History Manga / FruitsBasket

* EveryoneCanSeeIt: By about the two-thirds mark, practically everyone who has any perception at all (including classmates who barely know their names) can see that Kyo and Tohru are in love with each other...[[TwiceShy except for the two of them]], of course.

* AnAesop: The main theme throughout the series is how you are never [[EntitledToHaveYou entitled to someone's love]]. If you try to trap someone in a bond with you, it will eventually become nothing more than a chain that restricts both parties. Even the Sohma curse is an example of this.
** Kagura [[SelfProclaimedLoveInterest insists that she and Kyo are engaged]] and pursues him very aggressively, but all that does is make Kyo afraid of her and resistant to her advances. After Kagura confesses her reasons for falling for Kyo, and Kyo tells her in no uncertain terms that he'll never love her that way, she's able to let him go.
** The Prince Yuki Fanclub members (especially Motoko, the president) believe that no one should date Yuki so they can continue to idolize him from afar, and they always act obnoxious about it before being shot down in some way. Megumi even calls Motoko out on this, telling her that she and the other club members shouldn't act as though Yuki has no right to like someone else just because she has a crush on him.
** Akito believes herself to be entitled to all the Zodiac members' adoration (especially the men), since her father told her that as the "God" of the Zodiac, she was "born to be loved" and no one would ever leave her. As a result, she physically and emotionally abuses the Zodiac members so they won't abandon her, but they all find their way out of her hands on some level [[spoiler:culminating in their curses breaking at the end of the story, meaning they're no longer obligated to stay with her]].
** Meanwhile, Tohru is kindhearted enough to accept that Kyo's not ready to be with her right as she confesses, while still admitting to herself that she's in love with him. Kyo himself figures out he loves Tohru long before she confesses, and while at first he [[InsecureLoveInterest doesn't feel worthy of her]] for various reasons, eventually he confesses to her too.

* OverlyGenerousFool: After Yuki and Kyo get frustrated that Tohru used most of her weekly pay to buy them all Valentine's treats, wishing she wouldn't be "an idiot", Momiji tells them a story he heard in class:
** The story about the Foolish Traveler, a young man who gives everything of himself to greedy passersby when they ask for help, appears to play the trope straight. The Traveler gives the clothes off his back, his money, and eventually his body until he is nothing left but a head. When a monster asks of his eyes and he obliges, the monster cruelly leaves him a slip of paper calling him a fool.
** Momiji, however, deconstructs this, arguing the traveler was not foolish, he simply didn't fret about loss or hardship, consciously choosing to give and make others happy, whether they deserve it or not. The fault is on the passersby for not appreciating this. He does this to evoke a parallel to Tohru's kindness, so that Yuki and Kyo will show their appreciation instead of thinking her foolish. It works.

* AgeGapRomance: [[WordOfGod Takaya has said]] she [[AuthorAppeal likes age gap romances]].

** The one born in the year of the Ox? Yeah, don't call him a "dumb ox," or bring up how he was tricked in the story.
** Best way to set Akito off? Be a [[spoiler: male]] Zodiac member who wants to leave the family or become romantically involved with someone; or be an outsider who wants to enter a relationship with a Zodiac member. Akito will ''wreck'' you. (Or your loved one.)

* CompressedAdaptation: The third and final season of the second anime series adapts the last seven volumes of the manga into only thirteen episodes. Unsurprisingly, many scenes from the manga were shortened or removed entirely.

* CreepyCrossdresser: [[spoiler:Akito]] in the manga, prior to her HeelFaceTurn.

* PosthumousCharacter: Kyoko Honda.

* {{Tsundere}}:
** Kyo is a male example.
** Kagura is a straight Type B example.
** [[spoiler:Before having her mental breakdown, Akito was one. When Yuki looks back on those times, he remembers Akito yelling at him for coughing too much, then calming down and gently picking up a bowl that fell over.]]

* WholesomeCrossdresser: Ritsu Sohma.

* WTHCastingAgency: In-universe obvious example. Playing "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" at the school festival? Fantastic idea! Tohru will be perfect in the role of... What do you mean, she was cast as the mean stepsister? PrinceCharming Kyo has no chance of rejecting the stepsister, in this case.
** And when the characters realize it, instead of switching a few actors, they completely warp the story so it fits the actors personality. At the end of the play, we have actually no idea what was part of the rewriting, what was the actors going OffTheRails.

* OtherworldlyTechnicolourHair: {{Downplayed}}. Sohmas with the curse of the Zodiac are possessed by animal spirits and turn into those animals when touched by the opposite sex or weakened. Many are marked with hair colors unnatural to Japanese people but natural to the animals whose spirits they possess, which means they get accused of being hair-dyeing delinquents frequently in school. Haru is perhaps the most extreme, as his hair grows half-black, half-white (even, it's implied, in his private areas).

** [[spoiler: A later bonus chapter released with the final season of the anime has a somehwat-older Shiki all-but telling Sawa that he intends to marry her.]]

** [[spoiler: A later bonus chapter released with the anime has a somehwat-older Shiki all-but telling Sawa that he intends to marry her.]]

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The main family name for the cursed Zodiac members is spelled "Sohma" in the first anime and both translations of the manga, and "Soma" in the 2019 anime.

* ApologizesALot: So much that it's almost a CatchPhrase for poor Sawa.

* TheClan: Well, the Sohmas.

* PuppyLove: Hiro and Kisa Sohma.

*** Kyo, whose dad [[spoiler: blames him for his mom to committing suicide, despite how it was ''his'' abusing her for giving birth to the cat that drove her to it. She in turn kept Kyo from going outside and pretended to love his true form when she didn't, until she couldn't pretend anymore and killed herself]].

* TheThingThatGoesDoink: A shishi-odoshi was added in the 2019 anime version of Tohru's visit to Hatori's house on the Soma estate, just to underscore that it is a traditional and wealthy Japanese family.

** This is how Hatori feels in regards to Hana after he's forced to wipe her memory, telling God that he'll be frozen and heartbroken for the rest of his life if it means that she'll be happy.

* JerkToNiceGuyPlot: When the series begins, Akito is a {{Yandere}} SpoiledBrat who abuses the Zodiac members in horrific ways to get them to stay with and love her. By the end, she has undergone a HeelFaceTurn who acknowledges that there's people who won't like her, becoming a much kinder person. Best shown [[spoiler:during her and Tohru's climactic confrontation: when Tohru falls off the cliff shortly after offering her friendship, rather than gloat or smirk, Akito breaks down in tears and ''screams'' for someone to help her.]]

* InnocentCohabitation: Tohru Honda and three male members of the Sohma family.