‘Fruits Basket’ Reboot Reveals New Poster

Fruits Basket will soon be treating fans with a brand new anime adventure that essentially reboots the original anime outing by adapting much closer to the original story in Natsuki Takaya’s manga. It’s one of the bigger releases of the Spring anime season, and looks even better with each new reveal.

Along with the release of a new trailer for the series (which teases the series’ central transformations), Funimation also revealed a slick new poster for what is curiously being labeled as a “1st season.”

Funimation will be officially screening the first two episode of the reboot anime on March 26 and 27, before it officially premieres in Japan on April 5. The series will feature an all-new staff, Japanese voice cast, and visuals. Yoshihide Ibata is directing the series reboot for TMS Entertainment, Taku Kishimoto as series writer, and Masaru Shindo as character designer.

With executive supervision from series creator Natsuki Takaya (who has given her approval for the new series), the new series will adapt the original manga more closely than the first 26 episode anime adaptation produced by Studio Deen 18 years ago.

The new Fruits Basket has been confirmed for an English dub release of the series as well, but the release date for it has not been officially announced as of this writing. While the Japanese cast is brand new, the English dub cast actually features many returning stars along with new additions.

The English cast of the reboot includes Laura Bailey as Tohru Honda, Eric Vale as Yuki Soma, Jerry Jewell as Kyo Soma, John Burgmeier as Shigure Soma, Justin Cook as Hatsuharu, Kent Williams as Hatori Soma, Christopher R. Sabat as Ayame Soma, Colleen Clinkenbeard as Akito Soma, Elizabeth Maxwell as Arisa Uotani, and Jad Saxton as Saki Hanajima.

Fruits Basket was originally created by Natsuki Takaya for Hakusensha’s Han to Yume magazine in 1998. The series follows a sweet, young, orphaned girl named Tohru Honda who ends up living with a few members of the mysterious Sohma clan when shenanigans ensue. Things get out of control when Tohru learns the family has been cursed to transform into zodiac animals whenever they are hugged by someone of the opposite sex. Sworn to secrecy, Tohru decides to help break the cyclical curse, and the girl falls in love with a special someone along the way.