Fruits Basket, My Favorite Romance Anime

Everyone who knows me is aware that I’m not the biggest fan of the romance genre, but I do have a few that stick out to me. There is one particular showI have in mind and that happens to be Fruits Basket. This fantasy romance anime is about a young girl named Tohru Honda, who becomes an orphan and is forced to live with her grandfather. A popular student in Tohru’s class named Yuki stumbles upon her living situation and insists on Tohru to live with him and his cousins. Soon into the story Tohru learns that each person in Yuki’s family tree is possessed by spirits of the Chinese Zodiac. This curse causes the possessed to turn into their respective animal when hugged by someone of the opposite gender which causes Tohru to set out and find a way to break this curse. 

While reading the summary, it doesn’t seem like a romance anime because there are a lot of fantasy elements involved with the Zodiac things, but once you watch it you realize how much of a romance anime this show is. The reason why I love this anime so much is because it’s the only romance anime where I didn’t find any of the romance elements cringey or hard to watch. The character development throughout the anime is one of the best I’ve seen in this genre and I was hooked the entire time. It’s also one of the most emotional because the characters come across so many problems that they have to work their way around, and I personally love some of the characters in the main ensemble. I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a romance anime to watch, especially if they wanna try a romance that’s a bit different from the others.