Fruits Basket (Episode 52) - That's an Unwavering Truth

Tohru is desperate for someone to talk to, but who can she speak with and how would she even bring it up? Shigure, however, is acutely aware of what’s going on, but he has other things to think about!

What happened?

All the students are busy preparing for graduation which means lots and lots so folding paper flowers. Of course, Yuki’s flowers become a hot commodity and are promptly stolen by the Prince Yuki fan club. The real surprise was that Kyo’s flowers were also stolen. Arisa and Saki are particularly angry about this because it means they will have to make more, so they hurry off in search of the culprits.

Once they’ve gone, Tohru tries to talk to Kyo about Akito and Kurome, but it’s too hard and she starts to feel insensitive from bringing it up when she can’t talk about it anyhow. Kyo, of course, thinks he’s done something wrong and tries to make up for it by giving her a paper flower. Arisa, Saki, and the others return and reveal that they caught the flower bandits and sentenced them to replace the stolen flowers.

Fruits Basket Episode 52 Arisa and Saki go after the flower thieves

Meanwhile, Shigure has been ramping up his plan and is going out of his way to make Akito mad. He stood her up at a Soma dinner, walking away with his editor, no doubt in an attempt to make Akito jealous. When she returned to her home, Shigure was there waiting for her. Akito challenged him, asking if he slept with that girl at the restaurant. He always sleeps with everyone. Even Akito’s mother, Ren!

Shigure says that he did that because Akito slept with Kurome, but then he is a zodiac spirit, or at least, she wants to continue to pretend that he is and doesn’t think that Shigure knows. Akito’s possessiveness of the zodiac spirits is there for all to see and doesn’t even register with her as being something troublesome. Shigure goes to leave, but she stops him.

Tohru has been looking for Rin and wants to tell her about Kurome. Hopefully, she will be able to tell her, but Rin is nowhere to be found!

Fruits Basket Episode 52 Kyo gives Tohru a paper flower

What did you think?

The tension in the scenes with Akito was fantastic and the choice of music helped to make it that much more serious. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Shigure and this development. He’s been one of my favourite characters from the beginning, but this side of him feels so far from the original character I enjoyed. Maybe, it’s the connection to Akito who I still hate and plan on doing so until the last second of the last episode. There’s little that I think she can do to truly make amends for everything she’s done.

There was an interesting theme I noticed in this episode that revolved around paper flowers. You may have noticed that Shigure gave Akito a red one, Kyo gave Tohru a white one, and Machi gave Yuki a mashed up white one. Each flower was received in a different manner too. Tohru’s flower seemed to give her hope, Akito’s flower stirred up painful memories, and Yuki’s flower told him something about Machi that she may not have been openly trying to reveal. I’m not entirely sure why the similarities, but I liked the way it tied everything together.

Fruits Basket Episode 52 Akito and Shigure

What have you learnt?

There’s a concept in writing called the “rule of three” and it’s everywhere. So, I can’t help but wonder if this is why we had the three flower gifts, why Tohru lives with three boys. There’s also the fact that Tohru, Arisa, and Saki comprise another group of three. It’s believed that three is a more effective number when it comes to creating something that the audience will remember. Often times, it’s used to show the development of a character. In a battle environment, the hero might lose two fights and then win the third. If you were to do it in reverse, it might show the hero getting too cocky and suffering a fall.

So, does that mean that the three main romances for this season are Tohru and Kyo, Yuki and Machi, Shigure and Akito? Of course, this then raises the question as to whether all will succeed or not?