Manga Review: Fruit Basket

Title: Fruits Basket
Author: Natsuki Takaya
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shoujo, Supernatural, Comedy, Romance
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: S
Characters: S+
Humor: S
Action: B

Impression: This is about Honda Tohru whose mother recently died and is now living in a tent. The “prince” of her school invites her to live with him when he finds about her living conditions and because of that she finds out about the curse that he and several members of his clan have to live with. Their curse is that if they are embraced by a member of the opposite sex, they turn into their individual animal form of the zodiac they represent. Tohru gradually becomes more and more involved with the clan meeting with each member of the zodiac and the head of their clan. The character development here is far above the normal standard of most shoujo manga and is quite possibly the best out of all the manga I’ve read. It doesn’t just manage to be funny but there are plenty of tearjerker and heartwarming moments. The author likes keep us on our toes on who exactly Tohru’s going to end up with and even though it becomes obvious near the end of the story, there’s a still a few issues that they have to work with before they can get their happy ending. This is a top class manga so I really recommend it to those who haven’t read it yet.