Fruits Basket/Headscratchers


 * Okay. Exactly how the hell did Akito not go to prison for what "he" did?!?!
 * The Sohma family was very reclusive and kept to themselves. I got the feeling that they hid most of what went on from the police (anyway, how would they explain to the police that the head of a family is mistreating people because they're possessed by animal spirits of the Zodiac?) Things had gone on that way for so long that it was just accepted as their way of life. Also, when Ren snaps and threatens to stab Akito, one of the maids angrily asks her "did you want to draw the police here?"
 * I hate to answer a question with a question, but for what Akito did to whom? If it was one of the Juunishi, they would never even call the police. Remember when Momiji told Tohru that part of the curse is that they can't blame Akito. Calling the police for someone's actions is pretty much blaming them. Now, why any of the Juunishi don't do anything as their curses are breaking, I can't tell you.
 * Everyone, including Akito, had grown up a little by that point and were ready to smooth out their nasty relationships and move on. Rin, who got the worst of the abuse, is the only member of the Zodiac having trouble with moving on, but all of them want to leave it behind them and get on with their lives. Not to mention, it's pretty hard for people to fight to correct the Sohma ways of thinking without someone as influential as Akito there leading the push for change.
 * From a psychological standpoint, why did Kana blame herself? Sure, she said how she couldn't protect Hatori, but there are some notable things: One: She saw Akito, who she literally just met, injure Hatori. Two: Akito started to blame her for the incident in question. Three: She has no history with Akito since she literally just met him, thus ruling out 'battered wife syndrome' or it's variants and that helplessness that comes from such associations over prolonged periods of time. So how does she blame herself, when she literally just saw her fiancée get blinded by the head of house while she's getting yelled at and blamed for the possibility of him going blind, even though she knows she didn't do it, but the asshole that is the head of house did so? I understand that she could've thought that, if they hadn't met, that wouldn't have occurred. But it is the head of house who did the blinding because he is freaking insane.
 * We don't know what exactly Kana was told besides Akito saying it was her fault. Perhaps Hatori warned her earlier that it would make Akito jealous if their relationship was made public or that it would cause problems. If that were the case then it's not impossible she figured "if Hatori never met me he never would have gone to ask for us to be married and therefore would never have been hurt". Plus, it's not like she's the only character to be overwhelmed/broken by events she couldn't control in the series.
 * Kana was a Sohma, too, although not a member of the core group centered around the Zodiac. Even if she'd never personally met Akito before, it's not hard to believe that she might have been taught to respect Akito as the absolute head of the family - although the Zodiac were the only ones with the metaphysical bond, I imagine the rest of the family were encouraged to respect and obey Akito. After all, any Sohma had the potential to be the mother or father of the next Zodiac member. Having control of the Zodiac doesn't mean much if their parents aren't sufficiently intimidated and brainwashed, and decide to leave the country to protect their child.
 * Also, Hatori was unable to blame Akito. If Kana and Hatori talked about what had happened, she would have realized that Hatori wasn't upset at Akito and probably figured that Hatori agreed with Akito.
 * How could Shigure have ? In an earlier volume, he mentioned that it would be a little problematic, due to the issue with hugging and transforming. If hugging isn't possible without transforming, how is intercourse?
 * Hatsuharu mentions in the fourth(?) volume, "we could do it without actually embracing" to Tohru before Kyo and Yuki take him down.
 * Ah, okay. That makes sense. Sort of.
 * I thought he meant showing her his pubic hair?
 * Consider also that
 * Doggy style, haha.
 * Also, there's the obvious fact that members of the Zodiac can hug other members of the Zodiac of the opposite sex without transforming.
 * Except isn't part of a the Zodiac. Unless you're confusing her with Rin?
 * Shigure had sex with her in dog form, then? It could be possible, especially since Shigure's mind is still human when he's in that form, since there is such a thing as bestiality.
 * There are many different sex positions that do not require hugging, and most of them do not require undue contortion. could have simply been on top. As long as she didn't lean down to embrace him, it would be fine.
 * The last cat had a grandson. Generally, that implies he had sex at some point. The Zodiac probably just received a very interesting version of The Talk.
 * When they go to the beach house in the manga Haru, Momiji, Kyo, Tohru and Yuki get out of what appears to be a five seater car...who drove?
 * Tohru hugged Momiji and held him on her lap on the way there. Problem solved! ^_^
 * But none of them (Haru, Momiji, Kyo, Tohru or Yuki) are at legal driving age (unless the driving age in Japan is different). Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't really think Momiji sitting on Tohru's lap would have changed anything.
 * That would mean there is one sit left for the driver, who would be someone else.
 * How is Hatori already a doctor when he erases Momiji's mum's memories if Momiji's say 5 (and leaving her in depression for five years is pushing it) then that would make Hatori about 16.
 * They don't teach mind wipes in medical school. He probably learned that somewhere else.
 * Logic aside, though, wouldn't it be awesome if they did? I would totally be a doctor if that were the case.
 * It's explained that Mind Wiping is a skill passed down through generations of Hatori's particular branch of the family. His father taught him the technique, and supposedly he would teach his son.
 * They're all cousins...
 * Yeah, but it's a huge family, so they're not all closely related, and some of them probably aren't even blood relatives. For example, you never hear two characters mention that their respective parents are siblings or anything.
 * But the only members that transform are members of the "Main Family" meaning that they are all very closely related anyway...
 * It's possible that they become members of the 'Main Family' by virtue of being Zodiac members. It's been a while since I read the series, so I may be wrong about this, but I don't remember anyone ever specifically stating that Zodiac members were born only to the main family, so they could easily come from different Sohma branches. Possibly their immediate family - parents, siblings, etc. - join the main branch after a Zodiac member is born, which could explain the lack of direct cousins amongst the Zodiac. They just refer to each other as 'cousins' because it's simpler.
 * I just reread the series recently (see: today), and it's said that people who live in the Main House do so because they know about the curse or are related to those with the curse. There's "insiders" who know and "outsiders" who don't, but ultimately they're the same family and there are no factions - which is discussed by servants in a later book.
 * Yes, yes they are. This is something that isn't as frowned upon in Japan as it is in other countries.
 * They're not necessarily first-degree cousins, and their parents aren't necessarily cousins either. Also, keep in mind that the family consists of more than 150 people. I'm not entirely sure if any of them are actually "closely" related, although there's a reference to Hatori being Kisa's uncle, if I'm not wrong.
 * I haven't really finished reading the series yet, so it might be explained later, but exactly how did the Sohma family get so rich if a lot of the members had the Zodiac curse (which might have inhibited their ability to work)?
 * The Sohma family is huge, having many members besides those in the zodiac.
 * I guess I was being too specific. I just wondered how they got so rich. Were they once nobility? Do they own a giant fast food chain? How did the Sohmas get so rich? (I have a sinking feeling that it is explained somewhere and that I just forgot)
 * It's never exactly explained. The various members have businesses that seem fairly successful (Aya's costume shop, Shigure's books, etc). Presumably the fact that there are so many and it's such a secluded family also means that there's a lot of inheritance.
 * I've always thought that because of the bond in their family, God blessed them with fortune.
 * You know how Dysfunction Junction runs rampant in the series? Well, I can't think of a single particularly bad childhood event for Shigure. Did I just forget something really traumatizing? Should fans make up a story of him being molested as a six-year-old, leading to lifetime of sexual deviancy?
 * As far as anyone can tell, He personally never went through any traumatic rejections everyone else he cared about did. He's the dog though, he's supposed to be loyal and empathetic so, I think he got messed up though osmosis. I don't think anyone needs to make up a traumatic childhood for him, he's witnessed enough bad stuff for a life time.
 * He's one of the least screwed-up members of the cast, Sohma or no. It could be argued that his dream when Akito was born was his "traumatic moment," since it informed almost everything he did in the series. And it certainly didn't help that.
 * Shigure is the only member of the cast who isn't an emotional wreck. He's a selfish person who accepts and is unashamed of his selfishness, and his honesty with himself allows him to ignore and exploit other people in need in order to get what he wants. Remember,.
 * Why did the anime change Tohru's eye color? It looks odd all the time except the last episode, when all the action happens. It fits the naive, pure, stereotype but still..Her eyes were obviously brown on the first manga cover.
 * I've always assumed that the artists did that to make her look cuter or something, according to them, at least. I guess brown hair and brown eyes didn't appeal to someone so they changed it. It would explain why Yuki's hair and eye color were changed to purple when they were gray originally.
 * Why don't the character's ages correspond with their zodiac signs? I mean, you have the dog, the snake and the dragon being the same age.
 * The curse doesn't follow the zodiac years, just the zodiac animal spirits. The dog, snake, and dragon just happen to be born in the same year (I think the Rooster was also). Shigure even mentions that this is the first time that all the animals are alive at the same time which can mean that a zodiac spirit isn't born right after the old one dies.
 * This is just an inquiry that kind of annoyed me-- keep in mind I'm being completely serious-- What happens if a member of the Zodiac gets hugged by a hermaphrodite?
 * They transform anyway, just because the curse is spiteful? I don't know, but I did get the feeling that the point behind the curse was to discourage/prevent the Zodiac from forming relationships with people outside of God's guests.
 * On another note, what if they get hugged by a binary-gendered trans person? Would the curse go by the person's gender or sex?
 * Oh, and another thing: the curse wouldn't even matter for a gay Zodiac member (aside from the exhaustion transformation, of course).
 * As to the "what if they were trans" question: The curse responds to biological sex, most likely. Consider Ritsu's case.
 * What did Tohru see in Kyo? He was a whiny bitch with serious anger issues. If you drop a pencil in his presence, he goes on a rant. I was hoping for somebody to backhand Bitch-Puss.
 * Because every since she was a child, she felt a connection and empathy towards the Cat of the Zodiac. There was even a flashback where she heard the story, cried over the fate of the Cat, and declared her new Zodiac sign to be the Cat. As for Kyo ranting and having anger issues, one of Tohru's best friends was formerly in a gang and threatened to punch out her teeth when they first met and one was completely anti-social. She appears to have spent most of her school days dealing with people ignoring and bullying her. She just looks past it. She doesn't actually love him until later on in the manga, when he starts to mellow, before that she treats him like she treats most other people (which is cheerfully and kindly) And what with all Kyo had to deal with growing up, being a "whiny bitch" is probably one of the better ways he could have turned out.
 * Actually, Volume 20 revealed that  Tohru allows people to treat her pretty badly and yet she still forgives them. I guess her Love Interest would be no different.
 * Also, bear in mind that a fair amount of what makes Real Life relationships work is the ability to look past a Love Interest's flaws.
 * Read the manga. Kyo mellows out a lot as the series goes on; Tohru was always able to see through him to his good traits. His flipping out around her in the earlier volumes is also explained in the end.
 * How close are most of the Sohmas genetically? Japan isn't quite as strict about incest as western culture, but no one seems to bat an eye at most of the pairings. Distant cousins? Are any of them close relatives?
 * You answered your own question. Japan is less strict about Kissing Cousins than a lot of other countries.
 * So, why does the Dragon look like a seahorse? Does Word of God ever explain why?
 * In the last parts of the manga, Shigure theorizes that
 * It's also mentioned early on in the manga footnotes that because of the etymology of the word "seahorse" in Japanese. The kanji for "seahorse" is "dragon's child".
 * I watched this show years ago and something that bothered me tremendously is Kyo being treated terribly by all family members and friends. If I found out my friend turned into some half demon kaiju monster he would be my best friend EVER. The mangaka does not understand boys in the slightest if she thinks young boys wouldn't want to become smelly disgusting monsters. Totally ruined the story for me.
 * The reason for the entire family hating him for that was because of the tale of the banquet, which I'm assuming you didn't read.  And as for the transforming thing, think about it: His father hated him. He believed that his mother was afraid and ashamed of him  . His entire family looked down upon him for being the cat. Even at his mother's funeral, all they did was sneer and mock him and whatnot. I don't think any little boy would want that, even if it did come with being a "cool monster". And, FYI, the monster wasn't cool at all. Maybe it'd be cool at first, but I'm certain that any child, boy or girl, would grow sick of it.
 * Go read Calvin and Hobbes and tell me if Calvin wouldn't love being a monster. Now tell me that every one of his family members, including other young boys wouldn't want to either BE or be friends with, said monster. Even if his mother and father hate him preventing the young boys he grew up with from going off to play with the monster cat boy would be IMPOSSIBLE. Sorry, still ruined for me.
 * Number one, Calvin is hardly a typical boy. But even ignoring that fact, there is a huge difference between "turning into a cool monster" and "turning into a monster that everybody is afraid of, is looked down on, and smells bad. It is very heavily implied that Kyo's true form is not only disgusting, but dangerous (he scratched Tohru, who is one of the only people who will put up with him, and she specifically says he's scaring her. And this is Tohru, who is basically a doormat who never speaks up when she's uncomfortable for fear of hurting other's feelings). Not to mention that little kids actually get scared pretty easily. I don't know if you have experience with any non-fictional little kids, but yes, little boys would most likely be scared of the giant creature that looks like it wants to rip their guts out. There's a difference between thinking monsters are cool and actually dealing with one. Add to that the fact that none of the adults (not just his mom and dad) found him repulsive or scary and the kid is going to have serious attachment issues. And even if other kids did play with him (which, really, they wouldn't), there's still the issue that he always believed his parents hated him. I'm sorry, but if you grow up with that notion (and he did grow up with it, literally from birth), you're going to have issues, no matter how cool you are on the playground.
 * I was under the impression that the monster was not only repulsively ugly (even if it didn't look that horrible), but also smelled really bad. And given that there aren't monsters IRL, we don't really know how little boys would actually react to them. I think it would end up like stories where the tough bully suddenly starts wetting his bed after encountering a real monster. Also, because I'm watching Buffy right now, let's compare Kyo to Tara. Her entire life, her father and brother apparently terrorized her (and possibly her mother) for being a demon. She isn't even actually a demon, but the way they treated her was still a horrible experience for her, and she was scared of actually being a demon, even when she knew Anya, and even though she was a witch.
 * Why didn't Hattori erase Momiji's memory of his mother? I think losing his memory of her is better than living your life knowing your mother resented you.
 * Momiji blatantly said he wanted to keep all his memories, good and bad, because they're all precious to him.
 * I know this can be explained easily, because it happened rather early on, but it was a rather "big" moment, so it still irks me: When Kyo told Toru about his training in the mountains, it was pretty much the very first time she saw him smiling, being enthusiastic and happy. 20 volumes later, it turns out that he spent all of that time in a perpetual Heroic BSOD over, just sitting limply on the ground instead of actually training. Kyo isn't one to fake happiness, so that in-universe explanation does not work either.
 * The best reason I can think of is that he spent the beginning of the training saddened about, but somehow, his desire to beat Yuki   gave him the motivation to keep going.
 * Maybe I read it wrong, but I was under the impression that (as shown in the last couple of volumes) they actually made the bet after his mountain training. So he wouldn't have had that motivation yet, which would have explained things.
 * As far as I remember, Kyo is a dragon-thing whenever he's not wearing his bracelet with the beads. But since he was born naked, like everyone is, doesn't that mena he was born as a dragon-thing? So why did the people who saw him being born assume that the dragon thing could be turned into a human, and how did they know how to do it?
 * As for your last point, I imagine that the Soma children are born in a private clinic owned by the Somas or maybe even at home. So I guess the problem of not knowing what's going on didn't come up. As for your first question, that's a bit trickier... are the children born as animals? My guess is not, even though I'd consider them "hugged" while they're inside their mothers. Maybe the curse is activated not while they are still in the womb, but when they are hugged for the first time by someone of the opposite gender? This means, Kyo would have been born as a normal boy... but when they gave him to his mother, he turned into the cat. The present Soma doctor had the beads ready and complications were avoided. Also, I remember that cursed members are born earlier? Perhaps if a woman goes into labor earlier than expected, all precautions are taken.
 * But I still don't get it. Maybe this would be clear to me if I reread the series, but how did they know how to turn a dragon-thing into a human with beads? There must have been some point in the history of humans when the Sohma family didn't know how to do that, so how did they learn to?
 * Well, I got the impression that when the dragon-thing is hugged, it turns into a cat too. So I guess they put it on the cat (which also begs the question why Kyo turns back into a human when he changes back from the cat. Does he already put on the bracelet? But I digress. I can imagine quite well that the first couple of cat-monsters were kept inside that room exactly because they were dragon-things. Maybe, somewhere along the line, a charm that repels the true form was developed, not really in context of the curse but as a general thing, by a powerful miko.
 * No, the Sohma don't change until they're hugged. I specifically remember a scene in the manga where they were talking about Hiro's birth and his mother's reaction to it. He didn't change into a sheep until they placed him in her arms after he was born. I guess they just wait to see what happens after the baby is born.
 * Just a pet peeve I have: if Yuki has such a complex over his "feminine" looks, why the heck does he go out of his way to look like a girl? I mean, those tight-fitting Chinese style clothes he wears early on in the series only make him look even more, um, feminine. And he could cut his hair? No? Also, Ayame wears Chinese style clothes too, and you'd think Yuki would try not to look like him if he hates him so much.
 * This makes no sense. There is nothing inherently "feminine" about the Chinese-style shirts he wears. You're acting like they're dresses or something. Yuki probably just likes to look natty. And what do mean about his hair? It's already pretty short in the back. Do you mean his front side bangs? I don't think he's that girly just because of that. And why should he give up clothing his brother happens to wear too just to separate himself from him? That's pointless and reeks of Hitler Ate Sugar. Also, at his core Yuki doesn't hate Ayame. He bitter and distant to him but starts getting past it after Ayame is introduced.
 * You have misunderstood me (partly my fault for not making myself clearer). I was always under the impression that Yuki's androgynous appearance was down to his face and his "unmanly" (womanly is a bit strong) figure/body shape. I am aware that his Chinese-style clothes are not feminine in themselves, but was simply pointing out that the clothes he wears early on in the series, the tight fitting ones, seem to enhance his androgynous figure more than if he wore less tight fitting clothes, and that if he were really self-conscious about this, why not wear baggier clothes. And as for his hair, I was always under the impression that it made him look slightly girlier (having the long bangs), although I have to admit this may be simply me and not true in universe. Although I have to agree with your point about Ayame, I had just simply found it odd that Yuki was so keen to have nothing to do with him earlier on in the series, yet still imitate him. Your explanation cleared it up though.
 * Well, I was needlessly brusque and I apologize. But I will add this much about Yuki's taste in clothing. My source is the Cat Fanbook. Takeya meant for the clothing choices to be unimportant in terms of their characters in some ways but they ended up fleshing the characters out further sometimes. Yuki was created before Ayame and by the time Takeya needed to dress Ayame she just decided he'll wear Chinese clothing, too. However, it's pointed out in the Ayame and Yuki scenes that despite being Different As Day and Night, they are more similar to each other than they think which helps bridge the gap between them. The clothes unintentionally added to this point. Also, Yuki could just be that oblivious to how he comes off.
 * Consider further Toru and Yuki's discussion somewhat early in the story, where Yuki talks about how he manipulates people to like him. His appearance is probably a part of this.