By Natsuki Takaya (and the uncredited editors of Hana to Yume). Released in Japan by Hakusensha. Released in North America by Tokyopop.
I’m pretty sure that, barring Tokyopop winning the licensing wars to bring out Hoshi Wa Utau, Takaya’s current serialization, this is the final drop of blood they can wring from this very profitable author. This and the pleasant but forgettable Songs To Make You Smile came out last week, and we now have most everything vaguely Fruits-Basketey out here.
That’s not to say this isn’t good in its own right. Guidebooks are rarely released over here, mostly as they tend not to sell as well as the manga itself. We’ve seen some for Naruto and Bleach; Bleach also has a second coming out this summer. In Japan they’re far more common, being a great way to get people to spend money and provide a nice summation of the franchise they love. This volume has polls, fanart, Q&A; with Takaya, games, a short manga wrap-up, and various other fun miscellany. It reads like it was made for teenage girls, which is sensible given the magazine it ran in.
The majority of the book is devoted to polls. Favorite Chapter, Favorite Couple, and Favorite Character take up about half the book, with clips from the manga and lots of text going into why the winners are so beloved.
Be warned, Fruits Basket is an emotional manga, and reading the Favorite Chapter section can be dangerous if you’re in a public setting. No… no, it’s OK, I just… have something in my eye. They’re aren’t really many surprises here, with the bulk of the winners being from the last 3 volumes, which pack the most emotional punch, with a smattering from earlier volumes (2nd place, for example, is the resolution of Kyo’s ‘monster form’ from Vol. 6). The one that surprised and pleased me most was the high placing of “Sorta Cinderella” (it got 4th), mostly as I rarely see comedy chapters placing high in polls like these.
After some fill-in-the-blank quizzes, a general Q&A; session, a horoscope (which was eerily accurate in my case – I’m a Cat, in case you wondered), we get the couple poll. This one surprised me more, mostly as I have a very Western perspective of the ship wars this title begat, and thus was a little surprised at some of the placings in Japan. Yuki and Machi coming in second was the biggest surprise, as I’ve always felt that people regarded them as “Yuki’s consolation prize” to a degree. On the other hand, when you go back and reread the chapters devoted to them, they really have quite a lot of buildup. Nice to see Haru and Rin so high as well, something else I suspect would be different if this were a poll of North American readers (who hold grudges longer). Pretty sure Shigure and Akito would be much lower as well.
We then get a cute Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game, another quiz, and then the favorite character poll. The 3 leads pretty much crushed everyone else here, as expected. Being a huge Shigure fan, I was pleased to see he only dropped to 8th. Like Takaya, I expected everyone to hate him after the later volumes! And poor Uo, barely making the top 20. At least your pairing with Kureno made the poll this time!
There then follows a brief 8-page manga, with the characters discussing the poll results and various wrap-up things. It’s 4th wall breaking fun, and also mind-breaking in some ways (please never draw Akito like that again). And it confirms, as we all knew, that Hana would easily beat Akito if they ever had a battle of wills. After this we have a glossary (which is a bit too scattered for me), and more Q&A; where readers ask for more details on characters after the series ends.
Tokyopop’s production of this is mostly decent, though I wish they’d put it out in a larger size. Something along the lines of Bleach’s guidebooks from Viz would mean a bit less eyestrain. I was pleased at the load of color artbook pages at the front, which look fantastic.
Obviously you’ll only bother to get this if you’re a huge Furuba fan. But for those fans, it’s a great book, and I’m sure will prompt many people to… well, to go online and write enraged forum posts about how the polls were fixed and [insert couple here] should have been MUCH higher!
