Ty’s Hidden Gems Series – Astra Lost in Space

Astra Lost in Space’s premise is simple enough: set in the distant future where space travel is a normal, everyday occurrence, a group of high schoolers, while on their class trip, suddenly find themselves transported to the far reaches of uncharted space. There they find an abandoned spaceship and soon begin their perilous journey back home, touching down on each planet they pass in the hopes of scavenging resources. Surprisingly, deadly aliens aren’t the only threat our characters face. In fact, the real threat turns out to be much closer to home. Astra may seem like an odd choice for my hidden gems series. After all, it only finished airing last year and hasn’t yet had the time to fade into obscurity like my other choices. Nevertheless, I feel that Astra, with its less-than-stellar marketing, was oft-overlooked in favour of anime like Fire Force, Dr. Stone, and Demon Slayer. I’m hoping that this review will convince you to give the show a try if you, too, passed up on it last year. 

Fruits Basket Episode 17 – the Importance of Mentors

Fruits Basket has done it again! This week’s episode managed to alternate between sad and happy, tragic and encouraging scenes without giving me whiplash. That these scenes, so different in tone, flowed from one to another so seamlessly was extremely impressive! I have so much respect for Takaya-sensei and those responsible for bringing her manga to life. During this episode, we found out how Uo managed to patch things up with the Hondas, by renouncing her life of petty crime and going straight. My brief summary might have made that sound easy, but, in actuality, it was anything but… 

Fruits Basket (2019) Episode 16 – a Most Fashionable White Knight

Given that Fruits Basket tends to follow light-hearted episodes up with darker, gloomier ones, the fact that, for the past two weeks, the show has been fairly light-hearted makes me pretty nervous about what might be in store in the coming weeks! Setting aside my creeping dread for the time being… During this week’s episode, Kyo, Yuki, Tohru, Hana, and Uo take the frugal-to-a-fault Tohru shopping. During their outing, Uo opens up about her past, about her connection to Tohru’s mum, Kyoko, and how this connection paved the way for their friendship. Though Uo’s past is, by no means, all sunshine and rainbows (her mum left their family while she was still very young, her dad developed a drinking problem, and Uo, left to her own devices, joined a gang of ruthless delinquents), this week’s episode still managed to be fairly upbeat, even funny, at times, largely because of the difference between the expectations that Uo had of the “Crimson Butterfly” and the reality: doting mum, Kyoko. 

Fruits Basket (2019) Episode 12 – the Boogeyman Appears

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this week’s episode since Fruits Basket (2019) first began! Why? Because during this week’s episode Tohru finally got to meet the head of the Sohma clan (and my absolute favourite Furuba character), Akito. The reason why this is so exciting is because, for all this time, it’s almost as if the show has done everything in its power to hide him from us. Up until now, we’ve only ever caught glimpses of him, with his back to us or half obscured by shadow. Not to mention that everything we know about him is second-hand knowledge passed down to us in the form of horror stories told by other characters. He’s like some urban legend – think the boogeyman or the chupacabra, only much scarier! But now, finally, he reveals himself. Below I go on to dissect this very exciting moment…

Fruits Basket (2019) Episode Four – the Worst Sohma

I’ve actually been dreading writing about this week’s episode. Hopefully you have noticed this about me, but I don’t like being critical or negative. That said, I don’t think that I’m going to be able to avoid that today… This week we were introduced to Kagura Sohma, who, upon learning that her beloved Kyo was back in town, decided to pay him a little visit. This sounds innocent enough, and, sure enough, Tohru’s first impression of Kagura is that she seems very sweet, but not five minutes into her visit she is beating Kyo to within an inch of his life. Not that it would make my opinion of her any better, but this is no one-off, but, rather, one of several instances throughout episode four when Kagura KO’d Kyo. Fruits Basket has too many strengths to count, but the main thing that it has going for it is its characters. They’re believable, multifaceted, and oh-so-very endearing. Ironically, though, its biggest weakness is also character-based: Kagura. It’s not that she’s all-out detestable, like Akito (somebody you’re supposed to hate), just that she’s so problematic! Here’s why: