Fruits basket..... A must see..... A must read

It’s a series of Japanese anime that I have been lately watching its episodes and reading its books. It is like a typical anime, where everyone has big eyes that fill three quarters of their faces and small sharp noses, however it is quite different from any anime I have watched before. So in other words quite different than Captain Maged and Mazennger. I know this might be shocking to some of you especially if you pay attention to the age issue. However, trust me on this one and please allow me to go on.



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Yes, it is a cartoon and yes I think it is meant to address teenagers mostly. Yet it’s the most spectacular thing I have seen in a long time, simply because it makes me very happy. I know you are saying, “She must have gone crazy, or may be she is having an adolescent attack… etc.” But please trust me on this one and give it a try.

I recommend watching the episodes before reading the books as the music has a great effect in understanding what I say. Also if you can get the Japanese version with the English subtitles would be much better the English dubbed version as the sounds and patterns of speech in Japanese gives it lots of its magic. However if you can’t get access to the show itself, get the books. They will still do the job.

Have you ever been in paradise? That is actually how I feel when I watch or read those. If you forget the fact that it is an anime and pass beyond the idea that it might be an extremely childish thing to do, then you will really see what I – and lots of others in different ages - have seen in it.



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The main theme of the story is how to accept the other self, how to learn to live with it however different it is, how to cherish oneself with all it’s faults, how to keep trying to stand even when you keep falling, how to forgive and how to love, how to move along and how to progress, how to be optimistic and how to see beauty in everything or everyone even when things around are not that great and even when everything is really against every positive thought.

I won’t tell you the details but briefly it is about an orphan high school girl who ends up staying with a family that she later discovers are cursed and their fate is doomed. It develops with this girl entering into everyone’s life in this family, changing their perspective towards it and bringing up beauty in it.

Just try it out and pay attention to the words they say as the beauty mostly lies in the meaning of these words. I don’t know how it does it but you watch it and all of a sudden you feel happy, satisfied and in peace. Although sometimes it may bring tears to your eyes but somewhere in it, with all the humor, the emotions, the love and the principles in it, at the end, it definitely brings a smile to your face.

Living in a dream

A very weird feeling after all these years…
A feeling that I thought I couldn’t have any more…
A feeling I thought I am too old to have…
The feeling that you have when you go to a trip with your best friends and laugh nonstop…
Or when you spend hours reading a book so close to your heart…
The feeling you have when you get so much involved in an imaginary series or a magical movie…
Or when you watch sunrise on the beach with someone who is so dear…
That feeling that fills your heart with magic and lifts your spirit up to the sky…
That feeling that happens in only one place, in fairy tales….
That feeling of living in a dream!!
Then suddenly, you come back home, the book ends, the movie finishes, or evening comes.
Suddenly, you open your eyes and wake up…
Suddenly, you realize it is not real or it is not there anymore…
It is a memory, a dream and it does not exist.
But this can’t be true. It was so real that you were living in it.
You panic and tears roll from your eyes and you feel pain squeezing your heart.
You realize that you need to face the truth, the facts, face your life that although not bad you still wanted it to be like the dream.
Then you think…
May be it’s not bad after all, even if they were not real…
Those memories, those dreams are there to help you, to support you, to keep you going…
To shield you from the sorrow in the world…
To draw a smile on your face when grumpy faces are all what you meet…
To help you go through it all.
So you wipe your tears and raise your head up high to look at the sun or watch the bird…
And tell yourself thank God I have a place to run to whenever I need to find happiness and purity...
Thank God for being able, even for just a few moments, to live in a dream.