Week 5: フルーツバスケット ・ Fruits Basket 🍏 🍇 🍑 🍒 🍐 🍊 🧺

[NicoleRauch]

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Home Thread: フルーツバスケット ・ Fruits Basket

Week 5

Start Date: July 18th
Previous Part: Week 4
Next Part: Week 6

Reading:

Week	Start Date	Chapter	Pages (old)	Pages (Collector’s)	Page Count
Week 5	July 18th	Chapter 4	113 - 142	115 - 144	30

Vocabulary List

Fruits Basket Vocab

Discussion Rules

• Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
• When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
• Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
• To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

• I’m reading along
• I have finished this part
• I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
• I am no longer reading the book
• I’m skipping this book

[Naphthalene]

Oh! Page 123 of the old edition,

あ… じゃあ…なくて…

夾 showing some character growth already

[kmurgs]

Big thanks to whoever defined ‘euphony’ in the vocab list so I didn’t have to look up the English on top of the Japanese!

[conan]

I got you boo

[Dani_L]

So this on Page 126 (Collector’s Edition) is stumping me just a little.

Bottom right area

とても他人に気をつかって下さる分。

I think Tohru is saying she wants him to become a very different person, as in grow as a person. But I’m not sure what the 分 is doing at the end.

[Kappa421]

This is a very quiet first volume book club it seems! I would have assumed there to be more activity since it’s quite text heavy.

Page 120 ebook

鼠さんと猫さんだからという理由だけでは語りきれない中の悪さです

is this something along the lines of “the reason they’re fighting all the time is because they’re the cat and mouse”?
鼠さんと猫さんだからという理由だけでは - I think this would be the “the reason … is because they’re the cat and mouse”
語りきれない中の悪さで - and this might be the fighting all the time?
語り- talk
きれない中の悪さで - not sure how to parse this…
きれない - being too much
中の - might be the “during” 中?
悪さです - badness
or is it that she feels bad inside due to the fighting? I don’t get it

[Belerith]

Page 120 of the normal edition-

@Kappa420

鼠さんと猫さんだからという理由だけでは語りきれない中の悪さです

Attempt at a breakdown

仲の悪い (you misparsed the kanji btw, it’s 仲, not 中 ^^) means ‘to be on bad terms’. The same way, 仲のいい means ‘to be on good terms’ or ‘to get along’.

語りきれない - きれない added to the masu-stem of a verb means ‘cannot be (completely) verb-ed)’, ‘is too much to verb’. You got that, you just need to see it in the context of the verb. In this case it ‘is too much to be told’.

語り切れない modifies the 仲の悪さ that’s right behind is, and is in turn modified by what comes before it. The whole phrase …だけでは gives the ‘means’ which is not enough to completely tell the tale.

They get along so bad (this is a noun in the Japanese), it can’t only be because they’re cat and mouse. - Tooru is theorizing that there must be more to it because she can’t imagine only this reason could fully explain this level of ‘not getting along’.

I ended up waffling. Hope it’s clear!

@Dani_L

So this on Page 126 (Collector’s Edition) is stumping me just a little.

Bottom right area

とても他人に気をつかって下さる分。

This is page 124 of the normal edition. Looking at the bottom right corners actually helped me find it without too much trouble, good thinking.

Summary

とても just quantifies the whole phrase, so I’m gonna ignore it.
他人に気を遣って
気をつかう is a phrase that means ‘to pay attention to (other people’s needs)’, ‘to be considerate of sth’.
下さる is Tooru being ridiculously polite and respectful of Yuki, it doesn’t really add anything to the meaning itself.
分 means ‘part’ - in this case, it compares the part of Yuki’s character that she describes before the 分 with the part of his character she describes in the next text … square.

‘As much as Souma-kun is considerate of other people, he might be the kind of person that ends up keeping all his own feelings completely to himself.’

[NicoleRauch]

@Kappa420

I would have assumed there to be more activity since it’s quite text heavy.

We already lost about half of the readership (which I assume happened because it is quite text heavy… )

[Kyayna]

Honestly, I forgot how not interested I always was in Fruits basket until I read it again here.
Not that I post much (read: at all) in weekly threads anymore anyway (which I might make a new weeks resolution to change actually) but I honestly just rush through fruits basket every week to get it over with at this point.

Was my personal challenge go read all the book clubs choices, but with the advanced book club coming up, and some off shoot ones I want to read, I’ll likely drop fruits basket after volume 1 too (i am also broke af right now (thanks covid) and don’t own number 2, so that’s another reason).

Not sure about everyone else though. It is quite dense for a manga and, as far as I can remember, in comparison to other manga we’ve read.

[Belerith]

@Kyayna

a new weeks resolution

That’s awesome!

I’m the same - I really dislike a lot of how Tooru is portrayed as a character, which makes reading this hard. I was wondering if it might be a different feeling in Japanese, but… it’s just not really. It’s also a re-read, and I’m really only reading the first volume of the original edition because it’s available to read free.

I really want to follow along with all the book clubs too~ But maybe getting more selective is a sign of growth as a reader.

[Kappa421]

Thank you, that helped! And yay wrong kanji, I even double checked after I wrote the sentence.

@NicoleRauch

We already lost about half of the readership (which I assume happened because it is quite text heavy… )

Ya, that might be it. Although Kiki did lose half of it’s readers too and it’s more active. But I guess one can’t really compare these two. And ultimately doesn’t matter.

Anyway, yeah it’s really text heavy. That’s why I’m using the manga to read extensively and try to look up as few things as possible. I enjoy the new anime adaption a lot, but I can’t really say that I enjoy the manga as much.

[Dani_L]

@Belerith

気をつかう is a phrase that means ‘to pay attention to (other people’s needs)’,

Omg all the set phrases that begin with 気 make my head swim. Glad I can add a new one to the list now lol. Thank you though, knowing that does makes the sentence more understandable for me.

@NicoleRauch

We already lost about half of the readership (which I assume happened because it is quite text heavy…

This is my first Japanese book club and first time committing to fully read through a manga in Japanese so, not having anything else to compare it to, I didn’t realize this was more text-heavy than others. Wouldn’t that make it better though from a learning perspective, because it means more practice? Maybe I’m just too new to the book club thing though lol.

I am looking forward to the Advanced Book Club because I know it will be a really tough challenge.

[Kumirei]

This whole post is me

[Kyayna]

@Belerith

But maybe getting more selective is a sign of growth as a reader.

If we keep telling ourselves that, it might become the truth one day

And yeah, never know what to post in weekly threads, so maybe I’ll just start off easy with a “hey, look guys, I read the thing!” and we’ll take it from there

[Naphthalene]

@Belerith

I’m the same - I really dislike a lot of how Tooru is portrayed as a character

I like her, though and the rest of the cast as well. It may be due to nostalgia, though.

It is a re-read for me too, but I honestly don’t remember anything except (later book very minor spoiler)that the err… body hair of the one who turns into a cow are completely white as well… got teenage me’s mind racing

@Belerith

I really want to follow along with all the book clubs too~ But maybe getting more selective is a sign of growth as a reader.

As a book club reader, maybe? The issue is really that I ended up reading the forum more than I read the books

@Dani_L

Wouldn’t that make it better though from a learning perspective, because it means more practice?

It does, but it also increases the risks of giving up. It’s high risk, high reward, if you will.

[windupbird]

Idk if it’s the same for anyone else, but I’ve noticed that I have really low tolerance for text-heavy manga. I think if I’m reading a manga, I expect it to feel lighter (because pictures, I guess?), and I get annoyed or give up on it quickly when it ends up being dense (especially if the story’s just ok). When it’s a book, I go in expecting it to be denser and more difficult, so I anticipate some slogging and am not as discouraged or put off by it.

My thoughts on Fruits Basket so far are that I’m not…not enjoying it. But the text-heavy parts are a slog sometimes, and sometimes it’s hard to find motivation to read it (especially if I know I stopped right before a text-heavy part xD). …I like Kyou though xD My favorites are always the angry angsty ones As we get to see a bit more of Yuki in this chapter, he’s growing on me too. I’ve never seen or read any part of the series before - my feelings about it before we started were pretty neutral, and they’ve largely remained that way xD

Me rambling about my own struggle to choose between current book club books

Not that I’ve really been posting in the discussion threads, but I’ve been considering dropping Fruit’s Basket at the end of (old version) vol 1 and attempting Saint Onii-san instead. Is it really a good idea to drop a beginner book club manga that’s already kind of difficult for a manga that’s presumably even more difficult? Not sure xD I usually wouldn’t drop in the middle (I’d just do both if I thought I had a prayer of keeping up with both at the same time), but Fruit’s Basket just feels like a slog more often than not, and I’ve been interested in Saint Onii-san for a really long time. For me, I have to be really interested in denser manga for it to feel like it’s worth the effort and Fruits Basket…isn’t really reaching that bar for me so far, at least not to the point that I’d want to sign on for another volume. …Then again, I don’t know if I can keep up with Saint Onii-san anyway, so maybe I should just finish Fruits Basket and revisit the Saint Onii-san threads whenever I get around to reading it. I don’t know I’d feel bad about dropping. …Not that anyone would probably notice, given my utter lack of visible participation.

[Toyger]

I fell behind a bit because of life. It is summer, and a weird year with lots of stuff happening all around, so might just be the timing.

I was hoping it would become an of shoot group to read the entire series
But, just like Chi, if only ONE person joins me I’ll keep on reading!
I just need the incentive to get it done
I’m not god at picking it a part though, I duo read with the English and is reading more for the enjoyment and to see how much I grow (I barely even need to read the English anymore, do it more to “check my work” so to speak! )

PS: Kyo is my baby!

[NicoleRauch]

@Toyger

I was hoping it would become an of shoot group to read the entire series

I also expect that to happen. And it’s not that everybody jumped ship by now

I, for one, already got Vol. 3, so I’m thinking of at least reading that far. And then re-evaluate…

[Toyger]

• I also have the short new series, Another Note (I think it was called)

[Kappa421]

I got the ebooks up to volume 5 for free from Amazon, so I’ll probably be around, too.

@Toyger

But, just like Chi, if only ONE person joins me I’ll keep on reading!

I still feel bad about having abandoned Chi’s. One day…