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) Yuki is the Sohma clan member who carries the curse of the Rat. If a girl hugs him or he feels ill, he transforms into a rat. When he was little, some friends were over and a girl hugged him. He transformed, revealing the Sohma secret. His uncle erased their memories. To this day, Yuki avoids contact with girls, which is difficult since most girls love his princely good looks.
But Machi. In Season 2 we see some girls bullying her because she says Yuki is not princely and is an airhead. Yuki overhears her and is shocked. She also says he seems lonely. She is spot on. He's shocked about that too, almost as if she has seen into the part of him that no one else sees, even family. In an earlier epsiode in Season 1, we witness Yuki confessing to Torhu that sometimes he is jealous of Kyou for his easy familiarity with other people and his ability to easily make friends. Yuki was tormented by the head of the Sohma clan (Akito Sohma, the "God" figure of the curse) for years. He can't help but notice Machi has issues with order. Machi's father is a rich man with a wife and a mistress who fight over which kid will inherit. She was caught trying to cover the new baby up (she thought he was cold) and her parents accused her of trying to smother him. They got the teenage Machi an apartment where she lives alone now. She messes up her place, breaks windows, throws boxes of perfect pieces of chalk, messes up the school room where the student council meet, stomps muddy bootprints into perfect new fallen snow. Anything to be "imperfect." Yuki gently confronts her with this, and sobbing, Machi confesses how trying to be perfect for her parents made her anxious and ill. Yuki promises to walk with her in the snow to make footprints. (NOTE: an ironic thing is that "Yuki," is Japanese for "snow." Later, at a student council meeting, someone declares it's not their turn to do notes on the chalkboard and puts the opened box of clean, new chalk in front of Machi. We can see her beginning to lose it, when Yuki (who is addressing the council and seated next to Machi), reaches over without breaking his talk to the council, and breaks one piece of chalk. Machi, surprised, calms down and begins to ask within herself if he will really walk in the snow with her and thinks how this is the first time she has ever wished for snow. Just as Kyo and Torhu were meant to be, as the "outcasts," the "rice balls in the titular fruits basket," Yuki and Machi were meant to be as the "imperfectly tormented" tying, and failing, to be perfect for others. Yuki has reached the stage where he is no longer trying to be perfect for others, thanks to the help of Torhu. Now, he perhaps sees a chance to help someone else facing the same torment. Torhru was meant to help Kyo heal. And Yuki was meant to help Machi heal. NOTE: this was my first Fruits Basket review from a month+ ago. As I go along, I will post mini-essays on the characters and the plot of Fruits Basket. I knew these two were meant for one another from the titular episode "Rice Ball in a Fruits Basket." That episode was also the one where I knew that every episode from then on would leave me in a puddle of feels. I will also do an essay on that episode, as a standalone post with the subject of "black sheep and fitting in." I'm enjoying season 3, the final season of anime's most dysfunctional family...the zodiac cursed Sohma family. I have cried 10 times so far and we are only on episode 3. Ep 2 really got me in the dang feels. Fruits Basket Final Season-mini review. Torhu just found out that one member of the Sohma family managed to break the curse...she's not sure she should tell any of the others...but when she decides to, it would be her crush Kyo, the twice-cursed cat (Kyo doesn't just turn into a cute orange kitty when hugged by the opposite sex or when he is sick...when you remove the sealing beads he wears around his wrist he turns into a monster). Kyo, not used to dealing with people, or dealing with her (the crushing is mutual but there will be a whole lot more drama and tears before either of them can admit it) brushes her off. Torhru gets upset but not for the reasons Kyo thinks. Then Kyo gets upset because he thinks he's made her sad. Then... this is the best scene of the season so far. The flower. Goddess, has someone seen my heart? These two just stole it. The way he looks at her! *swoons |
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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