Fruits Basket 23
July 19, 2009
Natsuki Takaya – Tokyopop – 2009 – 23 volumes
Despite my crusty, bitter opinions to the contrary in the last post, the thing I like most in this series is that each of the 25 characters has a bit of personality. I still think that’s way too many, and I would have enjoyed the series a lot more had the numbers been pared down, but the fact that a joke from Ritsu, a character that literally hasn’t appeared since his introduction, made me laugh in this volume says a lot about the sense of humor and the writing behind the characters. The jokes from Uotani and Hanajima always make me laugh, and there’s a few good ones in this volume for the road.
My prediction from last time was mostly correct though, in that I wasn’t too terribly interested in the loose ends here. Most of what goes on is exactly what I imagined happening, except here I don’t get a lot of satisfaction in seeing the characters go through the motions as I did with the Kyo and Tohru scene in last volume.
This volume also has a good example of another thing about this series I kind of don’t like. The event that is somewhat significant, and can be happy, or sad, I guess, but is blown horribly out of proportion by everyone involved in a way that causes a failure to connect on my part. Kyo and Tohru go traveling, and there are scenes and scenes and scenes of everyone in the series tearing up because they are going to leave town. I just… didn’t understand. Maybe I just wasn’t as into it as I should have been, though.
For the record, I thought it was super-creepy to end the regular storyline on Tohru’s mother like that. I know that it was supposed to be inspirational in its way, but it was horribly depressing, and those last two pages just didn’t erase the rest of that long scene from my memory. Alas, not a good way to leave things.
But here you are, the end of Fruits Basket. I said most of what I wanted to about the series in the last review, so I’ll just leave it at that. I’m sorry, Fruits Basket, I think you’re just not for me.
Also, why Fruits Basket and not Fruit Basket? I don’t care what the original title was, something that simple not getting fixed BUGS ME TO NO END. Maybe that’s the real reason why I couldn’t get into it.
One last thing, too, because I have a hard time shutting up: You remember those zodiac profiles that the volumes had in them when the zodiac characters were featured on the cover, so Shigure’s volume had the Year of the Dog profile in the back? I seem to remember that starting after the Yuki cover. Did… did the Year of the Rat profile ever appear in another volume? I don’t think it did. Maybe volume 2 is just reprinted with that in it (which would make sense). Or maybe people born in the Year of the Rat are just doomed to never know their Fruits Basket fortune now. Alas. I’m wrong about this, there was a Year of the Rat profile in volume 2. I apparently just slept through it. Thank you, Badtzphoto!
July 19, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I believe the title is Fruits Basket because it’s the name of a game that’s played in one of the earlier volumes. I don’t know whether there’s a Western equivalent that’s actually called “fruits” rather than “fruit,” but I dunno. Maybe because the Japanese title was romanized with this pronunciation, they just kept it that way?
July 19, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I realize that comment was probably 100% useless. Sorry; I’m really sleepy. :)
July 20, 2009 at 7:13 am
[...] vol. 2 of Emma (i heart manga) Shannon Fay on Falling Into Love (Kuriousity) Connie on vols. 22 and 23 of Fruits Basket (Slightly Biased Manga) Melinda Beasi on vol. 23 of Fruits Basket (There it is, [...]
July 21, 2009 at 5:20 am
Haha, that’s okay. I wrote these pretty late too, I was worried I was going to have some sort of bizarre morning after remorse when I re-read them the next day.
Yeah, I knew the title comes from the game, which seems to be the explanation offered re: Fruits instead of Fruit, but yeah, I couldn’t figure out why the romanization, whether official or not, wasn’t corrected. It’s not such a big deal, but it bugged me to no end when the series first started coming out. Mostly because I was so sure that it would be changed for the English version and wasn’t, so it may just be an issue of hurt pride, too. ^_^;
August 4, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I’ve checked my copy of FB #2 (first printing April 2004), there is a profile for year of the rat on page 198 right after “How to play rich man poor man”.
August 4, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Oh cool, I’m not sure why I was remembering incorrectly all these years. I was holding a secret grudge for no reason. Thanks for checking that for me!