Takaya Natsuki - Fruits Basket, vol. 19-22 (Eng. trans.) (reread, mostly)

[oyceter]

(The "mostly" is for vol. 22, which is a first read.)

Wow, it's been a long time since I've read Fruits Basket. I started in 2006 and got through the first chapter of vol. 22 before deciding that reading multiple chapters in Japanese meant poor reading comprehension on my part, and then tried to carefully reread in 2007. Now that the last volume is out, I am finally getting the chance to finish the series!

I was going to do detailed posts for my rereads, but when I attempted writing up my scribbled notes, I didn't actually have a post, just... random scribbled notes.

Spoilers should be themselves

I noted early on in my reread this time that the main theme was change. It's underscored in these last few volumes, when the text notes that Akito wants permanence and eternity and we get the true story of the curse's origins. I love how the curse's origins ties in with Tohru's current fear of forgetting her mother, how even she, who is the catalyst for so much change, is afraid of forgetting, afraid of moving on, afraid of loving someone more than she loves Kyoko. And it's not only the Juunishi who fear change. Kyoko herself was ready to give up and stop when Katsuya died, and although Tohru's reaction to Kyoko's death isn't as extreme, she was still holding herself in stasis until now.

As with previous reads, I'm still conflicted over Akito's change. I'm glad of it, but also a little skeptical of how quickly it's happening. Of course, it helps that she (he? I can't tell if Akito thinks of him/herself as male or female or neither or both) is still very young, just a few years older than Tohru and company. But what I do like about Akito's change of heart is that it emphasizes how even though much of the abuse the Juunishi took was at Akito's hands, all of it was backed up by the extremely dysfunctional Sohma family, from Ren to the entire structure of the household. It is institutional and endemic, and it kept perpetuating itself, even prior to Akito's birth. One of the series' strengths is portraying how abuse goes from generation to generation and how the abused become abusers as well.

On a minor note, Takaya's later art weirds me out a little. A lot of it is when she uses screen tones for eyes, which makes the person look like they are oddly spacing out. Sometimes it's fitting for the scene, but sometimes she uses it when someone is smiling kindly, and it looks like they are oddly menacing. I noticed it most on big!Momiji this time around, as I kept being distracted by his new character design. I love him still, but I so miss wee!Momiji. Well, that, and I'm not entirely sure the new face strecture works...

I had also completely forgotten that Kakeru was dating Komaki and had interacted with Tohru previously, along with Kyo's role in Kyoko's death. I hope we get to learn later how much of his retelling is what happened; I'm sure a lot of it is influenced by his own emotional turmoil.

And oh, I cried at the entire montage of the curse breaking for everyone, of course starting with Kyo and ending with Yuki, everyone unsure and tentative and happy and lost all at the same time.

Other random notes:

• There are some great moments where I want to give the characters a hug and then realize no one is hugging them because of the curse. I don't know if other readers feel the same, but it was a particularly effective way to show how damaging just the animal transformation was to me.


• In the first reread, I was noting who was wearing wafuku vs. youfuku and when and where. I note now that both Yuki and Ayame seem to wear Chinese-inspired clothing a lot (the collars, the frog buttons down the front, and why are they called frog buttons anyway?). I have zero idea what this means.


• There's a lot of people looking out from windows at other people in the series, from Akito at his/her window viewing the outside world and being afraid of people leaving to Kagura watching Kyo transform to his true self and Tohru going after him to Yuki watching Tohru and Kyo talking. It's people realizing they are not the right person but watching all the same, it's people feeling cut off, but it's also people caring enough to watch over their friends and relatives to make sure they're ok.

Comments

[lnhammer]

I just got the final volume this weekend, and am preparing a complete read-through. Which ought to be interesting, as my last read-through, I was also reading The Divine Comedy at the same time -- and they mixed remarkably well. Yes and yes, about the parallels between the curse's origin and Tohru's own fears.

My intepretation is that Akito performed male even to himself most of the time, except when sex was a convenient weapon for controlling the older Juunishi, up until he allowed the curse to break and he could accept his biological sex, after which she performed female (with increasing surety over the final volume -- I like how Takaya transitions that in slow details). But Takaya leaves it ambiguous, which is probably appropriate given his/her gender is somewhat fluid.

---L.

[lnhammer]

I was also reading The Divine Comedy at the same time -- and they mixed remarkably well.

Specifically, up until Tohru learns about Akito and vows to break the curse pings very well off Inferno and the rest plays off Purgatorio almost as well. I can't say I recommend reading it like this to everyone, but it was still illuminating.

---L.

[oyceter]

Wow, that is indeed an interesting reading mixture! At first I thought you were talking about some other manga, not Dante!

Yeah, Akito is definitely being drawn as more feminine now, especially when she's around Shigure.

I also forgot to mention in the write up how even though Momiji growing up is a bit of a surprise, he's also been getting taller and taller even before than, and his face has been changing gradually as well. I think some of it is Takaya's changing style, but the height definitely seems like something she was sneaking in (echoing Kyo and Yuki growing taller too).

[lnhammer]

The more interesting mixture is that by Paradiso, I'd moved on to the Revolutionary Girl Utena manga. That ... didn't mix as well.

---L.

[lnhammer]

Oh, and as for the Chinese-inspired clothing, in a note in the first fanbook Takaya mentions that for Yuki it was done because she likes it -- as well as to differentiate him from Kyou, with the idea being to have them both look good in their chosen styles of clothing but be able to say to the other "I'd never be caught dead in that." I suspect that Ayame was given similar tastes for to because they are brothers (and it makes him swooshily androgynous).

---L.

[coffeeandink]

How much do I love that the cover of the final volume is Kyoko? Love.

[oyceter]

Yes! So perfect!

[rilina]

Normally I loathe the saintly dead mother figure in manga, but I do love Kyoko! She is so awesome!

The curse breaking makes me cry every single time, especially for Yuki. It's a scene that could have just been perfunctory, but Takaya hits all the right emotional notes.

[lnhammer]

The breaking makes me cry, but not as hard as the penultimate chapter does.

---L.

[rilina]

I cried quite a lot over the last few chapters in general. Like when Momiji's curse breaks, somewhat before the rest of the zodiac members. Momiji and Yuki are the two characters who most make me want to hug them and say, "You are so grown up!" I mean, I love Kyo and Tohru too, and their longing for each other earlier completely tugged at my heart strings, but Momiji and Yuki grow so damn much over the course of the series.

[oyceter]

Yes, yes, yes. Especially Yuki!

[oyceter]

I love her. And I love that she isn't really a saintly dead mother, or, if she is, she is probably the oddest one we've had—high school dropout, teenage pregnancy, single mother!

Oh Yuki. I love him so. Kyo and Tohru are still confronting their own issues, but Yuki is so grown up now. I love his finally being able to hug Machi and just... he is the first and the last, of course, of course.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Must reread now! I haven't gone back since piecing together the dialogue from the raw and someone's hard-to-follow translation and crying my head off anyway!

[oyceter]

YES YOU SHOULD! I really like the translation.

while i, it seems, am spamming you today ...

[lnhammer]

BTW, with regard to the screentoned eyes, that's there from chapter 1, complete with spacy expressions this creates. Spot checking against volume 23, the main difference seems to be using it more and better print/art quality (and possibly more gradation, but that's hard to tell given said print quality).

---L.

Re: while i, it seems, am spamming you today ...

[oyceter]

Spam away!

Interesting! Does she exclude the pupil of the eye in the beginning as well? I think that's actually what freaks me out a little; the screentone with the pupil doesn't read as scary.

Re: while i, it seems, am spamming you today ...

[lnhammer]

Yup, excluded pupil and all. It becomes more obvious at the end of volume 1, where the art quality makes it more obvious.

---L.

Re: while i, it seems, am spamming you today ...

[oyceter]

Huh, interesting! Now I want to go back and reread the whole thing...