Featured image: (Pacer Graphic / Darby Self)
“Fruits Basket” was a shoujo manga written by Natsuki Takaya and initially serialized in Hana to Yume magazine in July 1998.
The first collected volume in Japan released on January 19, 1999 and the series concluded in November 2006. The anime that most grew up on released on July 5, 2001 with a total of 25 episodes. It’s a shorter series for those who regularly consume animated content, especially older anime.
“Fruits Basket” is considered a classic romantic comedy shoujo manga from the late 90s that gen z’s manga readers grew up alongside. There are content warnings of abuse, mental health, suicide, grief and sexual themes. It doesn’t go overboard with these themes and shove them in the viewer’s face, but they do make for a rather interesting storyline when you get to know the family involved in the background throughout the series.
Highschooler Tohru Honda, is freshly orphaned and her mother recently passed away that past May. She lives her day-to-day life grieving with a smile and hiding from her classmates that she lives in a tent out in the woods. Her story is more or less upsetting when you’re not used to the late 90’s, early 2000’s tragic shoujo backstory with the protagonist only having one or no parents.
She reminded me of another heroine from my last article about “Kamisama Kiss”. The similarities are there, but bear with me, our tragic protagonists have plenty of differences. Tohru moves in with the Sohma family after discovering their shocking secret: members of the family turn into animals from the Chinese zodiac if hugged by a member of the opposite sex.
She aims to work through the family’s trauma and break their curse while living with them and dealing with her own grief following her mother’s death. Tohru is a lovely protagonist and she was a role model for young girls everywhere if they were anything like me. She doesn’t let her grief define her at any point during her story, taking her mother’s words and lessons and using them to help save the Sohma family from their fates.
She always looked at the bright side, helped Yuki to be less uptight and to be himself. She also taught Kyo how to trust all over again, which felt like a real “from the ground up” process if you read the manga.
Not only did she help the main two boys and end up in a strange love triangle between the two of them, but she also helped the rest of the family through their issues, including the family’s head. The story was beautifully written for its time and deserved to be read as well as watched.
I would highly recommend reading “Fruits Basket” for those who are unsure, or reread it for those who want a nostalgia hit.
