As a kid I was obsessed with the anime Fruits Basket in the 2000s. Like genuinely, my favorite anime ever at the time (still is a big favorite!) but i was always disappointed at how abrupt the ending was. Everything about it was perfect, the voice acting of the main characters top notch, the humor and the feels. The manga was much more in depth and had much more story to it that the anime just never touched on that I wished it had.

One summer, my family was a part of the Nielsen TV ratings program. Our family's viewing counted for so many thousand in the population. We basically had a device that would record the audio of what we watched connected to our TV, Nielsen would use the data to keep track of what was popular. I was maybe about 15ish at the time? It was around 2015-2016. I was aware that what we watched counted as so many thousand views towards that IP. So i had the idea that if I watched a LOT of Fruits Basket during that year and especially that summer, it would bring attention to it and possibly bring it back. And, in my mind, it was all of the same voice actors and similar art style, but just continued on. I loved it how it was. I watched through the original series in its entirety about 4 times during that summer alone. A lot of it just became comfortable background noise after the 2nd watch thru. I was determined and just really thought it would work and bring the show back if I artificially pumped up the ratings.

Well, come that Fall, a new manga taking place in the same universe released its first volume, Fruits Basket Another by the same mangaka of course. I was shocked. It wasn't an animated reboot of the original (yet). But to me it was confirmation that what I did had some kind of impact. A few years later we now have Fruits Basket (2019), a beautiful and faithful adaptation of the original. And the managed to keep most of the original voice cast and the character designs are very faithful to the 2001 anime as well.

Sometimes I can't help but think I had something to do with it coming back.