Takaya Natsuki - Fruits Basket, vol. 03 (Eng. trans.) (reread)

[oyceter]

And the Great Manga Reread Project: Fruits Basket edition continues, albeit somewhat late on my end.

Spoilers for this volume under the cut; spoilers for later volumes further hidden using spoiler code. Please use spoiler code for later volumes in the comments! Also, I've only read up to around ch. 126.

Comments

[ginny_t]

(too lazy to specify the nature of the spoilerdragons - sorry!)

Akito's mother's name is Ren. Good point about all those parallels.

Y'know, I'd completely forgot about the omake where "Yuki's a girl!" Spooky.

Shigure and Kazuma (Kyo's sensei) don't actually plot to remove the beads - Kazuma tells Shigure to apologise in advance for the disturbance. I do love Kazuma so.

But yes, Shigure is wicked creepy. I still cling tenaciously (if delusionally) to my conviction that he wouldn't have let things get too far out of hand.

[oyceter]

Ren! Ha! No wonder I keep getting it confused with Rin!

Also, gotcha on the beads; I completely don't remember.

But man, Shigure is creeeeepy. How far have you gotten?

[ginny_t]

I've read right to the end. Am I mis-remembering that you haven't, although you're close? {Spoilers for end-mostly 'Gure} 'Gure is indeed creepy, but I continue to have this unwavering and unreasonable faith in him. His relationship, OTOH? I'm very much not with the rest of the fandom on the "OMG!melt". I don't think either of them is healthy or mature enough to be good for each other. That and the hints of Kazuma/Saki are the two twitchy end parts. Akito & Shigure aren't too bad, and I just pretend that 6 months later, Saki finds herself a 19-year-old denpa boy, and Kazuma finds a wonderful woman (if he wants) closer to his age.

[oyceter]

Wah! I haven't finished! I have to remember to go back and read all the comments to these and all of Rilina's posts once I have.

[rilina]

I wonder if Black Haru vs. White Haru is a sort of obvious way of highlighting the fact that all the cursed Sohmas have divided selves/multiple identities. (spoilers through 126) Because there's obviously a tension between their individual selves and their jyuunishi selves who are bound to Akito.

Hanajima is completely awesome. I love how in some respects she's so unworldly; in others, she's completely worldly. Hee.

[xwingace]

I've always seen Black/White Haru as a reflection of the difference between placid beasts normally seen in farming and the rampaging animals they can become when riled, even more so than horses, in general.

This also works for Kagura, in a way. And Rin.

XWA

[oyceter]

Oh, I like that. It sort of goes with Rin's doubling too; she doesn't have the personality thing, but she's alternately Rin or Isuzu (I think?).

I love Hanajima! And she just gets more awesome later!

[readsalot]

I love that the little symbol for Uotani in the speech bubbles is a teeny fish ("Uo" is fish in Japanese, "Uotani" is Fish Valley).

Oh! Is Hanajima flower-something? And that's why the symbol for Hanajima in the speech bubbles is a flower? I never thought of that.

[oyceter]

Yes! I think it's literally "Flower Island."

I was going to check for Hanajima's little symbol, cool!

[chomiji]

(Re manga fever silliness: actually, IRL, I kiss my kid on the forehead to see whether she has a fever. But as far as I know, it's usually only moms, extremely involved dads, or similar guardians who can do this dependably, because you have to be very attuned to the normal perceived body temperature of the patient.)

[oyceter]

You are a shoujo manga mom! Actually, I don't know if the moms do that in shoujo; as far as I know it has been limited to romantic things. Oh manga. I love you.