Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket began in Hana to Yume on 18 July 1998 and ended on 20 November 2006 at chapter 137, collected in 23 volumes. Tohru Honda, a high schooler living in a tent after her mother’s death, is taken in by the Sohma family almost by accident.
Members of the Sohma family transform into animals of the Chinese zodiac when embraced by someone of the opposite sex. At first the premise reads as a comic device; as the story goes on it becomes clear what the curse actually stands for. A house that assigns each child a place at birth, a structure that denies anyone who leaves that place, relationships in which violence and affection are hard to tell apart. Each character’s account of what they endured comes out one at a time, and the book gets heavier as it goes.
Tohru is not written as the person who fixes any of it. She is written as the person who stays nearby until each of them can say it in their own words. Twenty-three volumes, complete, with several animated adaptations.
