My Take on “Fruits Basket”

First of all, that name is so inappropriate and doesn’t remotely match the tone of the series. 

 
Neither does this cover -_-;

On the surface, Takaya Natsuki’s, Fruits Basket, is the story of Tohru Honda, a girl that realizes that one of her classmates, Yuki Sohma, turns into a rat when people of the opposite sex hug him. From this startling revelation she realizes that Yuki and 12 others in the Sohma family are possessed by the animals of the zodiac and that they transform into these animals when embraced by members of the opposite sex. She meets Kyo Sohma, possessed by the cat that, according to the story, was left out of the zodiac because of a trick the rat played on him. Sounds like light, fun soujo stuff, right? Well, it is, at times, and at other times it isn’t. Takaya does a great job of mixing humor and angst, campy characters and deep moments.