Fruits Basket made a return to mainstream media attention with their Netflix series and had a Nintendo DS game that used its artwork in the design. However, a standalone game based on the anime and the manga never came to let’s say, fruition, pun intended. Let’s take a look at why, and if there’s any chance a developer picks up the game at some point in the future. Right, let’s get into it.
Fruits Basket is a Japanese anime and manga series written and illustrated by the renowned Natsuki Takaya. It was serialized in the semi-monthly Japanese magazine Hana to Yume, published by Hakusensha, from 1998 to 2006. The series got a reboot in 2019 and has only increased its popularity ever since. The series title comes from the name of a popular game played in Japanese elementary schools, which is also heavily featured in the series. Fruits Basket was one of the biggest sellers of this day and other less selling Shojo released around its time or shortly afterward such as Vampire Knight often had a video game to accompany their publication years. Added onto all this, Takaya is also a massive gamer himself. All of these facts culminate in only one conclusion, that a Fruits Basket game should have definitely come out from developmental hell. Many fans have pointed out that while making a Sailor Moon or Vampire Knight game was easy due to the nature of the plot and the elements of the storyline, the same cannot be said for Fruits Basket. The only possible game mode for such a game would have to be a visual novel, meaning those that had already read the manga series would essentially be paying more money just for the exact same experience on an electronic device this time. For these reasons, as of today, it seems extremely unlikely for a Fruits Basket game to be coming out anytime soon.
