Fruits Basket

Fruits Basket is a manga series (Manga are sort of like the Japanese equivalent of our comic books, where the story is told through images) about a young girl named Tohru Honda who is orphaned, and finds herself through an unusual series of circumstances living with a couple of members of the Soma Family, Yuki and Kyo are two of them.  The Soma family is fairly well-to-do, and quite large.  Over the course of the story, Tohru meets several cousins and other relatives.

The Soma family is keeping a secret - which Tohru learns - each one turns into an animal of the Chinese Zodiac when hugged by a member of the opposite sex!  How embarrassing!!  As the story evolves, we learn there is a story of the Chinese Zodiac about the cat (which is NOT one of the animals of the zodiac, however it is the animal that Kyo turns into. 

Why this curse afflicts them isn't made entirely clear in the anime, but my understand is tha the manga tells the story much better and expands many themes that were glossed over or omitted in the anime, probably due to time constraints.

This is one of my favorite anime series, because its so funny to see Tohru coping with the eccentric members of the Soma family, and helping Kyo deal with his anger at being the outcast (because he is the Cat).  The anime concludes with an emotional transformation and yet still leaves many questions unanswered.

I have the complete 4-disc DVD set, and my daughter has some of the Manga.  One of these days when I have the time (how many time have I said THAT, I know) I want to read the Manga series to see how the story really ends.