Fans of the Fruits Basket franchise will be happy to hear that a new trailer and poster for the upcoming movie have been recently released. The relationship between Kyoko and Katsuya is the focus of both the poster and the trailer.
For those who are unfamiliar or need refreshing of these characters’ names, they are the parents of Fruits Basket’s main protagonist, Tohru Honda.
The trailer preview shows Kyoko as the leader of a group of delinquents and also gives a sneak peek at the couple’s first meet cute. The poster shows the couple enjoying what seems to be a pleasant summer day at the beach, along with their daughter Tohru.
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Fruits Basket: Prelude is mostly a compilation film that will focus on retelling the events of the 2019 TV anime reboot. But, on top of this, the film will showcase a new prequel content which centers on Tohru’s parents. It is also set to feature a brand new epilogue scene that shows what happens with Tohru and Kyo after the events of the main series.
As such, although some readers or viewers who have consumed either the manga or the two anime adaptations or both are already familiar with the couple’s tragic fate, the movie will be the first time that their entire backstory will be animated.
Fruits Basket: Prelude Release Date
The cast and crew of the anime series will all be returning to play their respective roles for the movie. The movie is scheduled to be released simultaneously in theaters and on Blu-ray in Japan on Feb. 18, 2022.
About Fruits Basket
Fruits Basket manga created by Natsuki Takaya was first published in 1998. Starting from the initial release, this series gained much acclaim and is commonly considered as one of the most influential shojo series of the 90s and early 2000s.
The story follows the life of a recently orphaned girl, Tohru Honda who starts living with the Sohma family. Here, she meets Yuki and Kyo, who are both personalities apart.
Things take a swift turn when Tohru discovers the secret of the Sohma family, which is that when they feel weak or receive a hug from a member of a different gender, they transform into one of the animals from the Chinese zodiac.
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Studio DEEN then adapted the manga into an anime series with a total of 26 episodes in 2001 by Studio DEEN. Although this adaptation was well received at the time, it contained a lot of changes and divergence from the original source manga to the point that Takaya herself publicly expressed her disappointment with the adaptation.
Animation studio TMS then rebooted the series for a second adaptation and it began airing in 2019. Co-produced by Funimation, it ran for three seasons in total.
Although it also removed some of the content from the original manga, this new adaptation managed to do Takaya’s source manga justice as it delivered much better than the 2001 series and was widely appreciated by both critics as well as viewers.
