Fruit Basket

Fruit Basket is a shojo anime and manga and the main character is Tohru Honda. She is an orphan of both parents, who has lived in a tent camp in the woods since her paternal grandfather asked her to find a new home while her house was being renovated. When invited to live by her classmate, Yuki Soma, and her cousins, Kyo and Shigure, she accidentally discovers that these and all the family members are affected by a curse that, when hugged by a person of the opposite sex, they transform into Chinese zodiac animals. Convinced to live with them as long as she does not reveal the secret to anyone, Tohru begins to meet one after another the various members of the Soma family and decides to work to lift the curse, more cruel than she thinks.

Than there is Yuki Soma, the mouse of the Chinese zodiac, he is 16-18 years old. Attractive and reserved, he has many admirers, but hardly makes friends. As a child, his mother entrusted him to Akito, who kept him separate from the others and told him that everyone hated him: for this reason, Yuki does not have much confidence in himself and feels isolated. This feeling is also accentuated by Motoko Minagawa, president of the school fan club dedicated to him, who protects him from other fans. Yuki hopes he can have friends rather than being admired by everyone, and he envies the carefree behavior that Kyo and Kakeru Manabe have with others. The boy also had a traumatic childhood: Akito, in fact, erased the memory of a little girl who had touched him, transforming him into a mouse, and of all his friends, who thus forgot, of him.

The boy is moved when Tohru, faced with the prospect that his memory may be erased because he has discovered the secret of the Soma, asks him to remain his friend, something that no one had ever asked him.
Thanks to Tohru's help, Yuki gradually manages to express her feelings and falls in love with the boy, realizing, however, that in her he was only looking for a mother figure. As he is the mouse, Yuki naturally hates the cat, Kyo, even though she envies him, but in the end the two become friends.
Later, Yuki falls in love with Machi Kuragi, treasurer of the student council: when the boy learns that Kyo will declare himself to Tohru, Yuki meets Machi and hugs him, but does not transform because of the curse, after Kyo's declaration, she's missing.

In the last chapter, there is Kyo Soma. He is the cat, he is not part of the signs of the Chinese zodiac because, according to a legend, the mouse deceived him, telling him that the feast of the God to which all the animals had to go was another day. He is 16-18 years old and a charismatic but highly competitive boy.
Being the cat, Kyo hates Yuki, the mouse, having the impression that everything is easy for him. Shortly before the story begins, Kyo made a bet with Akito: if he managed to defeat Yuki before graduation, he would be admitted into the zodiac; however, if he failed, he would be confined to his home for the rest of his life. The rivalry between the two boys doesn't like Tohru, who loves both of them and cares about them. At the beginning of the story, Kyo moves into Shigure's house with Yuki and Tohru. When he was little, his mother died in an accident that some think is suicide and, after being estranged from his father, Kyo is cared for by Kazuma, whom he loves as a father. The man, however, insists that he continue living with Shigure because he is convinced that Tohru is helping him to open up.

If you want to know how the story goes on, wait for next week's article!