Fruits Basket

Genre: Fantasy
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens
Emotional Response: a little bit happy
Notable Features: zodiac magic, high school, family
Language: English
Length: 2 seasons, 26 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Great

"Well, my mom used to say..." -Tohru

When Tohru was a little girl, she was picked on. She was always made the rice ball in the Fruits Basket game. The point of this is to highlight that she's a bit of an outcast herself, but she also seems a bit oblivious at times to. Her mother is the focus of all of her internal monologue. Tohru lost her mother in an accident, and through a variety of events ends up living in a tent and stumbling into the Sohma house. Tohru ends up living at the house with the boys and their cousin Shigure, with a promise to pay for her room and board through housekeeping. Her smile-laden nature reals people in to wanting to help her, despite her obliviousness.

The series is all about the crazy shenanigans that occur at the Sohma house. Tohru makes some new friends, namely two young men in her class - Yuki and Kyo - and in the process learns their family's terrible curse. Certain members of the Sohma family turn into one of the zodiac animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex! Her happiness draws all of the Sohmas to her, and she imparts her wisdom, taken directly from her mother, on a regular basis. She does it in that story-telling manner, without being condescending. Yuki and Kyo are an interesting duo. Her relationship with them seems to temper their mutual hatred into the reality of their competitive natures, and painful pasts. Part of the experience the zodiac members all have with Tohru ends up as part of their individual healing processes. It makes her the focus of good events and bad events, with a dark villain at the end.
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Fruits Basket is cute. Half the time I wanted to punch Tohru in the face, for being such a spacey ditz, but she's a sweetheart. I really did enjoy the series. It was cute and generally age appropriate for everyone (there was some funny wink-winks but you'd seriously only get them if you're older). My only hesitancy was Kyo's occasional swear. If it were me, I'd probably just ignore it, but some might take that seriously if watching it with children. I think the messages of loving yourself and seeing good in others might outweigh the potential negatives. Each character has a startling different personality, which I know was done on purpose, but they're so freakin' funny. Aya and Ritsu were probably my favorites for most outrageous behavior. The girly part of  me has a bit of a crush on Hatori (shocking, I know).

I really did enjoy this quite a bit. I'm sure I will watch it, again. It wasn't perfect, I felt that the end was a little abrupt, but only in a minor way. I'm actually going to try to sucker some of my non-anime friends into watching it with me. It makes for good baby steps. I'd highly recommend it when you have a crap day, or are too weighed down by watching darker things. It's all warm and fuzzy. It's not as funny as some, but I had some awesome LOL moments. It was great to curl up with a blanket with some hot chocolate and put this on.
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Rice Ball!: Shuffle!