Voices done by:
Tohru Honda – Horie Yui
Yuki Souma – Hisakawa
AyaKyou Souma – Seki Tomokazu
Shigure Souma – Okiayu RyoutarouHatori
Souma – Inoue Kazuhiko
Ayame Souma – Miyamoto Mitsuru
Akito Souma – Wakaba Murasaki
Kyoko Souma - ?
Uotani Arisa – Imai Yuka
Hanajima Saki – Yasuhara Reiko

Fruits Basket is a very touching anime series with 26 episodes andat first glance, the plot is a typical fish-out-of-water story that isdoused with beautiful males, and a promise of a lot of love trianglesto tangle things up. But that’s not it at all.

Quick Synopsis:
Tohru Honda is high school student who is now homeless because hermother had died a year ago, and the only place she can stay at is nowundergoing construction. She is living in a tent in the woods and whenwalking home, she saw a house and ran into Yuki Souma, who is crownedthe Prince at school because he is absurdly handsome and very nice toboot, and his older cousin Shigure there. They talked, and later,Tohru’s tent is destroyed through a landslide, and she faints due to aflu. So Yuki asks her to stay with him and his cousin, Tohrureluctantly agrees and this begins the series.

At the beginning of time, when God is deciding the calendar, he toldthe animals to show up for a meeting that will decide their order inthe Zodiac years. Deceitful that he is, the mouse told the cat thewrong day, and then rode to the meeting on the head of the ox, andended up being the first animal in the Zodiac, the only one got leftout is the cat.

The Souma is cursed by this wrong, so for every generation, membersof the Souma family will be borned to represent an animal of theZodiac, and they will turn into that animal if hugged by the oppositesex. So imagine the fun Tohru has.

Characters:
Tohru –naïve, sweet and kind. A little bit clumsy and dense sometimes, butalways says the right thing and a lovely human being all around.

Yuki– the Prince. He is too good-looking for his own goods, and get mockedby Kyou for his feminine looks. His voice is done by a female seiyuu,so when he first appeared, I didn’t know if he was a guy or girl.Because Yuki is the mouse, he is thought to have things very easy inlife, so Kyou deeply resents Yuki for this, and they are constantlyfighting.

Kyou– He is the cat and is treated badly when he was a child, so Kyou has aloud and obnoxious attitude to people. A lot is not revealed about Kyouuntil the last few episodes and then, you truly love him because evenif he is not easy to love like Yuki, he is worthy at the same time.

Shigure– To say the least, Shigure is very easy going and a constant surprise.At first, he is a bum who wanders around the house in his kimono anddoes nothing but laugh at Yuki and Kyou, but to have survived the Soumafamily intact is quite a feat.

Hatori and Ayame– Hatori is a doctor, and Ayame is Yuki’s older brother, also is across-dresser with a flair for anything flamboyance. These two togetherand Shigure are childhood friends that provide support for each other,and the running gag is that Ayame is in love with Hatori and constantlywants to move in with him.

Akito – he is portrayed as the evil guy, and until the end, Iam still not sure what animal of the Zodiac he is, or if he is ananimal at all. He controls the Souma family, and everyone follows whathe says.

Kyoko – she is Tohru’s mother, and through Tohru, we learnthat she is a kind and strong woman who raised a child by herself anddid a wonderful job of it.

Uo and Hana – they are Tohru’s close friends and defend her from the Yuki’s fan club at school.

Review:
At first meeting Tohru, she is annoyingly cute and so nice that youwant to grate your teeth, but as the series progressed, you realizedTohru is nice because she is honestly that way, and she is the onlygood thing that is happening to these Souma characters for a very longtime.

The Souma family is rich and reclusive, so what goes on behind thehigh walls are kept hush-hush even though the hints are given that theyare not very nice things at all. More Soumas keep showing up, and atfirst look, they are all beautiful creatures with amazing talents, butalmost all of them boast a sad past that kept me crying constantly.

The wonderful thing about this series is its characters, they arevivid and real. Yuki might be handsome and a Prince in everyone’s eyes,but to Tohru, he is just a little boy still trying to get someone tolove him unconditionally. He once said, “I keep being nice to people sothey’ll like me. It’s like giving people candies.” It’s sad and itreveals his vulnerability, making him real. Tohru is wonderful andnice, but she is naïve and at times stupid. Yet she opens her arm andaccepts everyone, no matter that they are a cross-dresser orself-destructive and dangerous. This is the girl that everyone shouldhave as a childhood friend or at least meet once in their life. It iseasy to understand why both Yuki and Kyou care so much for her, and inreturn, she makes their lives worthy and bright.

The series is very shoujo in nature, and has little actions. Itdevelops slowly and introduces new character at each episode. There isa sense of peace at the beginning, and humour when you first meet acharacter, especially Ayame because he’s so out there, and Yuki is soembarrassed at him, but the underlying current is that Ayame is sorryfor abandoning Yuki when he was young, and from that point on, Yuki hasnever reached out for him again. So at the end of each episode, you getto know the new character really well and identify with them some wayor another.

"Fruits Basket" is not overwhelmed with love triangles, and even thecentral love story is not really admitted out loud at all, you justknow that Yuki and Kyou care for Tohru very much, and Tohru returnsboth their affections. The most touching love is Hatori and the womanhe was going to marry, only that she discovers his real identity.Normally the girl would be running away or accept him fully, but nothere. "Fruits Basket" showed a woman wanting to accept her lover forall that he is, but she is just mentally incapable of it, and thesacrifice Hatori was willing to make just make me cry buckets. He askedTohru, “What do you get when the snow melts?” Tohru said, “Spring.” Andthis shows the fundamental characters that they are. Tohru is willingto believe and Hatori has given up on hope.

Fruits Basket is essentially about relationships, about love and ourwillingness to accept people. Most of the characters are damaged insome ways, and they don’t expect to be whole again. Even at the end,the characters are not wholly happy, and there is no happily ever forthem, but you know that they are better and getting there. Although Ireally want to see a second season so more questions are answered,especially about Akito. He is evil, but he is sad because of his slotin life. He was dealt a crappy card, and instead of taking it like itis, he decided to make others’ lives miserable too, and I wonder ifTohru can save him.