One thing I find very amusing about fruits basket is that although we very often comment on how Kyo and Tohru are like, deconstructions of some classic shoujo archetypes ( the gentle girl, the tsundere boy) i dont see the fact yuki is also a big subversion of the ‘charming prince’ type being discussed as much? Like, really think of it for a moment.
The guy starts off as like, the sparkly, polite school prince type and everyone wants to know him carnally. He’s flirty, sweet and seems to be somewhat pursuing Tohru from the start. He’s also got this weird fanclub, also pretty common for the archetype, very jokey but ‘normal’. And then he’s got this vulnerable, lonely side which is sold as ‘unexpected’ but its still fairly predictable for this sort of character, cool. Great. So you have all this, and you probably start thinking this is more or less we’ll get from him during the manga but like NOPE. This is the fucking tip of the yuki iceberg and hes actually so much more WEIRD. Because the more you find out about his character origins and his backstory, the more it recontextualizes his behaviour in a tragic but also incredibly funny way LIKE
He is the early 2000′s japanese equivalent of a sickly victorian girl, if she were raised in a cult, and also happened to be possessed by the spirit of a mouse. Literally every fricking yuki fact sounds insane. Like, yes growing up sheltered is expected, but not in the hyper specifc scenario of being sold to the main branch of your evil cult family clan, and being assigned playmate of the worlds most evil 12 years old. Yes he had mysterious respiratory diseases. Yes he was plagued by visions of death. Yes, his most consistent childhood friends were two of his fucked up cursed cousins - ONE WHO DID NOT EVEN LIKE HIM. And then you’re like, ok, that’s a lot, but im sure that can recouncile with the Yuki we know today- NO!! There’s more!!
Because before you can make sense of that, theres also the overwhelming evidence that his way of coping with this was not only moving in with his unreliable straight cousin, but also mimicking his self centered social butterfly older brother for everything!! Think of it!! Where did he learn to put up that princely act!! Who could he have possibly gotten it from!! This mf lived half of his life surrounded by socially inept children and evil old ladies!! It has to be Ayame!! So you’re looking at little yuki, getting his first fricking chance in the real world and literally his first thought is I Need To Be Liked and his only parameter for that is his self centered evil older brother!! So this little guy whose literally only friends are his mentally scarred distant cousins tries to put up a persona which he thinks will make him likeable, and accidentaly speedruns his way to the top of the school’s social pyramid!! Fuck!! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!!
So by the time he actually meets Tohru he’s so deep into this shit he literally has no paramater of how to interact with her outside of either his sickly victorian girl self, or the toned down version of Ayame he constructed for his outside world life!! And this is incredibly funny and tragic because he’s literally friends with her for month before his mind starts going like ‘I feel some form of affection for this girl who moved into my house.’ and it IMMEDIATELY jumps to I MUST BE DESPERATELY IN LOVE WITH HER. So he plays the fucking part!! SDUHFSFD Every time Yuki flirts with Tohru before the mommy confession is literally just his brain going ‘ i care her’ but having no other way to express it other than court her like a fucking shoujo character. Yes, it’s sad compulsive heterosexuality and pretty tragic when put into context, but it’s also hilarious!! dhufshudf Little boy makes one female friend and is so unequipped to deal with it he fucking roleplays being in love with her.
so yeah just *sighs dreamingly* yuki, man…
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
prguitarman
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
