyo was behaving strange the whole episode, talking to Hana-chan about supernatural powers and talking with ghosts. Yuki see’s the hat and freezes. Kyo does… that thing. I am really looking forward to this part of the story unraveling!

Dokidoki Barometer

My heart broke this episode for our cute little Momiji and nobody can stop me from giving him this point. Our little rabbit boy has to endure so much and is still so happy. He still talks and smiles. He is a smaller, boy version of Tohru-chan. A honorary mention here for Kyo-kun because that last scene really did have me squealing. And it makes me wonder why he said what he said.

COMING NEXT: I Wouldn’t Say That