The Fruits Basket Season 3 release date has officially been confirmed by FUNimation to be on April 5, 2021, the Spring 2021 anime season.
However, FUNimation has announced that there will be a special Fruits Basket Season 3 Episode 1 release date for the English dub. The first episode will be streaming on Friday, March 19, 2021, two weeks before its TV premiere in Japan. Anime fans in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom will be able to watch it early.
The anime will continue the story of Tohru Honda and the Soma boys, but will there be room for a Fruits Basket Season 4 anime?
We do know for a fact that FUNimation confirmed that the remake is “covering the ENTIRE story of the original manga.” Japanese announcements also labeled the new anime series as “zenpen,” which means the “whole story.”
What’s more, rather than the third season being called Fruits Basket 3rd Season, the official title is Fruits Basket: The Final Season.
For those needing a refresher, FUNimation released a recap video that also offers a Fruits Basket Season 3 trailer sneek peak.
Here is the Fruits Basket Season 3 trailer released on March 12, 2021.
But how many episodes will the Fruits Basket 2020 remake adapt the remainder of the Furuba manga series? The first season was 25 episodes or two cours.
A “cour” is a three-month TV broadcasting unit based on the physical seasons, and anime seasons usually have between 10 to 13 episodes per cour.
Based on the official website’s Blu-Ray/DVD page, the number of episodes for Fruits Basket Season 3 is 13 in total. In the past, some have attempted to make an educated guess based on previous comments by Fruits Basket English dub voice actor Eric Vale.
During a May 2019 interview at Anime Central 2019, Vale said FUNimation had brought back the original English voice cast, and most of them were present at the event to promote the new Fruits Basket anime.
Vale also made a comment that seemed to indicate the total number of planned episodes.
“That’s why I’m here this weekend is for Fruits Basket because the show was a one-season anime, I mean, 17 years ago or something like that. And everyone was always unhappy with that because it didn’t wrap up the story. So, the fandom over the years, I guess, begged and pleaded and they found a way to do it so now they have redone the show in full, telling the story from beginning to end, 63 episodes in total.”
Vale’s comments went viral eventually, but the voice actor later retracted the statement.
“So I said in an interview what I ‘knew’ the episode count of the new Fruits Basket to be,” Vale wrote on Twitter. “Sorry for anyone who thought that this actor had ‘confirmed’ something. Turns out I really only confirmed my own dumbness.”
In actuality, Vale was right on the money. Before the final season aired, some objected to Vale’s comments since having only five cours like Vale suggested since that idea was only possible if Fruits Basket Season 3 picked up the pacing and/or skipped some of the original story in the manga.
Thus, some fans believed the remake needed to be around 74 to 76 episodes long, which would have meant that Fruits Basket Season 3 would be a two-cour season yet again.
Since the final season ended with 13 episodes on June 29, 2021, Fruits Basket Season 4 seems unlikely unless the Fruits Basket Another manga sequel is adapted into an anime. (See the news story in the link for more details.)
The Fruits Basket Season 3 OP (opening) theme song music will be “Pleasure” by WARPs UP, while the ED (ending) “Beautiful Spring (Haru Urarara)” is performed by GENIC.
Fruits Basket 2nd Season began internationally streaming starting on April 6, 2020 (or April 7, Japanese time). The second half of the 2nd season, which begins with Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 14, began streaming on July 6, 2020.
FUNimation’s Fruits Basket Season 2 English dub was streaming as originally planned despite the coronavirus pandemic delaying the dubbing for other anime. However, starting after Episode 3 there were significant delays, with the dubbed release only up to Episode 7 as of June 22, 2020.
The finale, Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 25, released on September 21, 2020 (or September 22 in Japan).
Although the Fruits Basket dub cast is the same from 17 years ago, the Japanese voice cast is different.
- Manaka Iwami (Maquia in Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms) plays the main role of Tohru Honda.
- Nobunaga Shimazaki (Haruka in the Free! anime series) voices rat boy Yuki Sohma.
- Yuma Uchida (Ein in Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) is cat boy Kyo Sohma.
- Yuichi Nakamura (Gray in the Fairy Tail anime series) is dog boy Shigure Sohma.
- Atsumi Tanezaki (Chise in The Ancient Magus Bride) is Arisa Uotani.
- Satomi Satou (Wendy in Fairy Tail) is Saki Hanajima.
- Rie Kugimiya (Taiga in Toradora!) plays as pig girl Kagura Sohma.
- Megumi Han (Gon in Hunter x Hunter and Akko in Little Witch Academia) plays as rabbit boy Momiji Sohma
- Makoto Furukawa (Saitama in One Punch Man) plays as cow man Hasuharu Sohma.
- Aki Toyosaki plays as horse girl Isuzu Sohma
- Takuya Eguchi plays as Kakeru Manabe
- Ai Kakuma plays as Machi Kuraki.
The 2001 Fruits Basket anime was produced by Studio Deen, which in recent times has produced the 2020 The Seven Deadly Sins Season 5, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen Season 2, KonoSuba: Legend of Crimson, and the 2020 Log Horizon Season 3.
However, the Fruits Basket remake is being produced by a new animation studio. Fruits Basket Season 3 will be produced by TMS Entertainment, which is known for making the 2021 Dr. STONE Season 2, Baki Season 3, and Megalo Box Season 2.
Director Yoshihide Ibata of FLCL Progressive and Attack On Titan Junior High fame is helming the Fruits Basket Season 3 anime. Masaru Shindo is designing the characters while Taku Kishimoto provides series composition writing.
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Updated March 12, 2021: Added Fruits Basket Season 3 trailer.
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Updated March 6, 2021: Season 3 release date confirmed.
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Updated February 19, 2021: Added FUNimation’s Fruits Basket Season 3 trailer that offers a sneek peak.
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Updated February 1, 2021: Fruits Basket Season 3 release date time frame confirmed!
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Updated September 21, 2020: FUNimation’s Fruits Basket Season 3 release date confirmed for 2021!
This article provides everything that is known about Fruits Basket Season 3 (Fruits Basket 2021) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Fruits Basket 2020 anime compared to the manga
The story for the anime is based on the Fruits Basket manga, which ended its serialization way back in November 2006 with 136 chapters collected in 23 volumes.
Tokyopop released an English translation of the entire manga series, but starting in June 2016, Yen Press re-released the manga in 12 omnibus volumes.
Fruits Basket manga creator Natsuki Takaya is serving as the executive supervisor on the anime staff to ensure a faithful adaptation of her story.
She attends voice recording sessions and gives the staff “detailed thoughts” on certain topics.
Takaya requested that the Fruits Basket reboot be produced with a “completely new team. Completely new. Every single person.” She even asked TMS Entertainment to create a new art style for the characters based on modern sensibilities.
All in all, Takya wanted the staff to respect the source material while still “creating the kind of work that will newly touch as many people as possible.”
What this means in practice is that the new anime has shuffled around certain plot events and added anime-only scenes to take into account certain plot development changes.
The Fruits Basket 2020 episodes also removed anime-original stories from the 2001 anime, including the idea that Akito Sohma has a terminal illness.
The biggest change is the overall tone of the remake in comparison to the 2001 anime. The reboot heightens the drama from the outset to maintain a consistent tone rather than overly focus on slapstick comedy like the 2001 anime version.
The pacing of the newer anime has remained similar. The 2001 anime adapted three manga volumes per cour and ended in Volume 6. Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 25 ended by adapting Chapter 35 of Volume 6, which resolved Kyo’s mini-arc about his true form.
However, the 2019 anime also jumped back and forth a lot, reordering the sequence of events significantly. In fact, one of the episodes pulled content all the way from Chapter 51.
The ending of Episode 25 also featured Isuzu “Rin” Sohma even though she didn’t debut in the manga until Chapter 48 of Volume 8.
Fruits Basket S2 Episode 1 picked up the story again with Chapter 42, which had Motoko Minagawa exploring her feelings as President of the Prince Yuki Fan Club.
The episode also adapted Chapter 49, where Yuki meets Machi Kuragi and Kakeru Manabe, who are the new student council members.
As with the first season, the 2nd season significantly rearranged the ordering of events to integrate plot points that fit a specific plot narrative focus per episode. In order to make this work, the anime changed many manga scenes to account for timeline differences, and anime original content was added.
Some of the dialogue was also condensed or skipped outright. Narrative details were often changed in order to maintain consistency.
The following guide shows how the anime adapted the manga chapters. As can be seen, some of the episodes adapted the manga chapters linearly, but many did not. Episodes with significant amounts of Anime Original scenes are marked as such.
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 1: Chapters 42, 49
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 2: Chapters 46, 52
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 3: Chapters 36, 47
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 4: Chapter 43, Anime Original
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 5: Chapters 48, 50, Anime Original
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 6: Chapters 53, 54, 55
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 7: Chapters 58, 59
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 8: Chapters 60, 61
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 9: Chapters 62, 63
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 10: Chapters 64, 65, Anime Original
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 11: Chapters 66, 67, 68, Anime Original
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 12: Chapters 56, 57, Anime Original
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 13: Chapters 66, 73
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 14: Chapters 69, 70
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 15: Chapters 71, 72
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 16: Chapters 74, 75
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 17: Chapters 76, 77
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 18: Chapters 78, 79
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 19: Chapters 80, 81, 82
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 20: Chapters 81, 83
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 21: Chapters 84, 85
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 22: Chapters 86, 87
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 23: Chapters 88, 89
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 24: Chapters 94, 95
- Fruits Basket Season 2 Episode 25: Chapters 96, 97, 98
Fruits Basket 2020 Episode 25 found an ending in the middle of Chapter 98. It’s a good stopping point since the previous episode ends with Tohru wishing to end the curse as her New Year’s wish and then the anime’s finale reveals the plot twist that Akito is actually a woman, which explains her behavior to the male Zodiac members among other things.
However, the anime portrayed chapters out of order again for the second season’s ending. Rather than finishing with Chapters 90 through 93 of Volume 16, or with Chapter 95, it jumped ahead to Volume 17.
That stopping point leaves 43 chapters for the anime to adapt, which could have been the perfect amount for Fruits Basket Season 3 to be a two-cour anime. Instead, the final chapters were condensed into 13 episodes.
Fruits Basket 3 release date confirmed for April 2021 confirmed
Considering the usual delay between seasons, it was correctly predicted that Fruits Basket Season 3 will release in April 2021.
The only wildcard was the SARS-COV-2 pandemic since national quarantines in Japan, China, and Korea have caused a ripple effect of delays throughout the anime industry, especially when studios rely on outsourcing. Industry insiders have reported that animating takes twice as long as normal and dubbing three times as long.
Let’s just be glad the final season of Tohru’s journey wasn’t delayed. Stay tuned!