Crying about magical furries and horrible families: Tumblr's #1 problematic manga [FRUITS BASKET]

OH yeah, you're right. They'd probably even manage to tackle in stuff that absolutely isn't her fault, like her mother being absolutely shit. We're talking about 2.5k word call out posts, it would be terrifying.

 

they'd also blame Akito for everything Shigure did, come to think of it

 

oh man
furuba

i loved the manga and then the magazine it ran in got discontinued, and i binged on the scanlations.
and i reread it like every other year or so because its just so
its heartwrenching and its silly and its alive

and it deals with people being people and that shitty things happen but that you can become a better person, and that its hard. and that a little kindness goes a long way. that reaching out is worth it, in both directions. (ren is such a malignant narc tho, i think she's the only person without some sort of redemptive features). poor akito got a massive load of fleas from that, i hope therapy worked out for her)
tohru is the original momfriend
tohru is also a cinnamon roll FIGHT ME

also uo and hana are just -flails hands- i love them so much

 

FB: A Speculation:

Spoiler

I could see Sawa being connected to the part of Tohru's family that stopped talking to her after the first few chapters.

 

I LOVE how Ren and Kyoko are foils for each other despite having never met.

Spoiler: Speculation and triggery stuff

We never learn anything about Ren's past, but that in and of itself is sort of telling, imo. Never any mention of her parents, or her having siblings, or what she used to do before becoming a maid. That lack-of-a-past combined with the fact that her immediate reaction to getting pregnant with an XX baby is 'raise her as a boy or I'll abort' and 'my daughter is competing with me for my husband's attention' makes me suspect she came from a pretty dysfunctional family and might even be a CSA survivor who never processed her own abuse and bought into the narrative that she was to blame.

So, two women with bad childhoods get into relationships with two men from respectable, wealthy families. Their in-laws disapprove of the relationship because of their social status, and this takes a toll on their mental health. Katsuya's dad is able to accept Kyoko and make her welcome, but in the Sohma household, Ren and Akira lead to a rift in the household, with the family and the household staff siding against Ren and making her life hell. As their daughters grow up, Kyoko adores and nutures Tohru, but Ren is unable to let go of her paranoia about Akito. I feel like Ren is probably suffering from post-partum depression along with everything else, but the Sohma family is super shitty over mental health, so she never gets treated. There is a sort of balance when Akira is alive, because Ren would not blatantly hurt Akito when Akira was alive to be disappointed in her over it, but after Akira dies, Ren suffers yet another nervous breakdown and her limiters are off... while the household staff makes things worse by not supporting Akito, but raising Akito with poisonous ideals and dynamics just to show off how they've 'won'. Meanwhile, while Kyoko suffers a depressive breakdown after Katsuya dies, she eventually is able to recover with the support of Katsuya's dad and raise Tohru.

Now, a lot of the time Kyoko and Ren are just plain making different decisions, but another factor that I'm seeing is environment! Ren never really had anyone supporting her but Akira, and Akira just plain wasn't equipped to fix her mental health issues.

 

*high pitched screeching* I love this idea so much

Spoiler

I can see Sawa being the daughter of the cousin that was such a shit to Tohru about sharing a room in the first volume, ch 6.

!!!

or, even better, some relative of Kyoko, if Kyo and Tohru or one of the other Sohmas got interested in finding out about her family and trying to re-establish contact

 

From what I gather, the Sohma characters more often than not are "cousins" many times removed, though?

But yes Fruits Basket is beautiful and amazing and it was so important to me as a tiny abused kid. Yuki Sohma's storyline about learning to maintain relationships with other people and make friends and stuff was just so... inspiring and frankly educational for me? As were All The Plotlines About Siblings, Literally All Of Them. And I just love how Tohru's character development grows, and the de-idealization of her parents, Fruits Basket sounds like such a silly premise but it's so real and amazing.... aaaaahhhh...........

 

Yes. Being in the main Sohma house and not the massive branch house doesn't have anything to do with degrees-of-relation, but with the curse. So the Sohma main house is much less directly related than 'everyone is in the main house of this family' would typically indicate. Furthermore, none of the cursed people are even shown to be first cousins, which I'd feel Takaya would note. Yuki and Ayame are full brothers, but other than that? No close relation.

 

Man tho can you imagine being in the branch house and not knowing about the curse and all these families keep arbitrarily being 'moved up' and there's no pattern other than them having recently had kids? I feel like there's some very weird, confused rumors and speculation from social climbers and even just observers.

 

ALSO Ritsu and Mitchan is such a gr8 relationship, I'd fight any tumblrina who dared say otherwise because I absolutely love how Ritsu's gender has zero importance for the relationship and for Mitsuru. Takaya has stated in Word of God that Mitchan "neither knows nor cares" whether Ritsu is male of female, and ever since I was a teen and hadn't owned up to being either nonbinary or bisexual, that always made me super duper happy.

Sure, the "once I am more confident maybe I'll stop wearing girls' clothes" thing is a bit crappy, but eh, I'll still take it, 9/10 would feel represented again

 

I believe that has to do with Japanese gender roles and social roles, where the naturally timid and meek Ritsu fits much more into Japanese ideals about femininity, so the crossdressing probably calms him down because he doesn't get singled out in that way anymore, but he's not actually a woman, so the crossdressing also raises his anxiety in other ways? There's a danganrompa character with a weirdly identical thing going on, so I feel like there's cultural context there.

 

Like not saying it's the greatest representation of genderfuck and crossdressing because it isn't! Just pointing out that I get the impression I'm missing some innate context, and Ritsu was never intended to be taken as a trans woman or nb, even if Mitsuru is bi as hell.

 

@Petra Ohhh yes, that makes a LOT of sense!

 

I wish Ritsu had gotten more screentime, haha. He was a great character, there was just so much going on in the story there wasn't a ton of room.

I really really like Machi and Kakeru.

 

@Petra YESS I saw Machi/Yuki get sl much hate but to be honest they're such an excellent pair, and the kind of maturation that Yuki gets from his relationship with both Machi and Kakeru is so excellent and important and a rare thing to see on media!

 

Yeah! I do feel like Takaya was playing Yuki/Tohru romantic earlier on and the sudden flip to 'I actually had no romantic feelings for her, I was confused', I can see why that'd be upsetting. But Yuki and Machi are so good for each other, and understand each other, and are gentle with each other in a way people don't tend to be gentle towards them. Meanwhile, Kakeru shakes things up for Yuki, but in a beneficial way, and helps him understand Ayame! I think Yuki/Machi is a more balanced relationship than Yuki/Tohru would have been, because back when there were romantic undertones Yuki WAS leaning heavily on Tohru being the Supportive One, while Kyo was able to see more easily that Tohru is hurting a lot more than she lets on.

 

Since I shipped Kyo/Tohru since the beginning, i never managed to see why people would be surprised Yuki didn't like Tohru that way :X

Yuki/Machi is one of THE BEST ships. I wasn't sure when she and Kakeru were introduced if it would, like, fit or feel natural having so many characters on an already large cast, but i'm so happy it worked. It was just so nice to see Yuki open up in ways that didn't involve Tohru's brand of kindness.

 

Yeah, exactly! And she identified right away that Yuki puts on a facade in public, which I think he REALLY appreciated. She knew from experience, but...

 

Yes and I love how Machi is a very different kind of love interest, she's not presented as undesirable or unworthy of love despite her struggles with mental illness and despite not having the kind of bubbly personality common to anime LIs...

OH YES ALSO I LOVE THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN TOHRU, HANAJIMA AND UO, one of the best and most sincere depictions of friendship between girls I've ever seen.

 

Don't get me started on Rin.