Some people don't seem to fit in anywhere. At home, at school, on the job. Outcasts. Black sheep. Bullied and shunned. This was the first episode going in this early that broke me. This soon. Realizing that Torhu, as beautiful and sweet as she is, has people in her life who actually cannot see how beautiful and sweet and kind she is. Her kind grandfather is the only remnant of her father's side of the family who treats her well. The rest of them treat her like a pile of dog crap they stepped in with their best Sunday shoes on. It's painful to watch. Her father died when she was a tiny girl, and since her mother died the previous year, she puts up with these other assholes (aunt, uncle and shitty cousins) to be around her kind grandpa. So she leaves the Sohma house when the renovations are done to move back in and these jerks have also moved back in and are treating Torhu as if she's not welcome there. The whole story when she is packing up to leave the Sohma's of the childhood game "Fruits Basket" and the children naming her the "Rice Ball" so that she never gets picked to go play with them and her saying it figures since she doesn't belong, is heartbreaking. This is also the episode where one comes to the realization that Tohru and Kyo have a whole helluva lot in common. They are both "black sheep of their families." Well, in Kyo's case an orange cat (and something terrifyingly more, as we find out in a later episode) and in Torhu's case, a "Rice Ball in a Fruits Basket." Being accepted into a family and feeling family love or romantic love is probably the apex of human happiness, and Torhu begins to feel both here: family love probably with Yuki and Shigure and probably the stirrings of romantic love for Kyo. I swear, the first time I watched this, back in 2009 (the old anime) and the boys came and got her from the asshole place with Yuki telling them off for being mean to her, and they walk away, and the scene from childhood pops in her head with the kids shouting "RICE BALL!" I fucking lost it...and sat bawling at least for thirty solid minutes. I think anyone who has been through similar situations in childhood (I was shunned for a whole school term in high school, except for two close friends) and to this day I do not know why) would seriously relate to this episode. The review below is from the 2009 series, but the episodes are pretty much the same for the first season. I like the 2019 series better, but I could not find a really good review on it that showed the emotions it provokes. This reviewer captures it well.
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Exceptions to the Forms of the Curse and Manifestations:Fruits Basket ended this past week, but I'm still going to post about it, and as soon as the box set comes out on BluRay, I'll be signing up for early purchase. The Sohma Clan is a family cursed for generations to turn into the Chinese zodiac animals when hugged by the opposite sex or when their bodies are weakened by cold or illness. There are a few exceptions to the curse forms and their manifestations (some members have different forms and abilities than what you'd anticipate). This particular generation is the first time that all of the zodiac forms have been living at the same time, which is why Hatsuharu Sohma speculated in one episode that the curse will break in this generation. Affection Between Two Zodiac Members: While a zodiac member will transform if hugged by a non-cursed member of the opposite sex. male and female members of the zodiac can hug one another without transforming. No one knows why this is. These may be why a a couple of the Sohma cousins fall in love and have relationships (despite the violent protests of the God of the curse). Memory Erasure: This is a special ability manifested in the Dragon (seahorse) form, currently residing in Sohma Hatori. He can put his hand over someone's eyes and cause them to lose certain memories of events or people. He used this on Yuki's classmates when at a party on the Sohma compound, a girl grabbed him and he changed into rat and they saw it. He used it on Momiji's mother when she wanted to forget him (and giving birth to him--more on him later) and most tragic of all, he used it on his own girlfriend after Akito Sohma flew into a rage and injured Hatori's eye, then blamed the girlfriend for it. Kana, the girlfriend was filled with so much sorrow and depression, she couldn't eat, so Hatori, regardless of how much he loved her, erased her memories of him. The seahorse is the form the curse takes in the dragon zodiac member. I believe the manga said it because dragons do not exist in the human world. The "God" Form of the Curse: As int he original myth (see the last post on plot), there is a person who bears the curse of the God form. That person currently is Akito Sohma. Whew! What can I say about Akito? FruBa fans feel either one of two ways about Akito...either Akito is the biggest asshole or is the most psychotic messed-up tragic character of the whole damn series. I lean toward a little of both. In Akito's mind, the Zodiac's are born for her to dominate and control, and she tries to do just that. Akito wants to possess (mentally and sexually) all of the male family members (except the young ones, though they are still jealous over them), except for Kyo. She used to cling to Shigure, until Shigure moved out. Now she clings to Kureno and won't let him near the other Zodiacs, for fear they might discover he is now different (more on him later). All of the previous Zodiac Gods had been male, so her mother forced her to grow up as a male, with her true gender hidden, which made her even more psychotic and crazy. She ruthlessly attacks any of the female members who get too close to a male member (Kagura was the only one to escape this, because she liked Kyou, the outcast Cat). The Cat Form as a Shunned Figure for the Other Zodiacs to Feel Relief from their Own Curse: Kyou has it bad, no doubt about it. As the Cat of the Zodiac, he's not even one of the celebrated yearly members who gets invited to the banquet every New Years that commemorates the first banquet between God and the animals...the first banquet that turned into the Curse. Kyou gets treated with disgust by Akito (the current God incarnation) and she torments him with the fact that like the preceding Cat-possessed Sohma's before him, he'll be imprisoned on the Sohma compound in a special cell once he graduates high school. He has a second, foul-smelling, ugly and monstrous form that he transforms into once his sealing bead bracelet is removed. He feels shunned by some of the other members of the Zodiac, but mostly he misreads it awkward pity. The end-point one takes from the message of the original scene with the God on the Hill, the message that everyone forgot over generations, was that the cat was originally the first animal God loved. The Cat Monster (Baki-Neko) Form of the Cat Form:If all of the above isn't enough, Kyou's curse comes with an extra next-level fucked-up level of fucked-up not-fair-bullshit. So you can begin to understand that the boy is not an unruly asshole with a tendency toward violence, but a tragic, shunned, black sheep, loner, guilt-ridden about his mother's suicide (and made to feel the blame for it by others simply for being the Cat form). The only person in his life who has treated him warmly is his martial arts trainer, Kazuma Sohma. This is because of Kazuma's own guilt at having treated his grandfather, the previous bearer of the Cat curse, with disdain and fear, even though he remembered his grandfather as being a kindhearted man, locked away in the Sohma prison cell. He wanted something better for Kyou, so he took him in. In episode 24, we see him watching Kyou and Tohru walking together from a distance and Kyou smiling at Torhtu. Later, when he is introduced to Torhu, Kyou is seated on the floor and he covers his bead bracelet with his hand, hiding it. A suspicious move, and one that the viewer doesn't realize will suddenly turn the show from a story about a family who turn into cute zodiac animals into something infinitely more terrifying. Kagura had hinted about Kyou's "true form" in an earlier episode... in this one, we see it. Kazuma tells Kyou he can't continue to run from it and they need to see if he really doesn't have a life after revealing it to Tohru...the one person who he doesn't want to see him as a monster. Once again, the only good YT I could find were other people's reviews of the episode, so I watched a bunch and picked a really good one. I think it gives you a good idea of how this anime springs the dark side of this story on its viewers. The Current Sohma Zodiac Members: (see the video below for all of their transformations, with the exception of Kureno, whose curse was broken before his character was introduced). Kyou - Cat Yuki - Rat Shigure - Dog Momiji - Rabbit Hatori - Dragon (Seahorse) Hatsuharu (Haru) - Ox (Cow) Ayame - Snake Ritsu - Monkey Kisa - Tiger Hiro - Ram (Sheep) Isuzu - Horse Kureno - Rooster (Bird) Fruits Basket is a shoujo (girls adventure) anime. That means it has a romance element. It aldo has a paranormal element in that it involves a family cursed through several generations. When the first episode begins, the first scene you see is a Japanese-style house on a giant hill. Inside a human male figure is seated in the middle of a circle, and the circle is made by what appear to be the animals of the Chinese zodiac surrounding the man. A male voice says: "I'll hold another banquet. I'll hold banquet after banquet, forever unchanging." Then it ends the opening scene with the words "The original memory...forgotten by everyone," as a tear slides down the face of the cat sitting on the lap of the white-haired man. Then Fruits Basket begins. The story follows the main character of Honda Torhu (in English it would be Torhu Honda, but Japanese people do Last Name First, First Name Last). She is recently homeless and living in a tent in a seemingly uninhabited area in the woods after her mother passed away a year before and her grandfather was getting his house remodeled. She is walking to school when she sees a house down below and is curious, so she investigates. On the porch of the house are miniature figures of the twelve animals of the zodiac. She ponders them and says "I thought so...there's no cat." She is overheard by an man who appears to be in his thirties. He asks her what she means and she tells him the story of the zodiac as told by her mother. This is a popular myth in Japan (probably due to their historic love for cats). Torhru relates: "Long ago, God told all the animals he was throwing a banquet tomorrow, and not to be late. The mischievous rat told his neighbor, the cat, that the banquet was the day after tomorrow. So, the next day, all the animals lined up for the banquet, and the rat rode there all the way on the ox's back. All the animals had fun, except for the cat, who was at home sleeping and dreaming for a banquet that would never come." Tohru remembers crying and saying she wanted to exchange her year of the Dog for the year of the Cat. The man says "Hmmmm.... I wonder what he would think if he heard that?" Then around the corner pops her classmate, the good-looking prince of her high school, Yuki Sohma who lives in this house with this man, his uncle, Shigure Sohma. Yuki walks with Torhu to school that morning, and that's that. Except it isn't. Later in the evening, Shigure and Yuki are taking a walk on the property where they live when they spot the tent where Tohru has been living (illegally on their land, unknowingly, of course) and they see Tohru who is tired after working part-time as a cleaner in an office building go in the tent. She is startled when she emerges with a washcloth and towel to go to the creek to wash up and sees them. Shigure bursts out laughing, but Yuki has nothing but compassion for his poor classmate. They take her to their home where she tells the story of her being recently orphaned with her mom getting killed by a car and being temporarily homeless because she did not want to put her relatives out (we later find out what assholes they are) because they apparently barely had enough room for Tohru's sweet grandpa while the house was being renovated (later the asshole family all move in with grandpa, leaving nowhere for Torhu, but we'll do that episode at a later time as it is an important one). Torhu insists she must return to the tent and asks for them to please let her stay there on the land until the house is finished being renovated, but then we see Shigure cock his head and listens and in the distance, a wolf howls. He says it's not a good idea as the area has had a landslide. Tohru asks how he knows, and Shigure responds with some mumbling about animal instinct, which captures Yuki's attention. Tohru, worried about her mother's picture, tried to get up, but collapses from an exhausted fever. Yuki brings an ice pack (because the kitchen is too nasty for Shigure), walking in on Tohru telling Shigure that she regrets not telling her mother "See you later, take care (Itterasshai)" an indication that she is blaming herself for her mother's death. Yuki comments as he begins to leave the house that she is always like that, only thinking of others. Shigure asks if he is going to go and try and dig Torhu's things out by himself. As he opens the door and is framed by the dark doorway, we see his eyes glowing and behind him are hundreds, maybe thousands of rats, as he says "Who me? Alone? Who do you think you're talking to?" Then he says "I'm leaving now (Ittekimasu)" and Shigure replies "Itterasshai." When Tohrhu comes to all of her belongings are there (including her mom's picture) and Shigure and Yuki offer her a place to live in exchange for housekeeping and cooking (it turns out the two men are terrible at it, as evidenced by the filthy, fly-infested kitchen). Later, after Yuki shows Torhu her new room, we hear a commotion on the roof and it caves in. When the dust clears, an orange-haired boy is standing in front of Torhu pumping his fists at Yuki and calling him "rat boy." When he charges at Yuki to attack him, he slips and Torhru reaches out to keep him from falling...she puts her arms around him... AND POOF! There's a flash of orange cloud and Torhu comes up sitting... Holding a brightly colored, and very angry, orange cat. That is the first meeting of Honda Torhu and and Kyo Sohma. It doesn't get off to a good start, but it does get better, with lots and LOTS of tears. This is the first part of my explanation of the curse of the Sohmas, and the plot of Fruits Basket. The second one will be coming in a few days, where I will tell about each Sohma member's curse. |
anime n' mangaI blog about a lot of regular, harmless sci-fi and fantasy anime n' manga, but I'll throw the occasional yaoi n' yuri (gay) posts in here. 'Cus I like that shit too. archives
December 2021
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