Let’s get this straight, I suck at writing reviews. I go off on tangents, I have terrible grammar, I have unoriginal thoughts, and I’m not objective at all. That being said, I still feel compelled to write about Fruits Basket and express what it means to me. So, I want to make it clear that this review might be extremely bias. I cannot help it. The feelings I have for this manga goes beyond any love I have for other series that have been published so far. Regardless of how objective I intend to be, the infatuation I have for Fruits Basket is likely to show through my writing. I am not going to apologize for that. Whether it's a song, a book, a manga, or an anime, we all have something that we can resonate with. Regardless of how insignificant it may seem to others, we cherish it-- I will always cherish Fruits Basket. Always.

Fruits Basket is the #1 Shoujo manga sold in the United States and the number 2 in Japan. It has been 8 years since it ended, and I assume it is still as popular as ever.
Typically, when something is ranked so highly, there is a tendency of having two distinct opposing opinions. People will like it. People will hate it. I personally abhor the # 1 selling Shoujo manga (HYD) in Japan. No amount of convincing can make me feel otherwise; it just left a bad taste on my mouth. Some may feel the same way about Fruits Basket, and it is totally understandable. For me however, Fruits Basket managed to gently grab my stained heart and wash away the dirt with the tears of the characters.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO THE ANIME VIEWERS: Read the manga from the very beginning regardless of how repetitive or uneventful it may feel. The manga incorporates a lot of things that can appear irrelevant but are very important to the overall storyline (e.g. the boy with the hat). It approaches numerous important matters in a very subtle tone, and it is only later on in the story when everything starts to piece itself together. The anime on the other hand disregards almost all these details. It actually sways the viewers who are transitioning into reading the manga to have a much distorted version of the authentic story.

Pros:

This series is melancholic. For some readers, it will feel overly melodramatic and annoying. Every character has a past: almost everyone (asides for a few) suffered because their parents were incompetent, apathetic and scumbags. To some readers, the pain and the feelings the character go through might seem exaggerated, but for me, I sensed each and every characters emotions. It felt unbelievably real. I might have not gone through that extensive pain and trauma, but their emotions of helplessness and hope felt so relatable. I kept wondering how Natsuki Takaya could even write such a beautiful story and explore such psychological aspect of individual suffering. I was cheering for almost all the characters, and before I knew it, all I wanted was them to be happy at the end.

1) If I had to name one thing that the Fruits Basket did right, it is the characters. They are ridiculously well developed. Almost all of them go through obstacles in order to grow, flourish and change. It is hard to not become attached to them because they are realistically portrayed. They’re not just angsty teenagers. They are characters with depth. They have both inferiority and superiority complex. They constantly fight their own environment and their inner self to create change in the way they are living and feeling.

Tohru, Kyo, and Yuki are the center of the storyline. They are the archetypical main characters. You have the overly empathetic female, the rebellious male, and the prince charming. However, what separates them from any other characters I have read about is the fact that they develop, and almost every part of them is explored. You can abhor Tohru for not being assertive, but you end up sympathizing with her because she is such a strong-willed fragile girl. You can hate Kyo for being insensitive, but you can find yourself empathizing with him because of who he is and how his circle of family views him. You can dislike Yuki for being prince charming, but you can relate to him knowing he is always battling the world as the people around him only knows him through a superficial lens.
I can also go on about the other side characters, but tons of essays can be written about each individual. That’s why, all I will say is that each character was able to highlight the beauty and the flaws of the three musketeers.

(If I had to choose one character I favored and related to the most, it was Yuki. I loved how he used the metaphor of opening the lid of a bottle to the suffering he was going through. He truly evolved throughout the manga, and it wasn’t just a single moment that changed him. He worked for his growth, and along the way, the readers were introduced to new energetic characters that magnified his bad and good qualities while supporting him at the same time. In my opinion, Yuki was just a dynamic character. His name fitted his personality so well. He was pure as the snow but believed that he was stained.)

2) If you intend to read this series only for the romance, that is something you definitely will be served at the end. Moreover, the love triangle in Fruits Basket is unique. When first starting, this manga may appear to be a reverse-harem where everyone falls in love with the main heroine, and that is exactly the truth. All the characters care deeply for Tohru as she does for them (platonically). To be honest, if I hadn’t known the spoilers beforehand, I might have actually been sad knowing that the character I probably would have believed to end up with Tohru didn’t end up with her. However, that is the thing, do not read the manga just so your favorite character could end up with Tohru. There is more to the Fruits Basket manga than the surface level romance. Also, midway through the series it actually becomes very apparent who Tohru will be with purely because every character starts diverting and trying to find their own place in the world. If that does not satisfy you, Natsuki Takaya did mention that Tohru could have been suitable for anyone, even Momiji! However, Fruits Basket took us on an adventure where two characters just had the chance to become closer and grow feelings for each other.

Also, one of the most admirable part of the series is that the male character who did not end up with Tohru was given the last line of the entire series before the epilogue. I thought that was one of the most delightful thing Fruits Basket did because that character was able to sum up everyone’s feeling for Tohru in a few sentences and also create closure for everything that had happened to all of them. I could not help but become emotional by it. A happy ending might have appeared unrealistic, but after everything that the characters went through, a happy ending was the only thing I could imagine for this manga in order to be 100% fulfilling.

Furthermore, almost all the side characters (with a few exception) gets the chance to fall in love and have their story told. And for some preternatural reason, those stories smoothly connected with main storyline. At the end, just like any shoujo, love conquers all!

3) Fruits Basket actually felt as if it was planned from the very beginning. I can’t help but admire Natsuki for using so many literary techniques to foreshadow the ending. Sometimes, it was impossible to even recognize all the clues she gave about the characters and story until it finished and was read the second time. I have also noticed that Natsuki used humor to easily disguise some major plot and twist without making anything obvious. I applaud her for making the story go full circle—just like the cover of the books. The first volume had a picture of Tohru to introduce the main character, and the last volume had a picture of Kyoko (the mother) to close the series.

4) There were numerous lessons in this story. The most significant one is “just be yourself.” Although this is one of the most obvious lesson that could be learned anywhere in the world, it probably is the most difficult one as teenagers. In a way, this manga was a coming of age story; the characters wanted to fit in and become comfortable with who they were. However, they were too busy comparing their own pain and suffering with the rest of the world that they could not accurately be who they were meant to be.

Another lesson I learned was that traumatized people can be the most empathetic. The first people that we as humans are introduced to/interact with in this world are our parents. And when parents are not doing their jobs well, it can easily traumatize the children. In this story, most of the characters are abused by their parents emotionally (with the exception of Hiro’s, Kisa’s, and Hana’s parent). However, what fascinated me was the fact that one of the most imperfect parent created the most perfect child,Kyoko. Kyoko was a trouble teenager, and she was devastated by her circumstances, but it was those experiences that allowed her to raise Tohru, the most empathetic human being alive.

There were numerous morals in this story, and the more you read it, the more you’ll discover them.

Cons:

As much as I love this manga, there were so many things I found distasteful while reading it; in fact, I probably wouldn’t have read it if I knew all these beforehand simply because the substance of the story did not completely fit the genre/intended audience.

1) If you watched the anime or read only the first few volumes of the manga, you might begin to assume that Fruits Basket is a fluffy and sweet story of an overly optimistic girl. However, this is not the case. Piles of different emotions will be thrown at you from left to right as you further delve into it. The melancholic atmosphere was always there to begin with, but it simply was masqueraded by the main characters smile and overly exaggerated attitude. Although I do think this was a great quality of the manga, sometimes I could not help but think the shift of the mood was never intended from the beginning.

2) When we were first introduced to the zodiacs, the animal form of the Sohmas were always censored with clouds. One would assume it was because the story was catered for a certain audience. However, when the horse was introduced to the story, the censorship toned down just a little. A part of me just did not like the inconsistency of that because I was not expecting any form of “mature” content especially if it was never hinted at the start. Even Kagura (the female zodiac) was censored when she first transformed back to a human during the introductory of the story… so why change that consistency later on? Moreover, there were some implication of sex. (Don’t worry. it’s not our 3 main protagonist; they’re just too innocent and pure to even remotely know what sex is.) If you’re uncomfortable with that, you might want to bite your lips and just skim those moments where characters are being overly dramatic and typical by accusing/ arguing with each other about who slept with whom. I can’t be the only one who was startled by this shift in Fruits Basket, right?

3) The art is very subjective. Fruits basket has the classic Shoujo design from its bug eyed protagonist to its floral background in every romantic situation.

All the characters slowly grow physically as the story progresses (except Tohru. Starting at volume 8, she became cuter and younger for some odd reason).However, the biggest problem I had with the art was that almost all the characters began to look the same. It became hard to identify the characters at first glance. E.g. Kyo looked like Katsuya and Kureno, Yuki looked like Akito,etc. EVEN PEOPLE WHO WEREN’T SOHMA’S LOOKED LIKE THE SOHMAS’.

4) A flaw that I noticed about Fruits Basket was that it sped up the storyline at the very end by having a character succumb to an injury. Although it blended well with the storyline, I did not think it was completely necessary to do so. It might have not been a cop-out, but I believe Takaya could have been more creative to bring closure to the series without forcing one last final drama when there were many dramatic moments on the sideline to begin with.

5) Another thing about Fruits Basket is that it is a completely a heterosexual world. This did not bother me, but I know it may bother some. However, what did irk me was the fact that this story had pseudo-yaoi characters just for plot device purposes. Since I went in reading this manga knowing major spoilers, I wasn’t shocked by any of the red herrings, and I actually thought some of them were very clever and well written.

6) Incest. Honestly, I do not believe any of the relationships were incestual merely because I put culture into consideration, AND because I believe the Sohmas’ were not actual cousins. Maybe it’s my way of justifying some of the relationships, but I’m on the boat that thinks that the Sohmas were a clan (that’s why some of them don’t even know each other).

7) Whether you’re reading the official TokyoPop translation or the fan translations, some of the things will appear way off. It’s not noticeable the first time the book is read, but it becomes very obvious when it is read more than once. Natsuki Takaya foreshadows a lot of events, and sometimes things are lost in translation. Nevertheless, I do not think this should discourage anyone from starting this series. Heck, I have not read the original Japanese version of the manga, but I do know that Takaya did apologize once for having spelling and other mistakes. On another note, the TokyoPop English translation of Fruits Basket is no longer distributed in stores, so it might be difficult to even get the official English translation ( I heard it will be translated again soon under a different publishing company).

8) Lastly, one of the biggest con I believe this series had was that there was a major age gap between two characters that were together. I have a very strong dislike for stories that romanticize student-teacher relationship (teenager-adult relationship). Although the couple were not the main characters, the story of their relationship still snuck up on me. I found myself actually being moved by the feelings and the journey that these two characters went through, but at the same, the other part of me felt guilty and disgusted for reading it further. I know for a fact that I probably would not have read this series if I knew there was even a slight chance of this a student-teacher relationship being possible. I’m mentioning this because some people might abhor this more than I do and might be repulsed by even the idea of it. As for me, luckily I was half way through Fruits basket when this was introduced, and I wasn’t willingly to drop this series because I was already attached to everyone especially the main 3 munchkins

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: There is going to be a sequel to this manga. It is called Fruits Basket Another. The sequel does not need to be read because Fruits Basket in itself was completed. Also, I honestly highly doubt Fruits Basket Another will be as successful as the prequel, but I’ll still read it because I’m sadly a hardcore fan.

Enjoyment- Fruits Basket is a special manga for me. Despite the flaws, I hold it dear to me because it touches my heart, and it motivates me to want to be better. It is a beautiful adventure to read, and it is very overwhelming as I can never help but cry and smile along with the characters.
It gave me butterflies the first time I read it, and it probably will give me butterflies every time I read it again.