Fruits Basket

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Fruits Basket
フルーツバスケット (Fruits Basket)
Genre	Romance, Drama, Comedy, Shojo
Manga
Authored by	Natsuki Takaya
Publisher	Hakusensha
Other publishers: Tokyopop Madman Entertainment Chuang Yi Editora JBC Delcourt Carlsen Mundo Vid Norma Editorial Dynit Penerbit PT Elex Media Komputindo
Serialized in	Hana to Yume
Original run	January 1999 – November 2006
No. of volumes	23 (Completed) 15 released in the United States 15 released in Canada 20 released in Australia 20 released in Singapore 19 released in France 19 released in Italy 20 released in Mexico 20 released in Brazil 15 released in Spain 11 released in Germany 14 released in Indonesia
TV anime
Directed by	Akitaro Daichi
Studio	Studio Deen
Network	TV Tokyo NTV7 ABS-CBN , Studio 23 , Hero TV CoLours TV Déclic-Images
Original run	5 July 2001 – 27 December 2001
No. of episodes	26

Fruits Basket (フルーツバスケット, Furūtsu Basuketto^?) is a shōjo manga series created by Natsuki Takaya (pseudonym) serialized in the semi-monthly Japanese Hana to Yume (Flowers and Dreams) magazine, which is published by Hakusensha. It won the 2001 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo. Fruits Basket has also been adapted into a 26-episode anime series by Akitaro Daichi (director) on TV Tokyo. The word "Fruits" in the title is always plural.

The title is often shortened to Furuba or Fruba, a portmanteau of the two parts in the Japanese pronunciation of the title, Furūtsu Basuketto.

Contents 1 Story 2 Main characters 3 Origin of the title 4 Manga 5 The anime 5.1 Production staff 5.2 Cast 5.3 Distribution 6 A note on Romanization 7 See also 8 External links

[edit] Story

Fruits Basket follows the life of high school student Tohru Honda, recently orphaned when her mother, Kyoko Honda, is killed in a car crash. Tohru lived with her grandfather, but when remodelling 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 cheerful and optimistic self.

One day, Tohru comes upon a house in the woods which is the home of Shigure Sohma and Yuki Sohma (a first year at her school with an unwanted fan club) from the Sohma family. When the Sohmas discover that Tohru is, in fact, living in a tent in the woods, they are quite surprised. The entire area is Sohma property, and Tohru pleads to stay, offering to pay a rental fee for living on their land. Feeling sorry for her, and desperate to end their take-out eating habits and 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.

Tohru soon discovers the Sohma family's secret, and the reason why Yuki is so private and taciturn: 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 great amounts 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.

[edit] Main characters

Main article: Fruits Basket characters

• Tohru Honda

(本田 透 Honda Tōru), 16-17 - An orphaned high school student, Tohru ends up sharing house with Shigure, Yuki and Kyo Sohma. She loves to cook, is an excellent housekeeper, and has an after school job as a janitor to help pay her tuition fees (since she doesn't want to be a burden on her grandfather). She's 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 family.(Seiyu: Yui Horie, VA: Laura Bailey)

• Yuki Sohma

(草摩 由希 Sōma Yuki), 16-17 - Yuki is the rat of the zodiac. Known as "Prince Yuki" at school, Yuki is very pretty 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. Yuki has suffered a traumatic childhood at the hands of Akito, the head of the Sohma clan, who locked him up and mentally 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. (Seiyu: Aya Hisakawa, VA: Eric Vale)

• Kyo Sohma

(草摩 夾 Sōma Kyō), 16-17 - 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 despises Yuki and has dedicated his life to defeat him. He made a bet with Akito: if he defeats Yuki before high school ends, he'll officially be accepted along with the other Jyuunishi by the Sohmas. If he does not, however, Kyo would be forced to live "inside", 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.(Seiyu: Tomokazu Seki, VA: Jerry Jewell)

[edit] Origin 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 the children's game, Fruits Basket, in which everyone sits in a circle, and the leader of the game names each person after a fruit; when the name of a child's fruit is called, that child gets up and swaps positions with others with the same name. When Tohru first played this game in kindergarten, she was assigned "Onigiri" (rice ball), which was fine with her, since she believes onigiri 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.

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 a 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 Sohmas.

[edit] 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. Meanwhile, in Europe, the French translation of the manga is available up to volume twenty, as of January 2007. In Mexico, there is a Spanish version 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]

[edit] The 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. As of 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 series release in North America by FUNimation, 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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Production staff

• Original story: Natsuki Takaya
• Series composition: Rika Nakase
• Character design: Akemi Hayashi
• Music: Jun Abe, Seiji Muto
• Assistant director: Nagisa Miyazaki
• Director: Akitaro Daichi
• Animation production: Studio Deen
• Production: TV Tokyo, Nihon Ad Systems

[edit] Cast

Character	Japanese Seiyuu	English Voice Actor
Tohru Honda	Yui Horie	Laura Bailey
Yuki Sohma	Aya Hisakawa	Eric Vale
Kyo Sohma	Tomokazu Seki	Jerry Jewell
Shigure Sohma	Ryoutarou Okiayu	John Burgmeier
Kagura Sohma	Kotono Mitsuishi	Meredith McCoy
Momiji Sohma	Ayaka Saito	Kimberly Grant
Hatori Sohma	Kazuhiko Inoue	Kent Williams
Hatsuharu Sohma	Akio Suyama	Justin Cook
Ayame Sohma	Mitsuru Miyamoto	Christopher Sabat
Kisa Sohma	Kaori Nazuka	Kate Bristol
Hiro Sohma	Yuriko Fuchizaki	Aaron Dismuke
Ritsu Sohma	Miina Tominaga	Mike McFarland
Kazuma Sohma	Norihiro Inoue	Dameon Clarke
Akito Sohma	Murasaki Wakaba	Chad Cline
Arisa Uotani	Yuka Imai	Parisa Fahkri
Saki Hanajima	Reiko Yasuhara	Daphne Gere
Kyoko Honda	Reiko Yasuhara	Julie Mayfield

[edit] 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^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

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

[edit] External links

Official sites

• (Japanese) TV Tokyo's Fruits Basket Site (anime)
• (English) FUNimation's Fruits Basket Site (anime)

Unofficial sites

• (English) TokyoPop's Fruits Basket Site (manga)
• (English) Otaku Corner (manga)
• (French) Suba Furuba (fansite anime/manga)
• (French) Fruits Basket Temple (fansite anime/manga)
• (English) Time.com's Interview with Natsuki Takaya (manga)

view • talk • edit  Fruits Basket
Tohru and Friends
Tohru Honda | Kyoko Honda | Arisa Uotani | Saki Hanajima
The Sohmas
Akito Sohma | Yuki Sohma | Kyo Sohma | Shigure Sohma | Kisa Sohma | Hiro Sohma | Hatori Sohma | Ayame Sohma | Kazuma Sohma | Ritsu Sohma | Isuzu Sohma | Kureno Sohma | Momiji Sohma | Hatsuharu Sohma| Kagura Sohma | Ren Sohma | Akira Sohma | Momo Sohma | Satsuki Sohma
Others
Mayuko Shiraki | Mine Kuramae | Kakeru Manabe | Machi Kuragi | Kimi Toudou | Naohito Sakuragi | Mitchan