FRUITS BASKET

is a shōjo manga series created by Natsuki Takaya (pseudonym) serialized in the semi-monthly Japanese magazine ''Hana to Yume'' (Flowers and Dreams), published by Hakusensha. It won the 2001 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo. ''Fruits Basket'' has been adapted into a 26-episode anime series, directed by Akitaro Daichi, on TV Tokyo. The series won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 2001.
The word "Fruits" in the title is always plural; the spelling originates from the transcription of the English word "fruit" into Japanese, where because there is no "tu" sound, "tsu" is used instead. The title comes from the name of a popular game played in Japanese elementary schools, which is alluded to in the series.

Contents

Story

Main characters

Meaning of the title

Themes

Rejection and Acceptance

Gender Confusion

Suppression

Manga

Anime

Production staff

Anime voice cast

Distribution

A note on romanization

Drama CDs

1999 ''Hana to Yume'' CD

See also

External links

Story

''Fruits Basket'' follows the life of the student Tohru Honda, who was recently orphaned when her mother, Kyoko Honda, died in a car accident. After that, Tohru lived with her grandfather, but when remodeling is needed on the house, Tohru resorts to living in a tent and holds down a job to support herself. Despite suffering many hardships, Tohru remains her optimistic self.
One day, Tohru comes upon a house in the forest that she is temporarily living in which is the home of Shigure Sohma and fellow classmate Yuki Sohma, of the Sohma family. When the Sohmas discover that Tohru is living in a tent, they are quite surprised by her inner strength. The entire area is Sohma property, and Tohru pleads to live upon the property in her quaint tent (affectionately dubbed "her castle"). Feeling sorry for her, and desperate to end their days of filthy living conditions, the Sohmas offer her their spare room in exchange for cooking and housework. When her tent is buried that night in a landslide, burying her mother's picture and school clothes, she has no option but to accept. Soon after she moves in, Kyo Sohma comes to challenge Yuki.
Tohru soon discovers the Sohma family's secret, and the reason why Yuki is so private and secretive at school: thirteen members of the family are possessed by the 12 animal spirits of the Chinese Zodiac ("Jyūnishi" in Japanese) and the spirit of the cat who was left out of the Zodiac according to legend. They transform into animals when hugged by the opposite gender, or when they are under a great amount of stress. When she promises to keep their secret, the Sohmas allow Tohru to keep her memories rather than hypnotically erasing them, a fate that had previously befallen anyone not on the "Inside" of the Sohma family who had discovered the secret.
The story follows the lives of Tohru and the Sohma family, as they deal with each other and a society where neither quite fits in, as well as the feared Akito Sohma, head of the Sohma family. Soon, after living with the Sohma family she began to like, then love all of the Sohmas.

Main characters

Main articles: Fruits Basket characters

;
:An orphaned high school student, Tohru ends up living in the same house with Shigure, Yuki and Kyo Sohma. She loves to cook, is an excellent housekeeper, and has an after school job as a custodian to help pay her tuition fees (since she doesn't want to be a burden on her grandfather). She is always polite, and is extremely kind, loving, and naive; in fact, the other characters sometimes have to tell her that she needs to look out for her own interests. She wishes to break the curse that engulfs the Sohma family.
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:Kyo is the cat, an animal not in the zodiac, but which legend says would have been if it had not been tricked by the rat into missing the induction feast. Kyo hates Yuki and is determined to defeat him before high school ends. After the alleged suicide of his mother, and abandonment of his father, Kyo has hated Yuki for everything wrong with his life. He made a bet with Akito: if he defeats Yuki before he finishes high school, he'll officially be accepted along with the other Jyuunishi by the Sohmas. If he does not, however, Kyo would be forced to live in a small room, the neko/cat room, within the Sohma estate for the rest of his life, which means being locked up in a cage made specially for the cat Jyuunishi. Despite many months of strict training, Kyo has never managed to even land a decent blow on Yuki. Kyo runs away even from the people that want to help him, because he is ashamed of his true form, which he turns into when his rosary bead bracelet made from the bones of a miko (the red ones are blood stained) is removed. When Tohru sees his true form, however, she still accepts him and begs him to stay with her, which forms a bond of sorts between the two. He wants to be appreciated and be special like Yuki. Orange is his natural hair color; a fact proven by Haru. Tohru's favorite zodiac animal, as a child, was the cat.
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:Yuki is the rat of the zodiac. Known as "Prince Charming" or "The Prince" at school, Yuki is very attractive and refined, and has many admirers at school, but has a hard time being social. He wishes that he could be with people as friends, rather than admired and worshiped from afar, no thanks to his infamous fan club. Yuki has suffered a traumatic childhood at the hands of Akito, the head of the Sohma clan, who locked him up and tortured him. Because of this, Yuki has a somewhat low sense of worth and is claustrophobic. With Tohru's help, however, Yuki is gradually able to loosen up. He is jealous of Kyo because he thinks Kyo can have a normal life, which is something Yuki has always wanted. He is often considered "absolutely the most adorable little mouse in the world" when he is crying in the manga. Because of Tohru always giving advice and being able to be herself around others he often also looks up to her as a mother figure.

Meaning of the title

The phrase "fruits basket" means simply a basket of fruit in Japan. In Japan, where arable land is in short supply and fresh food very expensive, a basket of fresh fruit is a costly and desirable item. It is written in Japanese as フルーツバスケット, fu-ru-u-tsu-ba-su-ke-t-to, where the 'tsu' kana represents the 'ts' in "fruits", making it plural.
The series is named after a game, Fruits Basket, in which everyone sits in a circle, and the leader of the game names each person after a type of fruit; when the name of a child's fruit is called, that child gets up and has to find a new seat. When Tohru first played this game in kindergarten, she was assigned "Onigiri" (rice ball), which was fine with her, since she always thought that onigiris are delicious. However, everyone but her was called, and she was the only one left sitting when she realized that an onigiri isn't a fruit and that she'd never be called. She was purposefully excluded from the game; another of the mean tricks that other kids used to pull on her. She realizes that an onigiri can never belong in a Fruits Basket, even one time saying, "A rice ball doesn't belong in a fruits basket". Then Tohru starts feeling like she belongs in the Sohma clan. There is one part where onigiri is called and she runs up to play with her classmates. It means she starts feeling like she isn't the onigiri that is left out, but somebody that actually has a place where she belongs, hence the name Fruits Basket.
During the course of the story, lines spoken by members of the Sohma clan are often illustrated by a super deformed (SD) head of the corresponding animal: for example, when Yuki speaks from off-screen a small rat head might appear, and when Kyo snaps in reply there might be an angry cat face. Uotani and Hanajima's SD heads are based off of their names and are a fish and a flower, respectively (although at the beginning of the manga, before the Sohma curse was revealed, Shigure and Yuki's SD were shown as the first letter of their names enclosed in a circle). As the series goes on, Tohru's comments are illustrated in the same way with an animated onigiri, illustrating that although Tohru might have been rejected by classmates at school, she has found a place she can belong with the Sohma family...

Themes

Rejection and Acceptance

Many characters experience some kind of alienation, either from society or their own families. Tohru Honda, the main character, has always been somewhat of an outcast, evidenced by her exclusion from her classmates games and their teasing as a child. Another very prominant case of isolation is Kyo Sohma's. Kyo, as the person posessed by the spirit of the cat, has been shunned by the Sohma family since he was born. Many other characters, including Momiji and Rin, have been rejected by their parents.
Many characters, however, find acceptance during the run of the story. Tohru finds the Sohmas, who all cherish her like family. Kyo finds Tohru, who loves him despite his faults. The same is true for many other characters.

Gender Confusion

Cross-dressing and boys who look like girls are frequent in the series. The most extreme case is, of course, Akito, who has been raised as a boy, and whose true gender is a big secret. Other cases include Yuki, who looks like a girl and hates it; Momiji, who dresses like a girl because he knows it looks cute; Ayame, who, unlike Yuki, embraces his feminine looks; and Ritsu, who is only at ease when wearing women's clothes.

Suppression

Because of the curse, many people who would be happy together cannot admit their feelings, or else must leave them behind. Hatori and Kana, Hatori and Mayuko, Kisa and Hiro, Rin and Haru, and Kureno and Arisa Uotani are some examples.

Manga

Fruits Basket has finished its run in Japan; chapter 136, the final chapter, was published on November 20, 2006.
The contents of the manga Fruits Basket is much more detailed than the anime series. Where the anime ends with volume 8, though little content is included, the manga continues to cover Kyo, Yuki and Tohru's relationships, the student council and other things happening inside the Sohma family, including Akito and Kureno's secrets. In addition, several notable main characters are only present in the manga.
As of March 19th, Fruits Basket has been completely published in Japan with a total of twenty-three volumes.[1] In 2003, the manga was licensed for United States distribution by TOKYOPOP after it topped a poll of requested manga on their website. The first translated volume was released in February, 2004. In Singapore, an English translation is adapted by Chuang Yi, and the Singaporean translation is imported to Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. The TOKYOPOP edition of Fruits Basket is at volume 17 as of August 5, 2007. Meanwhile, in Europe, the French translation of the manga is available up to volume twenty-two, also as of August 2007. The German translation is still behind, the last volume which was published in June was volume 13. In Mexico, all the volumes have been published in Spanish by Editorial Vid. In Brazil, the Portuguese translation is published by Editora JBC since April, 2005. A runaway hit by volume five in the U.S, it had taken the title of "Best Selling Shōjo Manga in 2004." [2]

Anime

The ''Fruits Basket'' anime is a 26-episode series adapted from the manga by Akitaro Daichi. It aired on the TV Tokyo network from July 5, 2001 to December 27, 2001, at 18:00 on Thursdays. Since March 2007, it airs as part of the FUNimation programming block on CoLours TV. The beginning and ending songs are "For Fruits Basket" and "Chiisana Inori" (Little Prayer), both sung by the late Ritsuko Okazaki.
The anime series follows the manga up to approximately the end of volume 8 of the manga. Characters from volumes 7 and 8 are shown within the 26 episodes. Also, many situations within the anime series are left unresolved because of lack of source material at the time.
Following the ''Fruits Basket'' release in North America by FUNimation Entertainment, a grassroots effort has been mounted by the fan base to have a second season of the series produced in Japan. Funimation has had a sizable hand in this effort, organizing origami crane folding events at various anime conventions. These cranes were then sent to Japan as a form of petition for the production of a second season. At the beginning of 2006, however, Takaya and Daichi announced in two separate interviews that there will not be any more work on the anime for a number of reasons.

Production staff

★ Original story: Natsuki Takaya

★ Planning: Keisuke Iwata, Junichi Hatano, Toshimichi Ōtsuki

★ Series composition: Rika Nakase

★ Character design/Chief animation director: Akemi Hayashi

★ Ghost design: Takeshi Yamazaki

★ Art director: Chikako Shibata

★ Color design: Shinji Matsumoto

★ Director of photography: Masayuki Kawaguchi

★ Editing: Masahiro Matsumura

★ Music: Seiji Mutō, Jun Abe

★ Sound direction: Akitaro Daichi, Yasunori Ebina

★ Associate producer: Atsushi Moriyama

★ Animation producer: Kazunori Noguchi

★ Producers: Noriko Kobayashi -> Masami Yanagihara, Tatsuji Yamazaki

★ Assistant director: Nagisa Miyazaki

★ Director: Akitaro Daichi

★ Animation production: Studio Deen

★ Production: TV Tokyo, Nihon Ad Systems

Anime voice cast

Character	Represented by	Japanese Seiyū	English Voice Actor
Tohru Honda	Onigiri (rice ball)	Yui Horie	Laura Bailey
Kyo Sohma	Cat	Tomokazu Seki	Jerry Jewell
Yuki Sohma	Rat	Aya Hisakawa	Eric Vale
Shigure Sohma	Dog	Ryōtarō Okiayu	John Burgmeier
Kagura Sohma	Boar	Kotono Mitsuishi	Meredith McCoy
Momiji Sohma	Rabbit	Ayaka Saitō	Kimberly Grant
Hatori Sohma	Seahorse (originally dragon)	Kazuhiko Inoue	Kent Williams
Hatsuharu Sohma	Ox	Akio Suyama	Justin Cook
Ayame Sohma	Snake	Mitsuru Miyamoto	Christopher Sabat
Kisa Sohma	Tiger	Kaori Nazuka	Kate Bristol
Hiro Sohma	Ram/Sheep	Yuriko Fuchizaki	Aaron Dismuke
Ritsu Sohma	Monkey	Miina Tominaga	Mike McFarland
Kazuma Sohma		Norihiro Inoue	Dameon Clarke
Akito Sohma	God	Murasaki Wakaba	Chad Cline
Arisa Uotani	Fish	Yuka Imai	Parisa Fahkri
Saki Hanajima	Flower	Reiko Yasuhara	Daphne Gere
Kyoko Honda	Red butterfly	Reiko Yasuhara	Julie Mayfield
Motoko Minagawa		Kaori Shimizu	Jamie Marchi

Distribution

In North America, FUNimation has released the Fruits Basket anime on DVD in R1, comprising four volumes. This is also available as a complete Boxset in Australia and New Zealand from Madman Entertainment The anime is produced in English in Singapore by Odex. FUNimation has received high acclaim for their work in dubbing the series.

A note on romanization

The name spellings used here are only one possible romanization and have been chosen to correspond as much as possible to the officially licensed R1 DVD names. Names are given in Western order, with the family name last. The romanization style according to the Manual of Style is given in parentheses to the right of the official romanization in Japanese order, with the family name before the given name.

Drama CDs

There are three CDs available. The last two CDs featured the voice cast of the anime, and some manga-only characters appeared in the CDs.

★ Kakeru Manabe

★ Machi Kuragi

★ Kimi Toudou

1999 ''Hana to Yume'' CD

Since this CD was produced before the anime, the cast is somewhat different from the anime cast.

★ Tohru was voiced by Hiroko Konishi.

★ Kagura Sohma was voiced by Yuri Shiratori.

★ Momiji Sohma was voiced by Miki Nagasawa

★ Ayame Sohma was voiced by Takehito Koyasu

★ Saki Hanajima (Hana) was voiced by Yumi Touma.

★ note: these drama CDs, according to the Fruits Basket Manga, are not available as of summer 1999.

See also

★ Dai Hin Min - The card game frequently played during the series.

External links

★ TV Tokyo's Fruits Basket Site (anime)

★ FUNimation's Fruits Basket Site (anime)

★ TokyoPop's Fruits Basket Site (manga)

★ Time.com's Interview with Natsuki Takaya (manga)