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.
Aug 20, 2021 • Subscribe
More like this
Why Is It Always the Girl?
This is a response to Galvanic Media (or specifically Voyager’s) post. You’re going to need to read that before this (and that will also explain why some works…
Why The Best Girl Always Loses [Remastered]
[Man, I sure peaked early, huh? I’ve been doing a lot of these remastered reposts lately. My views on anime and manga have changed a lot since the…
Why is it ALWAYS the Girl? | I’m Curious!
Figure I’ll start this off with a fairly uncomplicated question. This one’s honestly been bouncing around in my head for a long time. You know those stories that…
Pick of the Week: Keep Smiling
SEAN: If Kodansha thinks they can trick me into picking them every week just by putting out some really interesting josei titles… well, they’re probably right. The most…
The Last Temptation of Tohru Honda
I’ve neither read the Fruits Basket manga nor watched the original anime series, but even without knowing the end of the story, I cannot help but believe that…
Character Analysis: Tohru Honda
Okay, I admit it: Fruits Basket is an anime I could easily have found to be annoying and Tohru Honda is a character I could easily have found…
Always Watch More Anime. Always…
Only once you’ve watched ten-thousand shows can you truly become a god.
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…
[Perspectives] How Dragon Ball Z helped me fight back against toxic masculinity
While Dragon Ball Z is best known for its epic battles and intergalactic power struggles, the series has meant much more to me than that. It helped me…
Joy Without Toxic Fans
I share my thoughts on why do toxic people care about what or how you enjoy something. This topic been on my mind alot lately with the release…
Becoming The Battle Girl: How The 2010s Transformed The Magic in Magical Girl Anime
The New 10s saw the transformation of the magical girl genre into something different, but what?
Symphogear, The Girl in Twilight, Flip Flappers, GRANBELM, Princess Principal
Character (Re)Analysis: Tohru Honda
This may be the shortest time ever between me analyzing a character and then coming back to look at them again. I mean, it’s not like I got…
Roshidere – 09 – Shining Rays of Positivity
The opening scene this week is deeply, deeply unpleasant, as Yuki is forced to endure the lecturing of her asshole grandfather, telling her she may not be as…
The long-time coming review of “Toxic”
So this review is a long time coming. I’ve had this series for nearly half a year, and have now read it twice. But I feel as though…
The ANN Aftershow - Navigating Toxic Fandom Discourse
Lynzee and James catch up on Dead Dead Demon and have a long conversation about navigating toxic fandom discourse.
The BL genre’s problem with toxic relationships
Hey friends! I hope you’re all doing well! Today I wanted to cover a topic I’ve briefly hovered around on this blog and will likely garner lots of…
Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi - The World's Greatest First Love, Fish in the Trap, The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window
Maho Aku Episode 3 Review – Magical Girl Mascots Are Always Evil
It’s always the dopey white mascots that are the harbingers of evil in a magical girl show.
Popcorn Pulse 194: Toxic Faith
Captain, I’m getting readings of life from the planet below. Looks like it’s some sort of movie based society. They appear to consume a type of grass seed…
AI resonates Respect All and posits positivity.
AI is an old school hip hop artist that I gravitated towards early in my J-hip hop journey. The fact that her youth had her splitting time between…
Shinkalion Z, Ooishi Misaki, and Fat Positivity
Attractive portrayals of fat girls are a real rarity in anime and manga, and when they do exist, they tend to have something of a fetish quality (see:…
Tohru Honda Shows Us the Savior We All Need
We’re happy to present a guest post today by Christian fantasy author MH Elrich, whom you can connect with on Instagram. “I won’t. Is that what I have…
Ergo Proxy Episode 12: When You’re Smiling (Hideout)
Meep! Welcome to Anime Rants. It’s time for another Ergo Proxy episode review and analysis. It’s hard to believe we are already halfway through this 23-episode series. This…
Super Cub - Episode 3 - Koguma Can't Stop Smiling
Super Cub - Episode 3. Koguma loves how her new luggage case matches her Super Cub motor bike.
Ergo Proxy Episode 12: When You’re Smiling (Hideout)
Episode review and analysis for Ergo Proxy #12. Vincent has been found by Re-L and Iggy...
Always a Thief
detective fiction, 推理小説、games, mystery, murder, locked room, Japanese, translations,
It’s Not Always About the Sex
The more things change, the more they stay the same. For as long as I can remember there has been a raging debate about how characters get frequently…
Why is the Manga Always Better?
Are manga really always better than the anime adaptations they inspire? If not, why do fans seem to think so, so often? I try to answer the question.
Midnight Punch #01 — Toxic Streaming Culture
This is how streaming works, right? This premiered the first two episodes on Youtube a couple weeks back, but I wasn't paying attention. It actually begins airing…
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S Episode 11: Tohru & The Past
Miss Kobayashi indulges in a little bit of relaxation in the eleventh episode of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, and then she learns a little more about Tohru’s…
The True Face of Tohru Adachi; Persona 4 Golden Analysis
Tohru Adachi is the Jester arcana of Persona 4 Golden. In original P4 he did not have a link but P4G added one which makes understanding his…
Finding Positivity in Death Via Anime and Manga
Recently, my mother and I had a conversation about a topic a lot of Westerners don’t talk about - death. My mom discussed how she wanted to die…
Spy x Family – 06 – Smiling Doesn’t Help at All
At the fitting for her new Eden uniform, the seamstress warns both Anya and her parents of all of the pitfalls of student and parent life. There are…
How Can I Connect to You? Breaking out of toxic masculinity and capitalist ideologies in SARAZANMAI
Both Kazuki and Toi emerge from similar circumstances of capitalism, oppression, and the hypermasculine coping mechanisms they’ve been given to deal with the pain of that oppression. It…
How to Start a Series: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of those concoctions, like Neon Genesis, that is sometimes so deep it seems like the creators outsmarted themselves trying to show themselves how…
Skip and Loafer, The Sound of Music, and the Toxic Girlfriend
Skip and Loafer meets The Sound of Music
DanMachi IV – 04 – The Seaweed’s Always Greener
When Bell first lays eyes on the mermaid who applauded his performance against the Iguazu, his first thought is probably that he really shouldn’t stare at her for…
Should the Underdog Always Win in Anime?
My recent Unpopular Opinions post, specifically the question asking about “a trope that I’m tired of” or something along those lines, left me wanting to write more about…
Chapter 36 - Always Bet on the Toad
I always thought "Mochi Kaeru" was a better pun than "Toadally Awesome."This week's show and tell is Summer Time Render by Tanaka Yasuki.Text-only versions of the weekly manga…
[Feature] Monster Girls and the Fine Line Between Body Positivity and Objectification
Monstrous women serve as a reminder of the "other" in society, but good writing helps characters take pride in themselves. The post [Feature] Monster Girls and the Fine Line…
The Yuri Anime with Toxic BL Tropes | A Citrus Retrospective
2018's Citrus is both the most known and ironically the most hated Yuri anime among most anime fans so since discourse around the series has persisted despite its…
Show Time!: Mixing erotica, sex positivity, and TV idols
Declaring Show Time! as part of an entertainment criticism pantheon may overstate its importance in the anime sphere. However, this hentai uses its erotic elements to explore issues…
This Healer’s a Headache #03 — Toxic Shock
A little soon to be repeating episodes. Semi-Impressions: This was almost an entire episode of running into a mushroom and then it sitting offscreen for them to…
How a VTuber Went Viral #01 — Girl Makes Faces
Spoiler: It's by being a normal VTuber. Impressions: I know I said this in the season rundown, but this show is baffling to me. Google virtually any VTuber's…
[Review] S4 is the Danmachi I Always Wanted
If you had asked me back in 2015 about my expectations for Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, I would’ve probably given…
Spice and Wolf: Always worth the (re)watch.
The first image shown, beyond the opening. On account of a recent announcement of a new Spice and Wolf anime, it is time to go down why this…
Heroines Run the Show – 07 – Always My Heroine
Nagisa knows who LIPxLIP is, and it doesn’t take long to get Hiyori to admit that she’s working as their manager-in-training. It still doesn’t explain why they accompanied…
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S Episode 1: Tohru & Ilulu
Miss Kobayashi, Tohru, Kanna and all their acquaintances return in the second season of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. Some new faces also come along too. In fact, this…
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S Episode 8: Tohru & Nursing
In the eighth episode of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, we get father’s day, nursing and a lost doll.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S Episode 7: Tohru & Sleep
The seventh episode of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S sees one dragon doing a favour for another, a discussion regarding the need for sleep and a spot of…