CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Me on the subject of the loveable Fruits Basket!! wrote:Fruits Basket. My favorite manga. Ever.

Okay Synopsis time!!!
Fruits Basket is the story of the recently orphaned Tohru Honda. Tohru is a young, caring high school student who seems to have no regretter concern than making the lives of those she loves comfortable. Due to this desire, when he mother and caretaker dies and he grandfather needs her to move out of his house while he remodels, she decides her only recourse is to put up a tent and live in the woods.
But little does young Tohru know that she has inadventantly staked her tent on the land of Shigure Shoma and his cousin (?) Yuki Sohma. When the two young men find her, they offer her a room (one with a lock mind you) in their huge house in return for her cooking and cleaning skills. Not long into her stay, Tohru learns that the Sohmas have a dark secret. Whenever they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex or when they are very weak, the transform into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.
And so begins a touching story about loving people for who they really are-- no matter what.

Positive: Tohru Honda is, for me, the most inspirational fiction character that I've come across in a long time. She is what Christian girls schould me. Kind, caring, and selfless. And throughout the manga, it is obvious that she has no greater desire than to see the Sohmas happy.

Negative:

Sex/Nudity: Well, as was said in the synopsis, when the Sohmas are hugged, they turn into animals. Likewise, when they un-transform, they aren't wearing any clothes (They either got ripped because their animal form was too big or they slipped off because their animal form was too small. Luckily Takaya-sensei has spared us alot of embarrassment by placing a convenient cloud around most un-transformations.

There are a few instances where females tranform back. One instance when a little girl transforms back and we see most of her body but it is SUPER undetailed (there's not even a belly button of this chick). Another instance in the first volume, Kagura un-transforms and, while mostly eclipsed by another character and her arm strategically placed, we still see a good portion of her hip and a little of her chest (But I don't think we see anything that transcends clevage.

Lastly on the sexuality score: There are a couple of character who are questionably gay. It is the opinion of most on this board that they're not gay, but they say really obvious dumb stuff to weird people out. (And it works, too). In general, two fo teh cahracters (Shigure and Aaya exchange some sort of homosexual innuendo because getting all chibi and saying in a dumb font "ALLLLL RIGHT!!!") Honestly, it's played for laughs, and at one point a character who is a long time friend of the two in question says "You never got tired of that, did you?" And in my opinion, he means, "Y'all never got tired of those dumb jokes, did you?"

In volume three--- I think--- Aaya(who is pretty much a pervie.) tell one story that seems ot have homosexual undertones, but his object in making the questionable statement was to draw attention away from some friends who had gotten into deep trouble. It worked. Whether has was serious about what he said or not, the world may never know.

Language: Well, there's a quite a bit of language in Fruits Basket. First, Kyo is a major hot-head, and his mouth reflects that. Hatsuharu has a bit of a split personality, and when his "dark side" is showing, he can espouse some pretty colorful language. When Yuki is properly insulted, he can let a word slip too, but the first two are the main potty-mouth characters. As far as what is said, the profanities are more minor, IMHO. Things like: ****, *******, H***, are the words said the majority of the time. There are never any "F" bombs of anything thus far.

Violence: A little blood. Some of the characters like to kick eachother around and they get blood lips every once and a while, but no flying body parts.

Bad Religion: Well, there is talk of the Zodiac, but it's never used to predict fortunes or anything. It's more a backdrop for the story, rather than an active player in the plot. Honestly, most of the Zodiac talk is centered around a banquet where God invited all the animals. If you think there's somethign blasphemous about that, feel free to be offended. J/K.

There's really nothing more that I can think of. Sorry for the length of the post, but when I do something, I try to be thorough. Hope it helped.