Fruits Basket 2×03 Review: “Shall We Go and Get You Changed”

We’re back at another Yuki episode after last week’s Kyo-centric one, and this time we get some Ayame as well! “Shall We Go and Get You Changed” has Yuki and Tohru visiting Ayame’s shop for the first time with sexy results.

“Shall We Go and Get You Changed” features the last bit of material that was in the original 2001 anime. From here on out, everything in Fruits Basket will be animated for the first time ever, and I am very excited. Though I only read the manga after starting the reboot last year, I’ve been anxiously anticipating seeing everything come to life.

The inter-familial relationships of the Sohma family are extremely complicated, and this is never more evident than when you watch Yuki and Ayame interact. They are such polar opposites that it’s hard to believe they’re brothers, but this episode revealed they are more alike than perhaps they previously realized. Both of them have a strong desire to create something; Ayame has his clothing shop, and Yuki has his special, secret garden. It’s incredible they both grew up with that desire, considering the cold environment in which they were raised.

Something that season 2 is doing is starting to dive into the Sohmas’ relationships with their parents. In season 1, they were only vague shadows – except in Momiji’s case – but now we’ve been introduced to Kyo’s biological father and seen glimpses of Yuki’s mother. We knew that none of them really had healthy upbringings, but each tidbit that’s revealed about their childhoods just makes me weep even more.

This episode nicely parallels last week’s, with Yuki this time. Each episode introduces a replacement parental figure for their awful actual parents. In Kyo’s case, it’s Kazuma, the man who took him in and raised him after his mother died. In Yuki’s case, it’s his older brother Ayame, who is trying to make up for acting like he didn’t exist when he was a child. That scene where Yuki reaches out for Ayame only to be rebuffed is heartbreaking, especially when you realize it’s probably the last time Yuki ever asked for help from someone.

It makes you wonder how Yuki is even functional with the level of abuse he’s no doubt endured. Living at Shigure’s has done wonders for him, and meeting Tohru has helped even more.

Fruits Basket is very good at balancing humor with angst; this series gets really dark (even darker than we’ve already seen, if you can believe that), and it needs those moments of levity to prevent it from being just a depress-fest. In “Shall We Go and Get You Changed”, both the humor and the angst come from Ayame, who is ridiculous but also kind of amazing. He’s extremely over-the-top, but I absolutely love how he just has no judgment about anything.

I also love that Ayame is the biggest Yuki/Tohru shipper, even if he interrupted their moment on the couch. Him calling Shigure and Hatori to brag all about how cute they were, accuse Hatori of fantasizing about Tohru, and then chastise him all without taking a breath was probably my favorite part of the episode.

Have you seen “Shall We Go and Get You Changed”? What did you think?

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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