I've always really liked Fruits Basket, and the remake is something I feel did almost everything the first one did but better.The pacing feels a bit better, you get a better look into the characters, and better animation. Overall it's just the better show,but I do think there were things about the ending of the original that worked better.
To be fair it's not entirely accurate to compare the two. Despite ending on the same thing, the reboot is made to continue the story,so the original anime used to conclude the entire story and the reboot it's just the conclusion to the season. That said, I do still think there are some things to compare here.
I will start by saying the new one did do something better than the original. When Kyo's master shows up, in the original you get the backstory between him and Kyo after the transformation into the true form of the cat, and before the climax. The Reboot handles them one at a time. I think this works a lot better as the sudden jump to the backstory kind of takes away from the building tension.
Where the original wins out though is where it really matters, and that is you feel a lot more impact. The idea behind the Cat in Fruits Basket is that no one else can accept him. He's hated by the Rat and left out of the Zodiac, his true form is hideous, and he desperately wants someone to be able to accept all aspects of him, the good and bad. When faced with his true form in the original, Tohru is scared and doesn't immediately chase after him. She is crying and confused in the woods, and first goes to her mother's gravestone unsure of what to do. Meeting her friends there, she is finally pushed to head back into the woods and confront Kyo. In the original, you also have the Rat in the scene, and it lets there be a bit of action so you can see Kyo act a bit more Berserk and volatile. All this builds up to Tohru being honest and telling Kyo she is terrified of him in this form,she doesn't know what's going on, and she just wants him to come home.
Even taking out the bits where Akito shows up in the original and separating the backstory of Kyo and his master, the two things that dragged out the climax a bit too much, there would still have been a couple episodes in that. You have time for the severity of the situation to set in, you get to see Tohru struggle at first with what it is she sees, and it helps to really feel for the situation.
No character is involved in the new version, no one beyond Kyo and Tohru. So what ends up happening is she goes straight to Kyo, and has only a brief moment of walking away from him because he tells her to leave before she rushes right back to his side. You don't feel like Tohru really struggled with the situation like with the original, it feels like it's all on Kyo here. And the entire climax from the master talking with Kyo and removing his bracelet to Kyo turning back to normal all takes place in one episode. The climax feels a bit rushed because of this and wasn't given as much time to breathe.
All that said, it's still a good climax. You still feel for the situation, and because the show is continuing on the way it treated the Rat and Boar I thought it was a lot better, as in this version we aren't done yet. Not including Akito or Shigure at any point makes a lot of sense as well, considering what's going on with them. I'd have liked to see her two friends and the scene at the gravestone included though because it helped that much more to give you insight into the situation and get you invested. The original just gave the climax the extra time it needed to really have that extra punch, even if the current version is still good in its own right. It stands as the one thing that I feel the original handled better.
