#Fruits Basket critical

[starrynightkyoru]

Society if Tohru was allowed to set healthy boundaries for herself

[starrynightkyoru]

Fruits basket the good ending this is canon to me idc.

Also the prison cell edit

[soath]

one of the last barriers keeping jester from sending ludinus da'leth the most threatening four part save the date to her wedding has finally been removed. only the cage surrounding the moon still protects him.

[ur-local-demon1]

Rants from a tired writer: Tragic Backstories

Dear writers and readers/viewers (depends on medium), for the love of everything please PLEASE understand how to use tragic backstories for antagonists properly!!!

An antagonist's traumatic past is an EXPLANATION for their poor behaviour, not an excuse!! That kind of backstory is here to show that it's rare for someone to do bad things just for the sake of being bad; a lot of the time, antagonists have a reason for behaving antagonistically (or you could have someone like Emperor Belos who has a reason for behaving antagonistically but also does bad things just for the sake of being bad, which is awesome).

That's why sometimes it rubs me the wrong way when fans of a certain piece of media dislike an antagonist's redemption arc just because they felt like the show was throwing them a pity party. Of course, there are times where writers are guilty of doing that, and I'm criticizing them here as well. The antagonist's traumatic past is here to humanise them, to remind the audience and characters that in spite of it all, they're still a person. In cases where the antagonist is redeemable, this can make the audience and characters sympathise with or even relate to them.

A lot of people hate her but I don't care, I'm going to use her as an example anyway: Akito Sohma is one of those redeemable villains that gets humanised through her and Tohru's shared experience of being ostracised and abandoned.

No, you're not supposed to feel bad for Akito because she cried and said she felt lonely. You're supposed to feel bad for Akito because Tohru is the first person to treat her as a human being and not as a God, as well as validating her fear of being left behind by saying that she feels the same way. + You're supposed to feel bad for Akito because she is denied the right to be herself in every single way possible, including, but not limited to, her gender.

Akito getting redeemed does not take away all the pain and trauma that still affects the members of the zodiac that she hurt. In fact, not all of them forgive Akito, and that is okay. Akito herself states that she would have been fine not being forgiven at all, she just wanted to better herself. Her apology wasn't even done through words, but actions; she could not bring herself to say "I'm sorry" to all of her family because she didn't want them to think she was apologising just to make herself feel better or to gain their forgiveness. Anyway, I love Akito so much and I will write love letters to her in my analyses every time I have the opportunity to do so, you're welcome.

However, there are times where writers really do mess up and just want you to feel bad for their poor little moral scapegoat. I have not made a She-Ra critical post in so long, but who else fits the bill more than Catra? Her traumatic past does explain her resentment and violent tendencies towards Adora, but the show lost me the second they tried to make it into an excuse. Not only that, but making Adora "leaving" Catra a central point of the tension in their relationship when Catra was given multiple chances to leave just made me want to bash my head into the nearest wall.

The big problem with Catra is that she does not change, nor is she held accountable for her actions for longer than one episode. The only thing that did change is that she does not physically abuse Adora anymore, but the verbal and psychological abuse does remain. And lastly, the viewers and characters are considered objectively wrong for not trusting or liking her even though they have legitimate reasons not to. Of course, I'm not saying that the characters are not allowed to forgive her, but forgiveness is earned not owed, and Catra has done nothing to earn it, and it would have been nice for at least one character like Adora, Entrapta, Scorpia or anyone to have said "I'm glad that you're trying to become a better person, but I don't have to be there to witness that. I wish you the best but I don't want you in my life anymore."

Well, I have said my peace. I might start posting more writing takes on here while still talking about my favourite shows/books by using them as examples, let's see how it goes! I love writing so much so I'm very glad to be able to express that on my socials :)

[chaotic-on-main]

what's it like for those who like things a normal amount

[starrynightkyoru]

Tayaka makes it so hard to love this series some times like Ma'am what was the reason?

Katsuya and Akito belong is jail exactly

Sometimes I remember the fact that katsuya honda asked (told?) a child in middle school to marry him, kissed her, and then acted surprised when she knew the word "loli" because he thought she was TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND IT and I seethe quietly.

Katsuyas only redeeming quality is that he helped bring tohru into the world and that's facts

[nilfheim-arts]

Last month I did the color wheel challenge and honestly it was so much fun!

[minky-for-short]

So it's been a hot minute since I've done this but I'm opening art requests for a little while!

Here are the fandoms I'll draw stuff for:

Hades 1 & 2

TGCF

Hazbin Hotel

Dungeon Meshi

Critical Role (all three campaigns)

TAZ Balance Arc

Sk8 the Infinity

Stardew Valley

Final Fantasy Vll

Fruits Basket

Also do try to keep the requests simple (i.e. portrait, X character in a pretty outfit, couples being cute/romantic/sexy/etc.), thank youu <33

[ultraericthered]

Why am I encountering Akito Sohma discourse in 2024, soon to be exactly 5 years since the premiere of the second anime adaptation?

Not naming names, only commenting on the garbage takes here.

No duh on "being abused doesn't justify abusing others", but you might want to tell that to all the stans and simps for (usually male) villains who were abused and took their inexcusable actions towards others even further than Akito would've ever dared to yet they get their crimes downplayed or even defended and rationalized with "the abuse they suffered made them into people who act this way, don't judge the way any abuse victim internalizes and externalizes their trauma from the abuse they experienced, there is no 'perfect victim' y'know?", and are said to "deserve better" or "deserve" redemption.

The idea that Akito "got away with everything Scot-free" seems like a really poor reading of the story based on only the notion that if Akito is not dead, locked up in a penitentiary or asylum, or left completely alone and miserable forever by the end of the story, she faced zero consequences for her actions. Totally disregarding how almost the entirety of what the 2019 anime has as its final season was reality coming in to smack Akito around repeatedly and make her face all the natural consequences of her actions, of how she'd lived her life and ruled over her family as an abusive tyrant. See this? All of this?:

This is all Akito's karma. It's from the punishment she wrought for herself. The misery she passed around through her family came back around in full, and she had to watch her entire world, the world of the "eternal banquet" she was promised and believed herself entitled to, gradually unravel along with her own mental and emotional state.

In the anime at least, it hits a crescendo that's regretably so brief and silent that it's easy to miss, but when Akito has mentally shut down and is just sitting there moping beside Shigure, we're shown a bit where she suddenly gets up, like she just hit a breaking point and without any thought, just on pure instinct and emotional impulse, she walks to the screen door and hits her head against it. Given her frail, shaky body language, and the mix of alarm and pity that lurks beneath Shigure's still calm facade, I'm to assume that Akito is wailing and screaming. She's having a full psychotic breakdown.

"She never apologized, never made amends, never did anything to deserve anyone's love and forgiveness". ...I'm sorry, this person really stopped watching after Tohru got put in the hospital, huh? In the last couple of episodes, Akito did nothing BUT be apologetic and set out to make whatever amends she could, including undoing all remaining bonds and breaking the Zodiac curse! She did nothing to "deserve" anyone's love and forgiveness even at this point because now she at last understood she was undeserving of such things and was entitled to nothing, especially nothing from her victims, after the way she'd behaved and the many sins she'd committed. Forgiveness is earned and granted, never "deserved", and it's always a choice whether or not to grant it, so anyone who'd never forgive Akito for as long as they lived would be entirely within their right to do so, and so would be those who did make the choice to forgive her. Neither is invalid. And love is never a matter of "earned", "deserved", or "owed", and to think that it IS is ironically adopting a very Akito mentality.

Also have to go back to that "she never apologized" thing. Really?

Really?

And if "that Tohru, of all people, befriended her despite the horrific things she did to her (not yet and in fact he'd just rejected her) husband" disgusts anyone, than Fruits Basket was never the story for them and Tohru was never a character they were going to love. That moment, and that gesture from Tohru, was one of THE core pillars of the entire narrative, something everything had been building up to from the very beginning. Tohru looked deep inside the cruel, childish, deranged, abusive, controlling, possessive, selfish, cowardly, downright evil pseudo-god that she, and the entire Sohma family, knew as Akito Sohma and she found who Akito Sohma truly was: a sad, abused, broken, twisted, pathetic, wretched, needy and terrified child who'd suffered through an upbringing in which she'd never been allowed to forge a single human connection with anyone else that was not dependent upon her status as the family head and the bonds with the Zodiacs that was her promised birthright, and was thus left with so much vulnerability, so much mental and emotional instability, such fear of living her life in the world as the woman she should be, as the human being she should be, that she kept concealed beneath the armor of a wrathful god who she felt could be comfortably in control of everything in her life and keep it all from slipping away from her and leaving her all alone with all her internal anguish and misery. It's that Akito Sohma who Tohru reached out to and extended the offer of friendship, to become her first ever true human friend in her life, no string attached and no bonds or godhood required. Because that's what Fruits Basket was always all about: the existence and value of love. family, and friendships as forged, mutual, equally consensual connections between humans rather than as some divine mandate upon animals or some commodity to be horded by a god.

Already took shots at "she gets away with everying and does nothing to deserve anyone's love or forgiveness". On the belief that Akito needed to be jailed for her crimes, that is actually something I can agree with and see as a weakness in the series' ending. Once the Zodiac curse was broken and Akito was no longer "God", there'd now be nothing standing in the way of some of the Sohmas, the family members and servants alike, pushing charges against Akito for all the worst things she'd committed against them. We should've been told that such legal action was taken and that Akito knew it was coming and accepted it, being fully ready to accept accountability and justice for her crimes. When last we'd see her and Shigure, they could be doing a round of community service together! That would've been perfect! But Takaya didn't go that route, and I think what we did got was also satisfactory: Akito had lived her life with power, privileges, and freedom with which to do whatever she wanted but was also a prisoner of her own damaged psyche and of the broken family system she was born into and had to play such a large role in perpetuating, so by the end, it's now flipped so that Akito has been internally set free, is healing and finding inner peace, but without the Zodiac curse, the family headship in a lonelier, harder, constraining position but she voluntarily endures with it so that she may live the rest of her life atoning for the sins she'd committed when she was "God", all at a distance from family members who mostly will never forgive her, never think any better of her, and are glad to be free of her. So the idea that Akito's fate not being punitive enough being akin to a slap on the wrist is misguided. It's a lifelong committment to restorative justice and not getting all she desired that Akito's made, and she has to endure it while being romantically involved with Shigure, which honestly feels like a punishment worse than prison!

Piss the fuck off with the "blatant abuse apologist" claim, too. This is the same bullcrap spewed towards Kohei Horikoshi when he gave Endeavor a self improvement/atonement arc. WIth both Endeavor and Akito, the narrative is never at any point remotely pretending that their actions are anything but monstrously abusive, toxic, cruel, harmful and wrong. They're bad and so the abuser is made to feel bad about having ever done them and must face up to all the natural karmic consequences that will inconvenience their lives. An anti-abuse narrative that does not keep it as simple and black-and-white as "the abuser is 100% Bad Person, it's a problem that they exist and hurt people, the solution is to remove them from life entirely" yet still condemns the abuser for their actions and champions their victims ability to move beyond them, find healing, peace, love, and happiness in lives better than what the abuser could ever hope for, is not in the slightest bit "abuse apologism": no apologies or excuses for the abuse are being made.

Not Akito-related, just showing how this same person truly feels about Fruits Basket on the whole due to how "problematic" it is. If it's not for you, fine, and this is actually 100% correct regarding Katsuya Honda being a sociopathic predator who fucked a child student of his yet it get beyond inappropriately framed as a beautiful, romantic, loving thing within the narrative. But when it reaches this hyperbolic "the entire series has no value, it's irredeemable media and deserves to be trashed" level of vitriol for the work...nah. That's not agreeable.

And then there's this anon who called in to say:

Seeing you rightfully call out the utter bullshit of Akito's "redemption" has me heated. The story becomes irredeemably bad the moment the forgiveness shit is pushed.

Let me say this much: there was no "redemption" or "redemption arc" for Akito. She had her big epiphany and recieved personal salvation from Tohru's approach to her, and from then on she turned herself towards self-improvement and atonement for her many sins while finally living a true human life of her own. Atonement /=/ redemption, as all avenues for her to redeem herself for her abusive acts directly to those effected by said abusive acts got closed off a long time ago.

And forgiveness is entirely another matter from redemption and atonement. Tohru, Kureno, Shigure, Momiji, Arisa, and Saki chose to forgive Akito. Literally no one else was shown to do so. Rin even said outright she could never forgive Akito after everything she did, and in the anime at least, she was positioned as not in the wrong for that.

Takaya is on my shit list for life for how she handled Tohru's character, she is my favourite I love her compassion for people and her determination to never give up despite how difficult things can be plus her learning to move on from her crippling grief resonates with me. The ending Takaya gives her is fucking vile Tohru forgiving and befriending Akito is bullshit and my mind is never going to change on that.

"I love her compassion for people." "Tohru forgiving and befriending Akito is bullshit!" Do...you not see how these are conflicting ideas? "Tohru is wonderful for how much empathy and compassion she has for people...wait no, not THAT people!" How do you miss that big?

The sole reason Tohru wants to break the curse is because she sees how much her friends are suffering under Akito's abuse both mentally and physically. She would never be so inconsiderate of their feelings as to befriend the person who hurt them so much.

And she also saw how much Akito herself was suffering under the curse and the role that was forced upon her from birth. Also, how is choosing to befriend her friends abuser inconsiderate when they don't need to factor into it at all? Tohru doesn't try to force Yuki, Kyo, Rin, Momiji, Hiro, Kisa and the rest to also be friends with Akito. She at no point even considers that possibility. What's between Tohru and Akito is kept purely between them, away from Akito's victims. Tohru understands that they'd never be comfortable around Akito due to having a history with her that Tohru herself does not have, and while she wants to help Akito move past her pain and put in the good work to make reparations for her sins, she's not going to ever downplay how vile those sins were and how badly they hurt people, nor would she put up even the pretense of giving absolution of them to Akito.

That's not even getting to my other major problem with this storyline Tohru never even learns about half of the horrific shit Akito does to her friends, Takaya intentionally has her character be left in the dark. Not to mention how abusive akito is to HER!

Why does it need to be Tohru's business to know absolutely every horrible deed Akito ever did to every person she was ever horrible to? Akito did that shit, it happened, there's nothing Tohru can do that could possibly change that or make any of it better. And oh dear, are we getting into the "antagonistic behavior = abuse" bullshit again?

She manipulates her the first time they meet and then at the beach house she threatens her and scratches up her face. Tohru outright admits she is scared of her. Then towards the end of the story akito then has the audacity to blame her for the zodiacs not loving her despite that being the consequences of her own disgusting actions. She shows up at the house to hurt and potentially kill Tohru, she slaps her multiple times, stabs her and pushes her close to the cliffs end directly putting her in danger. Akito almost gets the poor girl killed. Akito spends the entire story being an abusive monster to Tohru and the people she loves. And nearly leads to multiple characters dying, Takaya really wants us to think a friendship Between the two of them is cute because they both relate to being lonely????

Ah yes. Yes we are. Most of what's described above is Akito being a cruel villain and acting as a threatening adversary to Tohru, with actions that are clearly reprehensible and uncalled for but are not inherently "abusive", as Akito is treating a stranger badly and making enemies with her rather than being in any relationship in which she can treat her abusively. The hardest into abuse it ever swings is when Akito is holding a knife to Tohru and physically strikes her, and that's when Akito is in the midst of a full-blown psychotic episode.

And that the characters apparently aren't that different to each other??? When they clearly are. Tohru is a kind and compassionate person who helps those around her while Akito is a manipulative snake who treats those around her like they are her possessions. Tohru grows up being bullied and alone. Akito is a child abuser and commits multiple attempted murders. Trust me Takaya these characters aside from them having tragic backstories and fears of abandonment are as far away from each other as you can get.

Tohru was brought up to be kind and selfless, to the point of seeing her own self as lesser in value than others. Akito's upbringing shaped her into becoming cruel and selfish, to the point of seeing others as possessions for her to keep hold of, to pleasure her with a sense of superiorty as a cover for her own poor self image and lack of self-worth. Tohru was left alone without her mother and was ostracized by her peers. Akito was left alone without her father (as her own mother would never give her the time of day) and was "othered" by literally every person around her. They're foils. Akito is a broken reflection of what Tohru might've become if Kyoko had not put in that effort to be such a kind, loving, nurturing parent, and Akito always envied Tohru because she reflects the girl she might've been had she been allowed to be, and not internalized everything wrong with the Sohma family nor adopted her mother's own internalized misogyny.

The friendship is disgusting, Akito is an evil bitch period she is not Tohru's problem or her responsibility. Also Uo and Hana being friends with her after they find out she nearly killed their best friend and Kureno was also so gross. The characters do some of the most OOC shit in order to give Akito one of the least deserving redemption arcs i have ever seen. It is truly some of the most atrocious, insulting writing, Takaya should be embarrassed for thinking this was an acceptable way to end the story.

If you want to get technical, none of the Sohmas are Tohru's problem or responsibility. It's not on her to "fix" them or be their therapist and savior, she doesn't owe them anything. She chooses to help them out of compassion, empathy, and a desire to do right by others, to see true justice done and freedom, peace, and happiness assured for the people she cares about in their lives going forward, With Akito too, she did not impose or make her into her responsibility; she extended her hand. She offered Akito a choice. The friendship would not happen if Akito decided she was unwilling to put in the effort to do her part and accept the care, help, comfort and understanding offered to her by Tohru. So yeah, you can blame Akito for that too, even though it's not a wrong thing of her to do whatsoever! Uotani also did not become Akito's friend, more like a friendly acquaintance. Hanajima did follow Tohru's lead and befriend her, and considering she knows how it feels to internally tear yourself apart with self-loathing over guilt from having hurt people to the point of cursing your very identity and existence, I'd say her decision makes sense.

I haven't read the spin off but Akito having a child just reinforces that she is still the same selfish person she has always been. Her wanting to have children but deciding not to because of how they would suffer due to her terrible actions would actually mean she has to live with the consequences of what she has done. but of course we can't have that.

Meh. Not much a fan of that spin off and I'm kind of hoping we don't get it adapted into an anime. Some things are best left open-ended.

[starrynightkyoru]

I find it ironic that the same people who will flock and shriek at any posts critical of Akito's conclusion (her getting away scot free with years of abuse) will constantly go on and on about how Fruits Basket is about forgiveness and if you don't like the ending "you didn't understand the story or themes" will say that Kyo deserved the harsh treatment he received during the hospital arc for two reasons 1st he hurt Tohru's feelings and 2nd it is funny. He was looking out for Tohru by rejecting her yes he did it in a very harsh way but he had his reasons such as his crippling guilt and his future confinement. And people in general treating him like crap and saying he is worthless it was because of people like Akito who instilled those ideas into his head. Kyo should have been allowed to explain himself sooner and Akito should have never been allowed anywhere near Tohru after she tried to murder her.

[starrynightkyoru]

That's why I say the hospital arc is nonsensical and everyone acts OOC

Uo and Hana ban Kyo from seeing Tohru as they are furious at him for hurting her feelings but they act all buddy buddy with the person who abused and almost murdered their best friend plus Kureno. It literally makes no sense they spend the entire story being over protective of Tohru and Takaya really expects me to believe that they would ever be friendly with her after they find out she stabbed and nearly got their friend killed. They would absolutely hate that woman and would do everything in their power to protect Tohru from her. Fruits Basket's writing quality drops off a cliff the moment Takaya forces Akito's redemption on us everyone acts OOC and they just instantly believe her when she says she is going be better when this is the point of the story where they should be the least trusting and forgiving of her she literally just attempted to murder two people and no one seems to care. The way Akito's redemption is written feels like terrible fan fiction and not something from the officially licensed product.

[gobliiine]

Fruits Basket dorashrym au where Orym is Tohru, Dorian is Yuki and Ashton is Kyo. Send tweet

[likealittleheartbeat]

“As a schoolboy, [the first psychoanalyst in Japan, Heisaku] Kosawa had idolised both Shin Buddhism’s 13th-century founder, Shinran, and a modern proponent, the Shin priest Jokan Chikazumi. Chikazumi befriended Kosawa and became a teacher and role model to him. Nevertheless, while studying medicine at Tohoku Imperial University a few years later, Kosawa’s focus shifted to Freud. In a personal letter, written in faltering and oddly romantic German, he credited Freud with seeing into the human heart as clearly as he and his fellow students had learned to observe cells under a microscope. By comparison, Kosawa’s professor at Tohoku cut an unimpressive figure. In 1932, the young student begged money from an elder brother, left his professor behind (he was told never to come back) and set off for Europe to meet Freud face to face.

He didn’t receive quite the reception he’d hoped for. Meeting the elderly Freud at the famous house at Berggasse 19 in Vienna, a Japanese friend had to interpret for him. Freud himself advised Kosawa to find a local girlfriend to bring his German up to speed.

Language was not the only thing separating the two men. As far as the philosophical and religious implications of psychoanalysis were concerned, Freud strenuously disagreed with both Kosawa and with another major pioneer of psychoanalysis in Asia at the time, Girindrasekhar Bose in Calcutta. With only a couple of notable exceptions, the Freud circle treated religion as a purely psychodynamic and social phenomenon, reducible to inner drives and conflicts. They made their camp in the now-familiar territory of faith as wish-fulfillment, avoidance of reality, a means of keeping a lid on society, and the locus of a great deal of obsessive-compulsive behaviour.

For Bose and Kosawa, this merely served to highlight Freud’s parochialism: his lack of experience with non-European cultures and patients. As a matter of fact, Kosawa agreed with his hero that religion was connected with guilt. He just thought it involved guilt of a different type. Freud said that religion derived (both in historical time and in the life of each individual) from the need to assuage one’s fear of a father figure: really, it was a kind of ‘deferred obedience’. Kosawa hoped to persuade Freud that this placatory impulse gave rise to an inadequate religion, and that another sort of guilt was far more important.

He offered Freud a simple illustration. Imagine that a child drops a plate in the presence of his parents. When he seeks forgiveness from his father, the child is rebuffed. He experiences a pang of emotion linked both to fear of impending punishment and to anger and resentment at his father for his harsh reaction. This, according to Kosawa, approximates Freud’s understanding of guilt in the religious context. But then the child asks the mother for forgiveness — and receives it. The mother takes the child’s fearful and rebellious guilt and alchemises it into a ‘reparative guilt’: an overwhelming response to total, unconditional forgiveness. This latter reaction was, for Kosawa, a truly ‘religious state of mind’ and he saw it as the core of his own Shin tradition. Freud appeared unmoved, however. ‘I have received and read your essay and will save it,’ he wrote rather distantly. ‘You do not seem to intend to use it immediately.’ There is no evidence that he gave it another thought.”

[ur-local-demon1]

Call me Betty Hutton because, yes, I can.

[seoafin]

I'm sorry it straight up reeks of internalized misogyny and just plain misogyny when women complain about weak female characters