This week’s episode 6 of Fruits Basket: The Final was incredibly heavy. The episode was full of emotional moments and ended on potentially one of the series’ biggest cliffhangers so far! Warning: major spoilers ahead.
The episode starts out mildly, checking in on Rin, who is recuperating at Kazuma’s place. Haru and Yuki are visiting her, and discuss her time being held captive in “the Cat’s place”. The Cat’s place refers to the isolation room where the host of the Cat spirit is eventually confined. It’s the place where Kyo’s future lies. This set’s the tone for the rest of the episode, which focuses largely on Kyo and Tohru.
In the following scene, Shigure is causing trouble as per usual, provoking Rin by calling her reckless. He further torments her by suggesting her efforts to find out how to break the curse were fruitless because the curse will break on its own eventually. Tohru overhears their conversation and anxiously asks when the curse will break. She desperately wants it to break before Kyo’s confinement begins.
Once again showing his cruel streak, Shigure taunts Tohru, saying that Kyo will go into confinement even if his curse breaks. He says that the Cat spirit’s role is to be the lowest of the zodiac spirits, so that the others may feel better about themselves. He then attempts to get Tohru to confess her love for Kyo, causing her to run away, crying.
Tohru reflects on her feelings for Kyo, which are complicated by a promise she made to herself after her mother’s death; to always put her mom first in her heart. It’s here that we learn more about Tohru’s grieving process. In order to cope with the sudden and heartbreaking loss, Tohru wanted to keep her mom’s memory alive as much as possible.
Her promise to love her mom before anyone else was her way of doing this. As a result, she feels guilty about her feelings for Kyo because she sees them as a betrayal to her mom. Kyo finds Tohru crying and comforts her, telling her it’s okay to cry.
Meanwhile, Fruits Basket: the Final episode 6 shows Kazuma worries over whether Tohru’s feelings for Kyo come from a place of pity. Tohru, who’s prone to self-doubt, also wrestles with where her feelings are coming from. Eventually, though, she confides in Rin that Kyo is indeed the most precious thing in her life.
We also find out the reason for Tohru’s excessively polite demeanor. Seeing her mother so emotionally devastated after her father’s death, Tohru worried that she would lose her too. Her solution to prevent this from happening was to imitate her father’s mannerisms so that her mom wouldn’t miss him so terribly. These scenes highlight the emotional complexity of Fruits Basket. The death of Tohru’s parents prior to the beginning of the show is not used as a cheap plot device but is instead an important part of her character, as it continues to impact her present situation.
Back at the Soma household, Kyo asks Tohru what her father looked like. Tohru breaks down, telling him about imitating her father in order to bring her mom back from the brink of suicide. She expresses deep regret and guilt about this, believing it to be a selfish thing to do. This scene is accompanied by a heartbreaking flashback of a young Tohru, looking in the mirror and practicing phrases her father would use. Of course, Kyo doesn’t judge her for any of this and embraces her warmly.
The episode ends on a rather dark note. Tohru shows Kyo the photo she has of her father. She’s about to confess her love for him when she sees a vision of her mom behind him and stops herself. At that moment, Kyo looks up and sees the blue cap in Tohru’s room, which has been present since season 1. This causes him to remember something.
We’re suddenly shown a gruesome image of Kyo standing over the lifeless and bloody body of Kyoko (Tohru’s mom). Kyo freezes, breaking into a sweat. “Now I remember”, he says, as Tohru calls his name worriedly. The episode ends with a voiceover from Kyoko saying, “I’ll never forgive you”. We know that Kyoko was killed after being struck by a car. Is it possible Kyo had something to do with her death?
You can watch episode 6 of Fruits Basket: the Final on Crunchyroll and Funimation. You can also vote for it in our weekly poll. The next episode airs on May 17 and is titled “That’s Right, It’s Empty”. After this week’s episode I’m sure fans of the series can’t wait for the next!
All images are via the Fruits Basket: the Final episode 6 stream on Crunchyroll.
© NATSUKI TAKAYA.HAKUSENSHA/FRUITS BASKET PROJECT