Furuba vol. 19 [Tokyopop edition]
Fruits Basket vol. 19, Tokyopop edition. Translation by Alethea & Athena Nibley, English adaptation by Lianne Sentar.
Chapter 108
I do love how many of the 12shi guys are perfectly comfortable just reaching out and grabbing Tohru, even if Shigure taking her hand is a little creepy.
There's an interesting dichotomy in what Shigure tells her: on the one hand, this is the first time the full zodiac has been together, but on the other hand, they regard the Cat and the Cat's sacrifice as necessary. I wonder whether the Cat is a constant, even if other spirits are missing from the circle, or if the rest of the zodiac cope differently--or don't cope--in its absence. (Possibly the entire circle has always been in motion, with one person being born possessed only years after someone else died--I don't necessarily mean the same animal spirit being reborn, but if all of the spirits were incarnated but, say, the Sheep, and the Rat died only a few years before the Sheep was born, then they'd have just missed having a full circle. I wonder if it played out something like that before this generation started all being born so close together.)
Poor Tohru, being forced to realize that all these people she loves so much are capable of turning their backs on Kyo in a completely literal sense. ;_; It's not terribly surprising--like all the other hurts in this series, it's not because they're evil or hate him, it's because they're human and they're hurt and scared. And that's what humans do.
...and she pushes at Shigure almost exactly the same way she shoved Akito once. Huh.
(Um, what was in the bag Tohru brought, that she left and Shigure took back? Tohru said in ch. 107 that she was bringing a present, and then Shigure told Kyo that it was a present for Rin, but later said he was lying. *puzzles*)
Chapter 109
Oh, little Kyo hiding behind Kazuma at the grave! ;_; (And oh, his bastard father. Grrr. I want to snarl because he didn't make any kind of effort for Kyo, ever. I feel no guilt about hating him for that even though I hate Rin's parents for faking it for her. Bloody fictional people who don't know what they threw away, all of them.)
Wildly OT, but I wish the versions I've heard of "Pity the Child" weren't all so obviously from a musical. An 80s ABBA musical at that. Because it's a great song, and so much of it is so apt for this story. (Yes, Gaffney, I'm completely ignoring what I've heard of the staging that accompanies it. Guh.)
Little Kyo checking up on Tohru! *dead* And Grandpa continues to be made of awesome. What a guy.
And the scene with the sheet is also awesome, esp. with the little filler sketch that shows Kyo transformed. Which is just as well, all things considered--if he hadn't changed, I'd be permanently stuck with this image of Kyo and Tohru living out their lives in plastic wrap like on Pushing Daisies. (Hee. ^^)
Chapter 110
The most awkward household ever!!! Oh, poor Yuki. "A son in between his mother and her new boyfriend," for sure, except most mothers wouldn't be that clueless about it all...
Kyo actually admitting to himself that he's thinking about her "that way"! ("Perverted old man!" Except not, Kyo-kun. If you don't have thoughts like that, how can you have adorable children, hmm? Even Kazuma's grandfather had an adorable [grand]child...)
...I'd totally forgotten about that outfit of Ayame's. Dear heaven.
Ayame's immediate impulse to go apologize to that girl RIGHT NOW is its own kind of great. (I think I'd forgotten she was a student at the school the current 12shi girls attend[ed], going by the uniform.)
"You? Apologize to me? For what, being insane?" Yuki wins at life. "I know I'm always asking this, but why are you here?" Or maybe not.
Chapter 111
I adore so many things about this chapter. Momiji, all grown up! Tohru's reaction to ice cream cake! Kisa getting up the nerve to greet Kyo! Hiro backing down without actually giving an inch! Haru thinking the table would burn nicely! Rin and Kagura and their downright sisterly bickering, which always makes me smile.
Shigure and Hatori's discussion about Akito intrigues me because Shigure actually stops and reflects on himself a little.
And almost right away we're back at the house, with Hiro bringing up the thing the 12shi never talk about, and Momiji's upstairs challenging Kyo... Momiji's "gonna stop giving up on the Cat". Hiro's not "against" Kyo and Tohru's feelings for each other. The younger 12shi getting together as friends, or just as family, is a wonderful thing. Even though they never come right out and say "we're the ones who're going to change things", the acknowledgment of what's happening, of what they're being complicit in, is there.
(As an aside, I find it interesting that Kagura and Rin are the ones who aren't there. Kagura's the one who personalized the "I'm better off than the Cat!" thing more than the others did, and overcame it. Rin is the one who's already been in the Cat's place, quite literally, and it didn't take her past the "why Kyo, of all people?" reaction to figuring out Tohru's feelings, but she's still in a different place than the others. The Cat's confinement can't be abstract to her.)
And the younger 12shi call Kyo out of his room and have supper with him. There's some lovely symbolism there.
(BTW, I'm really not forgetting about Ritsu. I just have the impression that he's the only one who doesn't live anywhere near the others, so he's less of a factor.)
sidebar comments
I really don't have much to say about Takaya-sensei's sidebar comments about Rin, other than "oooh". If those were her intentions when she was creating Rin, well, she did an excellent job. (It may be weird that seeing her set those intentions down in words gave me a bit of a heartache, even though none of the words were surprising, but hey. I know I'm predictable about this.)
Except wait--like Flamika, I'm curious about what kind of job Takaya-sensei pictures Rin someday having. In an email to Ginny yesterday, I said, "The mind boggles. What would an anti-social rich girl with no practical skills and an arguable case for PTSD do? I will stick to my artist theorizing." (I'd theorize harder if I had any real sense of what the Japanese employment scene is like, but...I don't. All I know is I can't see her doing any kind of retail or being an OL. o_O So I'm backing away quietly.)
Chapter 112-113
Kimi's mini-flashback is the best Kimi-moment ever. Kimi under the surface is...Kimi!
The whole dynamic with Yuki and Machi does get more interesting here, although they never really grab my interest on a deep level. And Yuki and Kakeru are still good fun. I have no real comment on the revelations about Kakeru and Komaki's connection to Tohru--it's there. I do like that Komaki tells Kakeru that people's hurt isn't a contest (partly because it's so obviously true, and partly because the Furuba fandom overall went through some annoying phases of not understanding that. >.>)
Huh, that's different--instead of running the usual fanart pages, Paul included a short doujinshi by an American fan at the end. ^^ (He really includes neat things sometimes--I'm still impressed by the cosplay someone did of Kyo's "true form".)
Chapter 108
I do love how many of the 12shi guys are perfectly comfortable just reaching out and grabbing Tohru, even if Shigure taking her hand is a little creepy.
There's an interesting dichotomy in what Shigure tells her: on the one hand, this is the first time the full zodiac has been together, but on the other hand, they regard the Cat and the Cat's sacrifice as necessary. I wonder whether the Cat is a constant, even if other spirits are missing from the circle, or if the rest of the zodiac cope differently--or don't cope--in its absence. (Possibly the entire circle has always been in motion, with one person being born possessed only years after someone else died--I don't necessarily mean the same animal spirit being reborn, but if all of the spirits were incarnated but, say, the Sheep, and the Rat died only a few years before the Sheep was born, then they'd have just missed having a full circle. I wonder if it played out something like that before this generation started all being born so close together.)
Poor Tohru, being forced to realize that all these people she loves so much are capable of turning their backs on Kyo in a completely literal sense. ;_; It's not terribly surprising--like all the other hurts in this series, it's not because they're evil or hate him, it's because they're human and they're hurt and scared. And that's what humans do.
...and she pushes at Shigure almost exactly the same way she shoved Akito once. Huh.
(Um, what was in the bag Tohru brought, that she left and Shigure took back? Tohru said in ch. 107 that she was bringing a present, and then Shigure told Kyo that it was a present for Rin, but later said he was lying. *puzzles*)
Chapter 109
Oh, little Kyo hiding behind Kazuma at the grave! ;_; (And oh, his bastard father. Grrr. I want to snarl because he didn't make any kind of effort for Kyo, ever. I feel no guilt about hating him for that even though I hate Rin's parents for faking it for her. Bloody fictional people who don't know what they threw away, all of them.)
Wildly OT, but I wish the versions I've heard of "Pity the Child" weren't all so obviously from a musical. An 80s ABBA musical at that. Because it's a great song, and so much of it is so apt for this story. (Yes, Gaffney, I'm completely ignoring what I've heard of the staging that accompanies it. Guh.)
Little Kyo checking up on Tohru! *dead* And Grandpa continues to be made of awesome. What a guy.
And the scene with the sheet is also awesome, esp. with the little filler sketch that shows Kyo transformed. Which is just as well, all things considered--if he hadn't changed, I'd be permanently stuck with this image of Kyo and Tohru living out their lives in plastic wrap like on Pushing Daisies. (Hee. ^^)
Chapter 110
The most awkward household ever!!! Oh, poor Yuki. "A son in between his mother and her new boyfriend," for sure, except most mothers wouldn't be that clueless about it all...
Kyo actually admitting to himself that he's thinking about her "that way"! ("Perverted old man!" Except not, Kyo-kun. If you don't have thoughts like that, how can you have adorable children, hmm? Even Kazuma's grandfather had an adorable [grand]child...)
...I'd totally forgotten about that outfit of Ayame's. Dear heaven.
Ayame's immediate impulse to go apologize to that girl RIGHT NOW is its own kind of great. (I think I'd forgotten she was a student at the school the current 12shi girls attend[ed], going by the uniform.)
"You? Apologize to me? For what, being insane?" Yuki wins at life. "I know I'm always asking this, but why are you here?" Or maybe not.
Chapter 111
I adore so many things about this chapter. Momiji, all grown up! Tohru's reaction to ice cream cake! Kisa getting up the nerve to greet Kyo! Hiro backing down without actually giving an inch! Haru thinking the table would burn nicely! Rin and Kagura and their downright sisterly bickering, which always makes me smile.
Shigure and Hatori's discussion about Akito intrigues me because Shigure actually stops and reflects on himself a little.
And almost right away we're back at the house, with Hiro bringing up the thing the 12shi never talk about, and Momiji's upstairs challenging Kyo... Momiji's "gonna stop giving up on the Cat". Hiro's not "against" Kyo and Tohru's feelings for each other. The younger 12shi getting together as friends, or just as family, is a wonderful thing. Even though they never come right out and say "we're the ones who're going to change things", the acknowledgment of what's happening, of what they're being complicit in, is there.
(As an aside, I find it interesting that Kagura and Rin are the ones who aren't there. Kagura's the one who personalized the "I'm better off than the Cat!" thing more than the others did, and overcame it. Rin is the one who's already been in the Cat's place, quite literally, and it didn't take her past the "why Kyo, of all people?" reaction to figuring out Tohru's feelings, but she's still in a different place than the others. The Cat's confinement can't be abstract to her.)
And the younger 12shi call Kyo out of his room and have supper with him. There's some lovely symbolism there.
(BTW, I'm really not forgetting about Ritsu. I just have the impression that he's the only one who doesn't live anywhere near the others, so he's less of a factor.)
sidebar comments
I really don't have much to say about Takaya-sensei's sidebar comments about Rin, other than "oooh". If those were her intentions when she was creating Rin, well, she did an excellent job. (It may be weird that seeing her set those intentions down in words gave me a bit of a heartache, even though none of the words were surprising, but hey. I know I'm predictable about this.)
Except wait--like Flamika, I'm curious about what kind of job Takaya-sensei pictures Rin someday having. In an email to Ginny yesterday, I said, "The mind boggles. What would an anti-social rich girl with no practical skills and an arguable case for PTSD do? I will stick to my artist theorizing." (I'd theorize harder if I had any real sense of what the Japanese employment scene is like, but...I don't. All I know is I can't see her doing any kind of retail or being an OL. o_O So I'm backing away quietly.)
Chapter 112-113
Kimi's mini-flashback is the best Kimi-moment ever. Kimi under the surface is...Kimi!
The whole dynamic with Yuki and Machi does get more interesting here, although they never really grab my interest on a deep level. And Yuki and Kakeru are still good fun. I have no real comment on the revelations about Kakeru and Komaki's connection to Tohru--it's there. I do like that Komaki tells Kakeru that people's hurt isn't a contest (partly because it's so obviously true, and partly because the Furuba fandom overall went through some annoying phases of not understanding that. >.>)
Huh, that's different--instead of running the usual fanart pages, Paul included a short doujinshi by an American fan at the end. ^^ (He really includes neat things sometimes--I'm still impressed by the cosplay someone did of Kyo's "true form".)