Manga Diaries – Fruits Basket Volume 3

If you don’t know what my diaries are, please go here. Spoilers ahoy!

Otherwise, let’s go!

Hey, look, it’s Cat-boy.

I actually have an “I heart Kyo” shirt. I’m more of a Yuki girl, but it was on clearance. I have a Tohru shirt too, again found on clearance. It was a lot harder to find anime shirts discounted back then, so I bought them even though I was never a big fan of the series.

• Page 9: Art has greatly improved. The “hot” Haru actually looks good.
• 10: Mama charins are serious business.
• 14: Yuki’s special attack would defeat me too.
• 23: Walking sound good to me.
• 26: I love how everyone messes with Kyo.
• 31: It was Hatsuharu after all. I remembered correctly. Whoo-hoo?
• 35: Everyone wants Yuki.
• 38: Hana-chan just doesn’t care.
• 43: Yes it is, Yuki.
• 47: Hidaka…actually know who she is now.
• 50-51: More Hana-chan fakeouts. Plus more Shigure the comedian.
• 53: More “Tohru is an angel”.
• 57: Nothing wrong with that.
• 67: OK, this is really cute. Blushing Yuki!
• 68: Poor sensei x 2.
• 78: Finally a tough sensei.
• 90: Cue dramatic music!
• 112: Mogetaaaa!!
• 113-118: More about Shigure’s motives. But still sounds like the poetic drama Fruits Basket is famous for.
• 134: I do love 70s-style shoujo shock.
• 143: I think it’s things like this that irritate me about Tohru. It’s not just, “Oh, what an extravagant gift!” but “Please forgive this unworthy one for such a divine blessing!” Then she wants her mom’s forgiveness. I mean, we get it, Tohru is humble, but geez, where are her real faults?
• 145: And again, she can’t take a gift. Her grandfather should be paying for it.
• 146: Good job controlling yourself, Kyo.
• 148-153: And again, these life lessons… It’s like a lot these are supposed to make the characters seem so wise, but they just come off as preachy to me. Like, I’m supposed to go, “OMG, I never thought about it that way!!!”, but I’m just like, “Whatever…” Am I the only one who finds these annoying? Is anybody really inspired by thinking the fool was lucky?
• 167-168: How shameful, Kyo!
• 174: I don’t remember who the monkey is…is it that kid who likes Kisa the tiger? Not a clue…
• 175: Rit-chan…doesn’t sound right for that kid. Guess I’ll find out later.
• 178-179: Again, more “Tohru is sooo adorable” scenes…
• 180-184: Yuki does seem to get the better scenes early in the series.
• 188-189: I wonder how many people saw this coming…
• 190: I don’t get Tohru’s line here. Whistling = burglars???

And more Tokyopop bonus pages.

Well, I didn’t care for this volume. More of what annoys me about this series. Mainly weird philosophical lectures and how Tohru is an angelic idiot. There’s some highlights like Kyo and Yuki become more aware of Tohru and some insight into Shigure, but when the heart of the series is supposed to be Tohru and you find her annoying, then the whole series drags. I liked Haru. I actually didn’t remember how interesting of a character he is. His life lessons is more relatable: don’t want to be judged but not realizing he’s judging others. It’s much more straightforward than being a lucky fool.

So that’s two more members of the Zodiac met with a third mentioned. And there’s still 20 volumes to go before the curse is broken and everything is resolved. I know there’s no way Takaya expected Fruits Basket to go on for so long, but can Tohru stop acting surprised to meet more Sohma family members? She already knows most of them live at the main house, and it’s not that far away from Shigure’s place.

There was some good humor in this series: Kyo being an idiot, Kyo being harassed, Shigure’s true motives for going to the school. But the drama…maybe I’d like this series better as a comedy.