The curse grows ever weaker…
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Natsuki Takaya
Translation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Lys Blakeslee
What They Say:
Tohru’s feelings for Kyo come to the fore as she desperately searches for a way to break the curse. If she can’t find the answer in time, Kyo will be locked away deep in the Sohma compound for the rest of his life! But does holding on to Kyo mean she’ll lose something even more precious…?! Graduation is fast approaching, bringing major decisions that will affect not only Tohru and Kyo but every member of the Sohma zodiac. When no one’s past is free of heartbreak is a happy ending even possible…?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I tweeted about this, but the first 70 pages of this volume were killer. They focus on the hefty emotions that kind of kick you in the teeth, and come with the territory of reading Fruits Basket.
Tohru was very young when she lost her father, old enough to remember some stuff but young enough for it to be relatively fuzzy. And young enough that she thought she might lose her mother’s love to her father, despite the fact that both mother and father loved Tohru more than anything. Being a child, she could see the incredible loss her mother felt from the loss of her father. And her father’s family was kind of awful to her, saying she doesn’t even look like him. So she took up some of his vocal mannerisms, specifically speaking in a very polite manner. (I imagine this isn’t very easy to translate from Japanese to English in terms of the tone and candor of her speech, but it’s my understanding that she always adds honorifics to people’s names, which Yen retains in the translation.) She did this because she perceived her father as taking up more of her mother’s heart than she was, and she wanted her mom all to herself, as well as to console her mother’s loss and try to prove that she was her father’s daughter.
After her mother died—just two years ago at the beginning of this volume—Tohru never wanted to forget her. She wanted to keep her mother in her heart, and the way she wanted to do this was as the number one in her heart for the rest of her life. This obviously wasn’t going to happen since love just doesn’t work that way, and Kyo has filled her heart. But in her mind, letting her mother fall out of that number one spot means she’ll be forgotten forever, and she never wants that to happen. Her grandfather picked up on this, and calls her Kyoko (her mom’s name) to keep in mind that Kyoko was here for Tohru, and she remains in the hearts of many.
On top of all this, the student council vice president’s (Kakeru Manabe, the bubbly one that always gates on Yuki) girlfriend’s (Komaki Nakao) dad (name unknown) was the one driving the car that struck Tohru’s mom. They’re both grieving, but Kakeru decided that he had to say something to Tohru about her attitude, because she wasn’t the only one that was grieving. It was…uh…the wrong choice of words, and he was unable to reconcile this until two years later, when he apologized for not understanding. He was only seeing things from his point of view, and saw Tohru as someone not seeing both tragedies in front of her eyes, which she probably wasn’t, but that’s also not exactly what she was trying to think of as her mother died. Both Tohru and Komaki are too nice of people to dwell on something like that though.
Elsewhere, Momiji has grown over the break, apparently shooting up like an entire foot or something ridiculous. But he looks like the handsome characters have looked in this manga now, except still acts like he’s very small. It’s quite the dichotomy.
But the curse is also breaking. Momiji is the first since Kureno, and Shigure hints at knowing this—or at least suspecting it—for quite some time. It’s been years since the whole zodiac was alive at one time, and even years before the rat was reincarnated before Yuki. Shigure believes they’ve come together for one last banquet. Kureno’s broke years before the series began with seemingly no prompt. Momiji’s was the same. But perhaps it is because they’ve found happiness outside of Akito, forced somewhat by her demeanor, believing she owns the members of the zodiac as their God.
Momiji finally sees Akito as the person she is: A broken human being grasping at everything for a love she never truly received. She believes somewhere in her heart that love is the zodiac’s connection to her as their God, but that is merely fate rather than human connection, a compulsion as strong as continuing to breathe or to eat rather than true love.
In Summary:
Fruits Basket is coming to an end, with only two of these omnibus volumes left, and I’m sure there will be more tears yet in the final two volumes. Kyo seems to have resigned himself to his fate while Tohru fights furiously for his freedom. If you’re in this far, you know how good the series is.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: February 21, 2017
MSRP: $20.00
