A few years ago we met our friend J. in Toronto and she introduced us to the borader world of anime (Japanese animation). We were already familiar with some of the older successes like G-Force (Gotchaman), Speed Racer, AstroBoy etc. but these were essentially kids shows. J would come over to our house fairly often and bring one of her box sets like Full Metal Panic! (which we have since bought) and we would progressively watch several seasons worth of episodes. One of the series she introduced us to is called Fruits Basket. The name alone should be intriguing enough becuase it sounds like a poor Japanese attempt to translate ‘Fruit Basket’.

 

The premise of the show is as follows:

 

Teenage girl’s father dies when she is very young. Then, later on her mother dies. Not wanting to be a burden to anyone she lives in a tent, goes to school during the day and works as a cleaning lady at night. She is discovered in the tent by a couple of guys (one of whom goes to her school). They learn her situation and invite her to move into their house rent free and she can clean/cook for them. It is agreed. The twist is that the guys are members of a family that has a curse on it – if a member of the opposite sex embraces them (on purpose or by accident) they turn into an animal from the Chinese Zodiak. Much hilarity ensues. Like any fantasy needs to be taken with a grain of salt and attention paid to the much deeper themes of friendship, love, compassion and family.

 

We bought the box set recently and have been spreading the joy by having some friends come over to watch it. It’s been three years since we last saw it and we watched the first five episodes last night. It is still as fun and well written, clever and witty as we remember. Thanks J. your friendship continues to bear ‘fruits’ in our lives.

 

A great article about the series can be found here: