The Perfect endings are the ones that truly resolve everything the character and world had to offer and make you move forward in your own life along with its characters.
The Perfect endings are the ones that make the pain of parting stay in your heart making one unable to return to the journey once more from the beginning; all the while truly concluding every story the journey had to offer.
The Perfect endings in essence do not exist in isolation. They depend on each and every moment, the eb and flow of the plot and the conflicts within and between the characters. And thus it is why they teeter at the edge of the viewers imagination.
It is rare to find such painfully happy yet sweetly grim endings. A unity in existence; an infinity ; a perfection.
Personally I am at a loss of words as for days my mind mulls in memory and my heart throbs in dull pain that tightens my chest in dyspneac exacerbations from anxiety and depression of the loss while my amygdala & accumbens rejoice in the hormonal release of pleasure at such a perfection as Fruits Basket has provided me with.
The new Fruits Basket show is almost always on rising streak of triumph with every passing moment as it never fails to create the perfect contrast in its darkest moments with light and vice versa. It's characters are themes themselves that can span pages of discussions. But what perhaps most successfully it pulls off is the ending.
My mind delves into the emotional web I have left behind and leaves me with few words even though I delve now into a spoiler heavy territory of discussion.
The shows most important theme is likely coming to terms with the fragility and vincibility of bonds that connect one to the past and moving on refreshing those bonds in newer ways. In shape of Akito, it presented that perfectly; a child not ready to move on and thus ending up driving everyone around them into a pit of emotional abuse, regret, depression & loneliness turning those bonds into chains of imprisonment and torment.
Contrasting with her was Tohru who ended up providing the guiding light to all the twelve zodiac members helping them finding comfort and grow up from what held them back even though they had desperately tried before and lost hope of all odds of ever being able to. Tohru ends up as a character who despite her own weaknesses provides a hand of companionship and relief for those lost in their darkness.
Perhaps the pinnacle of this was Kyo who had even lost hope of dreaming a future or escaping a terrible fate. Plaguing Kyo was not just the despair and loneliness but loss of self worth from the constant rejection of the world and the only people he could place his trust on. Coupled with that was the self blaming attitude that had become a poison in even accepting anything good when it came his way. Kyo's tale highlights the terrible fate the world passes on those it rejects and shame them for being different despite having no control over it. There is much more than this in the philosophy that highlights how sensitively the show handles Kyo's character. It is definitely an ugly truth how many in the world when oppressed try to find those even more oppressed just to sate their inner worth.
Saving Kyo from this cruel punishment of the world was definitely a nigh impossible job.
But it is not a tale that ends as simply as that.
Each character of Fruits Basket is a larger than life theme on itself. Weather it be Yuki hiding his fragile emotions & weaknesses in the burden of perfection the world built on him for his outward appearance and status or Momiji or many of the other zodiac children rejected by their parents unable to deal with the pain and horror of having a child possessed by a soul of another spirit.
Apart from them were the other characters in Tohru's life such as the wave girl Hanajima or the gangster girl Arusa Uotani, each with their own past and thus each with their own fitting resolutions.
Not to make this inadequate discussion any longer, it is afterall simply to impress upon a very slight impression of how strongly and carefully Fruits Basket handles each of its character threads and brings a fitting end to the overarching narrative. With a cast this complex, most tales fall short of achieving the grand promises they start off with yet Fruits Basket goes from triumph to triumph.
It might be fitting to say that Fruits Basket is one of the greatest Shows ever made and one of the finest stories ever told and that its a conundrum that its difficult and yet easy at the same time to say goodbye to the world & characters that inhabited my very soul for a few days of its marathon run.
Thus the greatest credit indeed goes to its masterfully concluded ending.
Indeed while there is much to say and it's very bittersweet but it is a fitting time to say.
Sayonara.
The weeping Mystic.
Edited on September 12th of 2021: Fixed Kyo's spelling mistake.
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