Episode Synopsis:
School is back in session and that means it’s time for Yuki to regroup with the student council. As he gets a taste for the personalities of his fellow council members, the burden of being president weighs heavier and heavier. Also, why does Yuki feel more animosity towards Kakeru Manabe then all the other members? Who does he remind Yuki of…?
Review:
This episode follows in the vein of Episode 12. By that I mean…it’s not good. We are thankfully back with someone we care about (Yuki), but that doesn’t make this episode any easier to put up with. I’m sure it’ll just take time, but I can’t stand any of these student council members save one. Let’s remind ourselves of this crew:
The entirety of the episode is spent watching Yuki put up with these crazies, and doubly putting up with Kakeru. There isn’t a whole lot of meat to this episode so I’ll just highlight some items.
1.) I liked Yuki’s internal struggle a lot. It was nice to see him recognize the difficulty he’s having with Kakeru and acknowledge that while he made emotional progress at the beach house, old wounds are deep. Being a leader isn’t easy, and Yuki is struggling to find his voice. His inferiority complex with Kakeru is well written and I really felt for his situation. This is one of the things I admire about Fruits Basket. It scars its characters and then remembers those scars are there. These characters have to fight every day to regain the sense of self that’s been taken away from them for so long.
2.) There’s a sequence where the student council decides to choose Power Ranger colors. While I’m all about Power Rangers and the psychology of choosing colors based on one’s personality, this sequence is rage inducing. Everyone starts yelling and acting like this is a circus and Queen Bitch starts shaking Turtle uncontrollably and….
Yuki..I wouldn’t be upset if you just…threw them all out the window…
Aside from Turtle. Turtle can stay because Turtle doesn’t make me scream at the screen.
Towards the end of the episode Yuki and Kakeru have a confrontation stemming from Kakeru’s hatred toward Yuki’s “princely and calm attitude”. While this felt natural (Kakeru’s been goading Yuki quite a bit with passive aggressive jackassery, and I could sense it was all to try and get a reaction out of him), the resolution 30 seconds later most certainly did not. Kakeru comes clean that he wants to be more like Yuki. He wants to understand people. Um….what?! Where did this come from? I don’t know Kakeru nearly enough for an emotional drop of this sort to matter to me. Yuki doesn’t know him well enough to understand WTF is going on. I feel as though this scene should have ended with them both still mad at one another. They need time to understand the other’s ways of interacting with life! Guys, you have 50ish more episodes to work with. Space this out!
Summary:
I am trying to think of this section of Season 2 like setting up for a fireworks show. You gotta carefully setup up each and every firework so you get a great display at the end. That being said…watching the fireworks get set up….is boring…AF…
Also the student council shenanigan squad 100% did not deserve their own episode. I don’t like majority of them, but I understand that all of this is in place so Yuki can “rise to challenge as leader and understand this band of misfits”! That being said, it’s hard on the palette to get all of their personalities shoved on you at once, get rammed by one in particular, and then sort it all out with a man to man feelings talk all in twenty minutes. There’s a pacing issue here and the Yuki/Kakeru dynamic needed more time to breathe.
As a reminder, I am 100% unfamiliar with the events of the manga. If you want to drop a comment and tell me these characters are secretly important, feel free to do so but no spoilers please!
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