Covers volumes 17-23 of FRUITS BASKET by Natsuki Takaya The curse has finally broken! And did you hear there’s going to be a new FRUITS BASKET anime?! Great. We don’t talk about that on this podcast! (This is a MANGA podcast, after all. And this episode was recorded before the announcement.) But don’t worry, massive Furuba fan and Anime News Network editor Jacob Chapman and Shojo & Tell host Ashley find plenty to talk about in the last third of the series (this concludes our trilogy of podcasts!). Jacob explains why Akito is such a compelling character, and he and Ashley delve into the series’ handling of gender overall. But most importantly, Jacob and Ashley finally get to talk about ALL THE SHIPS (including some that didn’t sail) in the most massive Shipping Corner to date. Obviously, Kyo and Tohru OTP. NOTE: Apologies for the subpar audio quality in this episode. The Skype connection was worse than usual, and unfortunately Jacob’s local track was corrupted. There is at least one instance where Jacob cut out for several seconds. It is easy to infer what he said from where he picks up, but it’s still not great. Sorry again!
Covers volumes 17-23 of Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya
The curse has finally broken! And did you hear there’s going to be a new Fruits Basket anime?! Great. We don’t talk about that on this podcast! (This is a manga podcast, after all. And this episode was recorded before the announcement.) But don’t worry, massive Furuba fan and Anime News Network editor Jacob Chapman and Shojo & Tell host Ashley find plenty to talk about in the last third of the series (this concludes our trilogy of podcasts!). Jacob explains why Akito is such a compelling character, and he and Ashley delve into the series’ handling of gender overall. But most importantly, Jacob and Ashley finally get to talk about ALL THE SHIPS (including some that didn’t sail) in the most massive Shipping Corner to date. Obviously, Kyo and Tohru OTP.
NOTE: Apologies for the subpar audio quality in this episode. The Skype connection was worse than usual, and unfortunately Jacob’s local track was corrupted. There is at least one instance where Jacob cut out for several seconds. It is easy to infer what he said from where he picks up, but it’s still not great. Sorry again!
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Intro: [Music]
ASHLEY: Welcome to Shojo and Tell, where we discuss shojo manga and tell who's hot and who's not, talk about themes, and just generally geek out. Today, September 23rd, 2018, we'll be shojo and telling about the end of Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya. Specifically we're looking at volumes 17 through 23. I'm your host, Ashley McDonnell, and I'm joined once again by Anime News Network editor Jacob Chapman.
JACOB: Hey everybody.
ASHLEY: Hey Jacob. All right. We're concluding our trilogy of podcasts.
JACOB: At last. Yeah. At last the final act of Fruits Basket.
ASHLEY: Oh boy. Yep. So spoiler warning right off the bat, this is about the very end of Fruits Basket. So if you have not read Fruits Basket, I do not advise listening to this podcast, because we will spoil literally everything that has happened. You can get copies of Fruits Basket from Yen Press. They are very nice. There's a lot of end matter that is not in the Tokyo Pop one, so you should definitely go get that.
JACOB: Yeah, that's what surprised me was just oodles of extras at the end, an all-new interview, just all sorts of cool stuff. And oh yeah, this is great. It's because I always want more retrospective... With a republishing like this you want a lot of retrospective stuff. And there's a lot of it in volume 12. So I was really happy with that.
ASHLEY: I know. So I tried to look through all of it, and I was like, "I'm just overwhelmed. I'm going to focus on the cool stuff."
JACOB: There's so much. I just kind of skimmed through it. But yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah. So just to clarify, like really, really broad overview of what has happened in these volumes, is we got the reveal that Kureno's curse has been broken for a while.
JACOB: It's how we kick off with volume 17 and then it's just all madness from there. Just violence and revelations and confessions and just everything climactic happening all at once. It's really quite exhausting, actually.
ASHLEY: I know. Well because we also in volume 17 learned that Akito is a woman. And I was like, "I want to say that volume 17 is like the biggest reveal volume." But I was like, "Just so many things happened." It's hard to say that definitively.
JACOB: It is. It is. Volume 17 is, I think, another point of no return, kind of like volume 6 was. Where it's, I don't know, the curtains sort of peel back and there's no way to look at things the same way ever again, because you get a one-two punch of Akito is a girl and has been forced to live as a man in order to keep up the tradition of the Sohma family head sort of being male, and for other complicated reasons. And Kureno, the rooster, the bird of the zodiac, has not been cursed for years. In fact, he's just been pretending. His curse has been broken since he was pretty little, since he was 12 or something.
ASHLEY: Yeah. And there was no even big specific thing. He's like, "I don't know, just one day. It just broke."
JACOB: Just one day it just... Just one day he was free. And no one really knows why.
ASHLEY: That's fine. And then other things that happened in this volume.
JACOB: It's fine.
ASHLEY: It's fine. He's fine.
JACOB: He's fine. This didn't cause a huge drift that... Well, I mean, and so connecting the dots right away back when we were talking, I think, in the previous podcast about how one day Akito just snapped, went from being a troubled little kid to, I guess we could say little girl now, to a just insane and painting an entire room black in which to keep Yuki and to torment him and all that stuff. All that happened after Kureno's curse broke. It was a giant turning point for her in terms of realizing that this power she has and this place to belong is finite and is ending soon.
ASHLEY: Yes. The final banquet is happening.
JACOB: The final banquet is... It falls to her to be at the head of the final banquet, and that responsibility is dawning on her when she's a little girl. And it's like, oh right, this would drive anyone insane, I think.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Head of the family, just destroying this family right there.
JACOB: This family ends with you. It's all your fault.
ASHLEY: It's all your fault.
JACOB: And when it ends there will be nobody there for you. So she actively fights against that fate, I think.
ASHLEY: Yeah. We will definitely get more into that. But just other things that happen generally are like Tohru and Kyo confess their feelings to each other in lots of violent things happen there with...
JACOB: Right. It's not exactly a romance novel. I mean, I guess it could be a certain kind of romance novel. But it's not exactly like a rom-com ending for them. Their first love confession goes about as poorly as it possibly could.
ASHLEY: Yeah. That's like the worst. Kyo's like, "Hey, we had our first kiss already. Oh Tohru doesn't remember." I'm like, "That's awful."
JACOB: Hey, Tohru doesn't remember their first kiss. So actually that's when the sun is starting to peak through the clouds, but the way it begins even before that is pretty rough.
ASHLEY: Yeah. It's okay. Kyo's disillusioned. He's fine. He's fine, too. Yeah, and then everybody's curse breaks, and everybody gets to live happily ever after, I think those are the—
JACOB: Yeah. It's just fine, sunshine, rainbows, and once the curse is over, everybody's nothing but sunshiney days ahead. That's how that works. But yeah, they barrel toward a conclusion. Everybody who was going to end up with somebody that you already know does. The curse breaks. The family has to reorganize. People graduate from high school. That's another big one. They have to decide their futures, where they're going to college. Are they moving? Are they staying together? All this stuff happens in a scant seven volumes of material.
ASHLEY: Yeah. It's very. Okay, but generally do you think that this ending is good? Because on one hand, I'm like, "It was very fast. But it was also very good." I feel like it was the right amount of everything, I guess.
JACOB: Yeah. I think for the amount of buildup that there was, which is to say a lot, that it was very satisfying. I think everything important got addressed fully and in enough time that it didn't feel rushed. There were lots of little not unimportant things, but there's so many characters that you want to spend more time with, all these different characters. And you know you're not going to be able to. And I think that that's a little bit of a strain. But all of the important emotional stuff, there was time slowed down and we spent just enough chapter space on all the stuff that really mattered.
JACOB: I think one of the things I discovered from the bonus stuff in the back of the collectors edition is that they asked Takaya, "Is there anything that you regret that you couldn't include?" And I was really happy with her answer, actually, I think. Her answer meant a lot to me as a fan of the character and somebody who was very invested in that story. As Takaya said, well originally in the outline from the beginning, as foreshadowed by Hatori in about chapter 16 or so, somebody was really going to go off on Shigure for what he'd done. Somebody was going to punch him right in his smug face. And she said, "But unfortunately, by the time I had gotten to that point, all of the characters were so grown up and had their own things to with it, it didn't seem right. It didn't seem something they would do." And so the closest we get is Tohru, she shoves Shigure. But that's about it. She shoves him, tells him to shut up, and that's the best we get. But no one punches Shigure. He definitely deserves it.
ASHLEY: He definitely does.
JACOB: And he never gets his comeuppance. Shigure gets exactly what he wanted for basically no consequences. And I think Takaya wanted to punish him a little more initially, and that doesn't come through, so. Yeah, he probably, he didn't deserve what he got, but I don't hate the guy. So okay, I'll throw him a bone there, I guess.
ASHLEY: A bone there. Yeah, I love that, too. It was very good. I was like, "Oh, but I feel like you could've made some rando punch Shigure. It's fine."
JACOB: I mean well if it wasn't for... we can hate him all we want, but if it wasn't for him none of this would have happened, right?
ASHLEY: It's true. Tough love.
JACOB: Tohru is a really good person, but yeah. But if it wasn't for him pushing Tohru and pushing all these other kids, we wouldn't have gotten... He had to get his hands dirty. He didn't get punished for that, but somebody had to get their hands dirty, and I guess if it wasn't for Shigure we wouldn't have eventually gotten everybody free of the curse and able to move on with their lives, so.
ASHLEY: Yeah, plus I think generally, we'll get more into this later, but Fruits Basket is kind of like if you punish people too much, that's just bad. You just have to move on at some point and let it go.
JACOB: The importance of kindness, even if people maybe don't deserve it.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Even especially if they don't deserve it. Yeah, I also just generally think the ending generally it's so easy to see how it could go wrong, right? Like you go too hard in one direction, where it's overly sad or overly happy even. I'm like, no, I feel like it's pretty happy. But in the end it's a good balance of yeah they're really scarred from all these years of super terribleness that has happened to them. And they won't get over it right away, but they're going to keep on moving on and all these things. And I'm like, "That's good."
JACOB: I remember a scene that really stuck with me is when Isuzu, Rin, beats herself up for not being able to forgive Akito, or is having conflicting feelings over the fact that she doesn't think she'll ever be able to really forgive Akito. Because yeah, Akito almost... That's another thing that happens in this is after getting shoved out a window, before a lot of the other big things in this that happen, Rin attempts to break the curse again by sort of sneaking into Akito's room and finding this box that is supposed to contain a great secret and that's bad enough that Akito really loses her (beep) and decides that she's just going to abandon Rin completely. So she locks her in the cat's isolation chamber. And Rin, completely despondent at this point, stops eating, and she could have died in there. They make that pretty clear. It wasn't necessarily Akito's attempt to kill her. But she did abandon her. And so her death definitely would have been on Akito's hands. And so something that intense, that intensity of abuse is something that none of the other Sohmas have faced, even as bad as they had it from Akito's hands.
JACOB: So I think that that scene where Rin says, "I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive them," is pretty potent and important. And also the scene where the curse breaks itself is, I really like, I think is one of the most memorable pieces of prose or dialogue, I guess it's more prose, in Fruits Basket and almost anything I've read, is when the curse actually breaks. And I think it's Akito narrating. It's not super clear as it sometimes isn't near the end, but I think it's Akito's words, where she says something to the equivalent of, "It's too soon to be happy. It's too soon to say, well, an ending is just a new beginning that hasn't started yet." That kind of thing. She says, "It's too soon for all of that. Right now all you can do is cry." And all the other characters are like, "I should be happy, but this is not, I'm not ready to be happy yet." And at the moment that the curse breaks.
JACOB: And I thought that that was a really, really emotionally thoughtful way of handling... Even if it was bad and it needed to end, when you have a relationship of some kind, whether it's family or romantic or whatever the case may be. Or maybe if you're cursed with an ancient Chinese zodiac spirit that's taken over your body, which is something everyone can relate to.
ASHLEY: Definitely.
JACOB: If that's happening, it's not like freedom, finally. Which is the way I think these things are falsely characterized sometimes in more poppy or more, I don't know, less honest media. And it's like, no initially your just going to be really sad. Initially your going to be dealing with a lot of feelings and you're not going to be able to move forward, yet. So when something ends, you're not just going to move forward into the next thing. You have this period of just sitting in silence of what you've lost. A grieving period. Even if it was for literally a curse. So a magical curse breaking and someone grieving the loss of a curse breaking is not something you see in almost any story. And so it's really important to me in Fruits Basket that that happens.
ASHLEY: Yeah, the scene with Rin also really struck me for that. And even with Kureno in the very beginning and his curse broke so long ago. But the way that it's framed and everything is so ominous, because it's like Tohru's playing with some birds that she's like, "Oh, they're so friendly, and I don't have any food, and I'm so sad." And then Kureno comes and she doesn't know that his curse is broken yet, so she's like, "Hey, you're the rooster, birds should really like you or whatever." But they fly away. And Kureno's like, "No, I've been set free from this curse, and now the birds can fly away. But I can't fly." And it's just immediately this sad sort of thing, the reverse of the normal bird cage sort of thing. He's a bird and he's supposed to be able to fly, but he's still trapped by some other thing and still sort of sad about it.
JACOB: Well he's trapped by his own freedom. And I really, really like the character of Kureno. Not just because he's male Tohru, and he's basically showing the dark side of what could happen to someone like Tohru if they weren't supported by... if they were taken advantage of fully the way he is. And it's funny because he's free, but he's the only person who is free and the only person who knows he's free, which is its own kind of prison. And the way that that's characterized in the book is it was a liberation and a new cage in the same moment, because he finds comfort in the idea that he is in a cage of his own volition.
JACOB: Which again, is a really thoughtful and interesting emotional concept, because it's very true to life for a lot of people. Especially people who get out of a bad situation, and they put themselves in another, in a very different kind of bad situation or relationship. Because often the reason that they can't be saved from that circumstance, the reason that Kureno really couldn't be saved from becoming Akito's lap dog, even though he's the only person who isn't cursed, he's the only person who could just walk out on her at any point that he wanted to, is because he's like, "I have a choice. No one else has a choice. They're stuck here. I have a choice and therefore I owe it to them and I owe it to Akito to use my freedom to help them." But really that's pity. That's looking down on somebody. That's saying that they can't make it on their own, or that they can't deal with this loss without you. It is sort of secretly a harmful thing to do. But in the moment, when you've never had freedom before, it seems like mercy.
JACOB: And I remember that when I first read this as a teenager, Kureno's story didn't necessarily make... it made logical sense to me, but I didn't really deeply understand it until I was in an abusive relationship with somebody in my early 20s. And I had entered that largely as a way to escape my family, to escape my upbringing. And when it all kind of came crashing down, I was like, "Oh, that's what I did." I was reading Kureno's story again. Because it was one of those times when I was not feeling well, so I would go back and revisit things that I loved, including Fruits Basket, and I was like, "Oh, that Kureno did what I did." I escaped a bad situation, it was like I'm free, and the first thing that I do with my freedom is put myself in a situation where I'm taking care of somebody who was taking advantage of me. Because I think that I'm exercising my freedom, but I'm really just hurting myself because I haven't been used to taken care of or treated well before. And I think that it's a really complicated and interesting emotion, and it's a very believable. And Kureno, I think he's a really lovable and thoughtful character. Even though he doesn't get a whole lot to do. It's funny. He shows up kind of at the very end of the story, but they give him a lot of anteriority and a lot of development.
ASHLEY: Yeah, he's pretty integral to most things, and he saves a lot of people. He saves Rin from the isolation room. He gets to have a weird lovable romance with Uo. That's a thing.
JACOB: Yeah, Uo finally gets to date Tohru in some form. That's the way I look at it. It's like, well Uo's really in love with Tohru, so this is just like...
ASHLEY: She's like, "I found male Tohru so it's great."
JACOB: I found boy Tohru, so it's good.
ASHLEY: So we're going to run away before somebody can take him away again.
JACOB: And there's that age gap that seven-, eight-year age gap, like Kyoko and Katsuya. It's circles within circles.
ASHLEY: Oh man. I didn't even think about that. But yeah, definitely. I guess we can talk more largely about the curse breaking, and what it means for everybody else. And the striking thing about when Kureno initially describes what the curse breaking feels like, is that he's like, "I could only feel me inside of me for once." It was so freeing and all these things. And I'm like, "Yeah, because identity keeps everybody..." Like you, it's so hard to define who you are because identity is to wrapped up in connections to other people. And so he's like, "I finally saw just me as an existence unconnected from this curse to Akito and to all the other Sohmas and all these things." Yeah, and then everybody else is like... It's both sad because I feel by the end, it's so fun to see the Sohmas together without this otherworldly bond that they have together, and they're all just so happy and nice to each other. And then what immediately happens is that they all go their separate ways, and are like, "Eh, we'll see you at some point." And I'm like, "That is both so real to growing up and everything, but also just so sad." It's so nice to have seen both sides of they like each other more when they are not obligated to like each other.
JACOB: Exactly.
ASHLEY: They're just like, "We're cool." And both be like, "Well, now I have to go live on my own. We are not reliant on each other anymore. And my identity as the rat and the cat is in the past and we can move beyond that now. We don't have to fight anymore."
JACOB: Yeah. They see each other... So what happens is after the curse breaks Akito calls a meeting where basically just to apologize to everyone and give everyone permission to go their own separate ways. But she takes a while getting ready and everybody gets to hang out with one another for a while before that. And they remark, it's like, "You know, I thought this would be different, because we're not cursed anymore. But you're still family." And it's a really heartening moment where it's like all of the emotions and relationships and stuff like that that we formed between each other over bonding over this curse are still there, even when the curse is gone. The parts of us that we made for ourselves, the hard work we put in doesn't go away. And I thought that was really meaningful. But at the same time, it's like I don't really want to see you outside of Christmas and New Years. That kind of thing.
ASHLEY: Yeah, exactly.
JACOB: Because we all need time and space.
ASHLEY: Like I've seen you enough now, so I'm gonna go hang out with Tohru or Machi over here and bye.
JACOB: Well yeah, my job is not to be an emblem of family prosperity to be provided for and live in this giant mansion, family compound, I guess, for the rest of my life. My job is now to find my own happiness. And that may or may not intersect with other people's. I think certainly there's friendships that are going to last, and people are probably going to see each other every day. I like that they reinforced that Ritsu, Kagura, and Rin are all probably going to see each other all the time. And Haru, as well, by virtue of that connection. It seems like they're going to stay kind of in Tokyo for a while. Because they show other characters moving on, like Momiji's going to travel the world, and Kureno obviously is he's going to live in the country side for a little bit. And other characters are going to travel and stuff like that. But there's still a nugget of people Ayane, Ritsu, Kagura, who are all kind of going to stay near the family home and not do a whole lot else. Because they've kind of found their happiness there, and that's fine. So it's just a very realistic portrayal of how characters are spread apart. And Yuki's going to be a genius at some top-tier college or something like that. They make it very clear that Yuki's got a very bright future ahead of him.
ASHLEY: And Machi's going to catch up, and live happily ever after.
JACOB: Yeah. I think so.
ASHLEY: I guess we should also talk about Akito being a woman, as contrasted with both her mother and with Tohru, because Akito is shown to be this head of the family, head of the Sohmas, and Shigure has devised that Tohru is anti-Akito, basically. Tohru will break the curse through kindness and all these things. And then, Akito is also contrasted with Ren, her mother. I almost keep using the wrong pronoun, but I'm trying really hard not to.
JACOB: Well, I feel like with Akito you can say kind of "her" or "his" and it's whatever at this point, because the character is an amalgamation of influences by the end of her tenure in the story.
ASHLEY: So yeah, so then Ren, as Akito's mother is also contrasted with Akito's beliefs of in this bond, as God, and even if that's real, or whatever. Ren is like "That's not real, that's just some BS that your dad told you once, Akito."
JACOB: Yeah. Ren's crazy. Can we just say that? Ren's crazy. So she is the final boss, as it were. She is the most evil person in the story, the closest one who comes to not being redeemed at all. And to kind of look at a story about empathy, where absolutely everybody is in some way sympathetic or redeemed, and to find somebody who's not, I think you really have to look at what Takaya thinks or is characterizing as the most unforgivable thing. And I think it is loving someone or... The thing, I guess, that she condemns Ren for, and the thing that Ren never bounces back from, is that she basically falls in love with someone, or gives her all to someone for power.
JACOB: And I think that that is the one that that Takaya kind of decided she couldn't forgive, is that Ren was sort of a lowly servant Sohma maid, very low on the totem pole, which is why it was such a scandal that she fell in love with Akira, who was Akito's dad, and the God of the zodiac before her. And everyone was so deferential to Akira and didn't love him as a person or get to know him as a person, that Ren saying "I'll do anything for you, I'll listen to your real feelings," basically throwing herself completely in his lap worked, and he fell in love with her, and he cared about her very deeply. But I think for Ren it was mostly a play for power. The way they talk about... This new translation really helped with that. I looked really closely at Ren's dialogue, kind of trying to understand her. And it seems like she knew this was her way in, to either being the head of the family or being someone of value. I got the feeling that Ren had never really been... The sad thing is that you get the impression Ren had never really been valued before. And she was like, "This is my chance, if I can get the head of the Sohma family to love me, then I'll be worth something, right?
ASHLEY: Yep.
JACOB: And it worked. But then they had a baby, which Akira thought was good, because he was like, "We'll raise this child together, and then we'll really prove to everybody that our love is strong." And that was kind of where Ren fell down and kind of proved that she didn't love Akira in the way that she said that she did, because she doesn't want a child with him. She just wanted to be his number one. She doesn't want anyone sharing his love. She just wants to be the person who God loves most. She kind of wants to be the rat of the zodiac, I think, in a way. And the fact that she didn't have that bond, that artificial bond is kind of what drives her insane, is that no matter what she does, she can't over come this literal centuries old magic spell. And Akito becomes the next head of the family instead of her. She is promptly ignored by the rest of the family, in the cultish way that they do things, and she goes a little insane. You can kind of feel bad for Ren, but there's any number of things that she could have done at any point in her life to change how things go down and she doesn't. To the end she is a power hungry, desperate, angry, nasty person, so.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and you get the characterization, too, and she tricks Rin into going to get the box that Akito has from her father. Everybody has the same name now, too. So hard.
JACOB: It's so confusing. I could just say Isuzu, because that's her given name, right?
ASHLEY: I know. Yeah. Gosh.
JACOB: A little easier. There's too many RN sounds.
ASHLEY: I know. But yeah, so Ren tells Isuzu to go get this box that Akito has, which is an empty box that apparently has... One of the servant people was just like, "It has the soul of your father inside of it," or whatever.
JACOB: The main maid, she's basically the top maid.
ASHLEY: Top maid.
JACOB: The top banana maid. And she's the other villain, I guess you could say.
ASHLEY: Yeah, definitely.
JACOB: The closest. Her last scene is the closest to giving her sympathy, but then she rejects it again, so. She's like, "Hey, this is all I've ever known." And yeah, it seems like the worst people, the most villainous people in Fruits Basket are people who like, "I won't abandon this abusive structure because it gives me power." So, and the fact that all those characters are women, well that's a different discussion, I think.
ASHLEY: Well.
JACOB: There are some problematic elements of the end of Fruits Basket. And I think a lot of people talk about... I do kind of want to get into is Akito problematic at some point. But I won't...
ASHLEY: We can do it now. We can do it right now.
JACOB: It's just cracking open a can of worms. Well okay, how do you feel about I guess the internalized misogyny of Fruits Basket that kind of does creep through the portrayal of Akito. As basically her curse is all the others have this animal self, and quite directly the manga just directly says, that Akito's curse is that her false self is a man, basically, is that she's cursed to be this male head of the family when she's not, that she's like a delicate and hurt girl.
ASHLEY: Yeah, the definitely emphasizes, oh all these men just took pity on Akito because she's actually the weakest one of them all, and all these things.
JACOB: Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative).
ASHLEY: Yeah, it's just so hard because Shigure, I guess, is the most evil male character that we have in this.
JACOB: Right. But he's pretty much absolved of what he does. He gets away with it.
ASHLEY: Yeah because he ends up being correct in the end, or whatever, right?
JACOB: Right.
ASHLEY: But yeah, definitely Fruits Basket feels like it gives into this idea that women are much more nasty to each other, and have all this infighting because they don't have power. And what they're fighting with is themselves, not actually the patriarchy in the end. It's just a bunch of infighting, because you got Akito fighting with her mom, and loved her dad. Dad was great, or whatever, even though he wasn't really. But...
JACOB: Yeah, well there is insecurity over that, as well. Because even though Akito was with her father in his dying moments, his last words were about his wife, because he really did love her. But it is a thing of this could have... I think that the only place in which it doesn't bother me as much, or I find it not as problematic, is that the Sohma family is a matriarchy, and it is not considered abusive because it is a matriarchy. But therefore the infighting and the harm that comes to women in it is as a result of women abusing women. So it's—I don't know, I have complicated feelings on it. And then I was like, well in one way is it is sort of like kind of giving away that Takaya does have some internalized misogyny worked through as do a lot of people in the world. But on the other hand, I think it also makes it-
ASHLEY: As we all.
JACOB: ... Yeah. Yeah. And I think on the other hand it does make it relatable because I remember thinking, I thought Akito was incredibly relatable. And I know a lot of trans women who also find her very relatable because the story doesn't downplay how difficult it would be to take on, from childhood to take on this persona of like the strong, aggressive, powerful male head of the family when you are not that, when you are not that at all.
JACOB: And certainly the story never diminishes or makes lesser of it. It's not saying Akito couldn't be the head of the family because she's a woman because she continues to be the head of the family after she kind of comes out and start living as a woman. She continues to run the family and work hard. And the joke is actually that she is sort of the more masculine of the duo even though she's dressing, even though she puts on makeup and female clothes and stuff like that now. She does all the hard work and Shigure is the bum. He actually quits his job as an author and he's now a stay at home, he is, he's a stay at home boyfriend. And so I have complicated feelings about it.
JACOB: I think that what Akito's transformation meant to me personally kind of overrides the potential problematicness of aspects of her story for me. I'm like, well yeah, I can see that in a vacuum, but when I was experiencing the story, it never—it only gave me positive feelings. So I don't think it's necessarily harmful, but I think it's interesting. Let me put it this way. I guess if you were to write an essay on gender in Fruits Basket and problematic aspects of it, I think it would be really interesting. And those are certainly there. But as your average reader, I don't think reinforcing gender essentialism or putting down women was something that came across strongly in Fruits Basket at all. So, I'm of two minds. I don't think it's terribly... I think it's more interesting as an essay topic than it is as a pertinent, like core aspect of the work that you can't get around.
JACOB: Because the core aspect of the work for the most part is just empathy to everybody and essentialism about nothing. There are trends that probably should have been examined as like, hey, why are all the women this way? That kind of thing. But I don't think that it was intentional. I don't think Takaya was trying to say anything about it because there's a lot of places in the text where if she wants to say something about gender or if she wants to say something about this happened to this person this way because they were a woman, she will and she doesn't. And she chooses not to. It's not that Akito was forced to become a man and that made her crazy. It was that Akito was forced to be someone she wasn't and that was unfair. You know what I mean?
ASHLEY: Yeah. And it also has other textual explanations of like, it's lonely at top, basically. It's like her whole identity is wrapped up in this idea that she's god and so it relies on everybody else literally. And there's nobody they described. They're like Akito is not part of the Zodiac, she's lording over it and is always like this outsider within it. And so it's just a bunch of loneliness and Akito is just an outsider in a lot of ways and has this identity that's like, "I am the Zodiac but also I'm not the Zodiac," you know?
JACOB: Yeah. And she's puppeted, she's controlled by everyone else's will for her. Like her father wanted her to be proof that like... It's really kind of (beep) when you think about it, because her father wanted her to be proof that Rin was worth something. So her father's dying words are like, "I'm really sorry that my wife didn't love you. I thought you were going to be proof that she was better than that." And what a terrible thing to tell the child right before you die, right? Of course her mother never showed her any love and told her like, if you want to be worth anything, you have to be like your father, literally you had to be a man. And what was exactly was I... And of course all the maids are just manipulating Akito for their own and their even factions.
JACOB: Apparently things have gotten so bad at this point that there are factions within the Sohma family that want Rin to take over. Because it's made very clear that passing on the head of the Sohma family thing is voluntary, unlike the reincarnations of animals. You literally give the power of god to the next person that you want. And the reason that Akira didn't give the power of god to his wife, his because he wanted her to live a long and happy life. He gave it to Akito which kind of proves, which is why they fight over him to the present day is because they, both of them did not feel sufficiently loved by him before he passed away. I don't know. It's really fascinating. I think it's a really interesting tangle of emotions, but I could see also why it would put some people off, I guess.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I also, I don't know. It's just like, at least it doesn't go the route. Like you get Tohru who's very selfless, even though she thinks she's like fairly selfish, but she's just a normal human.
JACOB: She's like that's just normal.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Like that's... And she's like fairly kind about herself selfishness, right? Like that's fine. But I think it's good to be like, because I feel like we have a stereotype in society of like women are kinder, so if they were in positions of power everything would just be better-
JACOB: That's not true.
ASHLEY: ... but that's not true in Fruits Basket. Fruits basket they're like, no, they're still terrible too. Like the structure of... if the structure of power is the source of corruption there, if that structure is messed up to all these degrees, then it doesn't matter if you're a man woman, no matter what you try, it's just going to break at that point.
JACOB: A structure of matriarchy that forms the same, that basically follows the same structures as patriarchy, is fundamentally not any different. So if you have a matriarchal cult that is run the same way-
ASHLEY: You're still a cult.
JACOB: ... it's still a cult and it's run the same way. It's just that the people in positions of power happened to be women because of the power vacuum caused by the death of this guy. If this kind of, it seems like... The thing that strikes me most about Akira and everybody fighting over him is he seems like a very, and Takaya goes out of her way to never really, she barely ever shows his face. She not really concerned about his personality. He seems like an unexceptional guy, doesn't he?
ASHLEY: Yeah, he's just a dude.
JACOB: He seems like this whatever. I thought it was, I think it's really important that Akira seems like basically a child. He wasn't mean and ragey and angry like Akito, but then again, he was probably raised by parents who were not the worst ever, like he was. But he just seems like a naive, entitled ignorant guy, an exceptional struggle dude who died young and left all this terrible stuff in his wake, you know?
ASHLEY: Yeah. Classic mediocre man with power sort of.
JACOB: Exactly. Yeah. He's like four-year-old kid. He said, "All right, now you're god."
ASHLEY: Now your god, you can handle it. No better or worse than child father, right? Like it's good.
JACOB: So it's, it's risky, but it's... And I think I'm proud of Akito being the one to break the curse because there's, the curse is going to break eventually but it probably would have taken several years to happen and so Akito, I think it was also stunning that god has the power to break the curse at any time that they want and this is somehow not happened over centuries. So it must be really hard. Right? And so Akito making that decision saying, all right, I'm going to do it. And Akihito doing the right thing and breaking the curse while staying on as the head of the Sohma family, that must be incredibly difficult. It's basically giving up all of your power and then holding on to all the responsibility. With great power comes great responsibility, and then you give up all the power and then you're still, you leave yourself behind to pick up the pieces. That's really strong.
JACOB: So she did the right thing in the end I think. I think I really like her for that. I think I can forgive Akito's evils for how much she makes up for it at the end.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I mean me as a person reading Fruits Basket, I think especially when I was younger, people keep asking us comparisons between younger and older. So we keep sprinkling that throughout here, like what our reactions are. But definitely when I was younger I think I did not understand how anybody could forgive Akito. I was like, that's insane. The amount of stuff that she did to them is just like, she should definitely go to jail. Like all these things. And I was like, this doesn't make sense to me. But now being older, I'm like, okay, I definitely still have gut reaction of like, no, that's definitely insane and nobody should be forgiven for that. But I understand the point much more of like if all of them decided to just keep holding onto this hatred of Akito, even though she does try to make amends, she's like, I can't undo what I did in the past, but I can now break this curse and we can move forward in a healthier way I suppose.
ASHLEY: It's like, yeah, if they all just kept holding onto that hatred, it wouldn't solve anything, right? They wouldn't be happier. They'd just be like, I still hate you and nothing that you can do will make up for it. And it's very much a thing that we have in our culture now of like, oh, we always want to punish people on social media and in real life for terrible things that they did. And then we have this, I'm not saying what is right or wrong, but we definitely have to keep having this conversation of like, how much can you punish a person for mistakes they made in the past. Do they just not get to ever have a job again? Like what the limit here of punishment versus retribution versus just forgiveness and moving on and things? And I'm like, okay, I feel like Fruits Basket did it in a pretty respectful way that I can understand better as I've aged.
JACOB: The two people who could press charges, they actually do address that in the book. The two people who are currently like injured and could press charges against Akito and we basically get the police involved from the outside are both Tohru, like it's Tohru and male Tohru, Tohru and Tohruno. And they're both not going to press charges. So she really lucks out in that regard. I think that it's acceptable for characters, certainly like Isuzu and some others to not forgive Akito and it's completely understandable that they would just like want to leave that behind and they don't feel any need to forgive her. But at the same time it's like I personally, I guess, forgive Akito as a reader, and sort of wish her the best in the future.
JACOB: That character means a lot to me on a personal level, not only because I played the character in the Fruits Basket radio drama that I made, I played her under an alias because, this is hilarious really in retrospect, because at the time I was not out. I was living as female and I was playing an ostensively male character that will eventually be revealed to be female. So I had to do like a masculine voice, and which is way easier now let me tell you, than it used to be.
JACOB: And now it's funny as now I've transitioned, I live my truth as—I live as a man who I always was, and Akito kind of underwent the reverse trajectory of unwillingly sort of living as a man and eventually escaping that. So, it's kind of funny like Akito and I sort of passed each other like ships in the water or whatever that phrase is. Ships in the night I believe is the expression. But I've always cared about that character a lot because of all the terrible things that she did, they're all a result of being told that she has to do the, she has to act out in anger and she has to hurt people because otherwise they'll leave her. And that's a really terrible place to be in because when she get out of it, you can't expect anybody to forgive you. But at the same time she was just a child. She didn't know what she was doing.
ASHLEY: Right. It's like, how much can you hold? It's just such a complicated issue. And I'm like Fruits Basket does it pretty respectfully. Like these are still discussions-
JACOB: I would say very respectfully, yeah.
ASHLEY: ... that we have. Yeah. These are discussions that we debate forever today and stuff. So it's like, "everybody just read the Fruits Basket. You made me figure it out, you know?"
JACOB: Yeah. She does her best. So I really liked the character. I don't know that her ending up with Shigure is necessarily a good thing, but I know that her having somebody in her life that is patient as he is, you can... Whatever else you say about Shigure, he is patient. So to kind of be by her side as she figures things out is good. So you certainly wouldn't want her to be alone. Is Shigure the best option? I don't know. But-
ASHLEY: Shigure slept with her mom, that's weird.
JACOB: It is weird. It is weird. But to be fair as as he puts it, the reason that he did that was because she was sleeping with other people in the family Kureno, and like she probably would have kept going. She probably would have just nailed every single guy. And you know, it's true. She would have nailed every single guy in the Sohma family if Shigure hadn't said, "All right, I'm not going to be a part of your harem." I guess at this point we should let the cat out of the bag and talk about why Shigure said way back in an early volume that he was the most cursed member of the Sohma family and no one could understand how he felt.
JACOB: I guess now that the cat's out of the bag, we can kind of address that, which is to say that everyone is in love with Akito because of the curse. If not love, it's sort of a bond so they have to do everything that she tells them. They feel this overwhelming affection for her no matter what she does to them. It is an metaphorized version of a familial bond of a really strong familial bond with an abusive family member. Well, Shigure in a weird place because that exists for him. But he also knows consciously with no way to back it up and no way to express it that the real him who he really is underneath the curse cares for Akito-
ASHLEY: The me part of him.
JACOB: ... Yeah. Me as a person, not the dog of the Zodiac, loves you Akito as a woman, not god of the Zodiac. And that is something that nobody else around him can understand. There's no way for him to express it or approve it. He just sort of knows it to be true and has to find a way to deal with it. And I think that's really fascinating. And I think that maybe if he was more realistic that he would be in a more emotional person because of it. Instead he's just sort of emotionally dead. It's just dried up in there. But that's another response that's acceptable I think that makes sense.
ASHLEY: It's part of what makes Akito attracted to him, right? Because Akito is like, oh, you always seem like you are the one who is comfortable just being alone, and that was weird and drew me to you.
JACOB: And I think that he did that even though it was painful to him because he, that was the only way he could express love for her. It was weirdly by ignoring her. Which is, it's funny because for everyone else in Fruits Basket, Shigure and Akito are really like the outliers. And there's an interview at the back of the book where Takaya says like, yeah, Shigure is the character who seems like he doesn't belong in Fruits Basket and there wasn't much I could do about that, but that's just because of his role in the story. And because he seems unbothered by things.
JACOB: He is bothered by things but he can't let it affect him in the same way as everyone else because for everyone else in Fruits Basket and in the world and what Takaya kind of says you should do is like never be afraid to reach out. Don't be like, if I put this person at a distance or if I lie to them or whatever, it'll be better for us. Don't do that. Just be honest to people, reach out, connect with people, say that you care about them, do all those things. And Shigure is the person who can't do that. Out of love he has to not do that, out of love he has to ignore her, which is a weird, he has to put himself at a distance. He even has like sleep with other people to get her to finally push him away. And it's weird and there's not really, there's no real world equivalent of that because that is like where the metaphor breaks down and it really is. This only makes sense because of a magical curse that binds them together.
JACOB: So it's fascinating as sort of a cool, twisted fantasy set up, but it doesn't have, it doesn't really have an equivalent in real life. So it's just interesting on its own. But certainly unless you literally had somebody who you were magically bound to at birth, but then like, but you were in love with as a person outside of that. That's not a real thing. So it gets a little weird, but for everybody else, it's more reasonable and you can be like, oh, this is just like this only there's a magical excuse for it. But, for Shigure and Akito it gets a little too twisted to really be comparable to anything. So it's just kind of like a cool (beep) relationship that's fun to read about I guess.
ASHLEY: I guess. I definitely—I'm always like this relationship is weird, it's just weird-
JACOB: It's weird, guys. This is weird, guys. Yeah, that is—I guess if there was an epilogue, I never read Fruits Basket Another—but if there is an epilogue about any characters in their relationship, I definitely, the one I'm the most curious about would be Shigure and Akito. Because everybody else, I'm like, they're going to be fine but Shigure and Akito I'm like, I need to know what happened after they finally find out who they are as people because that's been the thing that was driving them apart is like, I think I love you but I don't know. I think I love you but I'm cursed so how am I supposed to know?
ASHLEY: Yeah. And then what we get of Akito's perspective at the end is like I want to take all of you inside of me. And I'm like, all right, Akito. Cool. All right.
JACOB: Yeah. Well if Shigure, Shigure, he wants to like crush her into a pulp and consume her. It is this possessive, obsessive love between them. And I think it's that powerful and it's that strong between them because it's part of their real selves, which they have not discovered up to this point. They've been the dog and god, which I love that these are palindromes in English
ASHLEY: Oh, yeah.
JACOB: They're not in Japanese, but it's hilarious that they're palindromes in English and that's been their role so it's like finally discovering who you really are. It's like a burst of, it's kind of an obsession. And if you think about it in terms of something I do, something that seems kind of magical but is real and is scientific that I do understand gender dysphoria. There is a like a second adolescence that you go through when you come out as male or come out as female when you transition genders because it's like, oh, I always knew that this was part of me, but it's just been neglected and locked up. And so it feels when it finally comes out, you do kind of act immature. And it is a little bit like too much and it is, and you're doing your best. You could be 30 and some part of you is acting like you're 13 because you kind of don't have any other choice.
JACOB: So, I guess if I think about a curse in those terms, I understand it and it becomes easier because Akito does also transition genders in the same way, but I don't know. You could think about that all day and it would just twist your brain in half I think those two [inaudible 00:48:20].
ASHLEY: Did you appreciate the Ritsu joke where Ritsu is like, "Akito, do you have the same hobby as me?"
JACOB: Yeah, it was like, we finally gave Ritsu a moment and it was like a throw away gag where Akito shows up in a Kimono and he's like, "We share a hobby." And it like not really.
ASHLEY: So excited.
JACOB: He was so excited. I felt so bad for him because his dreams got crushed.
ASHLEY: I know. Akito is like, no, shut up.
JACOB: He was nice. It was just like, no, no, it's not like that.
ASHLEY: It's not like that. It's more complicated than that, Ritsu.
JACOB: Bless their hearts.
ASHLEY: Poor Ritsu, also trans but can't. Isn't there yet. That's how I feel.
JACOB: Yeah. Ritsu is probably trans. She'll figure it out.
ASHLEY: She'll figure it out eventually. Yeah. Where do you go from there, I mean?
JACOB: Well, I mean we wouldn't talk about like the yin to that couples yang, like the main couple or are we not really there yet?
ASHLEY: I mean, yeah, I guess we have to talk about Kyo and Tohru at some point. I almost brought it up in this talk because of the way that I think what I also find semi-weird is the way that Kyo has this connection to Tohru's mom. And he's like kind of liked Tohru since he was like six and I'm like, that's a little-
JACOB: He's a little baby.
ASHLEY: ... It's a little weird. Not like Shigure and Akito levels weird, but just a little weird.
JACOB: I think for him as a kid it was more about, because he'd never met Tohru. It was more about proving himself to be worth something to this lady who was nice to him. It wasn't so much like, "Oh, I'm in love with Tohru." It's oh, because nobody values any... nobody has any pride or value toward him or thinks he could do anything. And so this lady who's nice to him. It was kind of like, Kyoko was kind of like a mom figure, I guess cool aunt. She's this cool aunt figure. And she was kind of a cool aunt to him and he's like, I'm going to protect you and your daughter. I'm going to take care of you because there's no man of the house. And so yeah, you can look at it and it's a little weird but I think it was just like Kyo was so desperate for someone to have faith in him and trust him with somethings, find something that he could do for himself.
JACOB: And Yuki was the same way. And that's kind of how they come to butt heads over the hat thing because Yuki got that moment and he got that moment with Tohru who he'd never met. He'd never met Tohru or Kyoko but he got that validation of like, I was able to help somebody, maybe I could exist in the world outside the Sohma family and be worth something. And Kyo didn't get it. He promised that he would do it, but then he kept failing through no fault of his own really. It's just life but he doesn't know that, he's a little kid.
ASHLEY: He's a little kid. I guess I just find i—there's just so much baggage with Kyo and Kyoko like also seeing her death and all these things. I'm like, that's a lot of baggage to have on Tohru and Kyo's relationship. And I think that always bothered me as a child, still kind of bothered me now. And I'm just like, all right. Because Kyo holds, he saw Kyoko before she dies at like a street corner where a car is about to hit her. And Kyo's like, I saw that car coming and if I had been a normal human, I could've just grabbed her. But if she fell back into me, then I turned into a cat. So it was like, oh, well I can't do that. And then she died because I didn't grab her out of the way in time.
ASHLEY: And so he carries the baggage of like, he feels guilty for having some perceived role in both his own mom's death and Tohru's mom's death. So he's like, how could I let myself become close to her daughter? And he had made a promise with Kyoko that he would protect Tohru back in the hat incident. And he was like, I failed then, I failed to protect Kyoko, how can I promise to take care of Tohru when I've clearly broken all these other promises and had all these other opportunities for redemption that I just totally failed at?
JACOB: Right. And the only reason he thinks that way, I mean these are extreme circumstances, so I think anybody would feel that way. But Kyo feels that way, especially because nobody's believed in him. He feels like he's fighting for his right to live in the world at all. And he's, Kyo is a fighter. He fights really hard considering that nobody's in his corner except for Kazuma. If Kazuma wasn't there for him, I don't think he would've ever made it out. But I think anybody would feel really bad about their inability to be there for someone when circumstances that extreme pop up. But for Kyo especially like he's literally cursed, he literally is considered the scapegoat. Like in a cursed family where everybody's got it bad, he's got it the worst and it is common knowledge and just sort of common. People just say it out loud, it's so out in the open that he is the worst off.
JACOB: And so yeah, like in a circumstance like that, I think he's struggling with just like, not even like, am I worth being loved by someone? Which is the conflict that he comes to with Tohru. He does some bad things. He says... First of all, he outright asks Tohru, basically forces her to confess. He outright asks her, are you in love with me? And of course she has to say yes because it's the truth-
ASHLEY: She's Tohru.
JACOB: ... and then he rejects her because he's like, I'm not worth loving, which it says. Like that's... So not only is he like, I'm not worth loving, but he's still struggling with is it worth it for me to be alive? Like is my life worth living? He still hasn't overcome that hurdle. So there's no way he could be like a loving partner in an equal relationship. Like he's-
ASHLEY: Because he's resigned himself to basically having his life-
JACOB: ... He's resigned himself to death.
ASHLEY: ... Yeah, being isolated in the room forever.
JACOB: It's effectively the end of a life. So it's a lot to take in. It's a lot to deal with. And you could tell that Takaya had been planning that since the beginning. Like the foundation is all laid there. The seeds have been planted from very early on that she was going to do this big melodramatic thing of Kyo could have saved Tohru's mother and didn't. Like that was always planned for the beginning. But to see it come together at the end, it really is like, I don't know, it really does feel like, well if you kids could ever come this, you can overcome anything.
JACOB: What Tohru is going through, Tohru is going through an emotional hurdle of her own because she... So before this happened and what I think is the most romantic shot in all of Fruits Basket, when I did the radio drama, I had art commissioned to promote it and up at the top of the central, the focal point of the piece that I made is this, is an interpretation of the shot, which is when they hug each other through laundry.
ASHLEY: Yes, it's so good.
JACOB: It's a great shot. Which is the only opportunity for them to embrace. But it's not just that what comes, them hugging each other through the sheet is a really powerful image but it comes as a result of Tohru admitting that she was afraid of losing her mother and that she demonized her father and that her politeness and her way of acting was all sort of like, it's not that it isn't her because of course she's very kind and sweet and stuff like that, but I think the real Tohru is more stubborn and more blunt. And so the extremely like, oh, everything's fine and I'm just extremely polite and considerate, I think that aspect her was a little more fake and it was adopted at a young age when her mother shut down after the death of her father. So she tried to be more like her dad.
JACOB: And when she admits this, when she says like, I was just trying to be like my dad because I didn't want my mom to leave me. And now that's when they have their embrace through the sheet. And so she just got through explaining that to Kyo, to herself. She was like confessing that to herself and Kyo, which is really hard. And then she has to hear, by the way, your mom would be alive if it wasn't for me or in Kyo's version of events anyway. So she has to literally choose between her mother and Kyo in her mind, because Kyo, just to make work matters worse, Kyo's like, I could have sworn when she was dying, she said, I'll never forgive you," which we learn more about later.
JACOB: But like that's a close end that like, even though the audience is nice, it's nice enough that the audience gets closure for that. Kyo and Tohru are never going to get closure for that. They're never going to know what she meant when she said that as she lay in a big bloody pile in the street. They're never going to get closure for that. So they have to determine for themselves whether it's, whether she would... Whether Kyoko would be okay with them being together or not. So it's a lot to deal with all at once.
ASHLEY: Yeah. And Tohru does deal with it like pretty immediately.
JACOB: Pretty immediately.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Kyo is like, this happened and Tohru is like, "okay, maybe my mom did say that to you. Don't know for a fact if she said, I'll never forgive you, but if that's true, I have to go against my mother because I can't deny my feelings for you. My feelings for you do not change suddenly because you've admitted that to me. We have this whole history together so that doesn't just override that history," you know?
JACOB: Yeah. That scene works because they've had chapters and chapters and chapters and chapters of buildup of Tohru going, can I let Kyo go? And just going, nope, I can't, I cannot do it.
ASHLEY: Yeah. She's tried-
JACOB: And allowing herself to be selfish.
ASHLEY: ... this whole time, right? She's like, I don't want my mom to come second to Kyo. I want to hold onto my mom. I'm so sad that my memories have already started to fade. How else will my mom live if not in my memories and all these things? And she's like, but I just can't, I can't stop this trajectory. So, okay.
JACOB: Yeah. She knows, like, I'm going to leave this relationship that was the foundation for all my energy in life. I have to leave it behind. And I'm focusing all my energy in trying to break this curse to free this man that I love. And that is something where I think everybody reading the manga is like, "Don't be hard on yourself. Of course, that's going to happen. Like, you don't have to choose between these two people." And I think that that's why that twist happens the way it does, because I think even Takaya realized like it's not really a struggle for Tohru to have to choose between these two people unless maybe there was something where it would be against her mother's wishes for her to be with Kyo, and that's why it happens exactly the way it does. But yeah, it's funny. She doesn't have to take a while to think about it. It's just in that conversation.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: Like a few minutes after Kyo spills the beans on this, after Kyo says, "Hey, your mom probably died hating me." She says, "Well, I don't think that that's true. I don't think that my mother would ever think that." [inaudible 00:58:48] with Tohru to try and break the curse, or to try to forget the fight against his family, fight against being put in the isolation chamber. That's what Kyo should have done in that moment. Be like, "Holy shit, this woman is willing to give up everything for me. I should do the same." Kyo doesn't do that at all. He does the thing that is not that, which is, after he promised like, "You're not going to scare me off." He's like, "I'm scared off."
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: "I don't believe you," and leaves. Don't do that.
ASHLEY: Don't.
JACOB: Do you want to take it from there, for what happens after that? Whatever you think of it.
ASHLEY: Yes. Then, Tohru wanders off being sad and runs into Akito.
JACOB: Who has just stabbed Kureno in the [crosstalk 00:59:35].
ASHLEY: Yeah, who has just stabbed Kureno, after you thought maybe--
JACOB: [Crosstalk 00:59:42] to the box, yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah. You thought maybe Akito is ... This is Akito's breaking point. Akito had a moment of lucidity, I guess, of like, "Wow, I have lived my life super wrong," but then loses it again and stabs Kureno, and he's wandering around with a knife.
JACOB: The exact thing that happened is, the box we mentioned, which contains her father's soul, but not really, it's just an empty box, that her mom finally goes crazy, Rin finally goes crazy and just says, "Give me the box. I want what's in the box." And it comes out, the whole family is there, several servants, a couple of family members, and everything are just like, "It's just an empty box. She was a kid, we were just trying to help her grieve." Akito is like, "You're going to take this from me." And she takes the knife that Rin threatened her with, which is how she got the box in the first place, and is about to stab her mom when another curse breaks.
JACOB: Hiro's curse breaks. It really could have been anybody, but it's Hiro. And that's just enough to shock Akito because she feels this happening, into not stabbing her mother. Instead, just saying, "I need to be alone." Kureno chases her outside, because this is Kureno's mistake, because he's like, "I'm going to take care of her," when it's like, "You should have just left." She finally tells him that, she's like, "You should have just left me if you don't really care about me, and you just think that I'm your responsibility. You're killing me with kindness." She literally says, "You're killing me with kindness." And it's kind of like, "Oh, this is what would happen if Tohru took things too far." Then, she stabs him in his kidney and she runs away. So, anyway, so then she finds Tohru, continue.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and then she finds Tohru and Tohru for her part, just having been like, "Kyo just said he doesn't like me and that makes me very sad," is very kind to Akito, being like, "Akito, we got off on the wrong foot, and I think we should be friends. Let's reintroduce each other here. We never had a proper introduction. Let's reset here. Hi, I'm Tohru. What's up?" Akito is like, "I don't understand what's going on." You think Akito is going to stab Tohru basically.
JACOB: Yeah. Well, she does a little. She slashes at her arm.
ASHLEY: Yeah, she does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JACOB: She cuts her arm, but she's like, "That's not going to work on me. You're not going to charm me." It's like, "Silly Akito, Tohru charms everyone." And so, she's like, "You're not going to charm me. You're not going to seduce me. It's not going to work." And then, of course, Tohru says the one thing that Akito needed to hear, which is, "You weren't beloved by everybody. You're telling yourself like, 'I'm fighting to hold on to this bond where everyone loves me,' but it wasn't everybody loves me. You were alone this whole time." It was like, "Oh, okay."
JACOB: That's what Akito needs to hear because every time ... What Akito keeps begging for people to do is, "Love me more. Oh, this isn't enough. This isn't enough." Et cetera. And people are like, "I'm doing my best." What Akito needed to hear is like, "Well, none of that was really love. The reason it wasn't satisfying you was because you were still alone. You need one person to really be your friend who is not under your control." So, it seems like maybe that's resolving the issue and then the landslide happens.
ASHLEY: Yeah. It's so nice that that was seated so early on in the manga.
JACOB: Yeah. I feel like it would have felt like a total ass pole if it wasn't like this place is prone to landslides and literally it's the inciting incident of the entire story, so let's have another one. Why not?
ASHLEY: Yeah. Otherwise, it's very much like, "No, you didn't just do that." Because then Akito and Tohru were in the good place of like, "We're going to be friends." Tohru was holding out to shake and then the ground gives out beneath her and she hits her head really hard.
JACOB: That's just the landslide.
ASHLEY: Yeah, that's the landside and she's dying, and then Akito is like, "Oh my God, somebody come help." Yuki, Shigure, and Kyo do happen to be in the area still, like Shigure is coming home drunk or something and Yuki had tried to chase Kyo after seeing what he did to Tohru being like, "You made Tohru cry. What's wrong with you, Kyo? Don't mess it up again." Kyo just went in the opposite direction, and this is when Kyo decides to have his first kiss with Tohru, because he's bad at everything.
JACOB: Well he didn't think she was conscious. He thought because she was-
ASHLEY: She thought for a hot second there, yeah.
JACOB: She did, she was like, "Everything's going to be okay." He was like, "Please stop talking you had a head wound."
ASHLEY: "Shh, I'll just keep you quiet with a kiss. It's fine."
JACOB: Yeah, with my lips.
ASHLEY: With my lips.
JACOB: It really does feel like it comes full circle because it's those three, right? So it's a landslide. It's Tohru.
ASHLEY: Yes.
JACOB: Akito at the apex of it, and it's those three. Then, that's their first kiss, and it's all very poetic. It's coincidences, but they make just enough emotional sense that it's good.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I think this was another thing that as a younger reader, I was like, "This scene is a little too far." Now, I'm like, "No, it was seated. It was seated. It's fine."
JACOB: Yeah, it's fine. We need a little drama in there, and we really needed a way to separate these characters manually and hospitalization is a good way to go about that, so they can all deal with their issue.
ASHLEY: Yeah, just being in the hospital. Yeah. So, Kyo and Tohru, it really is magical, quite frankly, to me, that Kyo is such the great presence that he is, and that he struggles on. Given that he has all these people telling him that he's worthless, and he's a cat, and all these things, like he's not even part of the Zodiac. He's just like some great, great monster, plus events that have happened in his life either. Some of them are even related to that. Kyoko doesn't know that he's a cat monster. She just happens to know her, and has seen her, and like all these terrible coincidences in his life.
ASHLEY: And for him to just be like, "I keep struggling against that and it has led me to make more mistakes, but I keep trying not to make the mistakes." I'm just like, "Kyo, you sweet boy, you deserve that sheet hug so much."
JACOB: Yeah, I think the thing I really, really like about Fruits Basket in terms of like ... This is like, it portrays not every relationship in it is healthy, not even the ones that are sort of glamorized are healthy like Shigure and Akito, but Kyo and Tohru's relationship is really, really healthy, especially at the end. Where he doesn't just rush in, they don't let him rush into the hospital and be like, "It was a misunderstanding. I wasn't trying to drive you away." He doesn't get to do that. He has a lot of work on himself to do before he can do that, and he does it.
JACOB: He talks to Kazuma, he talks to his dad, which was the hardest thing, he does all this work to say like, "I'm doing the thing that I should have done in the first place," and saying, "I'm fighting back against this. I'm not going to go into isolation. I'm going to live for myself. I'm going to try to live as a normal person, even if the curse is not broken." That's really, really hard and it makes him puke and stuff. I loved the little bit where it's like the censored puke, the sparkly censored puke, because there's no way you would be able to do something like he did with his father and not be just an anxious barfing mess, but he does it.
JACOB: So, he does all the hard work and then when Tohru was finally let out of the hospital, he does all the work that he needs to do. Then, in the most vulnerable moment, he says right out there in public, in front of everybody, "Hold me." He's like, "I don't care if I turn into a cat in front of everybody, I just want you to hold me." That's just good enough that it happens right at the moment where Akito says, "Ah, [crosstalk 01:07:24]."
ASHLEY: Yeah, screw it all.
JACOB: Which also worked out really well for Yuki and Machi, too, cause he was about to confess to her and he's like, "Oh, never mind, I don't have to do that anymore."
ASHLEY: Oh yeah, he was about to be like, "Hey, actually, I'm a rat monster." Then, he's like, "Ah, no, I can just hug you and kiss you now. It's fine."
JACOB: Yeah. Also, with Yen Press's new translation, I never realized before, I think it was vaguer in the Tokyopop version, or it was miscommunicated, but it's implied that Mine, Ayame's girlfriend, knew about the Zodiac.
ASHLEY: Yes.
JACOB: And everybody's just fine with it, because it's supposed to be like nobody's supposed to know it, they have the memories erased and then Ayame just away scot-free with telling someone, or she figured it out and like nobody cared because it was Ayame, because--
ASHLEY: Yes, Ayame is special.
JACOB: ... people don't care about him.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I totally believe that. I was just like, yeah, nobody's paying attention to Ayame.
JACOB: She found out at some point and they just kept it secret. Well, Ayame was smart not to let anybody know that Mine knew about it. He just keep it under wraps, it's fine.
ASHLEY: Yeah. It was definitely vague because Yuki is like, "Wait, does she know? Have you transformed in front of her?" Ayame is just like, "Ha, ha, ha, whatever. Don't ask about that."
JACOB: Don't ask about that, but in the end process version, it's more--
ASHLEY: It's definitely like, "Don't ask about that because if I confess it to you then people will know. We just pretend they don't know."
JACOB: Exactly. He was smart about it.
ASHLEY: Yeah, but yeah, I am really glad that Tohru knows her mom well enough to be like, "My mom would never say, 'I'll never forgive you.'" I was like, I'm pretty sure it was probably a dying last word that got cut off before she said the full thing, and it's definitely, "I'll never forgive you if you break your promise still," or whatever. It wasn't exactly written like that.
JACOB: Yeah, it was a thing of desperation where she has like 20 thoughts and only one of them gets voiced because she's bleeding out. It was like, "If you don't keep your promise, because I don't ... " Nobody else is going to look after Tohru, and she sees someone she recognizes, and she's like, "You, I know you. If you don't keep your promise I'll never forgive you." But unfortunately all that ever comes out is, I'll never forgive you.
ASHLEY: Dark. Really messing him up. Yeah.
JACOB: Yeah. Damn these shojo coincidences.
ASHLEY: Shojo coincidences are so good, but yeah, I really like that story because we've gotten a lot of stories within Fruits Basket of like the power of empathy is seeing the story from a different perspective. It's like, Tohru was here, we are shown as an audience the different perspective of that story. We have the Foolish Traveler, which is Momiji being like, "Here is how different perspectives and stories work, as a setup."
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: We also do get an alternate story about what these Zodiac curse actually was in the beginning, there's a whole chapter.
JACOB: Yeah, we get a big ... I'm not sure that the story needed one, but I'm glad we have it that this is really for real is how the curse started, which is cool.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and it's sort of like the cat was actually the one who was first.
JACOB: Yeah, it's like, "Surprise."
ASHLEY: Surprise.
JACOB: The cat's actually the God's most beloved animal.
ASHLEY: Yeah. But I guess the cat is also the first one to betray, for lack of a better word, God. Because the story that is retold is that the cat saw God and was like, "Hey, God, it's being lonely over here. Let me go hang out with this human, that's fun. We're cool buddies now." Then, God is like, "Maybe I should hang out with all the cool animals. Let me summon them over here."
JACOB: For clarification, this is taking place in antiquity and God in question is maybe a human or not. He's some kind of sorcerer who is ... he's learned so much magic that he's lived like a real ... So, if he was human once, he really isn't anymore, and the funny thing about it is that he's scared of people not liking him because he's different, so he just hides from ... There's other people living in villages, but he's like, "No, they'll think I'm a monster, I have to hide." He's a sorcerer hermit, basically.
ASHLEY: Yeah, so he hangs out with animals instead.
JACOB: He hangs out with animals, yeah, cause animals are ... These are weird talking animals who aren't going to judge him. I guess they're not accepted in their own animal communities, is the implication.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Right. So yeah, so then he summons the other 12 animals that are not cat to the banquet.
JACOB: It's the island of misfit toys, essentially.
ASHLEY: Yes, it is. Oh my God.
JACOB: It's like a dragon who is scared of flying or something. I'm just making this, this is just headcanon at this point, or a pig that wants to be a dentist, I don't know. Something like that.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JACOB: They all just come to the mountain and then ...
ASHLEY: Yeah, and then, what? They had been gathering at the full moon or something, and then he's like, "Hey, what if we hangout together forever?"
JACOB: Yeah. What if you guys live here? And then they do. Then, one day old age comes for Mr. Cat.
ASHLEY: Old age comes for Mr. Cat and he's like, "Wait, I didn't want to have this eternal bond. I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had together. You should move on in your life." All these things.
JACOB: Yeah, but everybody's so sad that the cat has died of old age, or is about to die. He's on death's door, and a sorcerer casts a spell, too. If everybody takes one drink from this saki cup and then they break it or something like that, then their souls will be reunited in reincarnation forever. Then, cat's like, "Yo, I don't want this."
ASHLEY: No.
JACOB: "This is a bad idea." God is the only one who's listening to him, but all the other animals being simple, I guess, are like, "Ugh, can't believe ... This guy is so good to take us in and he rejects this eternal gift, and I'm not talking to you anymore." So, they're hatred toward him, I think, created the monstrous version of the cat, the undead zombie version of the cat that lives on. But it's just a nice little fairy tale that gives new perspective to why the curse is the way that it is.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and again, I guess that's only an audience thing, but it is very good for, "Oh, yes, everybody wonders at what point the curse became a curse instead of a fun, nice bond thing that they had going on."
JACOB: Yeah, over so many centuries. Shigure mentioned, it's not in that chapter, but in the earlier chapter, he's like, "From what I know of the curse, once upon a time, they probably weren't reincarnated as just another horse or another, but at the point at which those animals were no longer sentient or something, then they reincarnated as humans, instead, who just turn into animals and there's no more dragons. So now, it's just a sea horse." He's like, "It's really been watered down." He said, "Who knows how old this curse is, but it's really watered down from wherever it started."
ASHLEY: I love that there was a canonical explanation for why Tohru was a seahorse, it's so good.
JACOB: Yeah, it's pretty good. Although, that does beg the question. So if God, if the sorcerer had the longest life out of all of them, he even lives longer than the dragon. They all die of old age before he does. So, it's weird that God being reincarnated actually has the shortest lifespan. I wonder why that is. It's interesting.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and the only other interesting explanation that I remember getting is that they were, "Oh, we can tell now that this is the final banquet because this is the first time that all of the animals of the Zodiac had been alive at the same time."
JACOB: Right. Usually, there's just like one or two missing, or they're often in ages and one of them hasn't come back yet or something like that, and it's like, "Oh, this is the first time in as long as we can remember that all of us have been alive at once." He's like, "Everybody's really excited about that. But I'm like, ah." Shigure says, "Everyone's really excited about that, but I'm thinking maybe this means it's the end."
ASHLEY: Yeah. Also, he shouldn't be excited about that, because they all just torture each other all the time.
JACOB: Yeah, the love has soured between them.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I also really love seeing Tohru have sad emotions about ... She does love everybody in the Sohma family even though she eventually was like, "I was really selfish and I only really want to help Kyo." She also starts distancing herself from them because Rin, at some point, calls out, "Did you stop coming here because you get annoyed that we're also mean to Kyo?" Tohru was like, "A little bit."
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: It's very rude.
JACOB: Pretty much, who would want to talk to Shigure for a while, frankly? I don't think Tohru has another significant scene with him after the thing where he tells her that everybody knows about the cat isolation chamber and that he was using her and everything. I don't think Tohru and Shigure have another significant conversation. Do they?
ASHLEY: I don't think so.
JACOB: Maybe they don't, but he mentioned seeing her off when she moves out after. She doesn't go to college. She goes and gets a job somewhere where Kyo was working at one of Kazuma's friend's dojos. She moves away, basically. She moves far away, and Shigure mentions that he goes to see her off, but that's about it. I think it is like, "These were all precious memories I shared with you guys, but we needed some space." It's like, love can stay alive with change and with space. I think that she'll have a stronger bond with all of the members of the Sohma family if they don't have to see each other all the time, if they can remember what they really mean to one another.
JACOB: That was part of the problem of the curse, is it was forcing them all in close proximity to each other for centuries, even after time and circumstances have changed people. Change is inevitable and love changes. It doesn't mean that love can't last forever. There are people who stay together forever, and that's what happens for Tohru and Kyo, is that we see they grow old together and lived the rest of their days together. But, they probably needed breaks. They probably needed changes of space, and time, and stuff like that. It wasn't like, "Oh, and we're just going to be the same as we were when we were 16 and first fell in love." Love requires change, and it requires flexibility.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I mean absence can make the heart grow fonder, right? I definitely think their memories, the power of nostalgia is that it makes the good memories even better than they really were. Then, you want to go see them again cause you're like, "Oh, that was fun. Maybe we should try that again." Right? But it doesn't work as well if you're like, "I see you every day." I'm a little bored.
JACOB: Yeah. Or, not just bored, but wounds will get caused when you get too close and there's no way for them to heal because you can't get space from the person. In the case of Akito, somebody has literal wounds. You sliced me open with a knife and I need space, basically.
ASHLEY: Yeah, Kureno was like, "I am not fully healed yet." He's still on crutches, and he's like, "I'm leaving."
JACOB: He walks with a cane, yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah. He's like, "I'm out. That's fine."
JACOB: I'm out. Uo calls him every day and that's great. She calls him every day and she gets to go visit him in the countryside, and it's nice.
ASHLEY: It's nice. Are there any other big things you want to discuss before we discuss some of the back matter and some listener questions, and then shipping?
JACOB: Well, Yuki and Machi's relationship is sweet. I really liked the line where ... Machi doesn't like unblemished pure things because, for obvious reasons, because she was pushed to be perfect all her life and then just abandoned when she couldn't excel. She's like extremely, academically and personality wise and stuff like that, she's extremely average, and her family held this against her instead of loving her. For Yuki, this is good because Yuki is sort of abnormally exceptional, and he treasures Machi's normalcy.
JACOB: She doesn't like snow because it's all pure and unbroken, and so she likes to tromp through the snow and fuck it up with her feet and stuff like that so that it doesn't look unblemished and blank. There's a line where she's like, "For the first time I was hoping for snow." The word for snow in Japanese is yuki
ASHLEY: Is yuki.
JACOB: So it's like, "For the first time I was hoping for Yuki." It's like, "Hey."
ASHLEY: Hey, I see you, Fruits Basket.
JACOB: [Crosstalk 01:20:19] Fruits Basket, but they have a really nice relationship, and they're very sweet together.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Okay. I guess that's kind of a big thing that we left out now that I think about it, is there is a whole plot with the "normies" that are the student council, where Kakeru is connected to Tohru in that his girlfriend's dad is the one who's driving the car that killed Tohru's mom and her dad. The physics of this car crash admittedly confused me, but, okay.
JACOB: I haven't looked at the manga enough, it seems like Kyoko was in a hurry to get to work as she started crossing too soon. The car came through the intersection, it swerved, it smashed, it hit her and then smashed into a wall or a post. So that is what happened, to the best of my knowledge.
ASHLEY: Okay.
JACOB: Kyo, when he saw her, because Kyo was about to cross with her, and when he saw her trying to cross early, that's when he was like, "Yo." And then, just, it didn't stop it. But yeah, so it was Kyoko's ... Kyoko was at fault, is kind of the circumstance, right? But this is a tragic circumstance all around.
ASHLEY: Right, so somebody is going through a yellow and she's like, go on a little early.
JACOB: And she's like, YOLO. She did indeed YOLO. Sorry. It's cruel.
ASHLEY: It's cruel.
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: But yes, so they both died and Kakeru has a moment where he's like, it's very much a moment of like, "Even though your mom died, you're not the only one who's suffering." It kind of feels like very much, "Even though we're not cursed over here with a magical curse, we have problems in the real world, too." Sort of deal.
JACOB: Yeah. It's a little bit of a side road because I think it was just like a setup that ... Kakeru's first introduction is saying, before you even see his face, is saying something about how he knows Tohru Honda. I think it was just something that needed to be paid off. But it does pale, it comes at the time when all this other Sohma family revelation stuff is happening. And so, it rather pales in comparison to everything else. But I think it's a nice sentiment to express that Kakeru does the same thing that Ayame does. Ayame has a little final story in this last arc too, that's kind of inconsequential, but addressing that a lot of the Sohma family's problems are that they can't be honest with one another, or that they bottle things up, or blame themselves.
JACOB: But it's like pure honesty, pure directness in trying to make everyone aware of everyone else's feelings all the time is not better necessarily. It comes with its own consequences, and Kakeru was hurting for his girlfriend, so he told Tohru, he was like, "Hey, your mom was the one who caused this, and you're not the only one who's in pain. Other people have lost people." Then, he tells his girlfriend that he told Tohru that as if that's going to make her feel better. He's like, "Yeah, well now she understands that you're in pain." His girlfriend rightfully is like, "What the fuck is wrong with you? That doesn't make me feel better at all. How could you say that to someone like that?" It's a maturing thing for Kakeru as well.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and it's just an acknowledgement that it's like a game where, or a set up where you're always going to be like, my pain is worse than your pain, is just always going to be a losing situation for everybody involved.
JACOB: Right, empathy is not comparing who has the most hardship. Different people require different approaches and sometimes you got to keep your mouth shut.
ASHLEY: Yeah. It's like, "Oh, just because you have worst pain, doesn't negate somebody else's pain, or make that go away, or anything." Kakeru, what are you doing?
JACOB: Yeah, but it's a good story. It gets washed out, I think, by everything else that's happening at the time.
ASHLEY: This is what happens when you have a million characters.
JACOB: A million characters, million and one. Komaki, is that her name?
ASHLEY: Komaki, yeah, the girlfriend.
JACOB: Komaki seems cool.
ASHLEY: Yeah, she seems chill. We could have used more Komaki, but also not, because there's 50 million characters.
JACOB: There's 50 million characters. She seems like a combination of Kana and Tohru because she's very, or I don't know. Kana and someone more gunky, she's like more gunky Kana, because she's like very Yamato Nadeshiko, like very wifey material, good cook, and friendly, and all this other stuff, but she also has like this sort of gunky, dumb energy to her, so yeah. She seems like a very good girlfriend material.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I'm glad for her and Kakeru.
JACOB: Her best scene is where she is introduced to Yuki and she's talking to Yuki. As the conversation goes on, it slowly begins to dawn on him that she thinks he's a girl because Kakeru told Komaki that Yuki was a girl. Then, they both get angry at him and chase him.
ASHLEY: They're like, "Why do we believe your lies?"
JACOB: He's like, "This isn't funny. You're embarrassing both of us."
ASHLEY: Yeah. Okay. So I think it's worth discussing some things that are in matter in the collector's edition. See, you all should be buying the collector's edition. You're not going to know these things otherwise.
JACOB: Yeah, completely. You all have to update me on some of that because I skimmed over some of that stuff. But, yeah.
ASHLEY: There were many character poll results, and I think it will not be shocking that there were multiple character polls throughout the story. All of them ended up with Kyo, and Tohru, and Yuki at the top, in that order. It's like, it feels right.
JACOB: Yeah, it feels right.
ASHLEY: I guess maybe I thought Yuki could pull off an upset be like second or first sometimes, but no, Kyo all the way, Kyo and Tohru all the way. I was very shocked in this final ranking that Kisa was fourth. That seems high.
JACOB: Yeah, she had very little screen time, but I think her story, even though it took place relatively early on, was very relatable to a lot of people who have gone through similar childhood bullying. Because you got to remember that a lot of people reading Fruits Basket are young teens and I think there's an acknowledgement in the back of one of the republished editions where she said, "So the material in this got more adult than I anticipated given the readership. But I felt I had to ... " That kind of thing, which is, hey, I appreciate it. It makes the story age really well, right?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: But I think for a lot of people Kisa was very close to a place that they had been maybe, so, and she is very cute.
ASHLEY: That's true. Two things to add, if I can remember them. Yeah, the part where Takaya is like, "This went in two directions that are more mature than I intended." It's ironic because she was also like, "I was only able to do that because I was so young and now I wouldn't go there."
JACOB: That passion, I think—well, she said it had a huge toll on her physical and mental health to make this story, which is why she's like, "I'm glad I was able to do it, but I don't think I could do it again."
ASHLEY: "I don't think I could do it again."
JACOB: She actually says... I can't believe, because it's one of those things you think and you're like, oh, it's mean to think that toward an artist. If you think, oh, I think this is their best work and they're never really going to top this. You don't want to ever-
ASHLEY: Oh yeah.
JACOB: But she says that in the interview.
ASHLEY: She's says that, yeah, she's like-
JACOB: She's like, "So, I'm never going to make anything this good again and I'm fine with that. I'm just going to make things, like little things to please myself." I'm like, oh, she's just like, "Yep, that's my magnum opus, not going to do better than that." It's like, all right. Well, okay, more power to you.
ASHLEY: I think that's a very healthy response to be like, "You know what, I recognize this and it's really hard to ever achieve this level of success again and I'm happy that I did it even once, like dope. I did it."
JACOB: Yeah, totally.
ASHLEY: I definitely think that Kisa's story was a very powerful thing, is actually corroborated in the top favorite lines. I think a lot of them came from the chapters around where Kisa was being bullied, and the top one I think is exactly from the chapter. It's Yuki in chapter 28 saying, "The most important thing is the desire to overcome our weaknesses," and I'm pretty sure it's when he's lecturing Kisa and going on about teachers will tell you that if you're bullied, you should just think of all the things that you love about yourself and accept them and Yuki is like, "That's BS," and all those things.
JACOB: It is like Kisa didn't come back a whole lot in the story and she never had another emotional... She never had a focus story again, but her story was so pivotal, I think, to the central themes of Fruits Basket. You remember aspects of Yuki's monologue throughout that. Throughout Kisa's story, I mean partly because she doesn't talk at all, but Yuki's lines are some of the most memorable in the entire story just from Kisa's focus.
ASHLEY: Yeah, and it's him being, "I also didn't talk for a while, so now I've already thought about all these articulate things when I was in your position, Kisa." So yeah, he's kind of her mouth piece that you... It's her story, but he's the one talking through most of the memorable lines.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Hatsuharu coming in fifth does not shock me. I have a friend who's like, "Hatsuharu is my favorite character."
JACOB: Yeah, he is definitely high on the sexiest of the dudes, I'd say.
ASHLEY: He has the best fashion sense. Let's just get that out there.
JACOB: He does, yeah. He looks great. He looks on top of stuff. Oh man, as far as Hatsuharu moments, he almost punches Akito in the face.
ASHLEY: Oh yeah.
JACOB: In this last arc.
ASHLEY: But he manages to punch the wall behind it instead.
JACOB: That's a really strong moment for Kureno too, is that Hatsuharu finds out about everything that happened with Isuzu and he's about to beat up Akito and he can't do it because the curse kind of keeps him from actually following through, you know? But he leaves to go pick up Isuzu and the curse being what it is, like, Akito calls him back and he almost goes back, right?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: Despite all that, he almost goes back because then they show you psychologically what impact this has, while she's calling after him, he's hearing in his mind her as like a little girl, or a little boy, I guess, in his mind, but Akito is a child in the moments when she was nice to him, and he's hearing that in his mind and so he starts to turn around and head back and Kureno just steps out and says, "Go, go while you got the chance. Don't come back here. Don't come back here at all."
JACOB: So Kureno, it's a good thing he was there. Cuz if he wasn't there, their romance would have ended very differently, I think.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: Yay for hooved love.
ASHLEY: Yeah, Hatsuharu is definitely, Rin and him are the most stylish, Hatsuharu is kind of the funniest one being like, "I will always love you, Yuki." He has the best faces when they're like just stick figures basically. He has very apathetic eyes and he's like, "I don't know. What did I mean here?" Whatever, he's a good character.
JACOB: He is.
ASHLEY: Hatori and Momiji also don't shock me being so high. I think my Momiji should be above Hatori though.
JACOB: Momiji finally hits puberty.
ASHLEY: I know. He gets really hot, right?
JACOB: He does. He's, yeah, smoking.
ASHLEY: He's good.
JACOB: Unfortunately, right after he hits puberty he's like, "oh I can't..." It's really, it's kind of sad for him because he can't have that kind of cute friendly relationship that he had with Tohru anymore. Because he looks kind of like her boyfriend when he's [inaudible 01:32:07] and it's kind of weird and inappropriate. And it's like, oh yeah. That was the nice thing he had going for him and he loses when the curse... It's funny, he hits puberty and then the curse breaks like right after that. So I think it was, I think the rabbit has some sort of, I think that's one of his traits maybe is that cutification thing. That's my pet theory and I'm sticking to it.
ASHLEY: Yeah, he still wears his rabbit backpack.
JACOB: He does. He's so cute. Yeah. He's like, "Look, I still love this stuff. Even if I'm, you know, even if I'm big now, I still like cute things and I can dig that." I'll still buy stuffed animals and put them up in the house and I'll still wear a cute thing now and again, just because it's like, oh, I haven't lost my affection for those things. Even though I'm a big strong man now. So, yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah, Momiji also, I love whenever he challenges Kyo being like, maybe I'll steal Tohru. What's up Kyo? And Kyo is like, "Ah, can I like punch you now? I don't know."
JACOB: He's like, yeah, we're the same height now.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I can punch you in the face, right?
ASHLEY: Are there any other shocking revelations? I guess I'm surprised that Akito beat out like, Hanajima. I'm like, that's weird to me, but maybe you've convinced me on Akito. Maybe more people relate to Akito than I...
JACOB: I have no idea. I mean, I love Hanajima, but she's always... I think there was something in the author's comments where they ask like, who's the strongest character? And she says, "Well, Hanajima, clearly." And Hanajima is so above it all. She's the final boss, Takaya calls her the real final boss, like demon lord in Fruits Basket because she's just kind of untouchable. She's been through it and she knows what she wants for her life, and she doesn't really have any woes anymore, even though she's 17.
JACOB: She's at the same age as all the other troubled characters. But she's got it well in hand, so...
ASHLEY: She has magic powers that are not explained, and that's fine.
JACOB: Yeah. You got to be... You say magic powers are not explained, but, I mean, there's a Zodiac curse here, so like a weird-
ASHLEY: But she's supposed to be a normie. She's a normie.
JACOB: But, who knows? In this world, there could be lots of other people with weird powers.
ASHLEY: That's true.
JACOB: It's a mystical world with a couple... It's like magical realism. There's some magical elements, but they're just, you know, it's just part of the world we live in, this unexplained, you know?
ASHLEY: Yeah. I love that Mogeta is on the list. I agree. Mogeta does-
JACOB: Where is he on the list?
ASHLEY: He's number 23. He's below Kazuma, but above Megumi.
JACOB: Yeah, well, you know. Yeah, Hana, I think you've got to have more foibles or vulnerabilities to be a little higher in a popularity list, and she's got her shit covered, I think, you know?
ASHLEY: Yeah. You've got to be more of a problematic person.
JACOB: Where is Shigure that list, actually?
ASHLEY: Oh, Shigure i number eight after Momiji.
JACOB: That's surprisingly high, actually.
ASHLEY: Really? I don't know.
JACOB: I mean, he's a scumbag.
ASHLEY: But he's a lovable scumbag. Yeah.
JACOB: Yeah, I would say interesting. Interesting. I'm not sure about lovable. Oh Man. That's the weirdest part of this last arc is where Takaya was trying to maybe give him like some more vulnerability, and there's a chapter where Shigure says, "I wish I could have fallen in love with someone nice like you, Tohru," and that was weird.
ASHLEY: Oh yeah, that's weird.
JACOB: That was a weird scene. But he doesn't... It's not like he's actually interested in Tohru. He's just like, why couldn't I have fallen in love with someone nice? And it's like they're trying to give him some vulnerability and I'm not sure it's working. It's like you didn't and you're never going to. You're going to fall in love with a crazy (beep) because you're a crazy (beep) Shigure. That's what's going to happen. You all can be crazy (beep) together.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Rin is last on this list, where she deserves to be.
JACOB: Shocked, yeah. She's a bad person.
ASHLEY: She's under friends, that's just that. There were no names. She's number 30 as friends.
JACOB: Oh man. Well-
ASHLEY: That's where you deserve to be. Oh, so good. Anyway, the only other back matter thing that I wanted to discuss is related to shipping. So we'll do that in shipping corner. First we'll answer questions.
JACOB: All right, sounds good.
ASHLEY: So I believe that this is one that we've touched on before a lot about the art, but there's more from the interview in the back of this. So we can touch on it for a hot second, again. It's from @Christmasmorg on Twitter, and just on any thoughts about how the art progressed? And the interview in the back of the book has a thing where apparently Takaya on Twitter said she made a conscious decision to change the art toward the end of Furuba, and they're like, you seemed to alter the designs of the characters as they like grew up or whatever.
ASHLEY: And they're like, what was your aim with that basically? And then Takaya is basically like, "I don't remember saying that." She's like, "I didn't alter the art because I wanted to. One of the reasons the art changed was as a result of my medical issue. I probably meant to say I was consciously trying to keep the art from eventually looking "old fashioned". Maybe that's what I meant. I don't think of myself as a skilled artist, but I do want to strive for my best."
ASHLEY: And I'm like yeah, looking at those old... The early volumes, because they kind of started to come creep back into this, in the sidebars and everything, and all the promotional art that's in the back. I was like, I feel like I'm in the 90s right now.
JACOB: Yeah, it's very 90s and I think she was like, let's see if I can go for something a little more timeless than... Yeah, I prefer... I think the art in Fruits Basket only gets better as it goes, personally. Although there's a rough patch in the middle obviously during the recovery where it's not as strong as it was in the early volumes. But that's very brief. And generally I felt like her art and expression work, and mostly lay out. The big change was layout, improved greatly over time. Some of her layouts I think or are brilliant, are really good emotional storytelling.
ASHLEY: Yeah and I think that's... These volumes especially, even from the very beginning in volume 17 or whatever. I was very much struck by, oh, we have hit the point where the drawings much more match the new cover art that we've gotten, and I was really, really struck for some reason by the art when Kureno was talking about his curse being broken and all the birds and stuff.
ASHLEY: I was like, something about this is very emotional for me. It's just very good art.
JACOB: Right, yeah.
ASHLEY: We've reached that peak. But yeah, I mean I'm sure in the year 2050, perhaps new art will look dated and we'll be like, I feel so 2010 or whatever. But like right now, it feels fine, but the early art definitely is like that's the 90s. That's definitely-
JACOB: Yes, 100% and that's fine. It's fun to watch her grow as an artist. And it's fun even in the final chapter of Fruits Basket, as we say goodbye to all the characters right before they disappear, there is a faded out sort of screen tone behind them, memories of how they met Tohru or their earliest arc group, something like that. It's sort of patched in behind them. And it's funny to see that art right next to the current character model.
ASHLEY: I know, it's kind of always a little bit jarring. I'm like, oh yeah, that's what Kyo used to look like.
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: And I think it's funny because we did a volume one sort of review of Fruits Basket another, which is more about their children and stuff. So Kyo and Tohru's child looks exactly like Kyo, but like newer Kyo.
JACOB: Right.
ASHLEY: When I was talking about it with the person who was on the episode, he was just like, "I don't remember Kyo looking exactly like this." And I was like, "No, he's like the newer Kyo clone. That's basically all he is."
JACOB: That's funny.
ASHLEY: But he's like, "I guess I just remembered 90s Kyo then." You know, sort of deal.
JACOB: Right. Yeah.
ASHLEY: But yeah. So we've got two other questions. One comes from @CaptainPeregrine on Twitter and it's... This was actually asked in our first episode, but we were like, we're going to delay it until now because it makes more sense here. Which was, "Which character most subverted your expectations as you got to know them either from reading/rereading the manga or watching the anime? Like I hated Ayame when I first saw the anime and read the first few volumes, but now he's my favorite of the trio." This is what this person has said.
JACOB: I see. I think I had negative... I think I said this in the previous podcast as well, but I had more negative feelings toward Isuzu at first. Both because you know, I think at the time some internalized misogyny and also she was the horse, and I was over to the Zodiac and I wanted a cool character. And I secretly also, I think, wanted a boy character and I was like, oh, why is mine ne oof the girls?
ASHLEY: One of the three girls, dammit.
JACOB: Yeah. Those unexamined feelings as you get older that makes sense when you get older. And also for a more, I guess, critical, a more valid complaint. At the time I was also like, oh, this character's more cliche. I've seen brooding self-sacrificial characters like this in fiction before. And I thought she wasn't as complex or interesting as the others.
JACOB: And now of course, I love her as a character just as much as the others. I think she's an important and a strong presence in the story. I think it's good that we have a compassionate and not slightly psychopathic character who's trying to break the curse in for love within the Sohma family. I think that that's, you know, it's great that she's doing that and that she's really likable.
JACOB: So I dig Isuzu a lot now. I didn't, maybe when I first read the story and I think Hana, I've also gotten more attached to over time. I think initially I didn't have as much of a reaction to her. I was just like, oh, she's weird, I guess. She's a weird goth girl, but now I think I understand her like understated.
JACOB: She didn't have the big crazy angsty stuff that the other characters did. Even her focus story is not as as much about the big crazy angst as some of the other characters. But I think now I appreciate that kind of understated strength more, and I appreciate this character who's just... It's just funny and just supportive and just a load off.
JACOB: Like her, she has a huge important role in after Kureno basically tells Tohru everything and then just leaves her by the side of the road. Hana can feel Tohru's anguished feelings with her psychic powers, and goes and picks her up and takes her home. And that's a really important after care scene for all the shocks that we've been through.
JACOB: That's another thing I like about Fruits Basket is that it always takes the time to do emotional after care for its big twists and stuff like that,. It's 23 volumes long, but that time is spent well with, it's not just like revelation after revelation or plot movement after plot movement, but it's not really wasting your time either. It's like big plot movement and then two or three chapters of after care because you need it. You kind of needed each time and that's why it's so fulfilling to read even though it's intense and sad, is because you always feel like you're being given a little therapy session after the bad thing happens.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Self care. It's important.
JACOB: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
ASHLEY: Fruits basket knows. It knows. I would kind of agree with Ayame, actually. I feel like Ayame and Kakeru have these very bombastic personalities that I'm just like, you all are kind of annoying. I can see being the more shy person normally at parties and stuff, that the person who's really attention seeking and just some semi-inonsiderate is a very annoying archetype to me. But like-
JACOB: Right, yeah.
ASHLEY: I definitely came around on Ayame by the end. I was like, he is really trying his best.
JACOB: He's doing his best.
ASHLEY: He's doing his best. And I think that I can accept it more because Yuki accepts it more, right? Yuki is ... I can also see that he's doing his best and he's just a bit of a jokey person. And by becoming friends with Kakeru, who I think has more moments of levity than Ayame ever does. But you know, so it's fun to see Yuki work through his emotions about Ayame with Kakeru, and I feel like I understand that better now.
ASHLEY: I can see that better in the story. Whereas in the anime you would never get that because is Kakeru there in the anime? I guess not because-
JACOB: No, he never shows up. Yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah, so that's not a thing that you would get. So the anime... Oh, well the next question is about the anime, that's a good segue, see? This is from @Tomtifficate on Twitter and it's, "Do you think there's a chance the manga could receive a more faithful adaptation like brotherhood or is it too latae now?"
ASHLEY: Hello. So this is editor Ashley from the future who knows that there is a new Fruits Basket anime—in case you did not know, there is going to be a new Fruits Basket anime that was announced that is supposed to do the whole story, unlike old Fruits Basket anime, and a obviously Jacob and I are very excited about that news.
ASHLEY: So I'm going to leave our original answers after this little cut in here. But just know in case you have not heard, there is a new Fruits Basket anime happening, and if you did already know, don't laugh at our original answers, all right? Thanks. Bye.
ASHLEY: My gut response to that would be, I don't think it's ever too late in this current media landscape where everything that's old gets a reboot.
JACOB: Completely. Yeah.
ASHLEY: The only thing that gives me pause is that they didn't do it when this collector's edition was coming out and now Fruits Basket, another has already finished in Japan and so I'm like, I don't know. Those seem like good opportunities to do it that they didn't take. So that's my only worry.
JACOB: Yeah. I mean if they were going to do it, I would say that to promote this or to try to up the sales of this, then maybe they would have done it already or would do it in the next couple of years or something. But you know, I think it would be really cool if this got an updated adaptation. Definitely, whatever they do now would be better than what they did in 2002. I'm not sure it's going to happen. I would definitely say never say never because this is, to this day, one of the most beloved shojo manga for for its time. And there's always a chance that somebody will want to try and...
JACOB: Hey, look, we got a banana fish adaptation this season, so never say never.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Like on the one hand I'm kind of like, it feels like the shoujo anime landscape has actually gotten worse since, the 90s.
JACOB: There's less of it. Yeah, that's true.
ASHLEY: And they're not as long. Like Fushigi Yugi and like CCS and other CLAMP things got like 50 plus episode anime. That's not a thing that happens anymore.
JACOB: Yeah. They're not going to do that. That's the other issue. The fact that might be the thing that was holding them back from doing anything like that is like, well it's 23 volumes and it's real hard to truncate. All that stuff is important. It is largely plot. You could out out some stuff definitely in the middle. But it would be hard to cut out enough to get it down to like 24 even, 12 would be impossible and 24 would still be really rushed.
ASHLEY: Yeah. But you know, again, never say never. I think there are signs for both of these things that it could happen. I hope it happens. That would be fun. I would definitely watch that, is all I have to say about that.
ASHLEY: So now we're going to have a really epic shipping corner because there are so many ships. Oh my God. Okay.
JACOB: Just a fleet. A fleet on the ocean.
ASHLEY: So many ships. Okay. But we're going to talk about-
JACOB: In the navy.
ASHLEY: In the navy, yeah, so this is taken from... I tried to order it. There was a rank in the back of best ships/combinations was how they—because some of them, they're like trios where you're like, oh maybe that's polyamory or maybe that's just a trio of fun. Or one of them is at least -
JACOB: Yeah, a trio of fun.
ASHLEY: Incestuous and gay, because it's like Yuki and Ayame but, cool.
JACOB: Jesus.
ASHLEY: Geez, we can get there. We'll start with the real ships that are texturally brought up in this story as romantic things. Some of them were unranked, which I think is rude compared to how many are fake that were in this list, but this is in order from the least popular ones to the most popular. So unranked were Kakeru and Komaki, Ritsu and Mitsuru, and Kana and Hatori.
JACOB: Well, I think I understand why. I think it's a little rude to Kakeru and Komaki, but again-
ASHLEY: It's a little rude.
JACOB: Their relationship was introduced very late in what was a tempestuous time for the story. So they seem like a nice couple, but it's just we're not really thinking about that at that point in the story, you know?
ASHLEY: Yeah. They're just little distractions. Ritsu and Mitsuru you get a page.
JACOB: The only time we see them on a date is in bonus content that wasn't part of the manga that was just released with like a fan book tankobon later, so we barely see them together so it makes sense.
ASHLEY: And that manga is just... Mitsuru is like, I think Ritsu is mad.
JACOB: I like how she's still not sure. They're going on a date, and she's like, ah-
ASHLEY: Why does he always wear kimonos? I just don't get it.
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: She's fine.
JACOB: I think she would accept that about him. He just needs to like come out with it and I think she'll be totally fine with it. It doesn't seem like it would actually bother her at all.
ASHLEY: Yeah, they just need to make it clear. Use your words.
JACOB: Yeah, use your words, guys.
ASHLEY: And then Kana and Hatori was kind of like, I think it's like the first really big sad moment in this mango, right?
JACOB: Right, you can't ship that. I can't ship this. It's too sad.
ASHLEY: It's too sad, but they would have been good had there not been a memory wave, you know?
JACOB: Well you say that. I'm not sure. To be honest, I think that Hatori takes on too much. He has the I, I'm going to be self-sacrificial so this other person can be happy and Kana is like the perfect little wifey-wife compliant kind of character. And I think Hatori Needed somebody who would challenge him and push him. Somebody more like Shigure. Shigure makes Hatori stronger, and Kana, he's not his love interest, he's his best friend obviously, but Kana just kind of laid back and let things happen. And I think that that wasn't a good match up.
JACOB: It was good infatuation wise, like they dug each other. But in terms of a longterm relationship, considering that this guy has some major problems and he's in a family with major problems, you need somebody tougher and he found somebody tougher, which I think is good. And also somebody closer to his height so he didn't have to bend down so far.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: He's a tall boy and needs a tall lady.
ASHLEY: That really is a problem. And then I'm pretty sure this came in last in the poll, but it was Mina and Ayame, which I still also think is rude.
JACOB: That is very rude. They're a great couple, like those two are relationship goals. Like somebody who shares your passion for a weird thing so much that they will flaunt it in public and, you know, Ayame's extra and then he found a lady who was equally extra and she was so chill and so cool that she kept the family secret without anybody finding out about it.
JACOB: These two are extremely good for each other and that is a shame that they came in so low.
ASHLEY: I know. And they're very similar, but I think they still push each other because they both work hard. They're like very dedicated to making clothes that are very cute.
JACOB: They're a power couple. They're like a creative power couple.
ASHLEY: Yeah. But somehow they came in lower than Akito and Kureno, come on y'all.
JACOB: Blech, I disagree.
ASHLEY: Disagree strongly.
JACOB: Yeah. The greatest love story ever. A guy who took pity on a girl and slept with her because he was trying to feel like he had control over his life and he was just taking pity on somebody who was destroying themselves. What a great love story.
ASHLEY: Yeah. So bad. And he just lets his whole soul be so consumed that he goes outside once and is like, wow, I fell in love with the first girl I found.
JACOB: Yeah, the first girl he sees when he leaves the house. This is not a pairing.
ASHLEY: This is no good.
JACOB: It's no good.
ASHLEY: I am very curious how you feel about Hanajima and Kazuma, who is the next one in the popularity.
JACOB: That feels like a joke to me. The only thing I like about that is the idea that it would drive Kyo absolutely insane and that's it.
ASHLEY: It is very good for that.
JACOB: It's good for that. Him having to call her mom was just a nightmare, a living nightmare. But other than that, no, it feels like a joke. It feels like a joke in the story. I don't buy it.
ASHLEY: It's just so hard when Kazuma either, you know, he never goes along with it. He never gives an indication one way or another that he's like in on the joke or not. But, I don't know.
JACOB: And Hana mostly does it to tease Kyo because she clearly favors the older gentleman and she finds him physically attractive. But that's about it. And it's mostly like she says, "Oh, he's handsome." And then Kyo goes, "Ah, stay away from him." And she's like, oh, I can tease you forever with this, can't I? I don't think it's a relationship, and she's going to cook for him because Kyo can no longer be the cook. And we don't want Kazuma to eat his own food because he'll die. So, I think it's more-
ASHLEY: It's a good compromise.
JACOB: Yeah, she's like I enjoy cooking for people, so I'll cook for this handsome older gentleman, but I don't think anything's going to come of it. It's cute.
ASHLEY: Okay, well next up came Hatori and Mayuko, which we have established is better than Kana because Mayuko is a little bit stronger and has a will of her own and won't just like, accept crap from Hatori, you know?
JACOB: Right, yeah. Somebody who will protect her instead of being sort of this eternally selfless worrying about everybody else's... It's like Kyo. Kana is like Tohru and Tohru needs a Kyo and somebody to stand up for her and to fight. And Hatori is a little too worried about everybody else's feelings. So he needs a tough lady. And so he got a tough lady. And also, yeah, the height is definitely an advantage because Hatori is a towering statue of a man, so.
ASHLEY: They have a nice conversation about swimsuits because they're talking about-
JACOB: They do.
ASHLEY: Okinawa and they're like, "ooh, we can't be in swimsuits though. Like ugh."
JACOB: Yeah. She's like, "I don't look good in swimsuits." I'm sure she does. I'm sure she looks great though, because she's got a model's proportions. She's like-
ASHLEY: Yes, she's fine.
JACOB: "Oh I don't have any curves". And it's like, models don't have curves but they look great in swimsuits. Come on now.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I definitely want to see Hatori in the swimsuit. Please-
JACOB: Yes, that would be good.
ASHLEY: Give us that. Where was that side Manga? Where was that?
JACOB: Where was he? He went to the beach house, he just didn't go to the beach.
ASHLEY: Oh, come on.
JACOB: Frustration.
ASHLEY: Frustration, so frustrated. Okay. Next up was Kureno and Uotani. Oh, Kureno!
JACOB: Yeah, that needs time and room to grow, but it's being given that in the story.
ASHLEY: Yeah, because it's definitely a whirlwind romance. You're like you, y'all ate like ramen together. And that was the extent of it.
JACOB: I like Uo's comment on that as she... That was a moment we didn't talk about when Uo finds out that Akito was the other woman and her first response is to hug her, which, that was sweet. She just embraces her like, you must've been through a lot and she does. I think Uo would not be eager to hug Akito if she understood what real situation. All she knows is that Akito was the other woman, that's all. And for her first instinct to be, to hug this person is good of her I think.
JACOB: After that she's just like, I realized that I was just this tiny, she said, "I realized it was being a brat, that I was like desperate to see you because I have a huge crush on you, but like I'm just this tiny element of a giant life you have that I know nothing about. So my responsibility at this point is to just like put the work in."
JACOB: So she does. He was like, they're not living together or anything, but she calls him every day and they're working on it. Basically, they're starting a relationship together, so where it goes from there, who knows? I don't necessarily think they're MFEO as it were, but I do think they're cute together and I think having a relationship together is, is a good idea. I think it's cute that they're dating, so that's good.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I don't know if they're, yeah, they last forever, but they're trying, they're cute. Cute enough. And then Kyoko and Katsuya, [crosstalk 00:01:58:17].
JACOB: Yeah, that's written in the stars, for sure.
ASHLEY: That's so good.
JACOB: They lived and died for each other. They found one another when no one else understood them. It's a good story.
ASHLEY: It's a good story. But you see that was below Shigure and Akito, which I can't agree with.
JACOB: Yeah. Shigure and Akito is more complicated and interesting, I guess. But I don't know if that it's a...
ASHLEY: It's not a healthy relationship, not healthy!
JACOB: Well maybe, here's the thing, I don't even think I could say that it's unhealthy now because I don't know what's going to happen to them, right.?Technically they're doing well by each other now, but I don't-
ASHLEY: I just...
JACOB: Ah, I don't know. It's weird. It's weird.
ASHLEY: Something about it is, I don't know if you can get over that, what y'all have done to each other at this point, like that's very strange.
JACOB: Maybe. I'm thinking about what they did to one another and they slept with other people to make each other jealous and they yelled at each other a lot. But that's about it. It's not that I don't think they can get over their history.
JACOB: It's that I don't know if they should be dating anyone that's more what it is. I don't know if they are strong enough or considerate enough of others to be dating anyone. So it's not that I don't think that they should fit together. I think their personalities mesh together great. Because they're both like Type-A stubborn, bullheaded, manipulative, really smart. I think that they're both in a class where if they were dating somebody who was dumber or more trusting or less aggressive that it would be bad. Basically sparks are going to fly and there's going to be fires to put out a lot of the time. But at the same time you wouldn't want them dating somebody... Let me put it this way, you wouldn't want Ayama dating someone like the girl who confesses to him in his little flashback story, he gets in the last arc, right.
JACOB: You don't want somebody who is a powerhouse like that dating someone delicate. You don't want them dating someone like Tohru or Konda or even [Myuka 02:00:42] like her and Mike was definitely not going to work, so you need spitfire to be dating a spitfire. But at the same time, maybe both of them have issues to work on, but at this point rather than dating each other, they're also just family. So they're going to be in each other's lives no matter what. Akito needs somebody who will support her, and I have no doubt that Shigure would do that, and I don't know that Shigure deserves... I hope that Akito is putting him at arms length sometimes. I guess that's what I'm hoping for is that I hope their relationship is on Akito's terms, and when she says, I need space or...
JACOB: The glimpse that we get, she does certainly tell him no, we're working tomorrow because he's let's have have a vacation day tomorrow, so she says, no, we're working. And he accepts that. So you know, who knows. I'm definitely more curious about their future than the others, that's for sure.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I'm more curious than Haru and Rin, who wins fourth place?
JACOB: Yeah, that's hottest. They win for hottest couple.
ASHLEY: Ooh, super super hot couple. Yeah.
JACOB: They're like fashion magazine cover-
ASHLEY: I hope that's their future jobs, take off into fashion.
JACOB: Models, yeah. You know, they never really touched on what a Haru wants to do with his life. Rin, it seems like she wants to draw, she wants to be an artist, right?
ASHLEY: Oh yeah. She has that moment with Tohru. Tohru's like, "These are precious, don't say you can't draw!"
JACOB: Maybe Haru will just we'll just take a blue collar or white collar job, or something. They're definitely the hottest couple and they seem to intrinsically understand one another and get along great. So yeah, they're adorable together.
ASHLEY: They're adorable together.
JACOB: They definitely fought for their relationship too.
ASHLEY: That's true. They put in the effort here for this to work. Kisa and Hiro were higher than Haru and Rin.
JACOB: I don't understand that. I would put Kisa and Hiro pretty far down the list. Because, that's puppy love, they're babies. They're just little kids who have a crush on each other and they went through some hard stuff, but it's not... They're just little babies.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I think that's being carried by people just really liking Kisa.
JACOB: Yeah, yeah, totally.
ASHLEY: I think also to the question earlier, Hiro was definitely a character who irked me the first time around because he's just such a brat in the-
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Beginning, but then seeing his nicer aspects lasts longer and like where he was coming from. All right, I understand you, you a little brat. It's fine, you're fine. Your love with Kisa is not going to last, but that's fine.
JACOB: I think if he was older, when the story took place. He's very, very different from Isuzu, from Rin, but I think he would've had a similar role to her where I think he really would've questioned things and pushed back against the curse and the family structure if he was older. Who knows how that would have affected him, but he has a really strong personality and he was raised by loving parents. So he's like one of the most healthy... So he and Kisa make a good couple and a cute couple, but they're kind of young, so it's hard for me to think about that.
ASHLEY: But, they're like ten, yeah.
JACOB: I believe by the story and by the time the story ends they're maybe 13 or something, but they're very young.
ASHLEY: That's still too young, yeah.
JACOB: Yeah, it's puppy love.
ASHLEY: Unsurprisingly, second was Yuki and Machi, which I much more ship now than I didfore,I was, yeah, whatever, Machi is fine. But this time I'm, no, I love it. Love it so much.
JACOB: She's great. I love the expression on her face turning into Mogeta face when Yuki finds a limited edition Mogeta plushy and gifts it to her and her face just transforms into his face. That's good.
ASHLEY: And Yuki's like, yeah, you just have the same expression right now. I just love the moment where Yuki... The chapter that really focuses on why Machi hates perfect things and destroys all the things, and her classmates are lamenting that she took a whole new chalk box and broke up all the chalk into little bits and like dust and whatever.
ASHLEY: And then she sees a new chalk box, when they're at their student council meeting or whatever, and Yuki just breaks one of them and it's like, now you're good Machi-
JACOB: Yeah, he's there to take care of her.
ASHLEY: While he's still talking. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, that's adorable. Freaking show.
JACOB: I love the conversation they have where Machi says, something like, I'm a weak person and because Kakeru does this huge dick thing where he's... He thinks that Tohru is a mother, don't worry. Because they were talking about, oh, you know, Tohru Honda, like, oh well what's your relationship with her? Takaya definitely avoids there being a love triangle confusion thing because Kakeru just says, oh no, she's like his mom.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: He compares it directly to a deer. He's Bambi and then she's the doting mother. And at first of course he's embarrassed by this, but Machi's like, you know, it was because if you really needed this girl who's your own age to be like a mother figure for you, I understand. Because you were weak and needed more looking after then, it seems on the surface that's why you notice me because recognize somebody who's also really weak and needs a lot of support. It's interesting because you wouldn't think that it would be a strong relationship, two people who are, who need a lot of support and are both extremely insecure and fragile and anxious. But it works with them for some reason, I guess because their personalities are so opposite. But yeah, you get the feeling that they're going to be really supportive.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I think it's because they're, okay, I can't help myself get over my own weaknesses. But hey, Machi, I can break a piece of chalk for you, or whatever. Every once in a while I break up the perfection chaos that you feel in your mind. We can help each other with that sort of deal. It's very cute.
JACOB: Yeah, and I'm glad that Yuki has somebody that he can be princely toward and it feels real and it feels genuine. He feels like, because Yuki's complex is often so tied into his masculinity and feeling strong. I think it's good that they have relationship. Yuki was clearly the more dominant one. He feels like he's strong and masculine and princely and charming to her. He feels like he's in control because he doesn't feel that way with most people in his life.
JACOB: And so for him to be able to feel like, I can take care of this person without it being... There's no power imbalance in the relationship. He just feels capable and charming when he's with her, which is great.
ASHLEY: Yeah, so good. Definitely more sold on Yuki and Machi this time around. But, obviously, number one Kyo and Tohru.
JACOB: Of course, of course. It's classic. It's the fairy tale romance that this whole thing was building up to. There's so many layers, you could talk about Yuki and Tohru for twice as long as any of these others. Tale as old as time, and all that.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I do have to say that I love, the sheet scene is like they're able to hug each other and he doesn't transform into a cat within the pages. But then the insert page is him turning into the cat and a very cute little sketch. And I'm like, I love everything, what's happening right now.
JACOB: Yeah, there's texts next to it that said, well, this didn't actually work, but I didn't want to break up the moment, the tone. It's just implied.
ASHLEY: Yeah, they couldn't have just been holding each other through sheets this whole time, you guys. That's not really a thing.
JACOB: Yeah, because clothes are technically sheets.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
JACOB: It didn't bat as an impact, but it's a very romantic image.
ASHLEY: It's so good. I took a picture of the color pages in the last volume. There's one where Kyo is holding Tohru and he just looks so smug about it, he's like "you jealous?" Sort of face. And I'm, yes, I love it. I love every day. So good. We've talked about Kyo and Tohru, as well.
JACOB: Yeah. The thing that makes them so lovable is they both seem so amazed that the other person would love them. It wasn't so romantic as that they're both just really blown away that somebody that they think this is amazing. Tohro thinks Kyo was amazing and Kyo thinks Tohru was amazing that this person would love them. And so it's, ah, that's really sweet. But also it is nice to see those moments where Kyo was like, I got mine, though.
ASHLEY: Yeah, like, I did it.
JACOB: Because everybody wants her. Tohru is the most sought after character. Even maybe Shigure has a little crush on Tohru and he's like, nope, she's mine.
ASHLEY: Yeah. He's like, I know what's up. Like the bonus Manga for this-
JACOB: They can't beat all of you.
ASHLEY: Yeah. What's up fools? But the bonus Manga, I think, for announcing that they won the couple's contest or whatever is Kyo also doing a kiss Tohru on the cheek and be like, what's up? Like I did it-
JACOB: You mad.
ASHLEY: You mad. Oh Kyo, thank you. Thank you for being so Kyo.
JACOB: Just that moment where they embrace and the curse is broken, obviously. And of course his first instinct as anyone's would be is to rip the bracelet off his arm and Tohru's happy for him, but then she immediately runs over and gathers all the beads and they're so at a perfect level because he's, you're going to want these someday, you know?
ASHLEY: And she puts them next to a picture of her mom.
JACOB: Ah, and the hat that Yuki's with. It's this little shrine to all of these influences basically that made her who she is.
ASHLEY: I know it's so good. But, on the subject of everybody wants Tohru, so I don't know if there's anybody you wish was a real ship, but there were many non-real ships listed in this back matter as best ship, slash, whatever, companions. Tohru basically with everybody, but I don't want want to list all of them, some funny one's where like Kyo and Honda Jima, like what are you all doing? Stop!
JACOB: I can't imagine it. I can't.
ASHLEY: Tohru and Rin. Yeah, that's a good one.
JACOB: I think Tohru and Uo... Haru and Yuki and Tohru and Uo are like the gay ships that are the most obvious, I think. Where it's like of course it would be good. Uo is a lot like Kyo and, I don't know if Haru is like Machi, they have similarities, but he just clearly loves Yuki so much and takes such good care of him.
ASHLEY: Yeah, the one that I'm-
JACOB: But in the end, the big titties won out.
ASHLEY: That's right.
JACOB: Haru's like, sorry, but I got to go with one of the big titties.
ASHLEY: Apparently people shipped Hatsuhara with Kisa, which I'm like, no, stop. What are you doing?
JACOB: That's weird. That's weird. They're like brother and sister.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Like no, leave that over there. Again, people apparently shipped Yuki and Ayame and I'm like, no, no gay incest, please.
JACOB: Technically within the Sohma family I guess it's all incest.
ASHLEY: It's all incest, but they're brothers.
JACOB: Yeah, direct brothers is a bit much.
ASHLEY: Yeah, please, no.
JACOB: Tohru x Momiji is a big one.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one. That one, it kind of hurts just because Momiji is so nice and I want him to be happy.
JACOB: Yeah. I feel like Momiji would very easily be a catch just about anywhere he went. I think he knows that so-
ASHLEY: So he'll find happiness, but-
JACOB: But what really hurt me most from Momiji was not that he didn't end up with Tohru or that he didn't end up with anybody, because again, I think he'll be fine romantically speaking. It was more that I'm not sure he'll have that connection with his sister. I'm not sure what's going to happen there. That was left very open ended. Like the last time we heard about it was the, 'Some dreams don't come true' speech, so thanks for that Tohru.
JACOB: I don't know if he's ever going to have a connection with his little sister or not. He went through all that bearable stuff because of the curse and the curse breaks in his young adulthood, while he's in high school and now he just has to live the rest of his life without a family, I guess. It's weird. So I just hope for the best for him on that one, because that seems like that would be really rough rather than romantically like, oh he'll be fine. I'm worried more about the family situation.
ASHLEY: Yeah, we get that scene with his mom, like he walks to school after his curse is broken and he sees her and she's, is this your normal route to school? And he's, no, I just took it for today. And so I'm, is that hopeful? Maybe.
JACOB: Yeah. I forgot what he said during that scene. It was something because Momiji's last big scenes are that with his mom and then the one where his dad tells Akito's story of 'The Most Foolish Traveler'. Those are both good sendoffs for him, but I don't remember exactly what he said in that scene. I think it was something bitter. It was something like, there is no more guarantees now that I'm not with the Sohma family. Like, nothing's set in stone for me anymore, but I have freedom and I think I'm okay with that. Freedom's scary but I think I'm okay with that. And, once again, Momiji's role in the story is often just to sum up the themes that affect everyone, and I think that's another case where he's just doing that.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Poor Momiji, I hope for the best. You're a cutie. Cute little rabbit boy.
JACOB: He's a good boy.
ASHLEY: He's a good boy. Yeah, I think that's all I had to talk about. So if you have any super final thoughts to get in.
JACOB: Yeah. I think for the most part everybody ended up with who they should end up with and the people who ended up single will be fine. They'll be fine. [Kadra 02:15:03] will be fine, Momiji will be fine. What about Motoko x Nao?
ASHLEY: Motoko x Mao? Nao?
JACOB: Nao, Nao, whats-his-name? Yeah.
ASHLEY: Oh yeah.
JACOB: He has a crush on Motoko and that's the last time we really see him in the story.
ASHLEY: Yeah, that was weird. I was like, what's going on here? Why?
JACOB: He's like, well, they're graduating, so let's just get them out of the story. And he likes Motoko, so...
ASHLEY: Yeah, I was like, this is not the time for this, I don't care about these characters.
JACOB: Yeah.
ASHLEY: I super still do not care about Yuki's fan club.
JACOB: Yeah, I mean who, really, yeah.
ASHLEY: I actually remember, because I had such a negative connotations about them from reading it the first time, I thought they played like a bigger role in the story and I was pleased to see that their role is actually pretty minor. That's good.
JACOB: It's a little skewed by the Anime, which gives them two or three episodes, two full episodes go to Motoko and, come on guys. You cut the foreshadowing material for this for two full episodes of Motoko.
ASHLEY: Yeah. That's bad. Disagree.
JACOB: It's a hard disagree.
ASHLEY: Hard disagree! Yeah. But yeah, that's, that's all of Fruits Basket. 23 volumes of lots of tears.
JACOB: Yeah. Well I'm ultimately happy and we end on grandpa Kyo and grandma Tohru, I'm not touching that, walking in the garden together.
ASHLEY: Holding hands, still being cute. They got a granddaughter, you think?
JACOB: Yeah, I believe that's a granddaughter.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Yay!
JACOB: Yay! Happy ending.
ASHLEY: Happiness. Okay, well, we did it. We survived Jacob. It was really scary.
JACOB: Yeah. Fruits Basket, I think it will always be my favorite Manga. I think it informed a lot of what I understand about relationships, how I feel about my own childhood and understanding of empathy and it's just a really good story with a lot of really good life lessons that can change and reinvent themselves every time I come back to it. I dig it. You should read it.
ASHLEY: Yeah, it definitely goes to places that other stories are too afraid to.
JACOB: Yeah. As Takaya put it, 'I took the story places that I would be too scared to go, now and it took a lot out of me, but I'm glad I hit it then.'
ASHLEY: All right. Well, sadly, we've concluded our trilogy of podcasts. All right.
JACOB: Yay!
ASHLEY: Yay!
JACOB: Thank you for joining us, everybody, through this over 100 chapter journey.
ASHLEY: Yeah, it's so long. Yeah, thanks everybody for listening to Shojo & Tell. If you have comments, questions, or concerns or need to tell us about your OTP, why you shipped some weird chips, whatever you did, must be. You can email, shojoandtell@gmail.com or leave a comment on shojoandtell.com/fruitsbasket3 or also at Shojo & Tell on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Jacob, where can people find you and your work on the internets?
JACOB: Well, I'm still currently managingeditorial@animenewsnetwork.com and so you can find anything there I may put together. I'm working on some projects that I can't talk about right now, but you will learn more about those, if you follow me on Twitter @itsbonedaddy, on twitter.com/itsbonedaddy. You can catch up with Jacob Chapman, you can catch up with all my stuff there and I'll keep you posted on all the exciting things I'm doing in the last quarter of the year or so, so yeah.
ASHLEY: I am excited to see what these things could be.
JACOB: I got to get my nose to the grindstone on some of them, but no.
ASHLEY: It's okay. I believe in you.
JACOB: Thank you. But thank you for having me on the podcast. I had a great time and...
ASHLEY: Yeah, no, this was super great, but so for anybody listening, I hope that you had fun with these and if you liked them, please leave a rating in iTunes or Stitcher and we will be back next time for something that's not Fruits Basket. It will be either 'Wake up, Sleeping Beauty' by Megumi Morino, before we go into another trilogy of podcasts with a series that's 30 volumes long with-
JACOB: No, shit!
ASHLEY: I know, it's so long. It'll be Kimi Ni Todoke, by Karuho Shiina, it's very long, that will be the longest one that we've done. Beating out Fruits Basket. But, everybody stay tuned until whatever the next episode is. Until then. Bye.
JACOB: Bye-bye