Fruits Basket manga!!!
Jul. 23rd, 2012 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerYAY the other library has the complete run of the Fruits Basket manga! (My hometown has two libraries. This is because my hometown is actually two towns, grown together like a delicious mutant strawberry.)
This is excellent, because apparently the Fruits Basket anime only covers the first half of the manga. No wonder the anime has such a strangely inconclusive ending! It's not actually a bad ending - it puts an important thematic cap on the season - but it does leave dangling basically every loose end that could possibly dangle.
What do I love about Fruits Basket? The fact that it is pure, distilled JOY, that's what. The conceit of the story is that the Sohma family is under a curse: some of its members turn into (totally adorable) Chinese zodiac animals when they're hugged by a person of the opposite sex.
Naturally, our heroine Tohru stumbles onto their house and accidentally hugs someone almost immediately, because she's just such a huggy person, always over-brimming with optimism. Seriously EPIC OPTIMISM. When we first meet her, she's all "I am living in a tent! Because my mother recently died and I have nowhere else to stay! Marching off to high school now! THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS!"
Later on, Kyo - the cat who is not allowed to be part of the zodiac - tells Tohru, in a moment of unwonted gentleness, that it's all right if she's sad sometimes. That people will still like her if she sometimes complains. Her beloved mother just died (Tohru's relationship with her mother is one of my favorite things about Fruits Basket - I have a lot of favorite things about Fruits Basket - it deserves its own post), so she's carrying a lot of pain, but she's still so upbeat. She's so kind, and so strong: I adore her.
Also I adore Kyo. Kyo is MADE OF ANGER and is constantly challenging Yuki, the zodiac rat, to fights, which Kyo always loses. Kyo is strangely incompetent at everything martial despite being MADE OF ANGER. Or possibly because he's MADE OF ANGER. Maybe there's a lesson here about it being easier to win things when you aren't blinded by fury? Anyway, he's basically the definition of tsundere - I feel that English should borrow this word, because it's so useful. Angry characters with secretly soft and squishy feelings! Hello, all my favorite characters ever! Veronica Mars! Jaye Tyler! Gaia Moore!
Anyway, Kyo's general tsundere-ness, hair-trigger temper, and instinctively negative reaction to everything make him a terrible romantic partner for Tohru. But...I nonetheless find Tohru/Kyo much more interesting than Tohru/Yuki, although Tohru and Yuki would clearly make a better couple because they're so similar. "More healthy" is not necessarily the same as "more interesting" in story terms.
Tohru is more outgoing, while Yuki has a bit of an Ice Prince thing going on - seriously, they call him "the Prince" at his high school - is this a common thing at Japanese high schools, calling some student or other the Prince? Because I just watched Princess Tutu (which I also mean to write about! Naturally I am ALL ABOUT Fakir) and there's also a character called the Prince, who in that case is literally a prince, but his classmates don't know that.
But, though Tohru's outgoing and Yuki's reserved, they're both kind and thoughtful underneath. They would make a great couple, a wonderful partnership.
Only, couldn't Tohru and Kyo have a whirlwind romance first? Which burns like a firework while it lasts, and ends in a beautiful explosion?
Maybe it will happen! I have the whole second half of the story to read in the manga! :D :D :D
This is excellent, because apparently the Fruits Basket anime only covers the first half of the manga. No wonder the anime has such a strangely inconclusive ending! It's not actually a bad ending - it puts an important thematic cap on the season - but it does leave dangling basically every loose end that could possibly dangle.
What do I love about Fruits Basket? The fact that it is pure, distilled JOY, that's what. The conceit of the story is that the Sohma family is under a curse: some of its members turn into (totally adorable) Chinese zodiac animals when they're hugged by a person of the opposite sex.
Naturally, our heroine Tohru stumbles onto their house and accidentally hugs someone almost immediately, because she's just such a huggy person, always over-brimming with optimism. Seriously EPIC OPTIMISM. When we first meet her, she's all "I am living in a tent! Because my mother recently died and I have nowhere else to stay! Marching off to high school now! THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS!"
Later on, Kyo - the cat who is not allowed to be part of the zodiac - tells Tohru, in a moment of unwonted gentleness, that it's all right if she's sad sometimes. That people will still like her if she sometimes complains. Her beloved mother just died (Tohru's relationship with her mother is one of my favorite things about Fruits Basket - I have a lot of favorite things about Fruits Basket - it deserves its own post), so she's carrying a lot of pain, but she's still so upbeat. She's so kind, and so strong: I adore her.
Also I adore Kyo. Kyo is MADE OF ANGER and is constantly challenging Yuki, the zodiac rat, to fights, which Kyo always loses. Kyo is strangely incompetent at everything martial despite being MADE OF ANGER. Or possibly because he's MADE OF ANGER. Maybe there's a lesson here about it being easier to win things when you aren't blinded by fury? Anyway, he's basically the definition of tsundere - I feel that English should borrow this word, because it's so useful. Angry characters with secretly soft and squishy feelings! Hello, all my favorite characters ever! Veronica Mars! Jaye Tyler! Gaia Moore!
Anyway, Kyo's general tsundere-ness, hair-trigger temper, and instinctively negative reaction to everything make him a terrible romantic partner for Tohru. But...I nonetheless find Tohru/Kyo much more interesting than Tohru/Yuki, although Tohru and Yuki would clearly make a better couple because they're so similar. "More healthy" is not necessarily the same as "more interesting" in story terms.
Tohru is more outgoing, while Yuki has a bit of an Ice Prince thing going on - seriously, they call him "the Prince" at his high school - is this a common thing at Japanese high schools, calling some student or other the Prince? Because I just watched Princess Tutu (which I also mean to write about! Naturally I am ALL ABOUT Fakir) and there's also a character called the Prince, who in that case is literally a prince, but his classmates don't know that.
But, though Tohru's outgoing and Yuki's reserved, they're both kind and thoughtful underneath. They would make a great couple, a wonderful partnership.
Only, couldn't Tohru and Kyo have a whirlwind romance first? Which burns like a firework while it lasts, and ends in a beautiful explosion?
Maybe it will happen! I have the whole second half of the story to read in the manga! :D :D :D
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no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:33 am (UTC)I liked--have you come to this yet--"When snow melts, what does it become?"
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:50 am (UTC)And I totally agree about the love triangle! Usually I hate them, because you can kind of feel the writers pulling for one half of the love triangle, but not so much here.
One thing I really liked about the anime is that when it ends, the love triangle isn't resolved: Tohru's still good friends with both guys and not going out with either of them. I felt like it captured one of those often fleeting but nonetheless beautiful moments where a relationship is in a perfect, delicate harmony.
On the other hand, I think she probably does end up with one of the guys in the manga, and much as I liked the inconclusive ending I'm also totally curious to see how it shakes out.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-24 02:53 am (UTC)