Fruits Basket Box Set (Viridian Collection)
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DVD details
Brand: FunimationDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language); English (Original Language); English (Dubbed)
Format: Box set, Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 580 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Funimation
Product features:
- The Sohmas are a family cursed, a curse which has led to their isolation for generations. When any single member of the family is embraced by a person of the opposite gender, they transform into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac! The Sohma s have managed to keep this embarrassing little secret hidden for many, many years. That is, until young Tohru Honda stumbles into their life. Inspiring som
DVD Reviews of Fruits Basket Box Set (Viridian Collection)
DVD Review: Sweetly Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
I first noticed Fruits Basket was when I was browsing through the Amazon product selection and this anime's unusual high rating caught my attentions immediately. So I quickly watched a few episodes (1- 10) online and I was totally hooked by it. Then I stopped and hit the purchase button right away to order a copy without finishing the rest of the episodes. When it arrived, I quickly put it on my DVD player to finish the rest of the show, but it turned out, as you can tell from my rating, it left me totally disapponted.
To be fair, this anime is without a doubt one of the sweestest and most touching anime I've ever seen in a long time. As the title suggests, the main character, Tohru is described as a basket, and the fruits represent the variable characters with the curse of Chinese Zodiac animals, but Tohru holds them or unifies them together like a fruits basket despite of their inner differences. Therefore, the message behind this anime is very positive. It's about being youself, to learn to accept each other's uniqueness and differences. At least that's how I see it. Although the show has such a sweet and warm concept, there are a number of undeniable existant flaws that unexpectedly ruin its potential. Among all the flaws, perhaps the lack of character's diversifications bother me the most.
1) I can forget about the main character, Tohru's ultimate selfless, simple-minded and sacrifiable personalities, which comes off as unrealistic and annoying at times, however, it's totally irritated that certain characteristic traits of many characters are overused which comes off as less diversed and less creactive. Momiji (the rabbit), Ayame (the snake) and Ritsu (the monkey) are all described as a gayish gender-confused cross-dresser, which is totally repetitive and ridiculous. Even Yuki (the rat) appears to be very feminine. I don't understand why the creator didn't choose to follow their real personality traits in accordance with the original descriptions of the Chinese zodiac since that would make much more sense. Ritsu and Ayame perhaps deserved to be called the "poison" of the show. Not only they both are cross-dresser, but also their other personality traits are equally unbearable. Ayame is narcissistic and not one bit funny and the monkey Ritsu who is described as so extremely depressed and low self-esteem that you would almost wish the character to be killed off just to put him out of the misery. All these mentioned characters except Yuki and Momiji, should be more realistically written instead of being too pathetically similar and negative.
2) All main characters haven't grown or developed in the end. For instance, Tohru, from start to finish, continues to be like the 'Mother Teressa'; Kyo is always hot-headed and foul-mouthed, and Yuki is still the calm, quiet stereotypical strait-A pupil at school. I don't expect their characters should be changed drastically like from a good guy to be a bad guy that type of thing, but I do hope these characters would at least learn a lesson through their adventure so that they would become a much more complete person. But this never happens here.
3) The show is overly sentimental in a repetitive way, which really brings down the enjoyment of the show. Like it or not, the show does work perfectly in terms of emotional impacts and that manages to touch your heart and soul sometimes, however, soon such a magic fades away duo to the same old formula they use over and over in an attempt to touch people, which results in a cheesy kind of way. To sum it up briefly, the show can be described into one situation only: every time a new Zodiac character shows up, who might hate or feel curious about Tohru, who then manages to emotionally touch each of them by saying exactly the right thing he/she likes to hear at the right time, and then the cheesy yet heartwarming "bababa..." openning music played at the background, that means finally they all end up being impressed by her and love her ever since.
4) Some important information should've been told in details in order to make the story more completed. For example why the Sohmas got cursed with the Chinese zodiac? Throughout all 26 episodes, we have seen enough the Sohmas' members suffering because of the family curse, which results in dyfunctional family, relationship breakups, unable to touch any unrelated person who's the opposite gender or suffering from depression or lack of self-confidence; however, we don't know why the Sohmas is the only family that got attached such a terrible curse. What exactly did their ancestors do so that they would deserve such a suffering? However, we are not given any answers, it seems to me that such a curse plotline just got totally thrown together just for the sake of making a situation. As a result, such a laziness totally brings down the show's promises.
5) There's also one episode in which the Yuki fangirls following the electric girl home in the hope of finding dirts about Tohru, really bothers me. In this episode, they unusually mix the real scenes such as the Tokyo streets and subways with the animated scenes all together just like the animated series, Tooney Toons, where real people and cartoon characters make up the whole show. Personally I don't think such a mix is appropriate since it would only make the rest of the animated scenes appear even more fake!
6) The story ends too soon. After the disappointing filler-like episodes 13 - 23, the conclusion epsidoes from 24 - 26 finally manages to pick up some interests for the story, but it ends, just like that. It ends so sudden that you would wish they would give you a warning first. It's like all ideas have been used up and they urgently need to wrap up the story without thinking about transitional approach. I think the reason why this happens is because the anime doesn't follow the original managa which caused such abrupt ending. If i remember rightly, there are still two more Zodiac members have yet introduced while the tale has already been arranged in a way towards the end. The last three epsides are so emotionally powerful that you would left feeling unhappy about the lack of episodes.
All in all, Fruits basket is a heartwarming tale with positve message despite of these flaws. Although it's far from being one of the best shojo anime, it does satisfy those who enjoys the topics of love, frienships or life-lessons. I would definitely recommend it to anyone despite of myself feeling disappointed by it.
Description of Fruits Basket Box Set (Viridian Collection)
The Sohmas are a family cursed, a curse which has led to their isolation for generations. When any single member of the family is embraced by a person of the opposite gender, they transform into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac! The Sohma?s have managed to keep this embarrassing little secret hidden for many, many years?That is, until young Tohru Honda stumbles into their life. Inspiring some and infuriating others, Tohru manages to turn life in this most unusual household upside down as Zodiac rivals clash. But above all, she must promise to keep their secret as one of her own? Or face the consequences!
Stills from Fruits Basket (Click for larger image)
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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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