I'm very pleased with how the first 3 episodes turned out. Beautiful visual, fluid animation, awesome voice-acting! I hope this quality will be maintained till the end!
I have an impression that they tried very hard to follow the old anime scene-by-scene, which I believe they shouldn't, because it made some scenes feel awkward. This remake should be completely new with their own touch (and follow the manga, of course, which I'm glad they do).
The scene in which Yuuki turns around in the sunset and the music starts playing softly is beautifully done!
The remake artwork and animation are SO much better! The story flows more naturally now. The smooth animation makes Kyo's personality more interesting than how he appears in the manga. I find the Cat more relatable now than back then.
Back then, a lot of anime male characters were voiced by women. But now, male characters are voiced properly by men. This is a great change!
The new opening song is very good but the old song is unbeatable. I used to sing it on my road back from work in 2010. I wish they kept it as a background soundtrack or something:) The old OP song is even more feels especially if you understand the lyrics:
♫ I was so happy, you were smiling
With a smile that melts everything away
Spring is still far away, inside the cold earth,
Waiting for the time to sprout
For instance, even if today is painful
And yesterday's wounds remain
I want to believe that I can free my heart and go on
I cannot be reborn
But I can change as I go on, so
[...]
I understand the meaning our living here
It is to know the joy of having been born
Let's stay together always ♫
Episode 3
Even with their idiosyncrasies, all of characters' body movements look so natural!
Momiji has made his appearance at last!!! My favorite character! XD.. The animation is exactly how I imagine for his character. Awesome! And Tooru be like, "Sorry, I don't speak English".. XD. Waiting for his dramatic backstory!
Yuki has lots of self-awareness, very relatable. Poor guy thinks him being nice is just manipulating people to like him. That's when you know it's true kindness. Real manipulators don't even think twice about their hypocrisy.
"Yuki's kindness is like a candle; it lights up and makes me want to smile" - best quote of this episode.
"I want you to believe in people. Doubting people is easy. You can be the kind of person who can believe in people". Well, I know the kind of message that Fruits Basket wants to send us, but I really don't agree with this "teaching".. LOL. That's a very naive belief. Trusting without verifying is a recipe for failure. It's great that it works in FB because "kindness" is what the series is about, but it doesn't work IRL, or if Tooru's circumstance changes. Especially when [Maybe spoiler](/s "Tooru lives under the protection of some of the Souma members, she's like a family member that they care about and thus she doesn't need to worry about the dangerous members of society"), but if the Souma didn't take her in and she had no one to rely on (even with her 2 friends), living by this ideology would be very dangerous.
But anyway, with Shigure, Yuki and Kyo, there's no room for doubt; you can tell that they are very kind people from the beginning by letting Tooru stay in their house and treating her like family.
