Warning! This review on Fruit basket final Chapter four contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the episode yet, I recommend watching it and then going back to read the review.
“… I am back”
Fruit basket final Chapter four begins with Akito showing Kureno a box containing his “father”. Now that Hinata is born, Hiro takes care of her, but not all is happiness as he continues to worry about Isuzu. Nobody knows anything about Rin’s whereabouts, when Haru meets Hiro and Kisa, he finally reveals the truth about Rin’s injuries. He finally apologizes to Kisa for the past and tells Haru about Rin’s goals. Angry about what Haru discovered, he confronts Akito, although his feelings are also called into question. Kureno is the one who discovers Isuzu’s whereabouts and takes her to the hospital. He’s also the one who stops the confrontation between Haru and Akito.
Already in the hospital, Isuzu escapes again, when he does this, he begins to remember what it was like to end up like this. The day he followed Kureno and met Ren, she told him that if he would do her a favor, she would tell him how to break the curse. To reach her end of the deal, Rin entered Akito’s room to steal a box. However, she was discovered and Akito locked her in the cat room. Just before giving up, his last wish was to have a dream with the kind of Haru. When it appears in her dream, she feels that she can finally end her journey, in this happy dream she can return to him. But it’s not a dream, Haru is really there because he’s been looking for her. After the two are reunited, Rin’s long journey is finally over, now it’s where it should be.
“It’s enough”
The best way to open up this analysis is to talk about guilt. This is an uncomfortable emotion that generally becomes a burden that makes it harder to deal with with each step. It makes us overconscious of a lot of things, it’s like walking on eggshells all the time. Here we see this in Hiro, who was tormented by guilt for a long time. He feels guilty for not discussing what happened between Rin and Akito earlier, but more importantly, he feels very guilty for Kisa’s previous injuries.
Both situations put a heavy strain on your heart. We know this because we’ve seen him constantly feel appalled and concerned about Rin, and wonder whether or not to speak. In the case of Kisa it is more or less similar, he has a great protective instinct towards her, which results from his guilt that he could not protect her before. However, guilt is curious, it feeds our insecurities and paralyzes our actions. Hiro couldn’t be direct anymore, couldn’t seek help for Rin and initially walked away from Kisa. He had to experience new emotions in order to get out of the emotional punishment. To get back to Kisa’s side, he had to see her hurt again. In Rin’s case, by witnessing the birth of his little sister and knowing the fragility of a new life, Hiro could finally ask for help for her.
Another strange thing about guilt is that it isn’t easy to stop. We don’t have a switch that we can just press. However, it is possible to face the guilt by looking at it from the beginning. If the guilt you are feeling is for someone, it is possible that only that person will be able to alleviate that feeling. This is how it works with Hiro, he couldn’t help but blame himself for what happened to Kisa, even though everything seemed fine, deep down he was still suffering from this incident. The only one who could lift this punishment is Kisa herself, as only she can understand her true pain.
Rin and Haru’s love
Let’s take a radical leap and move from guilt to love. Love is a complex feeling and don’t think it’s faultless. The couple that Rin and Haru started are one of the most beautiful, especially because they both have great concern for each other. To tell the truth, this couple thinks of each other more than they think of themselves. We have seen this much more of Isuzu, who made it a purpose in life to break the curse in order to free Haru. Not her, Haru. Thinking about his well-being, she decided to end their relationship and go away, but that didn’t stop her worrying about him and continuing to look for ways to give him her freedom.
Before I said that love is not without guilt, in the case of Rin and Haru both carry their own dose of this peculiar feeling. For her part, she feels bad when she depends on Hatsuharu’s kindness. He has a poor perception of his own worth, so he believes that his existence has brought him and will bring bad luck to Haru. Haru, on the other hand, bears her own fault as her desire for Rin outweighed her intention to protect her. He wanted to look away for a long time, but deep down he always knew that his desires gave Rin a lot of weight. But this is how love works, it is not easy, there are two souls trying to unite, it is obvious that there will be different visions along the way.
The most important thing is that we don’t drown in guilt or bad feelings. If we can overcome this, we will be closer to the ideal we have dreamed of. This is how the relationship between Rin and Haru developed until their final reconciliation. Well, it’s fair to say that the best always prevailed in both, that they put the other first. It’s been a long and tiring journey, but it’s comforting to know that at the end of the street is the warm place to call home. For Rin, this place is next to Haru because only he can give her the warmth she needs. And for Haru it is right to say that Rin is also the place he will always return to as it is the voice that brings him back from the darkness.
details
Here I am going to address some interesting points that I am not going to develop but that I should point out carefully.
- Kureno took his first step to awaken his sleeping consciousness. Not only did he get Rin out of the cat room, he berated Akito for his actions. Kureno’s scolding is nowhere near enough, but it illustrates very well the image we should have of Akito as she is like a girl who cannot distinguish between good and bad.
- Both Ren and Akito have a visceral hatred of Rin, perhaps because of the image she portrays to both of them, her femininity is more of a punishment than a blessing to Isuzu.
- Akito’s treasure, the box with his “father”, wants Ren. Her obsession with the late Akira is troubling and unhealthy.
- The bond that binds the zodiac is more painful than beautiful. Since Akito is “god”, he has a loyalty to everyone, which explains why Haru stopped before he hit him, he couldn’t do it, he can’t harm “his god”. This loyalty was reactivated when he was about to return when Akito called him, but for Kureno Haru could not have avoided the call “God”, if that had happened he would have lost Rin forever.
- Akito’s mental instability continues to decline, the eternal bonds in which he believes are removed. Haru may not have broken the curse, but he claimed it.
- Do not miss the attitude and scolding of the elderly maid, as it shows us that the Sohma are almost a cult. This situation should give us enormous clues about Akito’s upbringing, it is clear that he is not only a “god” for the zodiac.
- Last but not least, the stigma associated with “the cat’s room” is most terrible. It’s a place akin to exile, its mere mention is off-putting, and unfortunately it’s a place created to glorify the terrible tradition of the cat’s humiliation. It is understandable that no one likes to mention this page, let alone wants to go there voluntarily.
Final comment
Fruit basket final Chapter four was a beautiful episode, too emotional and, above all, very complete. It seems like an implicit rule that every chapter that Rin appears in and is relevant is a chapter to cry over. It is difficult not to love the character when she is presented to us so humanly and so fragile. There is no doubt that this was a very detailed episode. The care taken in animation and soundtrack is a plus that we cannot ignore.
I can’t close this review without first mentioning that I loved the “ghosts of the past” detail. The journey through Rin’s memories led us to see these shadows in her memories that give us an excellent look at the character. Her memory of Yuki in Akito’s room and of herself on the street reminds us that Rin is someone kind and deeply hurt by loneliness. When she reunites with Haru and can finally leave herself on the streets, she lets us experience sweet bliss for her. Rin and Haru are a cute couple and they complement each other so well that we feel really relieved that they are back together.
Anyway, these were my impressions of this chapter. Tell me, what did you think of this episode? Do you think there is a way to live without guilt? Have you already become part of the supremacy of Haru x Rin? In the next chapter we will have more emotions, we will see Momiji giving his stretch and an important change approaching.
