Fruits Basket (2022) Plot Summary Explained

When high school student Tohru Honda's mother dies in a car accident, Tohru is taken in by her grandfather. A few months later, her grandfather decides to remodel his house and asks Tohru if she can stay with one of her friends until it is finished. Not wanting to impose on her two best friends, Tohru buys a tent and begins living in a forest near her school.

While exploring one day, Tohru discovers a nearby home where her popular classmate Yuki Sohma lives with his cousin Shigure. Soon after, a landslide destroys her tent and the Sohmas invite Tohru to move into their house. As Yuki and Shigure show Tohru her new room, they are interrupted by Kyo Sohma, Yuki and Shigure's cousin, who crashes through the ceiling and challenges Yuki to a fight.

Tohru tries to stop him, and—accidentally falling into him—causes him to transform into a cat in front of her, discovering the Sohma family curse; that twelve members of the family, excluding Kyo, are possessed by the spirits of the Chinese zodiac (十二支, Jūnishi), and turn into their zodiac animal when they are weak, under stress, embarrassed, or when hugged by someone of the opposite gender. Kyo is possessed by the cat who was excluded from the zodiac, and is cursed to be similarly bullied and abused by the clan.

When Tohru discovers the Sohma family secret, she promises not to tell anyone, and is allowed to keep living with them. Although the Sohma curse stretches far deeper and darker than Tohru initially thinks, her presence and her acceptance of them soon become a large, positive influence on those possessed by the zodiac. She sets out to break the curse and, on the way, meets and discovers the Sohma's vengeful zodiac spirits, including their leader, Akito, who occupies the position of "God" in the Chinese legend, and who both keeps the family together and chains them to their spirits.