[arichang]

Originally Posted by horsdhaleine

hey! for those of you who have read the manga and watch the whole show... how different are the two? i have the manga except vol 13,14,15,17,21... is the manga any good?

The anime only goes up to volume 7-ish of the manga so you can't really compare. It's quite loyal to the Takaya-sensei's plot... and all the original episodes weren't useless fillers. I think the anime was pretty well done. However, that's not to say the manga wasn't any good. Personally, I think the manga is quite brilliant. Plot-wise, I think Takaya-sensei is amazing. I love how she gets into the psychological-depth of the characters and the way the plot thickens almost at the end of every volume. It's moving, really, if you can forgive some of the over-the-top emo-ness of some characters.

In terms of art, Takaya-sensei's style changes dramatically as the manga continues, I think. From volume one we see very busy pages stock-full of drawings and her characters feel cute, bordering even on immature. However... as the manga progresses, her style--I don't really know if it's because she's influenced by her assisstants or what--becomes more... mature, I suppose. Pages become emptier... and there're more black frames than there are white. (Damn, that's a lot of ink)... over all, the tone of the manga goes really, really dark.

Of course, the humour's still there and it still coaxes a chuckle of two from the reader. The Fruits Basket manga is really one of my favourites. Worh reading.

Now about that second season for the anime...

Spoiler for latter parts of the manga:

Unfotunately, due to Akito's "real" gender... the production of a second season for the anime is impossible, considering the fact that Akito was very obviously a guy in the anime. They can't do anything that wouldn't cause a confusion. I mean, there would be huge inconsistencies between the two seasons if they decided to continue and follow Takaya-sensei's plot... or there would be huge inconsistencies between the manga and the anime if they decided to do something different. Not a lot of fans would be happy with that.

The manga gets angstier and darker... and there are bits that get annoying. Especially Akito's emotional outbursts... I mean, really. And the ending... hm. I wonder if anyone would want to discuss this with me? I'm not sure... but I'm not entirely happy with what they did with Yuki. And I have a lot of things I want to say about Akito. Would love to hear another's opinion on it.

Maybe I should look for a thread about this topic....