Fruits Basket

Reviewed by Mike Xiong
April 23, 2007

Director: Akitaro Daichi Licensing: FUNimation Genre: Romance/Comedy Age Rating: 13+ Website: Click Here Review Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Most people would say that animals are all cute and cuddly and they probably won’t get a lot of things human beings would.  But what would it be like if the animals were actually people?  Would that make them really smart or really weird?  Come and witness the story and artwork of  Natsuki Takaya’s Fruit’s Basket, where human and animal think alike.

Tohru Honda never was the everyday high school girl, and apparently, it doesn’t seem that she’ll get the chance to know what normal is either.  Miss Honda lives in a small tent in a forest nearby her school and someone else’s land.  Life had its routine for Tohru: wake up, go to school, come home, speak to mom, study and eat, then sleep.  Just when things seemed to go on forever, Tohru stumbles upon a house while making her way to school.  Interested with the Chinese zodiac stories, Tohru couldn’t help but become fascinated with the zodiac set sitting on the porch.  A man emerged from the house and spoke to Tohru for the time being.  Not too long after, the prince of Tohru’s school, Yuki Sohma, appeared at the door and asked if Miss Honda wouldn’t mind walking with him to school that morning.

After a few incidents, it just so happens that Tohru is found camping out in the woods by Yuki and Shigure (the man from the house).  Feeling sad for Miss Honda, they took her in as they had an extra room for someone else to stay in.  But that wasn’t the end of people moving in.  Yuki’s cousin, or rival, Kyo Sohma returns for his revenge and yet fails to defeat Yuki in martial arts.  It seems that Tohru is in for more than she thought.

Now here’s where Tohru’s normal life becomes way off charts.  Little did she know, the Sohmas were under a family curse; when they hug the opposite sex they transform into the animals of the zodiac.  Each family member is appointed a different animal for their personality.  For example, Yuki wants the attention of people, to be admired by people, or to generally be good at almost everything he does; and this personality type resembles the rat.  Kyo, an outsider of the family curse, is the cat, and since there is no cat in the Chinese zodiac, he’s not invited to the main Sohma estate.

When Tohru learns of their curse (by falling onto Kyo), it takes her some time to completely accept the reality of the entire situation.  As the days go by, Tohru settles down about the transformation and about the rule of not letting other people know about the curse, otherwise they would have to get their memory erased.  Even though knowing this, Tohru chooses to stay with the Sohmas, and then the real trouble begins.

With 26 episodes on 4 volumes, the Fruits Basket series has not ended yet but left many viewers impatient for the next volume to come out.  Currently Natsuki Takaya is still writing the mangas for Fruits Basket, so any news on upcoming volumes is still unknown as of now.  Although knowing this, the anime has really appealed to me; and I recommended it to all anime viewers and non-viewers alike.  All the characters are enjoyable to watch and they sink into your heart.  You’ll come to love them all little by little, as you learn about their past and their real family problems.  With great voice work from Laura Bailey, Eric Vale, Jerry Jewell and many others, this anime has been one of the most successful and most touching I have ever seen.

The Evolution Factor would have to be high, as many Shojo fans out there will already have heard of Fruits Basket, and fans are adding to the series each and every day.  Natsuki has indeed created a masterpiece.  I believe that the series will continue to gain much more from how it’s going now, and with all the toys and backpacks, to stickers and key chains of each character, Fruits Basket will become one with history forever.