Fruits Basket (Box Set)
by Nagisa Miyazaki
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DVD details
Actor: Aya Hisakawa, Eric Vale, Jerry Jewell, Laura Bailey, Yui HorieDirector: Nagisa Miyazaki
Editor: Daniel Mancilla
Editor: Jeremy Jimenez
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Japanese (Published), Unknown; English (Published)
Format: Animated, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 532 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-11-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Funimation Prod
DVD Reviews of Fruits Basket (Box Set)
DVD Review: Better than your average anime, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
OK, there's no denying it, I am attached to Fruits Basket. It is a very sweet, sentimental anime that captures your heart... For a while.
The story? Tohru Honda is a cute, soft-hearted girl who lost her father to an illness (pneumonia, according to the manga) at an early age, and just one year ago, she lost her mother too in a car accident. Not wanting to burden her relatives, she decides to live in a tent in the wilderness and look after herself. But it does not go to plan when a freak landslide destroys her tent and results in her living with her enigmatic classmate Yuki Sohma and his older cousin Shigure Sohma. With the arrival of another Sohma boy, a thorny teen named Kyo; all hell breaks loose when she discovers the Sohma's transform into members of the Chinese Zodiac whenever embraced by a member of the opposite sex!
As the story progresses, and more members of the Chinese Zodiac appear, (schizophrenic cow Haru, angsty doctor and part-time dragon Hatori, weak-hearted tiger Kisa...) Tohru discovers that the life of the Zodiac ain't all peaches-and-cream, and this results in more than a few clashes of personality. However, Tohru's continues to turn to her late mother's advice, and it helps her form new bonds and make new friends, and it begins look like a rice ball really can belong in a Fruits Basket after all! (You'll see what I mean...)
Sounds like fluff? Perhaps. But Fruits Basket really is taught and emotional, bringing out very human weaknesses in its characters. In fact, it brings out TOO MANY human weaknesses in its characters, and that, I'm sorry to say, is what beats this promising anime down.
The main character Tohru, tries to stay cheerful and happy in the face of her mother's death, but what starts off as a grieving child soon develops into something of an obsessive mother-complex. Tohru constantly longs for her mother's help and advice, and is always tied to her photograph. You could argue that it's because Tohru only ever had her mother to guide her, but watching a girl who, when her friend Kyo needs her desperately, can do nothing but drag her angst-ridden body through the rain and clutch at her mother's grave, wailing in self-pity, may make you squirm in discomfort. It's true that Tohru eventually pulls through, but only barely. Another quibble I had with her was her unbearably sexist role in the Sohma house. She does all the cooking, cleaning and shopping, and she's not only good at it, she ENJOYS it. And to make matters worse, the entire Sohma family love her for it, and don't bother to help. Even with Japanese gender politics aside, there's no excusing the fact that they let a girl who's living in their house do all the domestic service for free, and spend her wages from another, paying job on buying chocolates for them. It carries an unpleasant undertone, one that says "go on girls, return to domestic servitude where you belong, all the guys will love you for it!" Sure, it may not be as bad as a 1950s commercial, but it's enough to put me off the main characters.
Then we have Tohru's prospective love-interests - not that she notices them - Kyo (the cat - yes there is a cat too) and Yuki (the rat), who are about as opposite as would be expected. Yuki is soft-spoken and gentle, but he shies away from close relationships due to abuse in his past. Kyo is foul-mouthed and violent, but people are drawn to his OTT personality and he can function as a "normal person". They both got on my nerves. Yuki's unnatural swinging between self-pity and self-satisfaction, along with his role as the stereotypical "perfect pupil" may make viewers unsympathetic to his apparent plight. Kyo, who really gets the spotlight at the end, has certainly received more than his fair share of suffering, but that doesn't excuse his downright abusive behavior towards others. Rather than "accepting Kyo for who he is", I think the writers should have focused more on getting Kyo to be a nicer person. Neither of them get together with Tohru in the end, and at the rate this anime was going, it's unlikely the viewers will care.
The other characters all follow the same pattern. They have frustratingly difficult personalities, and most of them have suffered in their past. But once again, this doesn't excuse their actions. They really are difficult for the sake of being difficult. Some characters are a little TOO similar, Aya (the snake) and Ritsu (the monkey) for example. Despite their opposite personalities, both are long-haired, effeminate men with some serious gender-identity issues, and they both have unbelievable levels of self-pity due to problems in their past, which, once again, do not excuse their present behavior.
Other side characters also disturbed me. Momiji's mother and Hatori's ex-fiancé Kana mostly. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that a woman would have a mental breakdown and reject her child just because he turns into a rabbit. People in real life suffer so much more than that, yet these characters are apparently so weak hearted that they cannot handle their problems. Kana was so convinced that she caused Hatori's injury (even though she clearly saw Akito strike him across the face with an ornament) that she too broke down into madness. It's not only unrealistic; it's a lame plot device to create new and inventive ways for the male cast to suffer. One of the few bearable characters was Shigure, who has no problems in his past, he is kind and he's actually funny. Of course, in the manga, the author Natsuki Takaya found something for him to angst about as well, *sigh*.....
I could go on and on, but that won't change the fact that I continue to read and watch Fruits basket, and it is by no means a bad anime. My advice? Take the cuteness, take the comedy, take the uplifting subject matter, and leave the choppy animation and liberal amounts of human angst. It's moronic, it's self-indulgent, and it completely ruins an otherwise good anime.
3/5. Add another star if you like exagerrated angst or are willing to overlook the sexism.
Advantages - Carries the uplifting message that kindness and empathy can heal the suffering of others
- Inventive, original character designs
- The music suits the mood of the anime
- Excellent English and Japanese voice-acting
Disadvantages - Unpleasant sexist undertones
- Main characters WILL get annoying
- Last two episodes plummet into ridiculous, cheesy melodrama
- The episodes and formulaic (People arrive, people are difficult, Tohru makes a speech to klinky music and the credits roll)
- The ANGST
- ... Why don't people just LEAVE the Sohma family!? I mean, seriously....
Description of Fruits Basket (Box Set)
Fruits Basket (the name refers to a children's game similar to "The Farmer in the Dell") has all the elements of a classic shojo (girl's) series: a sweetly domestic heroine, unconventional living arrangements, and two romantic candidates--one exquisitely gentle, the other hiding a heart of gold beneath a thorny exterior. Sixteen-year-old orphan Tohru Honda has been living in a tent when she meets the Sohma family. Handsome, intelligent Yuki is the most popular boy in school; his older cousin Shigura is a pulp novelist; Kiyo, another cousin, is a hot-tempered, red-haired martial artist. Members of the Sohma family labor under a curse: when embraced by a member of the opposite sex, they turn into animals from the Chinese zodiac: Yuki becomes a rat; Shigure, a dog; Kiyo, a cat. (According to legend, the cat failed to attend the feast held by Buddha at which the animals of the zodiac were chosen, but Tohru adores cats.) After short time, they return to human form--naked. The set-up owes a lot to Ranma 1/2, but Fruits Basket is a schmaltzy romantic comedy, not a martial-arts farce.Tohru moves into this weird household and wins everyone's heart by cooking, cleaning, and keeping their secret. She also functions as an in-house Dear Abby, helping all the Sohmas with their emotional problems, which grow increasingly sentimental as the series progresses. Adolescent girls are clearly the target audience for Fruits Basket. (Unrated, suitable for age 13 and older, violence, mild profanity, minor risqué humor, tobacco use) --Charles Solomon
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