Fruits Basket Volume 1 Review

Fruits Basket, is one of your typical romance shojo manga, about a girl who is surrounded by tons of super “hot” guys who all look like women. The heroine of this tale is Tohru Honda, a young girl in high school, who lives on her own in a tent in the woods, due to the fact that her mother died, and her grandpa who took her in is having his house remodeled. One day this happy go lucky girl happens upon a home in the woods near where she lives. This house she soon discovers is home to two extremely feminine looking men, which apparently in the world of shojo translates into men molded out of pure sex. One of the men she finds living in the house happens to be the most popular kid in her class at high school, "The Prince" Yuki Sohma. The story basically ends up being about the super sexy Sohma men, taking Tohru into their home. Later in the volume, another super sexy Sohma man shows up, a rambunctious violent boy named Kyo. To add a supernatural twist, it turns out that all of the Sohma family are all cursed by vengeful spirits, and so when hugged they turn into an animal of the zodiac, which is different for each family member. Kyo however becomes a cat which is outiside of the zodiac, he is angry about this, and wants to defeat Yuki in a fight and earn his place among the zodiac.

The characters in this manga are nothing special, they are just typical shojo characters. There is noreal imagination in their personalities or characterization. Tohru the main character is a typical happy go lucky shojo girl, with deep sadness in her past that doesn't really affect her, cause she is just that happy. basically she is completely unrealistic to the point where it can be annoying. All of these characters are forced into unrealistic shojo molds, that are seen over and over again in most shojo manga. Yuki, the most popular guy in school, is feminine, graceful, and brooding, he has dark secrets that he can't share with anyone, but then Tohru shows up with her bright shining happy go lucky attitude, and manages to bring some light and happiness to his dark brooding soul. While Yuki is the typical brooding hot guy, Kyo is the typical rival for the brooding hot guy, he is full of energy, wild, and can't control himself. In direct opposition to the calm, cool, brooding exterior that Yuki has. The characters are immediately recognizable, they are not original, I have seen them many times before. Now depending on who you are, this may or may not be a bad thing, many shojo fans like these characters, and that is why they read shojo.

The next thing I would like to discuss is the art. The character designs are typical shojo style, the faces are wide, with pointed chins, and extremely huge eyes, that manage to go from the forehead to the bottom of the nose of some characters. now while I am not a fan of this art style, this is just typical shojo art, I've seen worse, and I've seen better. My only real problems with the art is that sometimes, the artist will show some real talent, one panel will be beautiful, with sharp clear lines, and intensity and emotion, but then the next panel will be back to deformed shojo characters. This random showing of talent mixed in with the normal boring shojo art doesn't really flow. The artist also apparently hates backgrounds, as we rarely get anything more than characters and tone in a panel.

Overall, this volume didn't really do it for me. The plot reminds me a lot of Ranma 1/2 minus the good comedy and the action. What fruits basket does have going for it, is the mystery of the Sohma family and the zodiac, this volume didn't really get into it, but that story line could grow to be something interesting in future volumes.

This volume however just gets 1 out of 5.