I needn’t have worried about the slackening plot momentum in Fruits Basket. As Adam Stephanides promised, volume 17 roars out of the gate with all kinds of crazy revelations and high drama.
(Spoilers after the cut.)
By Tezuka’s jaunty beret, that Sohma family is just plain creepy. I know this shouldn’t come as a revelation or anything, as there’s already ample evidence of their multifaceted dysfunction, but damnation, people!
The major revelation of the volume is unsettling to me mostly for my reaction to it. The knowledge that Akito is a woman comes shortly before a significant shift in my sympathies regarding that character. While readers learn a number of other painful secrets about the head of the Sohma family, I’m left to wonder if my sympathies that easily swayed because I found out that this ghastly creature is a woman? Or was it just the cumulative effect of that revelation plus all of the startlingly horrible bits of new information I received? Or is Natsuki Takaya just that good that she can drop that many bombshells at once and still make it fluidly unsettling reading beyond surface shock?
I do have to say that the flashback showing the various cursed Sohma children gathering tearfully around Akito’s unsuspecting mother was one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in a manga in ages.
And in a pleasant change of pace, the volume actually features plenty of page-space for the character who graces its cover. I love Hanajima, and I’m delighted that Takaya is keeping Tohru’s non-Sohma friends woven into the narrative. Her little brother is a treat too.
I’m still not entirely persuaded by Rin as a character, but I’ve got plenty of reason to trust Takaya at this point.