CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Ok here's the deal. I was shopping yesterday, and found manga in an EB store. This was a momentous occasion for me, as I have never actually seen a real manga before in my life.
Anyway, I am now inspired to buy a series... There is a VERY limited selection available at madman.com.au, the main supplier. They have Fruits Basket (v 1-3) and Love Hina (v1-4). Which one would you recommend out of these two? Do they have objectionable content?

Hm. I heard Love Hina's pretty fanservicey. Personally, I'm quite fond of Fruits Basket, so I'd say go for that. ^__^

I'm gonna tell you now that a host of people will recommend to you Fruits Basket, likely for good reasons. I've only read the first one, and the content seemed acceptable, and there are likeable characters in the series. Tohru, the main character, is quite popular here. In regards to Love Hina, I haven't read it, but the anime seemed to have some content issues. I'd say go with Fruits Basket, though I'm not the one who could best direct you.

Awesome that you're joining the world of manga - there is a host of amazing series out there. Enjoy!

Definitely Fruits Basket. Love Hina is fanservice with a manga problem. Later on, if you find more manga to buy, I suggest Naruto. It's a great action series, but it can get kind of bloody at times, so be aware. The same goes for Rurouni Kenshin. Beet the Vandel Buster also looks really good.

Congratulations, Talame-chan! I'm so happy for you!

Fruits Basket. My favorite manga. Ever.

Okay Synopsis time!!!
Fruits Basket is the story of the recently orphaned Tohru Honda. Tohru is a young, caring high school student who seems to have no greater concern than making the lives of those she loves comfortable. Due to this desire, when her mother and caretaker dies and her grandfather needs her to move out of his house while he remodels, she decides her only recourse is to put up a tent and live in the woods.
But little does young Tohru know that she has inadventantly staked her tent on the land of Shigure Shoma and his cousin (?) Yuki Sohma. When the two young men find her, they offer her a room (one with a lock, mind you) in their huge house in return for her cooking and cleaning skills. Not long into her stay, Tohru learns that the Sohmas have a dark secret. Whenever they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex or when they are very weak, the transform into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. This happens because their family is possessed by the spiteful spirits of the Chiniese Zodiac.
And so begins a touching story about loving people for who they really are-- no matter what.

Positive: Tohru Honda is, for me, the most inspirational fictional character that I've come across in a long time. She is what Christian girls should be: Kind, caring, and selfless. Throughout the manga, it is obvious that she has no greater desire than to see the Sohmas happy.

Negative:

Sex/Nudity: Well, as was said in the synopsis, when the Sohmas are hugged, they turn into animals. Likewise, when they un-transform, they aren't wearing any clothes (They either got ripped because their animal form was too big or they slipped off because their animal form was too small. Luckily Takaya-sensei has spared us alot of embarrassment by placing a convenient cloud around most un-transformations.

There are a few instances where females tranform back. One instance when a little girl transforms back and we see most of her body but it is SUPER undetailed (there's not even a belly button of this chick). Another instance in the first volume, Kagura un-transforms and, while mostly eclipsed by another character and her arm strategically placed, we still see a good portion of her hip and a little of her chest (But I don't think we see anything that transcends clevage.)

Lastly on the sexuality score: There are a couple of character who are questionably gay. It is the opinion of most on this board that they're not gay, but they say really obviously dumb stuff just to weird people out. (And it works, too). In general, these banters are held only by two characters and they're not very frequest (Shigure and Aaya exchange some sort of homosexual innuendo, they then get all chibi and starry eyed, and say in a dumb font "ALLLLL RIGHT!!!") Honestly, it's played for laughs, and, at one point, a character who is a long time friend of the two in question says "You never got tired of that, did you?" And in my opinion, he means, "Y'all never got tired of those dumb jokes, did you?"

In volume three--- I think--- Aaya(who is pretty much a pervie.) tells one story that has homosexual undertones, but his object in making the questionable statement was to draw attention away from some friends who had gotten into deep trouble. It worked. Whether has was serious about what he said (which, unfortuneately, I think he might have been) or not, the world may never know.

Language: Well, there's a quite a bit of language in Fruits Basket. First, Kyo is a major hot-head, and his mouth reflects that. Hatsuharu has a bit of a split personality, and when his "dark side" is showing, he can espouse some pretty colorful language. When Yuki is properly insulted, he can let a word slip too, but the first two are the main potty-mouth characters. As far as what is said, the profanities are more minor, IMHO. Things like: "D***", "B*****D", "H*LL", are the words said the majority of the time. There are never any "F" bombs of anything similiar thus far.

Violence: A little blood. Some of the characters like to kick eachother around and they get bloody lips every once and a while, but no flying body parts.

Bad Religion: Well, there is talk of the Zodiac, but it's never used to predict fortunes or anything. It's more a backdrop for the story, rather than an active player in the plot. Honestly, most of the Zodiac talk is centered around a banquet where God invited all the animals. If you think there's something blasphemous about that, feel free to be offended. J/K.

Okay, there's my best go at a content review of Fruits Basket. I hope that helps. It's an awesome series which is loved by huge portion of our memebership here at CAA.

I haven't read Love hina, but if you'd have a problem with a of girls in bikinis, I'd stay away from it. While I know there are a number of memebers that enjoy the story in this manga, I think even they will admit that it's quite fanservicey.

BTW, check and make sure that your library doesn't have any manga. I was stunned when I discovered that mine did!

Stay away from Love Hina and get all the Fruits Basket you can grab! FB is awesome and LH is just too fanservicey....
I didn't know they had EB in Australia.... COOL! They never had them when I was there.....

Stay away from Love Hina and get all the Fruits Basket you can grab! FB is awesome and LH is just too fanservicey....
I didn't know they had EB in Australia.... COOL! They never had them when I was there.....

Since everyone else has nicely summarized the two, I'll just tell you what I think. Go fruits basket! It's a really sweet story and one of my absolute favorite series.

Ok... it seems that everyone has voted for Fruits Basket! must be good then!
Thanks for all the help guys, and esp Mangafanatic for the very long review

Um, Love Hina is...

No one wants to listen to me...

Just kidding. I also suggest Fruits Basket over Love Hina, BUT, if you have the money later, don't disregard it! Love Hina is also really good...not as good as Fruits Basket, but good.

kaemmerite wrote:Um, Love Hina is...

No one wants to listen to me...

. . .uh-- oh! I'm sorry Kae, what were you saying? I wasn't paying attention.

Ashley wrote: Go fruits basket! It's a really sweet story and one of my absolute favorite series.

YAY! The almighty sheperdess has steered her flock well once again!

YAY! The almighty sheperdess has steered her flock well once again!

Well I don't know about "steering". XD

I vote for Fruits Basket! Its sooo cute and really funny. ^^ There's some cussing, tho.

Imagine Ranma 1/2 done by CLAMP and you have Fruits Basket. Anyway, you should also check out any of Rumiko Takahashi's mangas, Please Save My Earth, Cyborg 009, Trigun Maximum, Oh! My Goddess!, Brigadoon, and The Seikai Trilogy.

I haven't read Fruits Basket (will read it later, as ppl says it's good), but Love Hina is one good series...It contains some/a lot of objectionable content, imo, but like it anyway, mostly of the story...*Looking forward to get next book*

Anyway, on the basis of objectionable content, it sounds as u should go for Fruit Basket, but later u should read Love Hina...My recommendation