2022 REEDIT: Changing my rating to fit my mood and views nowadays. I'm not as passionate or excited about, or as fond of, this series as I used to be. Perceptions and feelings change upon reflection overtime, regardless of nostalgia, which can be fleeting, and that's fine. Growing up, revaluating and reprioritising things are fine. I need to declutter, anyway. The manga remains a classic, nonetheless.
Final Score: 4/5
2022 EDIT: I have reread all twenty three volumes of 'Fruits Basket' in six days. To be engrossed and absorbed into this world again - after so many years, since I was sixteen - it's been a colossal, varietal emotional journey to say the least. I'm still recovering! An exhausting yet beautiful, haunting, raw, and touching experience.
Over twenty years since its creation, I can confidently say that there remains nothing else like 'Fruits Basket'. It defies a single, or combined, or trinity genre: it's shoujo, but it surpasses and transcends that label, with its slice-of-life, comedy, drama (and trauma), romance, thriller, and fantasy, in that order. Psychological and emotional can be attached to any of these, too. Is examining abuse in its many forms a genre, or a formal storytelling device used for fiction? Is examining loneliness? Is adults are the worst, aren't they? There should be. Really, Furuba has lot of every genre to it. It's so much more than cute animals. The series get far, far more intense and harrowing as it progresses; its romances, and messages of kindness, love, pity vs real love, understanding people, and forgiving and not forgiving people, remain important and at the forefront.
While I now fully acknowledge and accept that there are some aspects of 'Fruits Basket' that are dated - including, obviously, the fact that since 1998 onwards there's been the wider affirmation that more than two genders exist, and that trans and nonbinary people exist, and that queer people do actually exist in general and shouldn't solely be played for laughs (even with all the positive bromances in the series, heteronormalcy and opposite gender pairings reign ridiculously) - and while now I don't...exactly like or love every single character...then there's the issue of not properly highlighting the importance of selfcare and that your existence is worth more than what you give to others...nonetheless 'Fruits Basket' was and continues to be something special to me. It's a Japanese property that has as much significance to me, and influence on me - as a person, and as a geek - as 'Sailor Moon', 'Revolutionary Girl Utena', and 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' do ('Fruits Basket' and 'Sailor Moon' are my nostalgia babies that I love to this day).
I have seen both the OG 'Fruits Basket' anime and the 2019 anime reboot, and the two each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but to me the manga, the original source material, endures and stands as the best. The best and most absolute way to experience everything that is 'Fruits Basket'.
I understand some people being afraid to revisit their childhood faves, worrying that it won't be as good as they remember it; that it won't live up to the greatness they first enjoyed when they were younger and hadn't experienced the world and society at large yet. I've been there. Many times.
But sometimes, maybe, you gain more - far more than you lose - on a reread, as a worldly, wise adult. Maybe you'll feel, think and appreciate far more than you used to. Maybe it'll be better than you remember, or at least you'll still love it, but not blindly, not with nostalgia goggles. You'll love it enough to still criticise it and see its flaws, as everything is flawed, and there's nothing you can do about this fact of life. Pure perfection is impossible. Imperfection is human, and therefore its own beauty.
This is the case with 'Fruits Basket' for me. What a tearful relief; maybe I haven't become so cynical and bitter after all. The manga's teachings and influences may have reached me and stayed with me even after over a decade.
I love the whole manga, for its floods of emotion, thoughts, and human lessons and introspections and reflections, warts and all. There are a few moments that actually got me close to tears, sometimes by just the artwork, as well as the emotions behind the situations. The most understated and subtle touches cut right through me. And yeah, the number of hot guys in the series still attracts me, I admit, and these horrifyingly tragic characters' rare, genuine smiles never fail to warm my heart, touch my soul; flowing all the way to my tear ducts. Never mind the animals; it is a very, very, painfully human series.
Here's to Tohru Honda, and Natsuki Takaya-sensei.
Final Score: 5/5
Read my (slightly edited) original review below for more.
Original Review:
I know it's an exaggeration to say that something has changed my life, particularly if it’s a story from a book or TV series or movie. Or at least, it has changed me; in shaping my deeply-held beliefs.
'Fruits Basket' was like that for me, however. When I started reading manga and watching anime online at the age of sixteen, I didn't start with Furuba for some reason. But when I did, I was hooked. I was blown away. Now I know what it means to have feelings of the darkest depths of human nature, but to also wield the hope we all possess deep inside us. I now understand what it means to deal with these messed-up feelings, to remain good for others, and to stay true to yourself and your life-affirmed values.
'Fruits Basket', my favourite manga and anime of all time, finally gets a review.
I will try to keep this as brief as possible, since the series is so complex and so full of rich, living, three-dimensional characters that one could fill a whole Chinese transcript describing them and all the intricacies of this 23-volume series and how they come together towards the conclusion.
I'll start by saying that it is a gross oversimplification to describe 'Fruits Basket' as a slice-of-life drama about an orphan girl and a bunch of family members who turn into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac when held by the opposite sex. 'Fruits Basket' is a tale about people who live the most wretched lives imaginable - full of abuse, neglect, and death; afflicted by irresponsible and uncaring adults. But with the help of one girl who has suffered great loss herself, and who carries her late mother's teachings in her heart in order to keep on going and just be kind to people who are not perfect themselves, maybe life can get better. Maybe the girl could even be so powerfully good - so assertive in her morals and code of ethics, no matter the tragedies - she could break the family's Zodiac curse. She wants to break the curse, and could do so by loving fully again and giving that love to others in turn.
The girl I'm talking about is Tohru Honda, a sixteen-year-old orphan who lived in a tent at the start of the series, and who came to live with the cursed Sohmas. She keeps a picture of her mother, Kyoko, whom she loves dearly and talks to like she's still alive. Kyoko died in a car collision, and had had the wayward life of a delinquent - as the leader of a biker gang called the "Red Butterfly Suicide Squad". So she had wanted to raise her daughter to be a better person and not make the same mistakes she did. As a result, Tohru ended up being the very opposite of her mother - bursting with kindness, ridiculously polite, always wanting to look for the good in others, no matter who they are or how reprehensibly they behave. She is the very epitome of a saint.
However, Tohru is not a doormat or weak willed, even though on the surface it's easy to dismiss her as such. She will struggle to search for reasons to keep living, to keep on being good in spite of everything, and to help others by using the very act of kindness and forgiveness. That's not weak, that's courageous. She will stand up for others, asking for nothing in return, other than that people will be safe and happy. Tohru will fight to change the lives of everyone around her through her loving and caring personality alone.
What makes this especially remarkable, at least in manga, is that Tohru really isn’t anyone special. She’s not a chosen one of a prophecy or any contrived rubbish like that: she is just an ordinary young girl who by chance stumbled across the Sohmas and their family curse, and who happens to be exactly what they need.
I was the same age as Tohru when I first started reading ‘Fruits Basket’, and lord knows I needed guidance and the courage to achieve the things I needed to in that time in my life. I admired Tohru then, and I still do now as an adult; when it's so easy to be cynical about the goodness of human nature. She was like the friend I always wanted, and had wished for there to be more people like her in real life, for no doubt it would be better if that were the case.
For that reason, Tohru Honda is one of my favourite female characters in fiction, period. Sweet, kind, giving, naïve, self-admonishing, self-sacrificing, yet also determined, brave, strong and unfaltering in the face of adversity. She is far from perfect, and that makes her more three-dimensional and human.
The Sohmas are also a colourful and varied bunch. Kyo (the reviled, cast-out Cat) and Yuki (the Rat) are opposites who hate each other and always fight for historical, complex reasons. But deep down, in terms of family troubles, they may have more in common than they will ever admit.
Other family members such as Kagura (the Boar), Momiji (the Rabbit), Kisa (the Tiger), Hatsuharu (the Ox), Ayame (the Snake), Hiro (the Ram), Ritsu (the Monkey), and Rin (the Horse) are an entertaining mix of likeable and unlikeable traits; and they appear more alive for it. Hell, Kagura manages to not be the Clingy Jealous Girl stereotype (my most hated anime cliché) by being friends with Tohru, even when she knows that Kyo and Tohru are falling in love with each other. There isn't anything to hate about Tohru anyway; she isn't even that stupid or naïve as the reader will come to see.
I adore the poor, tragic hero Rin (and yes she is beautiful and sexy, but not in a fetishized, cheap way). Even the twisted, abusive bastard Akito, the head of the Sohmas and the Zodiac curse, is miraculously revealed to be capable of receiving sympathy (and receiving and giving understanding) much later in the manga series.
I came to love Kyo, violent bad boy that he is. His story is one of the most heartbreaking. His relationship with Tohru is of a 'Beauty and the Beast' kind - taken to extremes, but it has so much heart and hope to it that I nearly cried at the resolution of them realising their feelings and finally getting together.
When the princely, sensitive and shy Yuki doesn't have a chance of winning Tohru's heart, he will find love (not the motherly kind, like with Tohru) in the most unlikely of places - at the high school student council, with a girl who is as lost and alone as he is...
Tohru's best friends, Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima, are also worth mentioning. They are polar opposites - Arisa the tough "yankee", and Saki the psychic, Gothic "witch" - yet they both care deeply for Tohru and are extremely protective of her, in the wake of the tragedy of Kyoko's sudden death. They never find out the truth about the Sohmas and their curse - Tohru is the only human outside of the family to know about it and keep her memories - but they still come to trust the family to look after their beloved friend. The kindness of Tohru and Kyoko helped to change the difficulties of Arisa's and Saki's lives, and they want to return the gesture out of the goodness of their not-so-empty hearts.
I don't think there is a single character - and there are hundreds of them - that I dislike in 'Fruits Basket'; for it shows that anyone, child or adult, can change. Anyone can find love and be kind. That's the core message in this whole spider web series in my view. That and the importance of family, but never cling to the toxic, abusive members. Rather, stay with those who make you feel good about yourself, who make you feel not alone, who tell you that you are worth it, and that you have the right to exist.
The series is a sweet drama, with a combined bittersweetness and poison lurking in its pages. The artwork - like the themes and characters - is wonderfully detailed, varied and lovely. Everything is strange; a perfect side-by-side reflection and collaboration between light and dark. Between melancholy and hope.
Natsuki Takaya is a genius, and 'Fruits Basket' is her magnum opus. It is as close to being perfect as any manga I've read. While the anime may not be perfect, with it ending before the manga, it is still my favourite.
Also, I do love the animals. Though in the midst of all the angst and dramatics they are not seen frequently, and less so as the series progresses. It contains a lot of funny moments in the beginning: Furuba has something for everyone, hence the universal appeal and popularity, I think.
'Fruits Basket' showed me what it means to change lives for the better. And this is not an exaggeration; manga or anime, I will never forget this amazing, beautiful series. After all the years since I've finished it, I still haven't.
Highly loved. Highly recommended.
Final Score: 5/5, although scores are redundant by this point. Just try it out for yourself, no matter who you are, where you came from, and where you are going.
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