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Fruits Basket

, sometimes abbreviated , is a Japanese manga series by Natsuki Takaya. It was serialized in the semi-monthly Japanese magazine Hana to Yume, published by Hakusensha, from 1999 to 2006. The series was also adapted into a 26-episode anime series, directed by Akitaro Daichi. The series tells the story of Tohru Honda, an orphan girl who, after meeting Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure Sohma, learns that thirteen members of the Sohma family are possessed by the animals of the Chinese zodiac and are cursed to turn into their animal forms if they embrace anyone of the opposite sex.

The word "Fruits" in the title is always plural; the spelling originates from the transcription of the English word "fruit" into Japanese, where because there is no "tu" sound, "tsu" is used instead. The title comes from the name of a popular game played in Japanese elementary schools, which is alluded to in the series.

The name spellings used in this article correspond to those given in the official Region 1 DVD and English manga releases. Romanization style names are given in Western order, with the family name last.

Plot

Fruits Basket follows the life of high-school student Tohru Honda, who was recently orphaned when her mother, Kyoko Honda, died in a car accident. After that, Tohru lived with her grandfather, but when his house needs remodeling, Tohru resorts to living in a tent in a forest and holds down a job to support herself. Despite suffering many hardships, Tohru remains optimistic.

One day, Tohru comes upon a house in the forest that is the home of her classmate Yuki Sohma and his cousin Shigure Sohma. When the Sohmas discover that Tohru is living in a tent, they are quite surprised by her inner strength. The entire area is Sohma property, and Tohru asks to be allowed to stay in her tent (affectionately dubbed "her castle"). Feeling sorry for her and desperate to end their bachelor days of filthy living conditions, the Sohmas offer her their spare room in exchange for cooking and housework. After a landslide buries her tent, including her mother's picture and school clothes, she has no option but to accept. Soon after she moves in, Kyo Sohma comes to challenge Yuki.

Tohru soon discovers the Sohma family's secret, and the reason why Yuki is so private and secretive at school: thirteen members of the family are possessed by the 12 animal spirits of the Chinese Zodiac (jyūnishi in Japanese) plus the spirit of the cat who was, according to legend, left out of the Zodiac. They transform into animals when hugged by the opposite sex or when put under a great deal of emotional or physical stress (such as being sick). When she promises to keep their secret, the Sohmas allow Tohru to keep her memories rather than hypnotically erasing them, a fate that had previously befallen anyone not "Inside" the Sohma family who had discovered the secret.

The story follows the lives of Tohru and the Sohma family, as they deal with each other and a society where neither quite fits in, as well as the feared Akito Sohma, head of the Sohma family. Soon, after living with the Sohma family she began to like, then love, all of the Sohmas, and sets out to break the zodiac curse.

Differences between manga and anime

In many places, the anime episodes are very similar to the corresponding manga chapters. However, the anime does make some changes to the story. Some events are combined while other events, such as Tohru's first meeting with Momiji and all references to Tohru's baseball hat, never happen in the anime at all. The anime series also added more instances of Sohma members being accidentally transformed by Tohru. For example, in episode six when Tohru's friends Hanajima and Uotani visit the Sohma house, the anime has a lengthy series of accidental transformations, while in the manga, no transformations occurred during their visit. Much of the events surrounding the revealing of Kyo's true form are greatly changed in the anime, including adding an extended chase sequence, Tohru meeting Akito in the woods, her meeting with Hanajima and Uotani at her mother's grave, and Yuki having also chased after Kyo, none of which happen in the manga.

While the anime keeps most of the characters exactly the same as in the manga series, it does make some changes. In the manga, Momiji is half-German and half-Japanese and regularly speaks German, particularly when he first meets Tohru, while in the anime his bi-racial status is never mentioned and no German is spoken. Shigure's darker tones are toned down in the anime, with many remarks he makes in the manga that hint at a hidden agenda are left out, along with most of his early scenes with Akito. In the anime, Akito is biologically male and will die at a young age because of the curse, while in the manga, Akito is biologically female but brought up as male.

Main characters

An orphaned high school student who, at the start of the story, begins living with Shigure, Yuki, and Kyo Sohma in exchange for housekeeping. She loves to cook, describes herself as an excellent housekeeper, and has an after-school job as a janitor to pay her tuition fees to avoid being a burden on her grandfather. She is depicted as polite, optimistic, extremely kind, and selfless; several other characters, including Kyo, Rin, and Hanajima, tell her she needs to look out for her own interests and not shoulder everyone else's burdens. In the original Japanese, Tohru habitually speaks formally (see Honorific speech in Japanese), but not always correctly, a habit she picked up from her father, Katsuya, after he died when she was three, as a way of replacing him in her mother's eyes. Tohru's mother, Kyoko, raised her alone until she died in a car accident shortly after Tohru entered high school, a few months before the start of the story. Tohru repeatedly calls Kyoko the most important person in her life and treasures her photograph; when she falls in love with Kyo she feels guilty of being "unfaithful" to her mother's memory.

In the first half of the series, as Tohru learns about the zodiac curse and its effects on those she loves, she becomes distressed, and when she learns that the dangerous Akito is the "god" of the zodiac, she resolves to break the curse. Only later does she admit that she wants to free Kyo most of all. Despite setbacks, she stubbornly persists in her goal and eventually frees Kyo and her friends. In the last chapter, she begins moving with Kyo to another city so he can continue his martial arts training, and in the final pages they are shown as a loving elderly couple with a granddaughter.

Yuki is the rat of the Chinese zodiac. Yuki is depicted as an attractive, reserved, and accomplished young man with many admirers, but who finds being friendly difficult. When Yuki was young, Akito Sohma kept him isolated and convinced him no one liked him; because of this, Yuki has low self-esteem and feels isolated. He is known as "Prince Yuki" and "Prince Charming" at school, where he has a fan club headed by Motoko Minagawa that tries to "protect" him from other admirers, with the result that Yuki is further isolated, and he is pressured by his popularity to become president of the student council despite his misgivings. Yuki, however, wishes that he could be with people as friends, rather than be admired from afar, and envies both Kyo Sohma's and Kakeru Manabe's easy ways with others. He is touched when, faced with the prospect of having her memory of the Sohma family secret erased, Tohru Honda asks that he remain her friend, which no one had asked him before. With Tohru's help Yuki is gradually able to "open the lid" on his feelings, and the summer after she begins living in Shigure's house, Yuki admits to himself that he loves her.

When Yuki was around six or seven years old, he ran away from Akito and was the one who returned Tohru to her mother when she was lost. For that, Yuki has always had fond feelings for Tohru for actually "needing" him. However, he later admits to Manabe that he was looking for a mother-figure and found her in Tohru. As the rat, Yuki despises the current cat, Kyo, despite envying him, and is contemptuous of his attempts to defeat him. Even when he recognizes the true nature of his feelings for Tohru, Yuki is uncomfortable when he recognizes her and Kyo's growing feelings for each other. Yuki becomes attracted to Machi Kuragi, a student council secretary who also had a traumatic childhood, and falls in love with her. When he knows that Kyo will be confessing to Tohru that he loves her, Yuki meets with Machi, and is with her when his curse lifts, whereupon the first thing he does is embrace her. In the last chapter, he gives Machi a key to his new apartment, where he will be living as he attends university.

Kyo is cursed by the cat, an animal not in the Chinese zodiac but which legend says would have been if it had not been tricked by the rat into missing the induction feast (see Zodiac origin stories). He is depicted as an orange-haired young man who is short-tempered and charismatic, if initially awkward around people; Arisa Uotani once calls him "anger management boy," and Yuki Sohma expresses envy of his ability to make friends easily. He is also fiercely competetive, and can be easily manipulated into doing things he does not want to by turning it into a competition—especially against Yuki. As the cat, Kyo hates Yuki, the current rat of the zodiac, who he sees as never having to work hard at anything, and has dedicated his life to defeating him. Shortly before the series beginning, Kyo made a bet with Akito: if he defeats Yuki before graduating high school, he would officially be accepted as part of the zodiac; however, if he does not, Kyo would be confined inside the Sohma estate for the rest of his life. Despite many months of strict training, however, Kyo never lands a decent blow on Yuki. Their rivalry distresses Tohru, who likes them both, but she comes to worry even more when they do not fight. The two eventually tell each other, during an argument, they envy as well as despise each other and come to a truce for Tohru's sake.

At the start of the story, Kyo moves into Shigure's house with Yuki and Tohru. When Kyo was young, his mother died in an accident rumored to be suicide over her son's curse, and after his father rejected him, Kyo was taken in by Kazuma Sohma. The two love each other as father and son, but Kazuma insists he continue to live with Shigure because he believes Tohru is helping him open up. Aside from his foster father, however, Kyo runs away from the people who want to help him, because he is ashamed of his true form—a grotesque, foul-smelling, larger version of his zodiac animal—which he turns into when his bone juzu bead bracelet is removed. When Tohru sees his true form, however, she is initially repulsed but follows him to beg him stay with her, which strengthens their bond. However, Kyo also blames himself for the death of Tohru's mother, whom he could have saved at the risk of turning into a cat, and he was shaken by Kyoko's last words, "I'll never forgive you..." As the story progresses, Kyo falls in love with Tohru, but he refuses to subject her to the pain he is convinced he will cause, so when she confesses she loves him, he calls her "delusional." Only when Uotani, Hanajima, and Yuki impress upon him how deeply his rejection hurt Tohru does he get up the courage to accept her, and when he does finally confess to her, his curse lifts—along with the rest of the zodiac. In the last chapter, he and Tohru begin moving out of Shigure's house to another city, where he will study at another dojo in preparation for inheriting Kazuma's, and in the final pages they are shown as a loving couple with a grandaughter.

Production notes

Series title

The title of the series is taken from a children's game, , in which the participants sit in a circle, and the leader of the game names each person after a type of fruit; when the name of a child's fruit is called, that child gets up and has to find a new seat. When the protagonist, Tohru Honda first plays this game in kindergarten, she is assigned "Onigiri" (rice ball), by her cruel classmates, but she does not mind because she thinks onigiri are delicious. Once the game is finished, and all of the children but Tohru are called, Tohru realizes that onigiri are not a type of fruit at all, and she realizes that she does not belong. Tohru comes to associate this game with the Sohma family, and that she does not fit in among them any more than an onigiri does in a basket of fruit. In volume 1 of the manga, after Yuki and Kyo bring Tohru home from her grandfather's house, she begins to feel like she belongs with the Sohma family. After this, she imagines herself as a child hearing "Onigiri" called in the game, symbolizing that she has finally found her place.

Character names

Natsuki Takaya named most of the twelve Sohmas cursed by zodiac animals after an archaic names of month in the former Japanese lunisolar calendar that corresponds to their zodiac animal. The exceptions are Kureno and Momiji, whose names were swapped by mistake; Kyo, who as the cat is not part of the official zodiac; and Yuki.

Reception

The Fruits Basket manga series is one of the top manga series in both Japan and in the US. More than 18 million copies have been sold in Japan making it the second best selling shōjo manga series in Japan. It is Tokyopop's best selling manga series, with more than 2 million copies sold. The fifteenth volume of the English release rose to the 15th position on the USA Today Top 150 Bestselling Books, which is the highest position ever achieved by a volume of manga in the United States. The eighteenth volume debuted at the top of the Nielsen BookScan sales list, while the nineteenth volume was the second bestselling graphic novel in March 2008. Despite a slow manga market, Fruits Basket remained the second highest overall selling manga series among the Bookscan companies in 2007.

Critics have praised the overall story in Fruits Basket as being intellectual, with even the relatively light-hearted first volume giving hints at something darker in the background that makes the reader "question everything that happens." Some felt the series was getting close to overloading readers with angst in later volumes, and questioned the credulity of the sheer number of bad parents in the series. As one reviewer noted: "in the world of Fruits Basket, good parents are as common as penguins in the Sahara—every single one is either neglectful, smothering, unfeeling, abusive, misguided, or dead." Takaya manages to balance the series' comedic elements with the more dramatic and heartbreaking moments, making it a captivating and engaging story.

Takaya's artwork is considered to be more than artistically appealing, with Takaya's skills in detailed art, shadowing, and shading allowing her to convey the character's moods and emotions without the character having any dialog at all.

The Fruits Basket anime adaptation has also been well received, ranking third in Anihabara's list of top televised anime series in Japan for February 2002. In the June 2002 issue of Animage magazine, the series was first in a list of the best twenty anime series in Japan. In 2006, five years after the series finished airing in Japan, it was 93rd in TV Asahi's list of Japan's 100 favorite animated TV series.

Though it only covers part of the manga, critics felt the ending brought the story to a good stopping point while making it clear that there was much left for the Sohma and Tohru to deal with, including the curse and Tohru's future choice between Kyo and Yuki. Though some felt the plot was lacking in development, they also praised the series for the strength of its character relationships.

In April 2005 Funimation Entertainment started a project calling for convention attendees to help them fold 1000 origami paper cranes. In Japanese folklore, folding 1000 paper cranes would grant someone a wish. When they had at least 1000 cranes, Funimation sent the cranes and pictures of the events to Studio Deen and Hakusensha to try to convince the company to produce a second season of the Fruits Basket anime. Fans successfully folded the minimal of 1000 cranes by the end of the 2005 convention season, however at this time, there is still no sign that a second season of the anime series will be forthcoming.

Awards

The Fruits Basket manga received the 2001 Kodansha Manga Award in the shōjo manga category and the "Best Manga" award at the 2007 American Anime Awards.

In 2001, the Fruits Basket anime won a Animage Anime Grand Prix award.

Media

Manga

The 136 chapters of Fruits Basket were originally serialized in Japan by Hakusensha in Hana to Yume from January 1999 to November 2006. These were collected in 23 tankōbon volumes, with the final volume published in Japan on March 19, 2007.

The series is licensed in English in North America and the United Kingdom by Tokyopop and in Singapore by Chuang Yi. The Singapore edition is licensed to be imported to Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. As of June 2008, 20 volumes have been released in North America and all 23 in Singapore. In addition, Tokyopop released a box set containing the first four volumes in October 2007, and started re-releasing earlier volumes in "Ultimate Editions" combining two sequential volumes in a single larger hard-cover volume with new cover art. The first Ultimate Edition release met with mixed reviews, however, because they exactly reproduce the first two volumes without correcting changed page numbers or prior errors. As of June 2008, three Ultimate Editions have been released, covering the first six volumes of the series.

Chuang Yi also publishes in Singapore a Simplified Chinese edition as well as English. In Europe, Fruits Basket is licensed in French by Delcourt, in Spanish by Norma Editorial, in Italian by Dynit, in Dutch by Glénat, in German and Swedish by Carlsen Comics, in Finnish by Sangatsu Manga, and in Polish by Japonica Polonica Fantastica. In Latin America, Editorial Vid has released the complete series in Mexico in Spanish, and Editora JBC began releasing a Portuguese translation in Brazil in April 2005.

Anime

Directed by Akitaro Daichi, the twenty-six episode Fruits Basket anime series was animated and produced by Studio DEEN. It premiered on TV Tokyo on July 5, 2001, with the final episode airing on December 27, 2001. The series aired in France on France 4 and in Spain on Buzz Channel. FUNimation aired the series, in dubbed English, on their anime television channel as well as on Colours TV.

The series was released in Japan in nine individual DVD volumes by King Records, with each volume containing three episodes except for the first volume, which contained two. The first volume was released on September 29, 2001, with subsequent volumes released on a monthly basis until the final volume was released on May 22, 2002. A series box set was released on April 25, 2007, containing all twenty-six episodes, as well a message card from Natsuki Takaya, a 60-page deluxe booklet, and a bonus Fruits Basket CD soundtrack.

The series is licensed for Region 1 DVD release by FUNimation Entertainment, which released it in the form of four individual volumes containing 6-7 episodes and a complete series box set. On November 20, 2007, FUNimation re-released the series as part of their lower priced Viridian line, with the new release containing the complete series in a thin-packed box set. In the United Kingom, FUNimation originally distributed the series through MVM Entertainment, but then changed distributors in November 2006 to Revelation Films. Revelation re-released the four individual volumes under their label. They also released the series box set on January 22, 2007. In Region 4, the series was released as a complete series box set by Madman Entertainment on October 15, 2003.

Other

In 1999 the magazine Hana to Yume released a special Fruits Basket drama CD which had a four chapter original story and short talk sections between each section. Released before the anime came out, this CD had a completely different seiyū cast. The CD was a promotional item with a limited run and is now unavailable.

Natsuki Takaya has created one art book and two fan books for Fruits Basket. The art book, containing 101 pages of illustrations, was published by Hakusensha on April 16, 2004. The first fan book, , which contained 192 pages of story summaries, character biographies, and activities, was published in Japan on May 19, 2005. Tokyopop released it in English on September 11, 2007. The second fan book, , was published in Japan on March 19, 2007 and contained 187 pages.

Fruits Basket has also resulted in the creation of a variety of merchandise, including plushies of the various zodiac animals, wall calendars, clothing items, key chains, wall scrolls, buttons, figurines, and school supplies. A collectible card game based on the series was also created and published by Score Entertainment which can be used for playing Dai Hin Min as well as other games.