It seems as though Fruits Basket , even after almost 20 years, is such a popular anime series that it even received a remake in 2019. The love story follows characters who are human members of the Chinese zodiac who can also turn into their animal counterparts at will, and it follows the progression of the characters’ lives as they learn to coexist with each other and alongside humans that aren’t involved in the zodiac.
But the anime series isn’t a carbon copy of the manga, and there are some pretty big changes between the two. Here are five things the anime changed and five things that stayed the same as the manga.
10 Changed: More Of A Comedy
The manga is much more of a wistful story with a lot of high emotional drama. Despite the somewhat goofy premise, the roles of the characters are played with gravitas, and everything feels very dramatic and like it matters.
The anime, leaning more into the silliness of the idea of these people who can turn into the animals of the Chinese zodiac, has a much lighter tone and is way more comedic.
9 Kept The Same: Art Style
Most anime try to keep some semblance of the look of the manga they’re based on, and Fruits Basket is very true to the original art style.
The characters have large, space-out eyes in small spaces and their long, lean bodies, which look kind of cartoony, maintain this shape in the anime as well. A real effort was clearly made to keep the looks of the anime as close to the manga as possible.
8 Changed: Character Designs
None of the characters change too much from how they look in the manga, but there are definitely differences if one looks at them side by side. Tohru, for instance, has a different eye color, and the uniform worn by girls at her school is a different shade of blue.
Some of the other characters, like Yuki and Kyo have different hair colors than in the manga as well, though, for the most part, they’re subtle. Yuki, in particular, has the biggest difference as his hair is silver in the manga and purple in the anime.
7 Kept The Same: Kyo And Yuki’s Relationship
Kyo and Yuki are not friendly when they first meet in the series, and one could go so far as to say that they actively hate each other.
This is because of Kyo being a cat and Yuki being a rat; the rat tricked the cat out of not coming to the zodiac banquet, meaning cats weren’t included in the zodiac. It’s a fight that clearly has less to do with them than with their families, but their contentious relationship definitely shows up in the anime series just as it does in the manga.
6 Changed: Doesn’t Cover The Entire Story
The Fruits Basket anime-only ran for one 26-episode season, so there wasn’t a whole lot of room for more storytelling potential. The focus of the story had to be pretty narrow in order to make sure they could cover everything that needed to be covered by the end of the series.
Naturally, a lot of stuff from the much longer manga didn’t make it into the anime, including a whole lot of other characters. Despite the premise of the manga being based around the zodiac signs, most of the animals don’t even appear in the anime version.
5 Kept The Same: Tohru’s Friends
Tohru’s best friends in the series, Arisa and Hana, are still incredibly present in the series, as they are in the manga. They are very supportive friends who offer Tohru a lot of emotional aid throughout the series, and she leans on them when things are hard.
Tohru has always been very accepting and generous toward both of them, which makes them feel incredibly loyal to and protective of her in return. They try their best to make sure that she is always safe and happy. This relationship is almost exactly the same in the anime as it is in the manga.
4 Changed: The End Of Tohru And Kyo’s Love Story
As mentioned above, Fruits Basket has a lot going on past the ending of the anime; there are more characters who have things to do, more complex relationship issues, and generally more wrapped up endings for everyone. One such ending is the love story between Tohru and Kyo.
We definitely see them get together in the anime, after some nonsense they have to get around first, but at the end of the manga, they’re actually shown together in old age, with their grandchild, so there’s a very real sense of closure to the fact that they wind up together forever.
3 Kept The Same: Tohru And Kyo’s Love Story
That being said, the love story between Kyo and Tohru does remain the focal point of the Fruits Basket anime.
The two characters slowly grow closer as the series goes on, and by the end, they have officially declared their feelings for each other and are actually a couple. The sweet, almost inevitable nature of their relationship remains as true in the anime as it does in the manga.
2 Changed: The Hat
A moment in the manga that never makes its way into the anime is the fact that when Tohru is young, someone gives her a hat. She doesn’t know at the time who gives it to her, and it’s not made clear for a long time, though the hat is referenced often throughout the manga.
We find out in the end that it is Kyo’s hat, though Kyo isn’t the one who gives it to her, which is a kind of foreshadowing about the relationship they’ll soon share.
1 Kept The Same: Tohru’s Last Words To Her Mom
A major part of Tohru’s character arc is dealing with the death of her mother, Kyoko, who was hit by a car. Tohru feels partially responsible for her death because she made a point to tell her mother to be safe as she left the house for work every day, except on the day of the accident.
This same point of guilt and regret exists for Tohru in the anime, and she feels the same desire to go back and tell her mother to be safe.