Anime Best in Show

Review: Fruits Basket Episode 12 – Best in Show

Quick Summary

In Fruits Basket episode 12, “You Look Like You’re Having Fun,” the new school year has started, and both Momiji Shouma and Hatsuharu Shouma have started at Tooru Honda’s high school. Tooru’s friends Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima are anxious to meet them, so Tooru takes Kyou Shouma and Yuki Shouma to round them up. Unfortunately, they find the really energetic student council president has taken issue with Momiji wearing women’s clothing and Hatsuharu having white hair. Can Tooru do anything to defuse the situation? Will the two women accompanying the student council president be able to maintain their composure when Hatsuharu turns on the charm? And what other Shouma visited the school on that same day?

Note: This post may include spoilers, so be cautious. 

Best Moment in the Show

It’s not often we see Yuki so rattled. But as we learned, he had good reason to be. Capture from the Crunchyroll stream

After the hilarious scene with the student council president, Momiji said he had family business to discuss with the Soumas, so Tooru cheerfully went to find her friends. Momiji’s news? The school had another visitor today. A Souma visitor. Akito Souma, in fact. Even as Yuki’s eyes went wide with remembered terror, a quiet young man dressed in black called out to Tooru (who was, as Reddit user AznLuvsMusic noted, wearing the pretty blue ribbon Yuki had given her in the previous episode). Guess who that quiet young man was?

Yuki began having what I can only call flashbacks to when Akito had trapped him in a room, apparently to torture him into obedience. So when Akito approached Tooru, I was seriously worried for her safety. Of course, she tried to be polite and introduce herself, trying to reconcile what looked like a polite young man with her sudden recollection that it was this young man who had half blinded Hatori Shouma. Akito apparently decided to try to charm Tooru and just chatted until Yuki, still in the school building, saw them through a window. The animation of his terrified expression was super effective.

Moments later, he had come to a stop beside Tooru and Akito. Yuki demanded to know what he’d done to Tooru. Akito said they’d just been chatting. Then he proceeded to get right in Yuki’s face, going so far as to put his palm on Yuki’s cringing cheek, and demanded to know why Yuki hadn’t attended the New Years’s celebration. 

She knew what she was doing was dangerous. But she couldn’t stand by and watch what Akito was putting Yuki through. Capture from the Crunchyroll stream.

Tooru didn’t know what was going on, but she saw fear had completely paralyzed Yuki. She grew wide-eyed with concern. After a few more moments of that impasse, the same girl who had lived in a tent as to not inconvenience her family, the same girl who couldn’t return a ping pong serve, the same girl who seemed like she’d rather move mountains than inconvenience another soul, moved forward and pushed Akito aside (16:07). 

Yes, she apologized (looking down the whole time). Yes, she worried a little about whether Akito would hate her. And yes, she wondered what the heck she had just done. She did know, though, why she had done it.

She sensed Yuki was in danger, and that was not acceptable to Tooru.

You know how we’ve talked about the influence she’s had on Kyou and Yuki? Looks like the influence wasn’t single-sided. 

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4 thoughts on “Review: Fruits Basket Episode 12 – Best in Show

  1. Powerful scene. And great screen shots that show off the excellent bodylanguage of the show. I mean that pose makes Tohru look anxious, forceful, polite, and pleading at the same time. The bodylanguage in this show is anime A-game!

    1. “The bodylanguage in this show is anime A-game!”

      That, combined with great voice acting, accounts for a lot of the emotional impact!

      I’m interested in the contrast between Tooru and Akito. Like DerekL said in another comment, Akito is a “monster.” I often joke about Tooru being too good for this world, but her essential innocence leaves her unable to respond to monsters like I would (for example): with violence or other aggressive behaviors.

      Yet, her approach to this conflict — gently pushing Akito away and affecting a passive body posture — was way more effective than my approach would likely have been.

    1. I’ve met people like him. Actually had to work with people like him. Do you know what might be the worst part about it? The people around him who don’t really know him just think he’s polite. And they wonder why I was antsy.

      Hard to effectively manage a situation like that!

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