CBR15Bingo: Strange Worlds (Tohru becomes involved in the strange world of the Sohma family and there are supernatural events throughout.)
The problem with writing a review of one of my all-time favorite series is that I mentally become that clip from a Lady Gaga interview (“Talented, brilliant, incredible amazing, showstopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference…”) and it makes it hard to summarize my thoughts beyond an incoherent shaking of the person listening to me while trying to get the amazing nature of this work across. Fruits Basket is such a classic that it doesn’t need me trying to sell it further, so I’ll just try to summarize my feelings about it here. I first read this in early high school, it made me cry, and it makes me cry every time I’ve read it since even though my ability to cry in general has lessened to maybe once every two years. It’s deeply moving, completely satisfying, humanistic to people making terrible mistakes but being able to change and work towards becoming better, and open hearted towards the innate human potential of kindness and reaching out to someone in pain and just being with them while they work through their traumas. It also has a lot to say about gender that ricocheted around my brain and waited in there at a time when I didn’t know what was going on with me. So many times in our society, media that’s aimed at teenage girls is perceived to be facile or light entertainment, and I am always against the dismissal of work that moves so many people based off of societal sexism and the inability to actually critically examine “light” or “pulp” entertainment. It’s a great work of art.
Fruits Basket follows Tohru Honda, an orphaned high school student who is temporarily homeless and secretly living in the woods. She’s discovered by Yuki Sohma, a member of the powerful Sohma family, and she ends up moving in with him and his family members Kyo and Shigure. She discovers that some members of the family turn into their zodiac animal when they are hugged by a person of the opposite sex, and this is a deeply held secret. Yuki and Kyo go to Tohru’s high school and are seen as sort of untouchable royalty with how beautiful and unusual they are, and Tohru is pulled into their world despite her seeming ordinary nature. However, she has secrets of her own and over the course of the series all the characters have to work through their emotional issues and the weight of their pasts. Fruits Basket Another is a brief four volumes (I wish it was longer!) about the next generation of the Sohma/Honda families. It’s also great and a fun treat for fans.
Honestly, it’s a perfect masterwork and I have no cons or bad things to say. I think my life philosophy was partially formed by this series and you could do way worse as a moral touchstone that a series that tells you that you are worth saving and loving by those around you.
Warnings for: child abuse (physical, mental), emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, intense psychological manipulation, solitary confinement, trauma, physical fights/blood, eye trauma/blinding of an eye, snakes, rats