Fruits Basket: Yuki’s Dark Past

 

Fruits Basket Season 2 has often reminisced about Yuki’s childhood in brisk flashes. There are scenes of the unrecalled and very old meeting of Yuki with Tohru, Yuki pleading for help, Akito losing her mind over the paint in a tatami room that is recapitulated throughout the series without much context. The flashbacks and the recaps are portrayed in much depth in the episode, “There was, Definitely”. Even though Yuki’s story of emotional abuse is tough to go through, it is made much more tolerable by an undisputed reason for hope.

When Yuki was around 5 or 6 years of age, he used to be very unhealthy, frail and shy. This was around the time that his mother gave him up to Akito. His time as Akito’s playmate for the first few months was quite sad, depressing and low-spirited. But when once he was attacked by Akito and treated as just an object of mere merriment, his self-esteem was reduced to that of a hopeless, valueless and despised individual. It is no surprise that Akito makes Yuki flinch whenever she confronts him, and these childhood experiences are the key reason that his dreadful memories are triggered by the sight of paint spills.

The thing that makes the story even more awful and depressing for Yuki was the fact that he did not even know other members of the zodiac. He was yet to meet his very own brother Ayame. It was only when Akito brought him to the first banquet that Yuki met him finally. Even though all the other members of the zodiac too had to go through their share of isolation. But at least they had each other to support themselves, but that was not the case with Yuki. Yuki had only Akito, who despised him.

While roaming outside the banquet, Yuki met Kyo for the very first time. But much to his disappointment, Kyo hated Yuki and blamed the rat for the curse of the cat. Yuki was later told by Akito that, Kyo’s mom had committed suicide wishing that her son was the rat. Traumatized by the death of his mother, Kyo had started hating Yuki and vowed at his mother’s funeral that he would one day kill Yuki and then himself as well. When the very next day, Yuki tried giving Kyo his lost baseball cap back, Kyo refused even to take it back.

Yuki remains without friends and has no hope to hold on to for a very long time. All of this seems to change when he attends school and starts making friends. But as soon as a girl hugs him and he transforms, it becomes unavoidable to take very harsh steps to fix the issue. Hattori decides to erase the memory of all of his classmates; this means that Yuki who had finally had some friends has lost them all over again as they have no memory left of him. Yuki over time becomes very envious of all the other Sohmas since they can at least be friends with each other and support each other.

All of this finally got to him as the despair and pain was too much to bear for him, so he started running. It was then he met Tohru for the first time who was looking for her mother. Without even a second of thought, Yuki starts helping Tohru find his mother. He is able to reunite Tohru’s mother with her, and as a little present gives Tohru the baseball cap that Kyo has refused to take back.

Yuki was utterly lost and in a bad state emotionally. He was even contemplating suicide, but the little help he was able to give Tohru and his mother gave him that little something that he desperately needed to take a step back. By helping Tohru, Yuki helped not just her but himself. If it hadn’t been for the lucky encounter, Yuki’s chances of surviving all the emotional and psychological trauma were meagre. Yuki felt needed and valued by helping someone else out and even though that can’t change the harsh past that he has gone through. But it at least gave him some hope and hope must never die.

Edward Lewis is a creative person who has been writing blogs and articles about cybersecurity. He writes about the latest updates regarding norton.com/setup and how it can improve the work experience of users. His articles have been published in many popular e-magazines, blogs, and websites.

 

Source : Fruits Basket