[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD] As much as I adore and respect Fruba's author, the way she handled the Kyoko & Katsuya relationship made me very disappointed for a reason that is important to bring up
Fruits Basket Collector's Edition
Anyways dont u think, making kyoko older would undermine kyoko hardship or making katsuya younger collegue would make the dependency less convincing? Also technically all of this happened in 1980s (if we consider time period of fruit basket first chapter events coinciding with release date. Plus "sukeban" delinquent girl is a 70s or 80s thing) Anyways author was pretty self aware and made cringe jokes about the situation lol Edit - Just watch trailer, it literally the next scene where trailer ends...lol |
AdampkDec 16, 2021 7:08 AM
  Click for a anime mashup! Still not gone bandwagon u, keep crying. Here u are welcome to CRINGE at my EXISTENCE |
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Rojaseb said: Kyoko was a 14 years old girl and Katsuya a 22 years old guy working for Kyoko's school, as a teacher's assistant. That's the general description of their relationship - it sounds bad straight away, and it's made worse by the fact that Katsuya gets Kyoko pregnant at around 15-16. To top it all off, Kyoko's domestic situation was deplorable and violent, and the reason why she got herself involved in criminal gangs. Katsuya knew all this. But none of this is the problem that I'm talking about. No, the relationship doesn't get worse - the problem is Katsuya is an actual saint. Katsuya made Kyoko's life better, he emotionally supported her out of an impossible situation, and made her feel loved in a sincere and beautiful way. There was nothing wrong with their actual relationship. This is disturbing. It doesn't play out like that in real life. I'm 24, and I can guarantee you guys around my age NEVER go after 14 years old girls with pure intentions. The guys that do this are predatory, rotten and wholly trying to take advantage of girls, either to groom them or to rape them (because let's not forget that minors can't give consent to sexual relationships with adults). So here's where I've seen the argument, "It's just fiction." Hmm. For you maybe, a fellow adult reading this story and being able to easily get past the weirdness in favor of the otherwise normal relationship. But Fruba was published in the manga magazine Hana to Yume, read majorly by females (95%), most of which are minors (66%). To begin with, in Japan minors cannot freely give consent to sexual relationships with adults until they are 20 years old. When the Kyoko backstory dropped, Fruba was mainstream both in Japan and outside of it, becoming one of the first manga to accomplish something like that. Natsuki Takaya is an author that very consistently utilized her Hana to Yume platform for more than entertainment - Fruba portrays child abuse, domestic violence and the loss of parents in very realistic ways. Her storytelling always aimed to convey the message that these situation can be overcame, and showed us how using equally realistic characters. So I think the author betrayed this integrity during the Katsuya & Kyoko relationship. She showed her mostly female teenage audience a completely inappropriate relationship, and glorified it. She never showed the cons of this type of relationship. Kyoko only second-guesses Katsuya's intentions once for a joke. We never get to hear what's even going through Katsuya's mind. The author wrote the age gap, then ignored the meaning of it. And I believe real Japanese girls the same age as Kyoko, who idolized Fruba and the author, wouldn't react as "This is obviously bad, this is just fiction, let's just ignore the age gap". Natsuki Takaya had a fantastic reputation and following, so it's perfectly possible that her younger readers could've been mislead by her to think that adults who come on to them, can have beautiful and pure romantic intentions... when this is never ever the case in real life. So let's not use the "it's fiction" argument because teenagers don't interpret literature that way, and they can by all means be negatively influenced by a story of an author they love, or mislead into having unrealistic expectations, then more easily fall for the manipulation of predatory men who act like saints as Katsuya did. I agree on what others have suggested to bring Katsuya's age down and make him Kyoko's highscool senpai. That would make Kyoko 14 to 15 and Katsuya 16 to 17 (depending on their birthdays). I think fixing the ages would set a good precedent for new shoujo adaptations, since the label is plagued with bad age gaps. Fruba 2019 was a financial success that will most likely motivate other shoujo magazines to remake or reboot their incomplete anime, and Hana to Yume has the chance to set a good example here. If those teenagers copy what they see from fiction, then they're stupid to begin with. I read Furuba as a teenager and I didn't get negatively influenced by their relationship. |
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| i swear nothing is more cringe then the FB community |
| [/quote] If those teenagers copy what they see from fiction, then they're stupid to begin with. I read Furuba as a teenager and I didn't get negatively influenced by their relationship.[/quote] Is this forreal? The point here is that guys who are TARGETING girls like this know they most likely/certainly do come from abusive and/or dysfunctional homes. A child cannot be more mature or equally than an adult in understanding power dynamics and the law. |
Rojaseb said: It doesn't play out like that in real life. I'm 24, and I can guarantee you guys around my age NEVER go after 14 years old girls with pure intentions. The guys that do this are predatory, rotten and wholly trying to take advantage of girls, either to groom them or to rape them (because let's not forget that minors can't give consent to sexual relationships with adults). Damn that sounds misandric, but I guess someone of age 24 will find some social "absolutes" and embrace them. The world is too large for us to generalize it. That being said, it's obvious that adults CAN take advantage of the inexperience of the young. That doesn't need to be shown in Fruits Basket itself, if it hasn't been already. Else, I like your post and agree with most points. Personally, I am fine with fiction depicting weird relationships and Furuba showed even something superficially twisted can be wholesome. Katsuya wasn't that pure, but he was what Kyoko needed. And he needed her to be more expressive about himself. Show this thing to actual adult audience who aren't immature, they'll get the message and take it with a pinch of salt. It's the younger target audience who's the bigger possible victim, especially those who are drunk in how relatable this is to their own lives and try to emulate this in real life. I mean a friend of mine lost her relative because he tried a bike stunt a 14 year old pulled off in a UA movie with his elder brother's bike. Shonen manga often depict scenes no one of their intended age group should be seeing. I can see how damaged teens are in their arguments in VS Battle threads. How they project into characters and throw personal insults to other people who can't agree to them. Such is the teen audience in general and I feel it's better to guide them and that's why so much consultancy and monitoring has started around that age. |
Laplace_kunMay 14, 2022 2:11 PM
| "All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo |
Rojaseb said: diorukia said: so true bestie!!! people who still think “anime is fictional who cares what their relationship age gap is!” need to read this!! and you made other good points ofc, very educational! People who say "it's just fiction" are just trying to justify their creepy fetishes to not feel guilty about it because they know it's wrong to like that shit Also people who strongly react against it feel guilty about their inner fetishes and says it's wrong to exist even in fiction. Your hyperbolic statement here was like that. You are using wrong methods for the right cause. |
Laplace_kunMay 14, 2022 2:13 PM
| "All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo |
Laplace_kun said: Rojaseb said: People who say "it's just fiction" are just trying to justify their creepy fetishes to not feel guilty about it because they know it's wrong to like that shit Also people who strongly react against it feel guilty about their inner fetishes and says it's wrong to exist even in fiction. Your hyperbolic statement here was like that. My hyperbolic made sense though, unlike yours lmao. Nobody has ever said what you just said, whereas what I said is an actual belief a lot of people have stated in the matter of pedophilia in fiction. There's no reason to sugar coat how deranged stories like this are. If anyone gets offended by it, then they should just stop themselves from participating in discussions about how absolutely creepy their taste in fiction is and read it in silence. |
Well you can believe that if it gives you a good sleep at night lmao. Nobody has ever said what you just said, whereas what I said is an actual belief a lot of people have stated in the matter of pedophilia in fiction. Don't lie to be knowing "a lot of people" when you have barely started knowing anything. If you want to taste my knowledge in fiction, let's not even go there. There's no reason to sugar coat how deranged stories like this are. If anyone gets offended by it, then they should just stop themselves from participating in discussions about how absolutely creepy their taste in fiction is and read it in silence. You don't have the authority, experience and maturity to say that when all you can actually afford to do is give your opinion like the rest of us here. Don't pretend to know "fiction" from just a bunch of anime (of course I am not specifically refering to you). You are offended the most and you are a bigger Furuba fan than me. While your reasons are justified, these methods are just cheap and are the reason behind these good messages or intentions lying underneath your original comment not ultimately making any effect. |
| "All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo |
| The real question here is why other stuff like parental abuse and constant violence, both psychological and physical (and even some get away with it at the end of the anime), in Fruits Basket aren't criticized yet this stuff (appropriate or not) is like a death sentence. Look I used to "criticize" this kind of content before and it was just a waste of time and ignorance from my part, I even accused the anime studio Doga Kobo in 2019 of pandering to pedophiles due some anime they produced in 2018 and 2019. This is probably the dumbest comment I've said in my entire anime life and I'm don't blame if that person who block me is still angry at me. Now, I've watched more anime than before and this content that some people consider "problematic" isn't going to stop no matter how some people complain. I realized this (please note I'm talking about purely fiction and not live actions/real films): 1) Double standards: this applies more to the West than Asia but the West is perfectly ok as long this content isn't sexual for some weird logic. So they're OK if people are beheaded, tortured or even brutally murdered and/or mutilated but if that scene is sexual, try to do something sexual or it isn't sexual but it is in those people heads = the anime and those people are full of s****. This is worse if we talk about films with REAL people involved, like use the movie IT: nobody complained when kids were literally being killed/traumatized and I even saw the severed head of a kid in part II, this's just an example. And that fucking movie has a 15 rating with REAL people involved so how is suddenly a problem here when its FICTIONAL? So let's continue with the next point: 2) Teenagers can be "influenced" watching controversial content: I won't deny teacher-student relationships existed irl and its wrong but saying minors can emulate bad stuff of fiction is insulting them. First of all, teenagers and adults can be easily manipulated by REAL life events rather than pixels, A recent example will be this 18-year-old being the author of the Buffalo shooting (RIP to the victims and condolences their families) influenced by New Zealand mosque killer. How MANY teenagers are influenced by ANIME? Are they saying teenagers and a kid who just started walking are the same? This is just the old conservative excuse of "violent games bad, minors are obv influenced by them so we must defend them" from the 2000s, It's back but with "this fictional stuff is promoting p**** towards minors so we must defend them". 3) Most people who complain about this kind of content care very little about irl cases/are just paranoid: we call them antis on Twitter, I rarely see them saying something about real life cases of pedophilia or they ignore or even support some politicians that are just plain creepy with kids around. If they REALLY CARE ABOUT P****** , WHY people are criticizing stuff that doesn't exist yet I DON'T SEE THEM doing the same with REAL life cases. 4) Hypocrisy: this is probably one of my main problem with this people and how easily I don't need to take them seriously. For example: I literally read someone in r/fruitsbasket criticizing this "controversial" stuff with the same bs "arguments" with a VIOLET EVERGARDEN pfp. VIOLET has literally the same issue that person is complaining, WHY THIS USER is MAD with side characters but NOT with the age-gap of her own PFP!!! See?? I'm done. Ah, the whole "it's fiction" argument was repeated to death by a lot of people so it self-explanatory. I don't even need it to explain how criticize "controversial" content is already a waste of time and resources with all points I made. So, be happy, watch anime and let's stop fighting for dumb things. Thanks. |
| All weebs creatures of the galaxy, hear this message. Those of you who listen will not be struck by western animation. You will no longer know hunger, nor pain. Your Anime have come to lead you now. Our strength shall serve as a luminous sun toward which all intelligence may blossom. And the impervious shelter beneath which you will prosper. However, for those who refuse our offer and cling to their western animation ways… For you, there will be great wrath. |
| I never had any problem with those age gaps in anime. Even i real life it's something common...my bestfriend dated only guys with 8-10 years older than her since she was 16 so yeah. And this situation from Fruits Basket it's illustrated in a very well mannered way in my opinion. Why is domestic kanojo OK but Furuba no? I never see anyone complain about age gaps in Shounens/Seinens, but in Shoujo it is a problem? |
| Young 20s still seem young enough to me now that I'm older and I think back to my 20s and how innocent I still felt and how many mistakes I made. But 18 or 20 in most places is the legal age for consent and contracts, but the average person's brain doesn't develop until they are 25 years old. That's not to say an adult over the legal age should still pursue a minor, but we also have to consider Japan is an entirely different culture than probably the culture and society you live in, unless you live or lived in Japan. There's going to be predators there too, sure, but I'm very doubtful it's to the degree of those in the West and who's to say every single person in their young 20s have the intentions your referring to, since everyone's development is different. But as you said, this target audience is for teen girls and written for them, so the romance should've stayed among teens and not romantised a teen/adult relationship just to be taboo or make it always seem like it's an okay situation. If it's written for adults who can understand such mature and complex rare situations or who knows it's not always an okay thing, then it'll get more of a pass. But I'm mostly speaking now from my adult perspective in the West and I can't understand how it is to speak from the perspective of an adult in Japan. |
Mika-taicho said: Honestly i dont know why people get soooo hung up on entertainment having some sort of obligation to present x and y in a certain way because "lets think about the kids". Its such a tiring argument mostly used by religious or purist groups that i cant take it seriously anymore. It can be a tricky topic, I agree, there are some valid cases, but in the end its up to the parents to teach their children this stuff and monitor what minors do. I personally dont agree that this sort of responsibility should be on the entertainment. The media CAN have some sort of influence the audience but it DOES NOT mean it WILL. its a hypothetical thing and with that logic we could go endlessly - dont drive because you can end up in an accident, dont take this cig bc u can get addicted etc. Things are allowed to be fantasies and exist there without having some sort of social commentary attached to it. If there can never be problematic content because children might see it then we will never be able to create anything ever. This case is quite interesting to me because when I was a teen i consumed a lot of media with teacher/student relationships since that was my fantasy (i still like it to this day bc its my FANTASY). And yet, thanks to my parents' teachings, I was aware of the dangers of it in real life. I'm not saying that my case is like everyone else but making generalizations that there are so many young, naive teenagers is not a good thing either. I couldn't agree more with this! Yes, their age gap is weird, and I'm not saying that I would support a real-life relationship like that, but why would I care anyway? If two people are happy and don't cause any physical or emotional harm to each other, then it's none of my business to stick my nose into their lives |
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Nurguburu said: The real question here is why other stuff like parental abuse and constant violence, both psychological and physical (and even some get away with it at the end of the anime), in Fruits Basket aren't criticized yet this stuff (appropriate or not) is like a death sentence. Look I used to "criticize" this kind of content before and it was just a waste of time and ignorance from my part, I even accused the anime studio Doga Kobo in 2019 of pandering to pedophiles due some anime they produced in 2018 and 2019. This is probably the dumbest comment I've said in my entire anime life and I'm don't blame if that person who block me is still angry at me. Now, I've watched more anime than before and this content that some people consider "problematic" isn't going to stop no matter how some people complain. I realized this (please note I'm talking about purely fiction and not live actions/real films): 1) Double standards: this applies more to the West than Asia but the West is perfectly ok as long this content isn't sexual for some weird logic. So they're OK if people are beheaded, tortured or even brutally murdered and/or mutilated but if that scene is sexual, try to do something sexual or it isn't sexual but it is in those people heads = the anime and those people are full of s****. This is worse if we talk about films with REAL people involved, like use the movie IT: nobody complained when kids were literally being killed/traumatized and I even saw the severed head of a kid in part II, this's just an example. And that fucking movie has a 15 rating with REAL people involved so how is suddenly a problem here when its FICTIONAL? So let's continue with the next point: 2) Teenagers can be "influenced" watching controversial content: I won't deny teacher-student relationships existed irl and its wrong but saying minors can emulate bad stuff of fiction is insulting them. First of all, teenagers and adults can be easily manipulated by REAL life events rather than pixels, A recent example will be this 18-year-old being the author of the Buffalo shooting (RIP to the victims and condolences their families) influenced by New Zealand mosque killer. How MANY teenagers are influenced by ANIME? Are they saying teenagers and a kid who just started walking are the same? This is just the old conservative excuse of "violent games bad, minors are obv influenced by them so we must defend them" from the 2000s, It's back but with "this fictional stuff is promoting p**** towards minors so we must defend them". 3) Most people who complain about this kind of content care very little about irl cases/are just paranoid: we call them antis on Twitter, I rarely see them saying something about real life cases of pedophilia or they ignore or even support some politicians that are just plain creepy with kids around. If they REALLY CARE ABOUT P****** , WHY people are criticizing stuff that doesn't exist yet I DON'T SEE THEM doing the same with REAL life cases. 4) Hypocrisy: this is probably one of my main problem with this people and how easily I don't need to take them seriously. For example: I literally read someone in r/fruitsbasket criticizing this "controversial" stuff with the same bs "arguments" with a VIOLET EVERGARDEN pfp. VIOLET has literally the same issue that person is complaining, WHY THIS USER is MAD with side characters but NOT with the age-gap of her own PFP!!! See?? I'm done. Ah, the whole "it's fiction" argument was repeated to death by a lot of people so it self-explanatory. I don't even need it to explain how criticize "controversial" content is already a waste of time and resources with all points I made. So, be happy, watch anime and let's stop fighting for dumb things. Thanks. Well said as well! |
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| There were a lot of anime only folks at the screening I went to and a lot of them walked out feeling yucky. I think just due to my age and having read the manga in high school it's not that I don't see it as yucky but moreso a once popular trope that doesn't align with today's world. When the mangaka was growing up, the student teacher romance would have been a fairly popular trope so you get where the inspiration came from. The fact that society is against it but they still have this beautiful relationship where he heals her and she lets him be his true self is as fantastically romanced as you could possibly make it. It's a total squick factor so I'm glad they adapted it as a side story rather than air it with the original broadcast because perhaps the creative team saw how problematic this depiction could be if viewed by impressionable young girls. |
| Yeah, this isn't a problem. It's a cartoon bud. |
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| > complaining about how jp minors will be influenced and manipulated to getting into adult relationships > ignores that this entire theme and plot point is present in alot of shoujo/josei manga its literally a fantasy women actuall have youll never see people complain about fifty shades of gray and twilight being problematic also what nuruguru said |
| Hottest Take Ever, fite me: Fairy Tail is better than Seiya, Bungou Stray and Hitman Reborn |
| It probably could have been more realistic to see Katsuya's side of things and his inner thoughts. But the story was pretty straightforward in a way that he was lonely too and found familiarity in Kyoko. I can accept it as a motive. Not everything has to be for the purpose of showing problematic relationships. After watching this movie I got the idea that it couldn't have been any other way for those two, they married young and died young, if they had waited there would be no Tohru, etc., etc. In real life there are lots of examples with age gap as well. Yes, you could argue that Kyoko was extremely vulnerable and Katsuya took advantage of her but in this case it turned out for the better and they were genuinely happy, so maybe they just genuinely loved each other and didn't allow any superstitions to stay in way of their happiness. What concerns me more is how could he actually die from a cold?... |
TenJul 10, 2022 3:27 PM
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It's been officially confirmed that Katsuya's cause of death was pneumonia and given how he was probably too busy working to the bones (literally), he recklessly decided to try and power through, leaving the pneumonia untreated. Sadly, that proves to be fatal for his case and even though we see him promising Kyoko that he'd go to the doctor to get it check, it was already too late. |
| as someone who saw and read card captor Sakura sakuras parents are just like tohrus I can't believe someone would go into detail without knowing the circumstances |
| L thread L topic Lots of people being brainwashed into overthinking instead of enjoying good anime. |
I'm not reading any replies or comments directed at me at all. I know my truth and if you disagree: that's fine but i couldn't give a damn about :) |
| So, I guess the movie was a hit and no one had any issues with the story. |
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