Fruits Basket

Fruits Basket is my absoulte favourite anime, and favourite manga. It follows our protaganist, Honda Tohru, a kind, optimistic and naïve young girl. Following the death of her mother in an accident, Tohru is left without a home, so starts living in a tent. One day she stumbles upon a Sohma household, then inhabited by Shigure and Yuki. Later that night whilst Shigure and Yuki walk home after yet another meal out, they notice Tohru's tent. Following a conversation back at the Sohma house, there is a landslide that covers Tohru's unoccupied tent, whilst trying to dig out a photograph of her mother, Tohru falls ill with a fever. It is decided that Tohru must stay with Shigure and Yuki, at least until she can move back to her Grandfather's house. Things run smoothly enough until Sohma Kyou crashes through the ceiling and the Sohma family's secret is revealed. When weakened or hugged by the opposite sex, they transform into the animal from the Zodiac that possesses them.

The Episode

Episode 10, Make It Clear If It's Black or White, starts with Yuki and Kyou at war, as per usual. Their conflict furthened by the revealation of the following day's School Endurance Run, and although Yuki is coming down with a cold, accepts Kyou's challenge, much to Tohru's dismay. The race starts normally enough. Torhu is determined to do her best, whereas her friend Hana-chan only manages a few feet. As the girl's group sets out first from the school, Tohru is alone when she notices somebody with white hair who as apparently fallen on the riverbank, thinking it to be an old man she runs to help, only to find it to be yet another Sohma, this time Hatsuharu. After tripping Kyou up, Yuki and Kyou join them, and Haru and Kyou are soon in battle, or at least they are when Kyou's refusal to fight leads to Haru becoming his other personality, known as Black Haru, a strong contrast to White Haru's normally calm personality. After Haru makes lewd remarks about both Yuki and Tohru, none of which Kyou quite understands, the fight is only ended when Yuki falls to the floor ill. Yuki is carried back to the house by Haru, who after hugging Tohru, becomes his Zodiac form, the Ox. Once there, after Haru walks around naked a little, annoying Kyou further, and Shigure apparently selflessly marches to school to fetch Tohru's things (High School Girls had nothing to do with it, honest), Haru reveals how and why he came to care so much about Yuki, proclaiming him his first love. Yuki finally awakes, and on Haru's suggestion, Tohru calls Yuki by his first name for the first time, causing him to transform into the rat. The episode concludes with Shigure and Kyou being bedridden after playing cards out in the cold at the school.