Curses and True Forms: Reading Fruits Basket as a lesbian
As a lesbian, Fruits Basket was not written for me. Even so, the romance between Kyo and Tohru resonates deeply with my experience of queerness.
Fruits Basket Tag
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The Transient Queerness of Fruits Basket
This show makes me laugh, it makes me cry, but more than anything, it makes me hope. It makes me hope that no matter how bad things get, there will always be a second chance waiting just around the corner. Even two decades after the original manga began publishing, it shines just as brightly. But I’m not here to talk about how much I love Fruits Basket. Today, I’m here to explore one of its most under-discussed problems: its portrayal of queerness.
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How shoujo manga helps me grapple with internalized misogyny
I’ve been a fan of shoujo manga for 20 years, and for much of that, I’ve been fighting to get other manga readers to take it more seriously. I even started a podcast, Shojo & Tell, where I talk to other fans and industry professionals about it. Even so, the word “shoujo” for me evokes knee-jerk stereotypes and assumptions that I have to consciously fight against.
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Anime Feminist’s Top Picks for 2021
This year had a range of anime for just about every taste, and the result is one of our biggest year-end lists ever!
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The Always Smiling Girl: How Tohru critiques toxic positivity
The narrative takes care to demonstrate that Tohru has her own issues, and highlights that her relentlessly positive attitude and her devotion to putting others before herself is not healthy. Ultimately, Fruits Basket explores and unpacks the harmful side of her relentless positivity as one of many healing stories across the series.
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Anime Feminist Recommendations of Spring 2021
Let’s look back at spring, a season so full of good stuff that there wasn’t space to recommend everything we liked!
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Honda Tohru and the Strength of Nurturing
Female characters who put their energy into caring for others, rather than standing up and fighting, were dismissed as passive doormats who exist only for the male cast’s development. One such character was Honda Tohru. The first part of the remake has made it abundantly clear that Tohru is plenty strong. However, since her strength comes in the form of traditionally feminine roles such as nurturing and protecting those dear to her, audiences tend to disregard her strength because of how these roles are devalued.
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“A Man Who Can Experience His Feelings”: Fruits Basket, toxic masculinity, and mental health
Fruits Basket is a radical work regarding its treatment of mental health because it actively works to destigmatize mental illness, critiquing and dismantling ideas about toxic masculinity through its portrayal of mental health.
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Rage, Mentors, and Rebellions in Classic vs. Modern Sukeban Anime Girls
While old-school sukeban (“boss girls”) anime/manga characters come across as irrational in their anger and resentment toward society (until the very end of their respective series, at least), newer sukeban characters often are more level-headed, using their rebellious spirit to improve their circumstances.
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Anime Feminist’s Top Picks for 2019
Our two-week recommendations extravaganza comes to an end with the staff’s Best of 2019 list!
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Anime Feminist’s Top 25 Anime of the Decade
The Roaring Twenties are right around the bend! Before we turn that corner and leave the Turbulent Tens behind us, we wanted to lavish some love on the standout titles of the last ten years.
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Anime Feminist Recommendations of Summer 2019
Like the Spring season before it, Summer was a bit light on shows that wowed us, but the ones that shone were pretty darn bright. Here are the team’s picks for the 2019 Summer season.
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2019 Spring Three-Episode Check-In
So far, this season has been all about quality over quantity.
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Fruits Basket (2019) – Episode 1
The long-awaited re-adaptation is here at last.
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Fruits Basket’s Tohru Honda and her Path to Self-Acceptance
Selfless heroines are common in anime and manga, but Tohru is particularly noteworthy because her development throughout the series serves as an example of growing up, coming to terms with one’s feelings, and finding one’s voice. She navigates a very real, very familiar river, fraught with anxiety and self-doubt.
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Love, Sex, and Power in Fruits Basket
Experiencing abuse from a young age, lacking a healthy vision of how to love and be loved, can resonate through a victim’s life for years, even decades. This is explored thoughtfully and compassionately in the classic shoujo manga Fruits Basket.
