Customer Reviews

Fruits Basket, Vol. 14

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, friends, this is a lovely new volume in my favorite manga! It made me laugh and cry, and get all kinds of shivers down my back! This one mostly covers:

*Rin's story--I am ever amazed and inspired how the love of one person (Tohru in this case) can really put a person on the path of healing. We find out why Rin "hated" Tohru, what was going on between Rin and Shigure, and about Rin and Haru's relationship. Lots of light shed on mysteries that have bugged me for many volumes thus far! Now, how can Rin and Tohru work together to break the curse? Go Tohru!
*Yuki's Relationship with the Student Council--I am particularly excited about his new friend (is that what he is? As Hatori would say) Kakeru. I am thrilled to see Yuki start to trust other "outsiders". Kakeru is hysterical, in my opinion, and I was surprised to find out his relationship with Machi. Yuki gets locked in a closet, and the results leave me wondering about even more mysteries. (Such as how did Machi know it would bother Yuki so much? What's the black paint's connection to Akito?)

We also find out about:
*Hiro's Mama, and Hiro's connection to Rin. It's good to see the caring side of Hiro.
*Yuki's true feelings for Tohru. I confessed to being very surprised over this one too. Wow.
*Shigure. He has the most mysterious character in the whole story, I think. What does he mean when he talks about the curse, anyway???
*Tohru's memory of her mother. What is going on in Tohru? Please, Takaya-san, let Fruits Basket have a happy ending! It would break my heart if it were tragic!!!!!
*Tohru's class is going to put on the play Cinderella for this year's Culture Fest! With Kyo as Prince Charming?!!

As Takaya-san says, we don't see too much of Kyo in this volume. :( But what we do see is quite heart-warming! This series just awes me. Takaya puts so much detail in, and foreshadowing, that I've caught so many new things in each re-reading. There are so many "special moments" that just make me gush! (Such as Shishou's part in Rin's story. Is anyone other than me madly in love with Shishou?) Fruits Basket truly stands out as a gem among other manga.

I wonder how many of us have found a new volume of Furuba in the bookstore, and started jumping up and down, screaming? And then blushed about it later.
I have!

With the subplots starting to resolve, the series is showing signs of slowly winding towards it's end. However, with Rin and Kureno having entered the story fairly late, it's no surprise that we're going to have to take a step backwards to get their stories before moving ahead again. This volume spends alot of time giving us Rin's story.

All we really know about Rin so far is that she's hurt Haru, who we know and like. But Haru doesn't seem like the type of person to have misjudged someone so badly; and sure enough, as Yuki suspected, there's another side to the story, and Rin isn't as bad as she's making herself out to be. Through flashbacks after Tohru finds her collapsed on Shigure's doorstep we learn the history of how she fell in love with Haru and moved in with Kagura's family, as well as what's really going on between her and Shigure and the reasons why she broke up with Haru, ended up in the hospital, and gave Tohru the cold shoulder. Of course, Tohru eventually wears down Rin's defenses, and by the end of the volume she has a new friend and powerful ally in her quest to end the curse who might turn out being the biggest break Tohru has had so far.

What everyone is probably going to be talking about after this volume, though, are a few discrete frames that make it clear that, yes, Haru and Rin were sexually active during the time they were seeing eachother a year ago. The author's decision to have one of the story's heroes turn out to have lost his virginity at 15 is likely to upset more than just the futile Yuki/Haru shounen-ai fandom - especially the parents of the series early teen and preteen fans.

Also noticable is a slight change begining in Tohru. You can't love people without hurting when things aren't well with them. Akito's threats, Momiji's ongoing and deepening tragedy, the fate hanging over Kyo's head after graduation - it's all alot to handle for someone who is still coming to terms with being an orphan. And this time, we start to see signs that her association with the Zodiac might be starting to wear on Tohru a little. Shigure, too, shows signs of not liking what he sees in the mirror after the way he's been acting lately.

There's also alot of time spent with the student council. Although they're clearly being set up to have a big influence on Yuki, their new prominence at this point in the story is a little puzzling. Hopefully the whole thing is going somewhere.

A decent enough volume, but by no means one of the best.

This book, while not my favorite one in the series (Kyo doesn't appear much in it) is still a good addition. This volume is largely about Rin, but ends with a chapter or two about Yuki and the student counsil. His true feelings for Tohru revealed, with a cliffhanger that will leave you counting the days till 15 comes out (why does there have to be a FOUR MONTH wait between each volume? It kills me XP)

The Sohma family saga grows darker as another tragic story is exposed: Rin Sohma, the horse girl. The fourteenth volume of "Fruits Basket" is one of Natsuki Takaya's darkest stories yet, but she quickly tops it with a pair of lighter-hearted school stories, which promise to cause more comic hijinks in the future.

Rin has approached Shigure on how to break the Sohma curse, but he told her flat out that he has "no knowledge" and is "the worst kind of man." Rin tries to deal with this knowledge -- and the impact on her lover Haru -- but she collapses when Tohru comes in, and relives the horrifying events that led her to become so cold and unfriendly.

As Rin recovers, with Tohru's help, Haru unsucessfully tries to mend fences with his volatile girlfriend. And Yuki finds that he's got more school problems -- the nutty school council are planning a festival event, which turns out to be a potentially disastrous play. Finally, "President Yun-Yun" accidentally gets locked in a paint-filled closet, and has an elaborate hallucination that brings him to a new realization about Tohru...

When Rin first appeared, she came across as a cold, arrogant ice princess who treated her ex-boyfriend like dirt, and repeatedly snarled at Tohru. But Takaya turns that all around, by showing Rin's childhood and the assault that led her to dump Haru. The scenes with her abusive parents ("Go somewhere... where I won't see you anymore!") are absolutely chilling.

It's a credit to the author that she can completely reverse the readers' expectations in only one chapter. At the same time, this volume features more comedy from the kooky council members, and more plotting from Yuki's devious fanclub. The forthcoming "Cinderella" play promises to be hysterical, with Saki as Cinderella and Kyo as Prince Not-So-Charming.

While Rin has much of the character development in this volume, we also discover more about Tohru and Shigure. Tohru fears loneliness and seems to be close to some kind of psychological break. And despite his cocky attitude, Shigure despises his own calculating nature.

The fourteenth volume of "Fruits Basket" has a devastating start, but switches to a more lighthearted tone halfway through. And it promises more darkness -- and laughter -- in future volumes.

book is what it says it is , a bit damaged should package it better but it's a great book.

Since I had enjoyed reading all of the previous Fruits Basket manga volumes up to this point, I continued on by reading Volume 14.

In this volume, Rin goes to Shigure's house with the belief that he knows something about the curse. She feels sick when she gets there, and Tohru finds Rin passed out. Tohru tries to convince Rin to go to the hospital, but she refuses to go and gets into an argument with Tohru about breaking the curse. Yuki also finds the ASB room has been trashed. But as the secrets come out as to why trashed the room, Yuki is accidentally locked in a closet.

This volume really puts an emphasis on Rin's character development, and potential progress for both Rin and Tohru when it comes to working on breaking the Sohma's family curse. Through the trashing of the ASB room, we learn a little bit of character background for a couple of the newer characters (Kakeru and Machi). I enjoyed this volume just as much as I enjoyed the previous ones, and I would recommend this manga volume to anyone who has read and enjoyed the Fruits Basket manga series.

I wrote this review after checking out a copy of this manga volume through the King County Library System.

This is hands down, one of my favorite books in the furuba series. In the first half, we find out more about the stunningly beautiful Rin Sohma, the horse of the zodiac. Rin's story are in many ways similar to many of the other zodiac members' life stories. One word- Tragedy.
Rin's childhood was glazed by veneer of joy and love, until one simple question shattered the happy homelife she knew. I don't want to give much away, but after that, her parents couldn't "love" her anymore, and she moved in with Kagura. Trapped and suffocated by the true happiness and love inside a home that wasn't broken beyond repair like Rin's, she soon begins to form a bond with Haru- the friend who was always there to help her escape her new reality. Before the series began, she and Haru fell in love and began an intense relationship. However, Akito finds out, severely injures Rin (who takes the blame to protect Haru, and voices the one thing Rin fears most- her uncomparable love for Haru might suffocate him and sever their relationship, leaving it forever beyond repair. This fear comes from the way her family broke apart during her childhood.
Rin has come out of the hospital with one and only one goal. To free her love of the curse. And for him to find happiness in a bigger world. One of the early chapters ends with her tearfully saying to the Haru inside her head- "I'm happy. But that's enough for me. Now it's your turn. I want to release you. Haru, your true happiness...I'll look for it. I'll find it. Because it's okay for it to end with nothing left in my hands."
After we find out her story, Rin stumbles upon Shigure's house and faints. She forms a bond with Tohru.
Rin is a very perceptive person, and from outside looking in, Rin tells us that Tohru is a lonely person. Almost breaking beneath the happy, clumsy and innocent exterior. While Rin is thinking this, Tohru wakes up from a nightmare of the night her mother died.
The second half of the book concentrates on Yuki. He is getting along pretty well with the student council. The story gets lighter, with a lot of humor crammed into to the last pages, like the Cinderella play, where Kyo is cast as prince charming (just what i ordered!) and Saki Hanajima is cast as uhh... Cinderella (yeah, her dress is sooo going to be black). But right after the Cinderella casting, Yuki is locked in a dark room, and finds black paint on the walls. He instantly thinks of Akito, and the story takes yet another darker turn. Yuki closes the volume with the thought "I was looking for a mother in [Tohru]."
Rin, the haunting beauty, is searching for a way to break the curse, while trying to survive the loneliness of being away from Haru.
Yuki, the prince charming, realizes that the girl he thought was right for him is definitly not going to be for him.
Tohru, the bubbly onigiri shining with inner beauty, finally reveals through her nightmare a message that nearly breaks my heart- only the ones who know how scary it is to be lonely will put on a brave smile for others. A smile that is nearly always perceived as real.

I think that the curse is not the center of the story! I think that family matters, what the characters feel, how they look life is the center of it all and the curse is just a twist. I think, that's why, fruits basket is for all ages, genders, and persons.

I own this series in Japanese, and it is a wonderful read! It has all the important elements of a good shoujo manga: it is romantic, twisted, with a shoujo (in the traditional meaning of the word) involved in finding a new family and love triangles galore. It is just a very fun read, no matter the language!

This manga in sequel to the other 13 is my favourite manga.
This time, we get to see Rin's life and discover covered secrets in her past life.This manga (like the other 13)are humorous love tragic stories with deep meaning and any person who is fond of these three headings are reccommended by me to read it.So we read all about Rin's tragic past and at the last few chapters,we go back to scool with Yuki the president.Someone has ransaked the soiety room and then the parts for the upcomming play are chosen.An enjoyable book WELL WORTH getting if you have read of fruits basket before.However if you have not read any of the previous books I dont advise you to get it asa general understanding of the story is needed.Th only reason I didnt give this book five stars is that it didnt include alot of the characters but only because it was telling us the story of one.

by a 13 year old.