Fruits Basket, vols. 4-7 (Natsuki Takaya)

[chomiji]

Help, I've been mugged by a volume of shoujo manga!

Yes, it's true. I picked up vol. 4 of Fruits Basket for cheap at Balticon over the 3-day weekend ... and that was the beginning of the end. I've been conquered by "America's most popular shoujo manga."

I have actually gobbled down volumes 4-10, but I'm forcing myself to break it up and think about it a little more. I bought 5-7 on Sunday night, and then picked up 8-10 on Wednesday afternoon. And I want more, more, more. (And so does the Young Lady.)

Fruits Basket, vols. 4-7 (review)

What was so overwhelming about vol. 4 was that everything was ratcheted up several notches. The humor was suddenly so vivid that I laughed out loud more than once. I especially loved Kyo's reaction to Momiji's wardrobe choice for the first day of high school (probably because I was equally appalled ... >sigh<), and then Hatsuharu's passionate defense of civil rights in dress ... especially his "dirty pool" (on several counts) with the student body president. Ayame is, of course, a scream, and he and Shigure are hysterical together ("Not in front of the children!"). I also think it's interesting that his stories of bamboozling the school authorities with BS and outrageous sexual bravura are told so close to Hatsuharu's similar assault on poor Takei (who may never be the same again ...). Of course Hatsuharu has a lot more emotional investment in what he does, while Ayame is just messin' with their heads ... but it's interesting. And both of them really love Yuki, too.

And then the pathos ... ahh, I'm just a big marshmallow on the inside. Momiji's backstory totally killed me, even though I don't really care for the character. But I've been on both sides of that equation: I've been the child of a mentally disturbed mother, and I've been a new mother with postpartum depression. When Tohru and Momiji were crying, and she hugged him and he turned into a bunny, still crying - well, that was it. I lost it.

And I haven't even mentioned Tohru & co.'s visit to her mother's grave, or Kyo watching Tohru sleep on the porch. And that was all in one volume.

Not everything in every volume is successful. Yuki's various encounters with characters at school - both his fellow student officers and the silly geese in the secret Yuki fan club - don't do much for me. And although Tohru's ignorance of what exactly it was that Hatsuharu showed the school president in the bathroom was funny - and gave Hatsuharu a chance for a marvellously lewd piece of behavior (which very appropriately earned him a smackdown from both Kyo and Yuki) - I'm not sure I buy it. The girl is 16 already, for God's sake ... . And yes, she's just too damn good and nice - but you know, Hatsuharu is even more insightful than she is a good deal of the time.

But so much of it is good and effective and moving: The "Mabudachi Trio" having their heart-to-heart session at the lake house. Hatsuharu calmly letting Kisa, in her tiger form, bite him as he explains what's up with her, because he's so worried. Kisa's mother, at her wits' end and looking so completely tired and bewildered. Kisa turning back into an equally bewildered and miserable little girl in Tohru's arms. Kyo overcoming his famous hatred of leeks to cook a decent pot of soup for Tohru when she's sick. Hanajima's little brother, Megumi, creatively helping his sister get rid of the catty Yuki fan girls. Haru worrying about both Kyo and Tohru in school, and reading Tohru like a book as she frets silently before him, and then confronting Yuki and confessing that he himself is worried as well. Ayame's real joy at having Yuki visit his shop ... and the horrible irony of what he sells, versus the constraints that he has to bear on his own search for romance. Hiro's insights into his own behavior, so mature that they're a terrible burden for a boy of 11. Uo's misery over seeing her friend Tohru in her old school swimsuit, and her determination to solve the problem, and involve all those who love Tohru in the solution.

And the three real killers for me: the whole business over Kyo's other form - and Takaya is very clever in having smell be a part of it: smell is much more visceral and primitive than sight - and his relationship with his Shishou; Uo's backstory and her relationship with Tohru's mother; and Shigure's kindness, which I'm having to question on the basis of things I'm reading in other people's reviews. I have to hope that what he seems to be up to is worth it in the end, for all of them.

Alright, Takaya-sensei: you've got me. I'm in it for the long haul.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

In the end, FB seduces everyone... eeeeevvvveeeerrrrryyyyooooonnnneeeee.

Momiji annoys me, yet I like him(aside from Akito *stabs* I like all the FB characters)

While I think it's overdone, I actually tend to find Tohru's extreme naivette believable, though it's largely because, while I wasn't as unbelievably good and pure as she is, I was only a few steps above her in that department at that age myself(my mother-through no fault of her own-wasn't really available when it was time for "the talk" and never realized I never got it, and I didn't realize there was need for one until I was 17 or so...)

Yuki is fun with the other Sohma's, but he's rather dull on his own, fond of him as I am.

[chomiji]

So what about Shigure? Is he a cad who's going to break my heart in the end? He looks and acts so very much like Yukimura that I'm having a terrible time being objective about him. (I think I need to put together a little mugshot gallery comparing them - the resemblance is funny ... especially Yukimura in disguise for the Shogun's tournament in vol. 4, when he has his hair up so that it looks shorter.)<.p>

Every once in a while Momiji will say something that's cute without being cutesy, and I'll feel less negative about him (like when Yuki finally unbends enough to tell Tohru she looks cute in her swimsuit, and Momiji says smugly, in the background, "Tohru is always cute" ... like he's noticed even if Yuki is too dense ...).

Akito is so bloody weird ... the way he (I am beginning to believe it's really a she) can't keep his hands off anyone, literally or figuratively ... it's a great example of Granny Weatherwax's (in Terry Pratchett's books) statement about the one real sin: treating people as things. I presume we're going to get some more backstory about Akito. (Academic question: who's a worse person, Akito or Aka-chan? At least Akito doesn't have magical powers ... .)

Oooh, you didn't have sex education classes that went into this stuff? I remember squirming through such classes (segregated by sex) at the ages of 12-13 - they told us enough that I would have guessed what was going on with Hatsuharu and the class president in the bathroom. My own mom was so shy that she only explained about periods and didn't go into anything else ... I remember being extremely worried at 11 because I had picked up that boys could get you pregnant but had no idea how this process actually worked, and I had several friends who were boys ... .

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Well, I have decent spoilers for what's not out here but not all for Shigure, but as far as I know, Shigure, despite VERY questionable romantic preferences, has everyone's best interests at heart.

Momiji has his moments, but mostly he gets by because only a monster would hate the Sohma kids, really.

Akito is a evil psychotic sadistic *********** who abuses children and likes to force varying degrees of "relations"(from just touching to much more) on male relations and thinks putting young female cousins in the hospital is a fun passtime. And that's the less horrible stuff. Akito wins the "bad person" award.

My sex ed class was the anatomical equivalent of technical mumbo jumbo and "premarital sex is bad...you'll get a disease." It was to discourage teens from doing it any more than they already were, not to clue you in on anything about it.

Hmm...do they even have sex ed in Japan?

[chomiji]

Sex-ed in Japan? Who knows? (I'll have to remember to ask Sanada, she might know.) That seems like a pretty liberal school they're going to - look at what Hatsuharu gets away with for clothes, let alone Momiji ... .

But she must also be closing her eyes pretty fast whenever anyone turns back from his animal form ... except Kisa, of course. Come to think of it, why do we see so much more of poor little Kisa's nekkid bod than we do of the guys' ? Double standard! She's not that young ... .

I also wonder why Yuki and Tohru were both so flipped out about Ayame's crawling up into Tohru's clothes in his snake form that they couldn't say anything coherent about it to Shigure - yet when Tohru comes back from the restaurant, she's voluntarily carrying the Ayame-snake in her bodice. Maybe she just felt she knew him better at that point. Certainly Yuki was freaked out all over again ... poor kid really does have a stick up his butt sometimes. I guess it's an over-reaction to Ayame and Shigure - and come to think of it, the whole reluctance to tell Shigure might just have been because they thought for sure he'd use it as an excuse to tease Yuki.

Akito certainly seems to have some very strange ideas, to say the least. There was something very touching about Shigure talking to Hatori after the school visit, when he protests that Tohru is "adorable" after recounting how Akito said she was ugly. Of course Hatori says that it sounds criminal when Shigure says that, but I don't think he's being pervy then ... Hatori has already heard it all from Ayame and Shigure (and probably seen it all, too), so they don't see any need to try to freak him out. The kids are a relatively fresh audience ... .

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

heh...everytime they transform, Tohru either passes out or or is facing the nearest wall.

As far as Ayame goes, I'm sure for Tohru that was a rather unique experience at the time...rather like having 3 good looking guys poof into animals...with Yuki, it was probably his instinctive reaction to be pissed off at Ayame.

Akito is one of the few manga characters I utterly despise.

[b3nitora.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I almost named my dog after Shigure, but my dog is a girl...but then I went and named her after a boy anyway. I love Shigure!
Oh no! NOT SEX ED! I had that crap if 5th grade and it certainly was seperated but then we watched the boy video and stuff after the girl crap was over. I couldnt keep myself from laughing.

[ichigoxrenji.livejournal.com]

sadly enough, i never liked this manga. couldn't stand the characters, especially the main one. the only character i took a liking to was the Kyo, the cat.

[chomiji]

Well, I'm sorry to hear that ... but of course there are plenty of other series around. Have you tried Saiyuki?

If the others weren't such total wrecks, Tohru might bother me more.

[ichigoxrenji.livejournal.com]

i have never read Saiyuki but i have some of the dvds. Pretty good though sometimes some episode were pointless. i like the fact that it was sorta like a knock-off of the chinese tale "Journey to the West"

[chomiji]

I haven't seen any of the anime, but there is at least one chapter (issue?) of the manga that was essentially pointless, and the mangaka acknowledged as much by having one of the characters say something about "Well, it seemed like your average filler" at the end! But actually, it was a cute little story by itself.

Yeah, it's derived from Journey to the West. I have some bizarre Chinese picture books of episodes from that ... they're in English but they were produced in China. But I love the Saiyuki manga almost as much as I love SDK. I don't know what aspects of SDK appealed to you, but I like Saiyuki for its character interactions and "teamwork," which are things I also liked about Samurai Deeper.

[ichigoxrenji.livejournal.com]

at first i was only attracted to SDK because of Kyo since i was one of the few who actually saw the anime before reading the manga. i just love his attitude and everything about him. Then i got to reading the manga because i was sorta piss off at the ending for the anime (my friends and i got into an argument over who it was at the end, Kyo or Kyoshiro?). Then as the anime progress, i just love the friendship dynamites of it all. Kyo can denied it all he wants but friendship means alot to him. and it's so funny, i love almost all the characters!
I bought the dvds for Saiyuki because i read the review about it's similarities to Journey to the West (Which is my favorite all time Chinese tale!). I love it for it's differences in characters' attitude. i mean, come on, who wouldn't love a killing monk?! Goku wasn't as powerful as i had hope but he's so funny and cute! and the friendship dynamites is also there so i got hooked.

[chomiji]

The friendship dyanamics are really great in the manga. Yes, Sanzo is great - but he's such a mess emotionally! (Of course, they all are - except for Goku, I guess.) I like his mentor - I hope Sanzo can gain some of that peace some day. But my favorites are Gojyo (you guessed, I bet) and Hakkai. When Gojyo goes all self-doubting, he sounds like me.

And I love the little dragon, of course. And even some of the "bad guys" ... except Hazel creeps me out.

[b3nitora.livejournal.com]

my friends and I got into the same argument...and then when my brother bought it he and my dad and I got into the same fight.

[ichigoxrenji.livejournal.com]

which one did you argue for? i always thought it was Kyo.

[b3nitora.livejournal.com]

I can't expain why, but I LOVE fruits basket! I DO want to roast momiji...there is only so much cute I can take...and its in German wich is probably the least cutest language EVER...its just so WRONG! Now maybe...if he was older, taking ritilin and out of the closet...we could totally hang. ^_^

[chomiji]

There seems to be this really strange fascination with German among some of the mangaka, doesn't there? I mean, there's Weiß Kreuz, which just sounds bizarre (florist assassins???).

I'd argue that Momiji is out of the closet, more or less - he's just not really into anything but hugs and cuddling yet! I mean, look at how he dresses. I think he likes girls, too, though. Someone somewhere online pointed out that he's the only one who doesn't get paired up with someone at the end, but I bet he'll have a lot of fun making up his own mind ... . In the later issue where they're at the beach, and Yuki finally speaks up to say that Tohru looks cute in her swimsuit, Momiji's in the background saying, smugly, "Tohru is always cute!" Like, "Yuki, you twit, it took a swimsuit to make you notice this?"

The idea that he and Hatsuharu are supposed to be the same age is totally insane ... Hatsuharu is one of my favorite characters.