Fruits Basket Love Post
Aug. 28th, 2009 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ingvildIt occurs to me that in spite of my intense love for Furuba, I have not posted any thoughts about it. This is a grave oversight on my part, and must be remedied. In this post, I will only link to spoilery stuff, not type anything out. Okay, I'll spoil the first chapter/episode, but only to give an idea of what it is actually about.
What is this?
So, Fruits Basket, or Furuba as it is fondly called. 23 volumes of manga, or a 26-episode anime. The main character is a newly orphaned girl, Tohru Honda, who rather than trouble her friends decided to live in a tent while her grandfather's house was being remodeled. Her mother recently died in a car accident, and Tohru is determined to finish high school, since that was what her mother wished for her to do.
Turns out she'd put her tent on land owned by the mysterious Sohma family, and long story short, she ends up as the live-in housekeeper of Shigure Sohma, who lives outside the main family house with his cousin Yuki, who is in Tohru's class. Soon, another cousin named Kyo crashes the party. Literally.
Oh, and Kyo and Yuki really can't stand each other. They're like cat and mouse. Again, literally. You see, thirteen members of the Sohma family are cursed by spirits of the Chinese Zodiac plus the Cat, and turn into those animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex.
Hilarity ensues.
Only, not. There's plenty of funny in Furuba, but more than that, it's dramatic and painful and from time to time like a sucker punch to the gut. If it didn't also have this underlying sense that "things will get better, really", I wouldn't have been able to read it, I really wouldn't.
It's also brimming with love. Love between friends, family (some family, at least), and after some time, romance. Tohru is determined never to let life get her down, and honestly, I don't think the series could have handled a less optimistic protagonist - it would get too depressing.
Manga versus Anime
Needless to say, the anime doesn't cover anywhere near the same volume of story as the manga. In fact, the anime ends after the dramatic thing that happened in volume 6, but it also includes some more episodic stories from volumes 7 and 8 (specifically, the introduction of Hiro, Ritsu, and one story featuring Motoko Minagawa, the president of the Prince Yuki fanclub).
So the anime does change the sequence of events a little, and leaves out some things that would have happened between what they showed. One of those things set up the introduction of a character who never appears in the anime, another involved the backstory of one of Tohru's best friends, namely Arisa Uotani. I guess they left it out because they hadn't had time to tell the backstory of any of the other characters either - not much of it, anyway.
The final three episodes of the anime takes a dramatic event from volume 6 of the manga and makes it much, much longer, and the final half of the final episode has no parallel in the manga at all - and, in fact, contradicts some things that later are made clear. It's not a bad way of ending the series, I just prefer the manga.
That said, the anime does have just about the cutest intro music ever: Japanese or English.
So why do I like the manga better?
For one thing, the extra characters. The anime felt a little unfinished because we never got to meet two members of the Zodiac, the Horse and the Rooster (or Bird). I can understand why they were left out - their stories are very tangled up with the second part of the manga - but I still missed them. There's also the student counsil, and while Kakeru and Kimi would drive me crazy in real life, I love reading about them. And Machi is adorable, in her awkward way.
For another, there's the backstories. I liked reading about how Uotani and Hanajima became friends with Tohru, about Tohru's parents (although that was heartbreaking, too), and I liked how the central three, Tohru, Yuki and Kyo were all fleshed out.
There's the head of the family, Akito. I much preferred the explanation of what Akito was exactly to the Zodiac in the manga. Here there be spoilers.
Most of all, I prefer the ending in the manga. I've described it before as an enormously satisfying climax - I'm talking specifically about the top panel on this spoilery page. Someone not familiar with the series won't get it, but there's an awful lot of pain and fear and suffering being released there. Personally, I see that as the climax of the story, and everything else as the denouement.
So, to sum up:
An engaging story. Good, solid characters who feel like real people, and whose development feels natural. It's easy to read.
Tomorrow: The importance of Tohru's baseball cap - a much, much more spoilery post.
What is this?
So, Fruits Basket, or Furuba as it is fondly called. 23 volumes of manga, or a 26-episode anime. The main character is a newly orphaned girl, Tohru Honda, who rather than trouble her friends decided to live in a tent while her grandfather's house was being remodeled. Her mother recently died in a car accident, and Tohru is determined to finish high school, since that was what her mother wished for her to do.
Turns out she'd put her tent on land owned by the mysterious Sohma family, and long story short, she ends up as the live-in housekeeper of Shigure Sohma, who lives outside the main family house with his cousin Yuki, who is in Tohru's class. Soon, another cousin named Kyo crashes the party. Literally.
Oh, and Kyo and Yuki really can't stand each other. They're like cat and mouse. Again, literally. You see, thirteen members of the Sohma family are cursed by spirits of the Chinese Zodiac plus the Cat, and turn into those animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex.
Hilarity ensues.
Only, not. There's plenty of funny in Furuba, but more than that, it's dramatic and painful and from time to time like a sucker punch to the gut. If it didn't also have this underlying sense that "things will get better, really", I wouldn't have been able to read it, I really wouldn't.
It's also brimming with love. Love between friends, family (some family, at least), and after some time, romance. Tohru is determined never to let life get her down, and honestly, I don't think the series could have handled a less optimistic protagonist - it would get too depressing.
Manga versus Anime
Needless to say, the anime doesn't cover anywhere near the same volume of story as the manga. In fact, the anime ends after the dramatic thing that happened in volume 6, but it also includes some more episodic stories from volumes 7 and 8 (specifically, the introduction of Hiro, Ritsu, and one story featuring Motoko Minagawa, the president of the Prince Yuki fanclub).
So the anime does change the sequence of events a little, and leaves out some things that would have happened between what they showed. One of those things set up the introduction of a character who never appears in the anime, another involved the backstory of one of Tohru's best friends, namely Arisa Uotani. I guess they left it out because they hadn't had time to tell the backstory of any of the other characters either - not much of it, anyway.
The final three episodes of the anime takes a dramatic event from volume 6 of the manga and makes it much, much longer, and the final half of the final episode has no parallel in the manga at all - and, in fact, contradicts some things that later are made clear. It's not a bad way of ending the series, I just prefer the manga.
That said, the anime does have just about the cutest intro music ever: Japanese or English.
So why do I like the manga better?
For one thing, the extra characters. The anime felt a little unfinished because we never got to meet two members of the Zodiac, the Horse and the Rooster (or Bird). I can understand why they were left out - their stories are very tangled up with the second part of the manga - but I still missed them. There's also the student counsil, and while Kakeru and Kimi would drive me crazy in real life, I love reading about them. And Machi is adorable, in her awkward way.
For another, there's the backstories. I liked reading about how Uotani and Hanajima became friends with Tohru, about Tohru's parents (although that was heartbreaking, too), and I liked how the central three, Tohru, Yuki and Kyo were all fleshed out.
There's the head of the family, Akito. I much preferred the explanation of what Akito was exactly to the Zodiac in the manga. Here there be spoilers.
Most of all, I prefer the ending in the manga. I've described it before as an enormously satisfying climax - I'm talking specifically about the top panel on this spoilery page. Someone not familiar with the series won't get it, but there's an awful lot of pain and fear and suffering being released there. Personally, I see that as the climax of the story, and everything else as the denouement.
So, to sum up:
An engaging story. Good, solid characters who feel like real people, and whose development feels natural. It's easy to read.
Tomorrow: The importance of Tohru's baseball cap - a much, much more spoilery post.
