So I am going to level with you, I went into this episode with a sort of dread. The section of the original anime that covered Tohru returning to her Grandfather’s house was one of my least favorite episodes for multiple reasons. First and foremost, being that her family (aside from her Grandfather, he’s precious and I adore him) are absolutely horrible people. Not to mention, it was overall one of the more boring episodes. However, my fears were completely unfounded. This episode was brilliant.
I mean, her family is still obviously full of absolutely horrible people. The way the episode is presented though is far more entertaining and enjoyable to watch, while still holding all of the emotional impact that it should have.
The episode is split into 2 halves, which can basically be seen as Tohru’s point of view and then Yuki and Kyo’s point of view. The first half focuses around Tohru saying goodbye to the Sohma’s, making sure they have at least a little bit of food when she leaves and informing them on the change in trash day. Little things like that, and then, she packs and heads home with her family. Her Grandfather, her Aunt, her Uncle and her cousin. upon putting her things away in her room. Her cousin sits and complains about having to share a room despite having to move into a bigger house.
While this is a little bitchy, as a teenager, I can at least understand where she is coming from. So this, taken alone would not be so bad.
It’s when Tohru is called downstairs by her aunt, who informs her that she has been followed and looked into by a private detective. Another one of Tohru’s cousins wants to be a Police officer, so her aunt had the private detective looking into Tohru because of her mothers violent and delinquent tendencies. In the report, it mentions that she was living with 3 single males.
Tohru’s uncle comes over and starts harassing her, asking her if the Sohma’s did anything ‘inappropriate to her’. God, like he’s one to talk, he looks like a sleezeball. This is when her grandfather is amazing, comes over, smacks him across the face and straight up calls his family bad people. That he does love because they are his family, if they are unkind to him, he can take it but there is no reason that she needs to take it if there is somewhere she’d rather be.
So she says, that yes, she wanted to stay with Shigure, Yuki and Kyo. She wanted to go home with them, and be a family, together. As she is wishing this, who should appear but Yuki Sohma himself. Telling her, if that’s how she feels, that she should come home.
Rewind the events a bit to after she left, Yuki and Kyo are anxious and can’t sit still. Shigure, well Shigure seems to have a pretty good handle on how things are going to pan out from here. So he isn’t shocked at all when Yuki snatches up the bit of paper with the address and map to Tohru’s grandfathers place that she left behind, probably even less surprised as Kyo tries to grab the note and gets agitated when he finds out that Yuki grabbed it first.
The boys get lost trying to find the house, since the map is a little sketchy and they can’t seem to find the place with the nameplate ‘Honda’, it’s only when Yuki remembers that the outdoor renovations aren’t complete that they can find the house. They walk over and try knocking on the door, but nobody seems to hear them.
They instead hear what’s being said inside the house and sneak closer to hear a little better.
Oh dear lord, if Tohru’s grandfather hadn’t hit her uncle. I think these boys would’ve broken down the glass and stormed in there themselves. When she says she wants to go back with them, be with them, live with them. That’s when Yuki lets himself in and poor Kyo gets left behind. He eventually makes his way inside too and takes Tohru away from there, leaving Yuki to gather up her things.
Tohru’s uncle tries to say something bad about her, along the lines of asking if they were the men that she was shacking up with. Yuki flicks him hard and nearly destroys him before calling him absolute scum with a smile. Then he heads up to get Tohru’s things.
Kyo and Tohru talk, and he tells her that it’s fine if she’s a little bit selfish sometimes and if she wants to keep living with them. She should of said so sooner, they join hands and start to head home. With Yuki following up behind with her things, leaving her aunt and uncle behind to all kinds of confusion. The insert song at this part of the episode was absolutely beautiful, it was flat out gorgeous. I really appreciate the fact they did something to add to the weight of this moment.
They return home and everything went according to Shigure’s predictions, she’s back and she is absolutely welcome to stay.
This episode was really good. It was full of emotional moments, it framed the events perfectly and it never felt sluggish or annoying like it did in the original. I have to say, I absolutely loved the touch of young Tohru jumping up as ‘Rice ball’ was finally chosen in the game of ‘Fruits Basket’ and running up to take Yuki and Kyo’s hands. It was absolutely beautiful.
If episode 5 of the original is one of my least favorite episodes, vice-versa, episode 6 of the original is one of my absolute favorite episodes. “Let’s invite ourselves over” is going to be an absolute joy! I can’t wait to see how the 2019 anime is going to present the upcoming content and then after this, we are in for a lot of feels. A LOT of feels.
I can’t wait!
When you mention “sluggish and annoying”, I think that might have been one of the factors that led to the mangaka’s dislike of the 1st anime. I’ve heard comments that the 1st smoothed out some rougher edges of the manga storytelling, but perhaps the creator felt the bad parts outweighed the good from her perspective.
That’s entirely possible. There were a few episodes in the original I felt slugged in this way, i’m glad to see some improvement and that gives me hope for future content as well.
If you ask me, a single flick to the uncle was not enough. Both Tohru’s uncle and aunt deserves more beat up from Yuki and Kyo.