Review of "Fruits Basket"

Review Type: Manga & Anime
YamPuff's Rating: 4 of 5

Everyone knows the story by now; the sweet Tohru chances upon the cursed Soham family. They are posessed by the spirits of the Chinese Zodiac and turn into their Zodac animal when hugged by a memebr of the opposite sex. Sounds corny, right? Well, much kudos to the manga-ka because it makes perfect sense in context.

I picked up this title looking for a good series to get into. I'll admit I was more than a little skeptical because I tend to fear and aviod series that are a little too popular. And the fangirls obsessing over the infamous 'Kyo or Yuki' question didn't help either. So I went in expecting to find some over-rated tripe. Was I ever mistaken.

The storyline is practically non-existant. The most exciting events to be found are vacations at the family beach house and a school trip. However, the large and varied cast of characters more than makes up for it and the story doesn't drag or feel boring. Character interactions are full of excitement and fun. Most importantly, the series is always going somewhere. New characters get introduced, secrets are discovered, pasts revealed at every corner, plus plenty of angsty introspective moments and hints at a darker storyline. This is shoujo at its best.

The series has a lot of heart. There is little doubt that you'll find yourself caring about the characters. And even if you don't, with such a large cast, you can afford to hate as many characters as you like with plenty left over. The story is very much a 'slife of life' manga, so if you're looking for action, excitement and a gripping plot, look elsewhere. And, contrary to what fangirls would have you belive, the story is not about who Tohru 'ends up' with, nor is that the focus or even the idea of the series. The story is really about the lives of the characters, their relationships with each other etc.

With such a large cast of characters, I give much credit to the author for making them all memorable and able to stand out from each other. Character designs as well as personalities. The characters, having a wide cast in terms of age, size and hairdos are hard to confuse with one another. Personality wise they are not a big blob of perfect characters in different bodies, but realistic (if idealic) characters who have angers, fears, prejudices, hate and love, not just 'perfect happiness and lavu-lavu' as some CLAMP series have been guilty of. Characters are not 'good' and 'evil'

However, and I stress the however, the series is not all good. Somewhere around the midpoint of the series it begins to get a little stale. Suddenly everyone and his dog has a sob story, and not just the Sohmas. It begins to get monotonous and tiresme after a while and suddenly your eyes start rolling. The first background story was cute and sad. The eleventy hundreth sad story was a tad...much. Its like a case of 'so they like drama do they? they like angst do they? Hmmm....well then. TAKE OUT THE DRAMA DRAMA ANGST HAMMER OF DOOM!!'. Frankly, the series gets into quite a mess but by the time it does you've already been reading it for so long you have to continue. The characters are still good, character development is great and if you made it midway you're sure to make it out.

Another con would be that the main character Tohru really isn't all that special; she's the happy work-hard naive and gullible typical shoujo heroine and while loveable is predictable and nothing new. She is not, however, pathetically weak and does not burst into tears every other page. And despite her being the main character, the star of the series is really the Sohma family, Tohru scoring relatively low in most online polls.  People seem more concerned with her as Kyo or Yuki's potential love-interest than her as a character.

All in all, Fruits Basket is a good shoujo manga that appeals to people of all kinds. It has a slice of every genre in it, from action to romance to fantasy. Its not short, it does get drawn out, it is over the top. No manga is without its flaws. But is it worth it? I think so.

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