by Matt Bird

Created on: March 29, 2009

It's not too often that a cat, a rat and a dog can live under one roof without killing each other.

Though, to be fair, the cat certainly does try.

Such is the world of Fruits Basket, the quirky romantic comedy manga created by Natsuki Takaya. Translated into English and additionally transformed into a successful anime, Fruits Basket has a worldwide fan following.

At first glance Fruits Basket seems no different from most romantic comedies. The main character, high school girl Tohru Honda, has recently lost her mother to a car accident and is forced to live by herself in a tent. She's rescued promptly by Yuki and Shigure Sohma, members of the eclectic Sohma family, and given a new house to live in. In short order Tohru is introduced to Kyo Sohma, a violent young man who hates Yuki, and soon enough Yuki, Kyo and Tohru slip into an almost unnoticed love triangle.

Yet there's a problem in this high school romance. The Sohmas are a cursed family, possessed by the twelve (thirteen, if you count Kyo) animals of the Chinese zodiac. If a member of the opposite sex hugs a Sohma they'll instantly transform into their respective Zodiac animal. Kyo is the cat, Yuki the rat and jolly
Shigure the dog.

Life with Tohru, needless to say, gets a bit complicated.

And that's half the fun. The situations the characters are subjected to usually stem from accidental bumps on Tohru's part, turning the guys into their Zodiac counterparts. Chaos generally ensues. But this chaos wouldn't work if it weren't backed by a hilarious cast of miscreants, which, fortunately, describes the Sohmas quite well.

Kyo is a foul-mouthed firebrand who's obsessed with martial arts perfection.
Yuki, a quiet, gentle, withdrawn soul who can nevertheless beat the stuffing out of Kyo in his sleep (literally). Shigure's a happy-go-lucky novelist with a cruel sense of humor and a completely carefree attitude. Toss in the other ten members of the Zodiac, all with their own personality ticks, and you've got a good recipe for hilarity, especially as they revolve around the perpetually kind yet somewhat dense Tohru.

Yet the Sohmas are still a cursed family, and behind their clownish antics lies dark tragedy. This balance of the comic and the tragic is, ultimately, what makes Fruits Basket such a good read, as
Takaya draws her readers in with hilariously painful situations and then keeps them hooked by exploring the various neuroses of the Sohmas. Behind most of these problems is their unstable leader, Akito, and
Tohru's attempts to deal with his vicious tendencies form some of the most bitterly intriguing parts of Fruits Basket.

Fruits Basket is a visually lovely manga in that virtually every character is good looking. There are no average joes among the Sohmas. Much of the action is focused on faces, with correspondingly little attention to background detail - indeed most of the panels are centered squarely on a particular character. It's not the most daring layout in the world, to be honest, and a bit more attention to the surrounding world would have been nice. That said the characters themselves are highly detailed, with ever-changing and interesting outfits.

Fruits Basket is not a paragon of perfection. Some chapters delve too far from the main story, leaving readers a bit sidetracked and waiting for the regression back to the primary plot. Yet these regressions also help flesh out the characters and their relationships to one another, and often provide some hilarious messes to keep the reader engrossed. There's much of virtue in this story, and even those who aren't big fans of romance stories will still probably find Fruits Basket an endearing read.

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