Forum - View topicFruits Basket (see 2nd post for thread info)
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murph76
 Posts: 3291 Location: Akron, OH |
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Hey, I'm still around.
 Work has been busy and family obligations surrounding my grandfather's death have consumed most of my time lately. Also, all the points I wanted to make during Tohru's discussion were brought up by someone else, so I lurked for a while.
Hopefully I can be a bit more active when the volume discussions roll around. -Murph |
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Ningensei
 Posts: 333 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I haven't posted here for awhile! I will be all done with my finals later today, and then I'll be free!
 But I still have to go to my graduation Saturday, haha so I will probably be still busy until then.
As murph said, I hope to be more active with the volume discussions as well! I can't wait because it just gives me another reason to start rereading the series. For like the zillionth time. 
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LydiaDianne
 Posts: 5633 Location: Southern California |
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Good luck and have "fun" with your finals Ningensei! And have an especially good time with your Graduation and stay safe afterwards! Please!
I am also looking forward to the volume discussions. I get to re-read each volume again for one! And two, I think that it will help with understanding the later volumes because I certainly know that when Shigure spoiler[said that he was the most cursed member of the Zodiac, it went over my head and I forgot completely about it by the later volumes.] |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I've changed my mind a bit. For those interested in participating in the Fruits Basket series volumes discussions, start reading up tonight because the next time I post I'm going to open up volume discussions!!
 Also the thread info post (first page) has been updated, so feel free to use that for any links you're interested in, thanks.
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Ningensei
Posts: 333 Location: Seattle, WA |
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eee! Starting so early? Man, I just loaned my copy of Fruits Basket Volume 1 to a friend (I'm hoping to get her hooked like me
 ) so I won't be able to remember as clearly as everyone else since I can't just refer back to the book. Oh well, I'll just play it by memory I guess.
Side Note: Phew! Done with finals, I have my departmental ceremonies yesterday and today and then Saturday by 5 p.m I officially will no longer be an undergrad and will be a graduate from the UW! Whoo!
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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Well it seems like you're working hard on your studies, I've still got another two years to go
 Anyways, I'm officially opening up the Volumes Discussions today. This week, and possibly into the next week we'll be discussing the events of volume 1, who comes up, our opinions about the outcome of the volume, and what might have gone differently. I'll start off with the first chapter of the series, and then we can go from there.
I think that the opening chapter for the series throws in a lot of elements in there that would like answering immediately throughout the next chapters contained within the first volume. spoiler[Tohru living in a tent, why she's living there, and it just so happening to be on Shigure's property. Tohru finds Shigure's house while on her way to school and meets Shigure as well as Yuki, who goes to school with her. It is there that they catch the eye of the Prince Yuki Fanclub girls and she seems to be in a tight spot, until Hanachan and Uochan come up, who seem to have this aura around them And so we find out about Tohru and her living arrangements, as to why she's living in a tent, how her mother died, and why she ends up getting sick after Shigure and Yuki follow her to her tent. Turns out later there's a mud slide that engulfs the tent, as well as Tohru's belongings, and the only portrait of her mother. As she starts to look for the portrait in the mud, Shigure takes her by the hand and tells her that if she were to get hurt again, her mother would be saddened. Thus she goes back to the house, reminiscing about the last morning she saw her mother, how she regrets not saying goodbye to her, and then falls asleep. Yuki, after overhearing Tohru, develops a greater respect for her. After which Yuki with all his rats goes to get Tohru's belongings. After Tohru wakes up to find her belongings in Yuki's hand, and an initiation to Shigure's house to do the daily chores and things like that, who should fall in, but the baka-neko!]
I think that the opening chapter brings in the comedy elements meant for the series, such as the introduction of Tohru's "unusual" friends, the Yankee and the Wave Carrier. They are what brings the comic relief to the first chapter, I don't know how the series would have carried on without them. |
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Ningensei
Posts: 333 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Don't worry fighterholic, no need to rush through school!
Sorry I haven't been on all weekend, but I'm finally back, yay! My graduation was cold, rainy, wet, and miserable (damn you Seattle!) but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I guess it added to make it memorable. heh.  Thanks for the concern LydiaDianne! Don't worry I was safe and responsible!
Well, to add to your initial post on Volume 1, since it seems like no one else has posted yet, I really love Kyo's appearance...of course. 
spoiler[I like how in the beginning he just seems like your average stubborn and rebellious character stereotype, but by the end of the volume, you start to see how he is much more than that. I love how he tries to apologize and interact with Tohru in his own way, and how he gets angry at himself for making things worse because he is not "made to be around people." He gets so angry at himself because all he can do is yell at Tohru because of his quick responses where he doesn't think before he speaks (Like when he says he doesn't want to eat and hates her dinner but really doesn't or even when he is yelling about why she is even there). But by the end, when he is trying to apologize, Tohru realizes this and how hard he is trying and that he doing it and expressing himself in his own way, which is difficult for him.] Sorry it's kind of vague, I don't have my Volume 1 with me right now to check exactly what's in it, but I do remember these parts. Is the part when they are on the roof talking about Shishou in this volume, or is it much later? I have a feeling it is later so I didn't mention it yet. |
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LydiaDianne
Posts: 5633 Location: Southern California |
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Sorry, I forgot!
I'm writing this as I re-read the volume.
Volume one provides a lot of character introduction: Tohru, Shigure, Yuki, Kyo, Saki, Arisa, and the Prince Yuki Fan Club. And Kagura! Bwa ha ha ha! And Tohru's Grandpa and the rest of her disgusting family. And right away, you get to see the public face of Shigure. spoiler[I say public face because he doesn't let anyone but Hatori and Akito (Maybe) see his dark side. Certainly it is not shown when Ayame is around.] You also get a glimpse of how Yuki feels about Shigure's spoiler[pervertism] You also get to see how the PYFC...overreacts and Saki & Arisa protection of Tohru. You also see how determined Tohru is to make her own way in the world by spoiler[living by herself in a tent and working to pay for school.] I have to say that I loved the irony of when Tohru was explaining why she was on Sohma property living in a tent and Shigure said spoiler["That place is dangerous. The cliff wall is unstable and you never know when some shady character might pass through." He certainly should know about shady characters! ] But he redeemed himself when spoiler[after the landslide he said "If there's another landslide and you get hurt, your mother will be in even more pain."] Shigure is truly a multi-faceted character. He's probably the only character in this series that has so many "faces."
You also see how much Yuki and Kyo hate each other. spoiler[But a lot of that has to do with the way older non-Zodiac family members have twisted their emotions. Well, that and the fact that Kyo is naturally competitive and doesn't like losing.] You also get to see this in the card game in chapter 4 when Arisa challenges Kyo. Kyo is obviously a hot-head and the connection between his brain and his mouth is broken in this volume since he says hurtful things to Tohru before thinking for a second on how they come out. But he also obviously regrets saying those hurtful things to her. What Shigure said to him on pages 102 and 103 was pretty profound and accurate (another of Shigure's faces). Chapter 4 is where you see Kyo, probably for the first time, really begin to interact with others outside of the Sohma family. While Tohru helped him get used to other people, I think that Arisa helped him the most because she challenged him, dared him to do things that he normally wouldn't do. Because Arisa challenged him, thus appealing to his competitive nature, he got used to people more even unconsciously allowing people to touch him. Of course, Yuki is also afraid of being touched, wounded and hurt by people. Even in this first volume, Kyo is actually able to be around people a lot better than Yuki. Yuki, almost pointedly, keeps himself away from people. And he knows it but can't help himself. In Chapter 4, when he is walking Tohru home from work, he talks about how he keeps people away and how he can't help doing it and doesn't know how to fix it even though he craves that sort of attention. He also acknowledges that Kyo will have a much easier time of connecting with people: spoiler["But Kyo is different. He might be extremely shy, but if he gets used to being around people, I think he's the type that attracts others...that has many friends."] He also knows that how he is, is wrong spoiler["I'm only being nice because I want people to like me. It's the same as giving someone candy because you want to buy their friendship. My being nice is entirely selfish. Maybe I'm a hypocrite."] Of course, people are usually harder on themselves then they are on others. Kagura is hilarious! She comes across as a demure, sweet and shy girl but the minute she see Kyo, she turn into a tornado! A typhoon! The raging destruction of Mother Nature! Poor Kyo, along with his other troubles, he REALLY has no clue how to handle Kagura! He does try to control her but he ends up in a hammerlock. And she gets so worked up, she doesn't see the chaos that she causes. In chapter 6, you see how much Tohru has come to need the Sohma's and how quickly Yuki and Kyo have come to need her. What irritates me is that her cousin seemes to have a real bed and Tohru is limited to a futon. That goes to show what those so-called family (and yes, I'm sneering "family") thinks of her. And it gets even clearer, what they think of our dear sweet Tohru when the Aunt and Uncle spoiler[tell Tohru that she hired a detective to see what Tohru had been up to in the Sohma household. And to see if she has a criminal record. It's VERY obvious that these nasty evil mean people have never bothered themselves to get to know Tohru AT ALL! The bastards!  ] Of course I do like the fact that Grandpa spoiler[slapped Uncle then called them "Evil People" then played dumb. I also liked when Yuki gave the Uncle "The Look", stabbed his finger onto the Uncle's forehead and said "Don't call her Tohru-chan like you're her friend. Lowlife." Priceless! Just Priceless!]
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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You know, I was worried for a while, and thought I'd killed the thread.
spoiler[It seemed pretty easy for Shigure to get the okay for Tohru to stay at his house, even though he said that people get their memory erased if they find out about the SOhma secret. Yet it happened, but there was one person who was suspicious, Yuki. ]Which proves the thing about Lydia's post up above, Shigure has so many faces. There's even more that surface through the later volumes, but right now we have the ones in volume one, and they still provide us with some great entertainment. |
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LydiaDianne
Posts: 5633 Location: Southern California |
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Naw, some of us are just old and forgetful!
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Ningensei
Posts: 333 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Yes, and some of us don't have our copy of volume one to look at. My memory is terrible.
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murph76
Posts: 3291 Location: Akron, OH |
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I think my favorite part of the first volume is chapter 6. Like LydiaDianne said, I think it spoiler[shows how much of a family Tohru, Shigure, Yuki and Kyo had become in such a short time. I also get the impression that for the first time since her mother died, Tohru felt as if she belonged somewhere. Sure, she lived with her grandfather immediately after Kyoko's death, but to me that seemed more like a family obligation. And, I think Tohru's fever coupled with that mudslide showed her that while she could live in a tent on her own, it wasn't the best solution to her problem. Living with Yuki, Kyo and Shigure not only provided Tohru a roof over her head, it also gave her people who counted on her, needed her. At first only for cooking and cleaning, but later for their emotional well-being too. The living arrangement also gave Tohru people she could count on and cared for her well-being, unlike most of her blood relatives. Since Tohru always pushes herself until she literally falls down from an illness, she needs that support.]
The best character introduction in the volume has to be Kyo. spoiler[He comes crashing through the roof -- all badass and looking for a fight -- only to be defeated by a girl he didn't know was there, who tripped on debris he created and hugged him, exposing the Sohma secret.] -Murph |
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LydiaDianne
Posts: 5633 Location: Southern California |
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I think that you are right. Tohru spoiler[needs to be able to take care of people. That's just the way that she is. BUT, because she forgets to take care of herself most of the time, she needs people around her who will tell her to take care of herself as well.]
Shigure, Kyo and Yuki spoiler[enjoy and need Tohru's help and love but they are all able to see that she needs their love and support as they do hers. So they are quite willing to do their share to protect Tohru. Well, Yuki and Kyo are, as those of us who've read up to vol. 16, Shigure has a slightly different idea of using Tohru.] |
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murph76
Posts: 3291 Location: Akron, OH |
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I love how even though Kyo and Yuki spoiler[argue and fight through the first volume, the have the exact same reaction when it comes to protecting Tohru, be it from Shigure's perverted comments or her nasty family. I think it's another method Takaya-sensei uses to tell us they're more alike than either cares to admit.]
-Murph |
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Ningensei
Posts: 333 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Yay, murph's back. I do agree with you that although Yuki and Kyo appear to be polar opposites at first, there are many things in which they are similar to one another. Like how they both hate Shigure's perverseness, especially towards Tohru.
But I think that is getting to more later volumes, I think.
Hey, now we have the same number of posts! Both at 147 (for now).
Edit: Hm, I was wondering if there are a lot of people who read this thread and our discussions regularly, but don't join in with the posting. What do you guys think, is that pretty common? I know I kind of browsed around a bit before I joined up, but I was using this site waaaaay beforehand (like a few years) before I registered for the forums. I say "Come on in and join us!" Heh.
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