Fruits Basket (フルーツバスケット) is a shōjo manga series created by Natsuki Takaya (pseudonym, real name unknown) serialized in the bi-weekly Japanese Hana to Yume (Flowers and Dreams) magazine, which is published by Hakusensha. It won the 2001 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo. Fruits Basket is also a 26-episode anime series, adapted from the manga by Akitaro Daichi (director).

The title is often abbreviated as Furuba, from the Japanese pronunciation of "Fruits Basket": "Furuutsu Basuketto". The title is always spelled in the plural.

Story

Fruits Basket follows the life of high school student Tohru Honda, recently orphaned when her mother is killed in a car crash. When we first meet her, she has had to temporarily leave her paternal grandfather's house (as her grandfather's family is moving in, and he needs to remodel) and, unwilling to impose on her friends, is living in a tent in the woods and holding down a job to support herself. Despite suffering many hardships, Tohru remains cheerful and optimistic.

One day, Tohru comes upon a house in the woods which is the home of some young men from the Sohma family, including Yuki Sohma, an admired and worshipped yet aloof boy from her school. Feeling sorry for her, and desperate to end their take-out eating habits and filthy living conditions, the Sohmas offer her their spare room in exchange for cooking and housework. When her tent is buried that night in a landslide, she has no option but to accept.