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Fruits Basket Love Post, part 5
In the last post, I mentioned Akito and Akito's damage. This post goes more into that. Spoilers.
First of all, a spoiler that isn't all that important to this post, I just get tired of having to avoid pronouns when talking about Akito: She's actually a woman.
Anyway.
There was this fandomsecret not too long ago where someone said that "her redemption was pure bullshit" or something to that effect, and I thought, "Wow. You missed the point of the entire series, didn't you."
Because underneath all that family drama and rice ball analogies and people turning into animals when they're hugged, is a story about redemption, forgiveness and redemption through forgiveness. It's a story about facing your fears and weaknesses, and about growing past them - with a little help from the people around you.
I've always thought it was completely unfair to call Tohru a Mary-Sue just because everyone loves her. Yeah, that's often a sign of a Mary-Sue, but not when it makes sense. Seriously, if you take a bunch of affection-starved people who see themselves as monsters (and I'm including Hanajima and Uotani in that description), and put them together with a girl who loves everyone, can forgive anything and has pretty much made it her life's mission to see the good in all people...well, it makes sense that they'd get attached, is all I'm saying.
(Actually, I have this theory that the more damaged a person was before meeting Tohru, the more attached they became to Tohru.)
If all the other characters could grow and become stronger, it doesn't seem fair that Akito should be left out, right? I'm not sure why the curse broke in the end, but I think it's because Akito got strong enough to actually let go (largely thanks to Tohru expressing the wish that they could be friends despite everything). Notably, while the curse was still in effect Akito was sickly, and the author mentioned that all the real work on the estate was handled by Kureno. Afterwards, Akito looks healthy and is handling the work herself.
It's a story about broken people being healed through the power of love. Akito needed that as much as anyone else.
So I'm sorry, secret-maker, that you wanted her to remain hurt, weak and lonely, but that's just not the sort of story Fruits Basket was. Live with it.
First of all, a spoiler that isn't all that important to this post, I just get tired of having to avoid pronouns when talking about Akito: She's actually a woman.
Anyway.
There was this fandomsecret not too long ago where someone said that "her redemption was pure bullshit" or something to that effect, and I thought, "Wow. You missed the point of the entire series, didn't you."
Because underneath all that family drama and rice ball analogies and people turning into animals when they're hugged, is a story about redemption, forgiveness and redemption through forgiveness. It's a story about facing your fears and weaknesses, and about growing past them - with a little help from the people around you.
I've always thought it was completely unfair to call Tohru a Mary-Sue just because everyone loves her. Yeah, that's often a sign of a Mary-Sue, but not when it makes sense. Seriously, if you take a bunch of affection-starved people who see themselves as monsters (and I'm including Hanajima and Uotani in that description), and put them together with a girl who loves everyone, can forgive anything and has pretty much made it her life's mission to see the good in all people...well, it makes sense that they'd get attached, is all I'm saying.
(Actually, I have this theory that the more damaged a person was before meeting Tohru, the more attached they became to Tohru.)
If all the other characters could grow and become stronger, it doesn't seem fair that Akito should be left out, right? I'm not sure why the curse broke in the end, but I think it's because Akito got strong enough to actually let go (largely thanks to Tohru expressing the wish that they could be friends despite everything). Notably, while the curse was still in effect Akito was sickly, and the author mentioned that all the real work on the estate was handled by Kureno. Afterwards, Akito looks healthy and is handling the work herself.
It's a story about broken people being healed through the power of love. Akito needed that as much as anyone else.
So I'm sorry, secret-maker, that you wanted her to remain hurt, weak and lonely, but that's just not the sort of story Fruits Basket was. Live with it.