Fruits Basket

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I find that there are people who absolutely love (this seems to be the majority) Furuba or people who can't stand it.

I believe that it's hard not to like Furuba. At first I thought it was just going to be funny, because the first 7 or so volumes are full of hilarious scenes (mainly because whenever the Juunishi are hugged by the opposite sex, they change!). But once you get to volume 6 everything seems to start to gravitate in a different direction.

The story line, when it's revealed, is a little cliche in my opinion. Hence the rate of a 9. Don't get ... me wrong, its a beautiful story and one I find myself learning from over and over again no matter how many times I read it. It's about growing up and becoming who you're meant to be and finding the reason why you were born. It's almost hard to believe sometimes, the pain the characters have to go through in Furuba. But I'm so engrossed in each pain that it's not something that can be put down easily.

The characters are the winning point in Furuba. In reality they'd be a bunch of loners, depressing and sad. And just about every one of them is believable. Their personalities range from overtly happy (meaning there hiding the pain) to stubborn as a horse (go figure) and just down right conceited (he knows who he is). Even 'God' too. The growth of each of them is stunning and gorgeous and reading them grow is like watching the sun rise on a rainy day. I've laughed obnoxiously, cried until my chest hurt and felt the red hot burn of hatred while reading this manga. My favorite character is Kyo because he's absolutely adorable and I think I would also try to solve everything with anger myself. And the one character that I hated and grew to love was Yuki because he, in my opinion, is the one who grows the most. The one problem I have though is our main character. I love and I hate Tohru Honda. It's hard to place into words, what Tohru is. Because she becomes everything at once. A mother, a sister, a friend, a confident, a hero and the reason for someone else's life. But she's also the saddest girl I have ever seen. Bottled up with the most horrifying feelings. Even in the beginning it's obvious. Losing your mother would tear anyone's heart it two. I love her and what she does for everyone in the story. Because if I were to meet her myself, I think I would react much as all the Zodiac do. I would treat her as if she were the sun itself. But where, but in a manga, do you find someone so selfless.

The enjoyment I had and continue to have for this manga is absolute. I own every single volume and I'll pick up one all the time and just read it. There's a lesson in every chapter and words, that even though I don't think anyone in the real world has the heart to say, that make me want to become a better person. Someone who would give and give and give and ask for nothing in return. It makes me want to smile. To be the reason that someone else could smile. It makes me want to to the rock that someone can stand on. It's hard to read this manga and not feel ashamed for something you've done. It makes me ashamed to feel that I don't do as Tohru does. Which is why I believe that everyone should read this manga. Because it's heartwarming, sad, and where life continues to grow.

Story: There really is no plot. There is one single idea that tends to drive on the story, but I felt that it was too forced. Throughout much of the series, the characters don't even focus on this one problem that just barely manages to bind together the series.
Art: Although ,it's not the best I've seen, it's still pretty good. The art is clean and has originality. These kinds of drawings are fun to look at.
Character: This is one of the reasons why I dislike this manga more than others. Let's discuss the main character first. Honda is just too perfect. There is no human ... on earth that can possibly posses 0 bad traits. Characters that have faults are more fun to read about. They make the story more enjoyable and more realistic. Honda is just way too perfect for me to like.
Enjoyment: I enjoyed most of the story. I loved the humor and the interactions between the characters.
Overall: It would be a 6 (fine)

So here I'm about to pan one of the most-loved manga series of all time, what am I thinking...

I think the reason I have such a negative opinion of this series is because it is so fundamentally wrong on so many levels. But the largest is that it's a story of abuse, abuse, and more abuse; abuse as the default of human interactions; abuse carried through the generations; abuse that carries the weight of some kind of vast karmic mystery. And that's revolting.

Caution: while I will try to avoid spoilers, it's possible that I'll give something away as I will discuss plot in what follows.

It ... shouldn't take long for the reader to realize that this is one of those stories where incomprehensible painful circumstances are meted out to all characters indiscriminately. Our heroine Tohru is recently orphaned; and thrown out of her house by her grandfather, because his family doesn't like her. So she's living in a tent in the woods.

Cheerfully.

COME ON. This is a straight-up Stepford Smiler routine. If you ever meet someone who is this relentlessly cheerful under these circumstances, sleep with one eye open, because that is some INTENSE baggage, most especially to be dumping on a 14-year-old! With no support structure! Tohru's smile ought to be hiding profound psychological agony; Tohru's unrelenting smile should suggest to all that she has some serious unaddressed issues. But no, her principal characteristic is that she truly does love and forgive everyone, even when she ought to be torching the place. This also establishes early a central theme of the series, which is that extended family exists to torment everyone.

Soon we meet the other family that will be the focus of the series, a large, wealthy, extended family straight out of a semi-feudal society. Which is itself made up of a bunch of smaller family groups, all of which have been torn apart by a karmic curse that exists for Reasons and which pretty much everybody would like to break, but nobody knows how. (Don't worry, reader! By the end of the series, nobody will still know how--although the Power of Plot Compels It, so I suppose there's that.) We also meet the two live-in love interests, a pretty-boy sweetheart who's too shy to look you in the eye, and an Angry Young Man. Of the former: well, that shyness is largely because of the abusive environment in which he was raised, with inappropriate relationships and responsibilities thrust upon him immediately, and rejection by his actual family; to the extent that he's suffering from learned helplessness and unable to make his own decisions. Of the latter, we can at least say that he is portraying a much more realistic response to abuse than Tohru does: he's been threatened, made to claim responsibility for things that he did not do, physically abused, socially rejected, and generally tortured his whole life; and his response is, understandably, to inflict that pain right back on everyone else, physically or emotionally.

This is supposed to be a romance?

One can predict, from the genre, that the theme is a Really Tolerant, Persistently Loving Girl needs to come along and rescue one of these poor tortured boys with the power of unconditional love; but the reality is these folks don't need a girl(or boy)friend, they need a therapist. Well, actually they need the police; and child protective services; and then several therapists. Because these are not problems that one person's unconditional love is capable of solving. These are problems that will need to be reflected upon at length, until all three of these characters have learned self-respect and the ability to set and enforce safe boundaries, and have recognized the maladaptive coping mechanisms and expectations their lives of abuse have instilled within them.

Not to mention that it is not the job of the first attractive accommodating woman to enter the life of a troubled young man to perform all the agonizing emotional labor needed to Fix His Dark Brooding Past. (But five bucks what's going to happen...)

It gets worse from there; it's a 23-volume series and there's only one direction for the stakes to go. But suffice it to say that this is a series that normalizes phenomenally troubling interactions and presents them as acceptable. It's a series that promotes an acquiescence to horrific circumstances; and a seriously messed-up response of just accepting and forgiving and accepting and forgiving, in a way that's revolting to watch.

This is the principal reason for my low opinion of the work, and I've gone on long enough anyway, but I should add that aside from its bad social modeling, the book is largely just meaningless melodrama. Several volumes seem dedicated to side characters who serve no real narrative purpose other than to provide extra bodies to pair people off with. I suppose one could call this "character development," but the growth that occurs is largely arbitrary and implausible; it feels more like filler.

The art's good enough--not my favorite, and rather lazy and repetitive in many places--but passable. (Although of course Takaya-sensei can draw way better than I can...) But overall the series is an offensive, tedious slog.

I made it all the way to the end hoping there would finally be some questions answered, or that the inevitable happy end would be earned somehow. If you're hoping the same--well, better luck to you than I had.