Fruits Basket: Prelude

Despite Kyouko Honda's tragic death, her vivid memory lives on, providing guidance through times of hardship to her close ones. However, Kyouko was not always the wise and radiant person that she is fondly remembered as in the present day.

Feeling deserted by her own family and rejected by society, a young Kyouko abandons stability for a life of delinquency, jeopardizing her education and future. Fortunately, her descent into despair is interrupted by a fateful encounter with her husband-to-be Katsuya, who has recently started his teaching internship at her school.

With a composure surprisingly unaffected by Kyouko's tantrums, Katsuya quickly wins her over through his gentleness and attention toward her—sincere gestures that she has never received before. As the two grow closer together, Kyouko opens her tormented heart to him and, along with it, a door to new horizons.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Souma, Kyou Main

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Honda, Tooru Main

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Honda, Kyouko Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Honda, Katsuya Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Souma, Yuki Supporting

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Souma, Hatsuharu Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Souma, Momiji Supporting

Han, Megumi Japanese

Souma, Shigure Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Hanajima, Saki Supporting

Satou, Satomi Japanese

Souma, Akito Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yamauchi, Mirai Producer

Yazaki, Fumi Producer

Takemura, Ippei Producer

Reviews

Aug 21, 2022

KanpaiGuren

Recommended

Saw this film in the cinema a few days ago. Seeing as there's no reviews yet, I would like to leave a quick review.

The first half of the film is a recap of major Tohru and Kyo moments throughout the 3 seasons of the anime. While I love these moments, I didn't feel as much emotions due to the rapid fire recap format. Overall, it was okay and I can understand why they felt the need to add it since without it the film would definitely be less than an hour long.

The second half of the film is where the real film starts. Tohru's parents' ... backstory was beautiful and tragic. It was on par with the best flashbacks in the 3 seasons of the anime. Tohru's dad was such a cool dude and I loved seeing how Tohru's mom became a better person and great mother through her experiences with him.

The animation, while nothing groundbreaking, was good like the TV series. The amazing OSTs from the show make a return and brilliantly bring out the emotions of each scene as always.

In conclusion, it was worth watching in the cinema because of the second half of the film. I would strongly advise you to have a box of tissues nearby when watching as there are plenty of tear-jerking moments throughout the film.

Overall, I would give this film an 8.5, which is the same score I gave for Season 1. Season 2 is a 9 while the final season is a 10 for me. Thanks for reading!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 7, 2022

bagwsp

Mixed Feelings

Informative

I have to deduct several points on behalf of whomever shoved 33 minutes of footage from the 3 seasons into a poorly edited and haphazard mess. I feel sorry for everyone who's been baited into buying a movie ticket for this, when in reality it's a decent OVA with a bunch of rehashed footage in the front to make the runtime movie length.

Given this is titled "Prelude" I find it very dangerous for people who decided to start this story here. There's massive spoilers to the main story without warning in the recap, and it entirely expects you to know so much context before seeing ... it.

This is a poor excuse for a cash grab, even by Japanese Marketing standards.

This is a shame too, as the OVA is actually a nice story once you finally get to it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 17, 2022

eff-fume

Not Recommended

Considering the excessive amount of love Furuba as a franchise has been receiving, it would almost make me think most people haven’t watched an actual great piece of fiction and especially not one that handles abuse. Which would be a wrong assumption to make, considering HxH and Sangatsu are also in the Top 100 which make a way better case for themselves. To forefront, my feelings towards the franchise have developed negatively. I think it doesn’t present abuse in any nuanced ways, and even goes out of its way to forgive abuse without an attempt of amends from the abuser’s side. Not just only that, ... but the many couples in the franchise are cursed with a ridiculous age gap, imbalance of power dynamic, or both at the same time but since all the characters are so 2-dimensional, a normal viewer doesn’t seem to be inherently bothered by these issues.


This movie is not an exception of that. Aside from 1/3rd of the “film” being just recap of Kyo’s and Tohru’s relationship, the rest is about a middle school girl that has been ostracized from her family as she entered a rebellious gangster phase and persuades a romance with a way older man. It cannot be concluded from the film itself if she was ostracized because she became a gangster or she already was and therefore became a gangster and therefore the ostracization intensified. Either way, she meets Katsuya, 21 years old at the time, as her “teacher” – meaning imbalance of power – and then he grooms her into a relationship. The actual romance between Katsuya and Kyoko isn’t showcasing any abuse, it does actually look healthy as far as it is shown. The characters in Furuba aren’t really that deeply written so we stay at a comfortable sea level. However, that doesn’t mean grooming didn’t occur. If you do some basic math, you can determine that they married when Kyoko was around 15 years old and birthed Tohru when she was around 18. I have my reservations about this. Child brides, huge age gap… We love to see those.


It is fairly common in real life for adult men to “rescue” young girls from their toxic households into a “better” life to then later become very controlling abusers themselves. Usually, those men are way older and are making use of their assets like money and housing to keep the relationship in control. And since the original support system of the girl (family) is out of the picture because they are awful people and will not try to reach out and help her, they can do whatever they want. The same pattern occurs here, the difference being Katsuya never becomes a control freak or abuser and is “hot”. This is a very common trope in shoujo unfortunately and showcases the way toxic masculinity is rooted deeply in our society. Adult women will write stories about older men saving way younger girls and gifting them unconditional love. I assume it is the desire for a man that has assets and is accomplished loving you for the way you are, no matter how miserable, completely ignoring the youth, power and innocence aspect he gains from such a kind of relationship. Wish real life was this way, but it isn’t most of the time. It is a really questionable choice for a story, especially considering how often it happened in this franchise.


And that is my main concern with this story. They kinda live together, it is happy go lucky, Kyoko has no other emotional support system besides Katsuya until Tohru is born, more or less. Eventually Katsuya dies from a basic cold (that was odd) and Kyoko has an intense mental breakdown. I have to admit that these scenes were rather enjoyable and got to my most basic emotional vulnerabilities. The voice actress also did a decent job delivering the emotions here. She eventually releases herself from her slump because she has Tohru to take care of, and then the film ends with her death again looping back to Kyo and Tohru being happy again. Kyoko’s wish was for someone to make Tohru happy, so she got this, I guess.

Overall, the film is mostly filler and presents a one-dimensional romance with heavy problematic undertones. It is audiovisually completely unimpressive and the music, just like in the TV show, is way too loud too many times.


Characters were very depthless especially Kyoko’s parent household.

I did enjoy the more emotionally heavy scenes. I didn’t hate my time with it necessarily, but it was disappointing just like the rest of the franchise. And we as a society really need to let go of these toxic aspects that have been ingrained in all our souls since birth.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Fruits Basket: Prelude Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Usopp8000 - Feb 18, 2022	109 replies	by Alice103 »» Sep 16, 4:26 PM
	[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD] As much as I adore and respect Fruba's author, the way she handled the Kyoko & Katsuya relationship made me very disappointed for a reason that is important to bring up ( 1 2 ) Rojaseb - Jun 29, 2021	81 replies	by PrinceLied »» Oct 30, 2023 6:32 AM
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	Box Office AnIFoRLiFe - Apr 7, 2022	2 replies	by TARIQ344 »» Dec 17, 2022 11:29 PM
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