Fruits Basket, Vol. 1

Tohru Honda has lost her mother. Rather than become a burden to relatives, she pitches a tent on a wooded hillside and keeps attending school as though nothing has happened.

The land belongs to the Sohma family, which includes her classmate Yuki Sohma and his older cousin Shigure. When a landslide wrecks her campsite, the two take her into their home.

Living there means learning the family's secret. Yuki, Shigure and the hot-tempered Kyo are three of thirteen Sohmas possessed by the spirits of the Chinese zodiac. Each turns into his or her animal when embraced by someone of the opposite sex. The curse has kept the family isolated and set apart for as long as any of them can remember.

This first volume lays the emotional groundwork for the series through a memory Tohru keeps revisiting. As a child she was left out of a game based on the zodiac story and given a rice ball instead of an animal. That small exclusion becomes a quiet image of not belonging, and of the found family she begins to form with the Sohmas.