Fruits Basket 13

I’ve got a few volumes of this on hold, hoping that perhaps reading several volumes back to back would raise my opinion of the series.  Certainly one of the three volumes would have substantial plot in it.

Every volume does have something to offer in terms of plot, but usually it has to do with character relationships and less with where everything’s going to end up.  Here, the main focus is that Tohru is sneaking into the main Sohma house to try and talk to Kureno so he will speak to Uotani again.  On the way, she runs into Momo, then Momiji, and has to work things out and listen to a sad story about Momo and Momiji.

While we do learn more about Momo and Momiji, a bit about Kureno, and we get a more solid relationship for Uotani, none of this adds up to what Tohru is doing for the Sohmas and how she’s going to break the curse.  Yuki still sulks around like a spoiled child, and it’s hard getting through chapter after chapter of depressing stories about characters who appear to be living quite contented lives.  And not even depressing stories about the main characters, there’s like 50 characters now who have sad pasts that we have to keep hearing story after story about.  Plus, we still don’t get any sort of romance hints between Tohru and either Yuki or Kyo.  There are  TWO GUYS there.  There should be some sort of romantic triangle and drama, especially after so much story elapsed, but there’s not.  Of course, the last thing this series needs is more drama, but romance hints wouldn’t be too much to ask from the top-selling shoujo manga, would it?

Okay.  So far, I’m still a little tired of what’s been going on.  Let’s see if it will redeem itself over the next two volumes.

Fruits Basket 12

I took so long to read this because I kept hearing it was a really boring followup to the last volume that was very student-council oriented. If this series has a flaw, it’s thinking that people would rather hear about the student council than the Sohma family. With so many characters involved with the family, it’s actually poor to introduce a bunch more who don’t get much screen time and whose names I will never remember.

The back of the volume didn’t even talk about some of the spicier bits in the volume that made me like it. There’s a rather touching scene between Tohru and Shishou, another good scene with Rin, but the clincher was really the moment between Kyo and Kagura. Many questions still remain about the series and about the Sohma family, and it’s still getting around to answering some of them, but it finally cleared the air about the relationship between those two, and I quite liked it… though it was a bit dramatic.

Another thing that constantly bothers me about the series is how everyone keeps mentioning what a bad guy Shigure is. He’s actually one of my favorite characters, and when it shows him talking cryptically, I always assume he’s working on behalf of Tohru/Yuki/Kyo et al and against Akito. Much is said to the contrary here. Please don’t let Shigure be a bad guy.

Fruits Basket 11

And just when I was about to give up, they give me an Akito volume.

Akito is actually what has kept me coming back to the series. All these dark little hints the characters keep dropping are quite tantalzing. But it was starting to make me mad, because he only ever says one or two cryptic lines, and they rarely ever even show his face. But the waiting paid off. Oh yes it did.

Akito COMES TO VISIT. He torments people. He EXPLAINS THINGS. He talks to Tohru, and he talks to Kyo. I didn’t really like the parts where he talked to Kyo, mainly because they are cruel. But, for whatever reason, I loved the parts where he talked to Tohru. Yes. Loved. Akito, you are great. Amazing even, turning this good series around and making it interesting again. Thank you.

Akito Sohma.

Fruits Basket 10

Hm. Since I didn’t actually read the latest two volumes of Hot Gimmick yet, and I already did TenTen, that leaves Tramps Like Us 6, Fruits Basket 11, and Cheeky Angel 5.

I love Fruits Basket, and I’m not really sure why. It’s sort of lukewarm and just sort of wishy-washy, but the chapters that tell little side stories about the characters are so good, and occasionally it will throw me a tasty little tidbit that keeps me wanting more. But really, all I usually wind up doing is begging for these tidbits, and for some reason I keep coming back. Volume ten was one of those little reminders as to why I keep coming back.

Not spoiling myself on this series is really paying off, because the end of this volume was TO DIE FOR. The beginning didn’t start off that great as it was more just sort of wishy-washy character interaction, but man, the end was WORTH IT. And that’s all I’m going to say about this one, because I read this and eleven back to back, and damn if eleven isn’t the one I want to talk about.

Fruits Basket 9

Man, I did this one back in May, but for some reason I didn’t put it here. Weird. Anyway, on with the show.

I want something IMPORTANT to happen, dammit! We keep getting hints, and I want something big to go down! I had a taste of big in volume 6, and now I want more.

Not that I still don’t like the series. I particularly liked the shift from Sohmas to Tohru’s friends, because they’re such interesting characters without having to be cursed and overly-dramatic like the Sohmas… as much as I love them too. Uotani in particular is probably one of my favorites, she has an interesting past and a great personality. I like Hana-chan too, but just because she’s always portrayed as so weird. Her backstory was okay… it didn’t strike me as great for some reason, but it was okay.

Something sort of significant happened toward the end, when Tohru’s red hat and the kid she admired came up again, and that was okay… if a little predictable. And we get more tidings of big things when Rin randomly shows up and talks to Shigure, but this series is terrible at promising and not delivering. Now I get the feeling Yuki has some sort of strange curse like Kyo, Shigure’s still plotting something, now Rin’s evil, the head of the Sohma house still hasn’t been explained (though I was rather unkindly spoiled as to how he turns out), and there are still all these little flashbacks that are NEVER EXPLAINED. Please, Fruits Basket, get around to it sometime within the next ten volumes.

Of course, as much as I bitch about nothing happening with this series, I DO lap it up, don’t I?

Fruits Basket 8

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Fruits Basket review. It may have been that I still thought the series was just okay, that I liked reading it, but I didn’t think it was particularly good. Reflecting, I believe that’s still the case, but I’m so goddamn addicted it’s not even funny. It must be better than I think if I look forward to the next volume so hardcore.

We get to meet one new member of the Zodiac, Ritsu, who is the monkey and will eternally apologize for sins he may or may not have committed. Apologizing loudly, getting along with Shigure’s editor, and crossdressing make him okay in my book, though he apologizes maybe a tad too much for my liking. At least he’s not Hiro. Ugh. What a little son of a bitch.

There’s also some Rin at the end, who broke poor Haru’s heart and made him rampage and tear apart the classroom. I like Haru a lot too, his switchoff apathy and temper make him interesting, and he tells awesome stories. I think Fruits Basket’s strength lies in the characters, because there are many I like (not necessarily the main characters who strike me as a bit common, but people like Shigure, Ayame, Haru, Momiji, Uo-chan, and Hana-chan). However, it’s weakness may also lie in the characters, because now there’s about fifty million, still a couple to go, and I think Natsuki Takaya is running out of personalities, because the new characters lately have been annoying and over-the-top.

And the stories are saccarine-sweet as well. Just like Oh My Goddess. Aww. This volume has some of my favorite standalones in it.

Fruits Basket 5

I like Fruits Basket for the same reason I like Oh My Goddess in that they both give me that warm, fuzzy feeling after reading a volume, and no matter what happened that day, they can make me forget it because they have really high-quality sappy storytelling. They both suffer from the same problem, however, which is that they’re sort of episodic, and after awhile the shine will inevitably wear off unless there’s the tiniest bit of plot to keep me interested. Fruits Basket has that plot, and it keeps reminding me vaguely, but it’s been five volumes and it hasn’t really gotten around to it yet.

Don’t get me wrong though, the stories are still adorable. My favorite one in this volume is the first story about the Golden Week lakeside vacation, mainly because it involves Ayame, who is a great character. Plus you sort of get a lot of sappy sentiment all around, and while that’s in no short supply, I like that a large part of the focus is directed at Hatori as opposed to Tohru for once. I liked the introduction of Kisa, but all she managed to do in this volume is throw some more mystery on Yuki’s past. I hope she comes back, she’s quite adorable. I also liked the chapter where the Yuki fanclub was trying to bring down Uo-chan so they could strike Tohru, but again, this is because I like Uo-chan so much. Her seemingly strange grip on reality is quite amusing.

The volumes, as much as I like them, are beginning to get more and more formulaic. Some feelgood stories where everyone realizes how important Tohru is and what a good person she manages to be, some brooding and foreshadowing from Yuki and Kyo, cameos by already introduced members of the Sohma family, and an introduction to a new Sohma member. I’m really hoping some semblance of plot picks up soon though… foreshadowing is killing me, it’s a good series I want more of and the next volume just never quite does it for me, and it’s still running in Japan, which means it’s still going and doing either this or has actually delved into the plot. I have high hopes, but I hope my interest just doesn’t taper off as it did with Oh My Goddess.

Fruits Basket 4

I always associate Fruits Basket and D.N. Angel because they were both really popular unlicensed manga series for the longest time, plus Tokyopop publishes them both and they come out at the same time, so that doesn’t help either. This one however, unlike D.N. Angel, has managed to completely win me over.

I don’t even know what it is that I like about this series so much. I want to not like it, but I just do. The art’s really nothing special (even the color art is extremely plain), there’s handwritten segments that are really hard to read, there’s so much text and so little image, there’s about 500 characters to keep track of… but at its core, there’s this story about Shigure, Kyo, Yuki, and Tohru, and Tohru’s literally impossible to hate. Every time you think she does something that makes you mad, she gets this flashback of her dead mother and it reminds you that she works umpteen hours a week and cares for the Sohma family, then you just can’t hate her anymore. I think that’s the main attraction for me.

In this volume, we have the introduction of Yuki’s brother, Ayame, who is incredibly lecherous and is not really on speaking terms with Yuki. His actions towards Tohru don’t help, but Tohru tries her best to get the two talking to one another. The fact that Ayame is great friends with Shigure really makes a lot of sense after everything’s said and done, and Ayame’s simply a wonderful storyteller. We also get the first real interaction between the head of the Sohma family and Tohru, which is rather anticlimatic. Actually, if there’s one thing I hate about this volume (and the series in general, for that matter), it’s the obscene amount of vague blatant foreshadowing. A little foreshadowing is fine, but there’s waaaay to much crammed into every volume of this series, to the point where half of it is disjointed, cryptic remarks that you will read again in a later volume. But the fact that there’s that much foreshadowing in a series this good isn’t a bad thing… in fact, it makes me want so much more of it RIGHT NOW, which makes me hate the series even more. Curse you, Fruits Basket, for being so good.