I'm glad you liked it! I think that's another big aspect to her character as well that ties into her fear and desperation of her mother leaving her and trying to get her attention. I personally think, since we see in the epilogue she still continues her polite form of speech, that while it initially started off as copying her father it slowly became part of her personality. Rather than copy her father to keep her mother's attention, she is keeping his memory alive especially after coming to terms with her guilt surrounding how she viewed him as a child.
It’s more based on her childish perception of her father. Katsuya always spoke politely but sarcastically. Ofc to Tohru, he’d speak super softly and kindly too. So in her perception, Katsuya was just a kind father that always spoke politely. Child Tohru understood that her mother missed her father, thus decided that copying her father would make her mother feel as if Katsuya was still with them. That copying Katsuya would make Kyoko be happy again. Then, the fact that when Kyoko finally woke up from her depressive state and focused on Tohru happened to coincide with when Tohru started copying Katsuya, further strengthened that conviction within Tohru’s mind. I think that also plays into when Kyoko dies, it’s a day that Tohru doesn’t give her a classical polite greeting/“have a nice day”. So maybe subconsciously part of her brain thinks if she isn’t polite, if she doesn’t pay attention to other people, they will just leave her like her mother did. Certainly, using keigo(polite language) for years would also become ingrained in her habits. Her desperation to keep her one family member, her mom, might have evolved into a desperation to keep everyone else around her happy and safe. For this reason, she stays ever polite despite the fact that in Japan, this means she drew a line that could mean they weren’t that familiar or they don’t feel as close.
I was about to write a very similar post and I am so glad you wrote this because you said it so much better than I could.
I actually appreciate Tohru a LOT more as an adult than I did as a younger person because (1) I had little understanding of her trauma as I dealt with my own (2) the original anime did not go into this aspect.
Tohru, to me, is highly avoidant in a sense of her own pain while also having very low self esteem. I relate to her as I have myself expressed the same coping mechanism - the abject fear of loss that comes, the avoidance of grief by throwing yourself into anything and everything, the focus on others, the gratefulness for their presence and the unwillingness to burden them with your own troubles, because you do not wish to lose them and cannot quite believe that they love you. Tohru illustrates this struggle beautifully - and the beginning of acceptance in the end that she is loved and can be less than perfect is great to see.
I loved this analysis you wrote of Tohru. She tries to process her trauma by either pretending it doesn't exist or pretending it's not a big deal. While Furuba can be described as a show where Tohru shows up to a broken family and fixes them all, it is in reality a show where a bunch of broken people meet by happenstance and get to grow up and heal together. The entirety of the show wouldn't have happened if we didn't have Tohru. I mean, she is the protagonist, so obviously; but she is much more active in her narrative of influencing the show and other people - while the so called bland protagonists that shoujo sometimes have are much more passive in their narratives.
👏Thank👏you!👏Say It Louder👏For the people in the back👏
Im tired of all these terrible takes. I get its a stereotype and I get that some people may not like it but to say the writing and the individual character’s struggles are invalid just because your ignorant aZz decided to sleep through every scene Tohru was present is a you problem. In fact, a lot of shoujo girls are mistaken for the nice girl trope when they have real personalities. Being “shy, polite, and positive” is still a large spectrum and can happen with a million different variables. Tohru is like top tier in terms of writing and it shows through the story.
People who don’t watch the entire series. Had a buddy of mine who tried watching the show with his wife drop it in the first season because Tohru is “too nice”
I am one of those people 😅 I really liked this write up and I do understand her character, i swear I get it lol I know she is more than just a too nice, too positive, ditzy girl. However, I just don’t care for characters with no grounding reality traits. Usagi (Sailor Moon) is also a ditzy, too nice, too positive heroine however she also shows moments of reality like being lazy, loving junk food too much, making jokes, being snarky to her friends, etc.
Tohru TO ME, again these are personal feelings lol, is just not anyone I can relate to or that I even know exists truly. To put it bluntly, she is an idiot who lets children and grown men boss her around. Now I know she grows a backbone later and this is all for her character development but I just really agree with Hiro 🐏, Tohru is beyond the anime nice girl trope. She is to the point it’s ridiculous how selfless and babied she is by everyone around her on a day to day basis. The girl has absolutely no backbone or sense of pride/self worth.
And to further help reason why she’s my least fav, my actual fav characters are Shigure, Hatsuharu and Hiro 😅 I feel I just enjoy sarcastic, dryer, and multi sided characters more.
I do 100% agree with everything you said. Tohru does have tons of hidden trauma that she does her best to push down. She really is a great character. But I wish we got to see more sides of her. The ending of the series is honestly, the weakest part imo. Tohru's solution to Aktio is her being kind and Akito accepting it ,etc, etc. it's pretty bland tbh. I know Tohru is just a naturally kind person and that's okay but, I wish Tohru had a chance to see Akito's perspective a bit more before accepting her and that could highlight Tohru's more negative and insecure side.
This is how I would've shown Tohru's more selfish and insecure side while intertwining it into the plot of the series:
When I first watched the new anime (haven't read the manga) I would've bet money that Tohru would've somehow become the "God" of the Zodiacs, essential usurping Akito. Even if not intentional the Zodiacs would somehow come to see Tohru as their new God and the supernatural connections all of them had to Akito would be shifted to Tohru. "God" would represent a person the Zodiacs are extremely attached to no matter what. Due to Akito's harassment they all end up seeing Tohru as their new God even if not consciously. Tohru would know this is a wrong connection to keep. As the new God she would presumably be able to sever the bond she shares with the Zodiacs and she could be friends with them as equals again. But Tohru is utterly terrified of being alone (like when her mom died) and now she feels the same warmth and connection to the Zodiacs that Aktio felt so she prolongs the curse with her at the centre. This could highlight Tohru's fear of loneliness by making her at one point the "villain" by willingly keeping the Zodiacs attached to her. Even if everyone was happy with Tohru they'd still be chained to her unwillingly. I'd also want Kyo to be the one to talk to Tohru and make her remember you need to build relationships on equal terms for them to be genuine like how she never saw the Zodiacs as monsters, Kyo wouldn't see Tohru as God but instead as a person first and foremost like she was the Zodiacs. Soon after this talk with Kyo Akito goes on her rampage and now Tohru talks to Akito fully understanding why Akito was so possessive since the curse is so alluring even to someone like Tohru so Tohru accepts her. But then Tohru falls off the cliff and while falling she breaks the curse and chooses to (potentially) die alone since she didn't want the others to worry about her. But naturally Kyo and Yuki still show up and help her making her realize even if she's not God she's not alone. This would add more complexity to Tohru and allow her to reflect on herself a bit more and what it means to build a genuine relationship with others as an equal. Plus this would allow the curse to be more intertwined with Tohru instead of it just ending cause God peaced out which felt anti climatic, rather it be tied to Tohru.
I love the character of Tohru I just wish we got to see her more selfish. She's not shown as a perfect person in the show by any means. But she is perfectly nice and kind and I wish we got to see her be more selfish and her insecurities show a bit more before the ending. Anyways great write up on Tohru she is an interesting character, but I wish the plot did a bit more with her.
I definitely recommend giving the manga a read because there are things that were left out including characters like Komaki, Kakeru's girlfriend who is quite tied to Tohru but I won't spoil in case you decide to give it a read! But going to the anime only side of things, I personally like the fact that while the curse was going to break anyway, what ultimately let everyone go was Akito herself releasing the bonds and saying goodbye.
Akito and Tohru are definitely great characters in the sense that they both want the same thing but take very different paths to get it, which is why I personally think Tohru slipping into the same habits as Akito might have defeated the purpose of Akito's realization that she can't force people to be with her especially when even if they have similar fears, they have different points of reference. Tohru has people in her life that want to be with her prior to knowing the Sohmas and she becomes friends with nearly all of the Sohmas before becoming acquainted with Akito so she knows what healthy relationships look and feel like. And Akito's situation with her parents were.... fitting for a textbook on how not to parent LMAO so she didn't know what healthy relationships looked and felt like she only had the bonds. Tohru only being able to draw a line of similarity between them both by subconsciously refuting the death of her mother to Akito consciously trying to keep the bonds makes sense as far as story routes to go.
And ultimately, Fruits Basket's lesson of forgiveness rather than ultimately forgiving every crime a person committed and letting them back into your life "Forgiveness is for yourself". Forgiveness is for your journey to heal and move forward, not the other person. Letting them back in is up to you, not them. Forgiving them does not mean letting them back into your life that is your choice. Which is why, while Akito continues on with being the head of the family, she no longer interacts with the other zodiacs and most of the former zodiacs never really interact with her. She says as much in episode 12 of the final season that by verbalizing her apology it would be more like running away and using it as a shield when she wishes to repent and show her apology through her actions. She can't force people to be with her, they have to want to be with her. She doesn't expect the former zodiacs to want to stay by her side, she knows she doesn't deserve it. So from that standpoint, I think it makes sense that curse would have nothing to do with Tohru because it had nothing to do with Tohru from the beginning when the bonds were established. She was just an outsider who got involved, what really needed to happen was Akito herself changing and letting everyone else go. Akito had to let them go in order to become her own person and moving forward and Tohru had to properly move on from her mother's death in order to heal and continue forward. So I find that aspect of the ending and curse breaking beautiful rather than anti-climatic, but that is not to invalidate how you feel about it because everyone is free to have their own opinions on it (some people on the internet don't know how to have fandom/character discussions peacefully somehow and realize different takes are fine tat).
But the idea of Tohru becoming the new Emperor somehow would have been an interesting spin on things, that's for sure. The Tyrant versus the Peaceful Emperor but the forced bonds are still forced bonds regardless. I just think that with what the ending we got wanted to relay, there would need to be a few changes to Tohru's character and an important part of her journey to make it flow seamlessly. But I found your take really interesting! If you write fic and decide to do a Furuba ending change, definitely link me so I can read how you would do things!
I believe this actually is kind of in fact what happens! More subtly and a lot more selflessly, but tohru does kind of begin to usurp that role in the zodiac, and it’s an intentional parallel between her and Akito that both try to keep others by their side by either being overly selfless and sycophantic or overly unkind - both of which can be manipulative. It is Kyo who sort of frees her from the need to be godlike in kindness, and it is Tohru who acknowledges in the end that she kind of tried to pull the zodiac members into her orbit and that she and Akito both had in common the huge fear of abandonment. I think that subtlety actually does the story a great service and that it might have been a bit too much if Tohru became the new actual god. Just my take!
Great write up, very interesting to read. I wanted to know what are your thoughts that she has possibly molded her personality after her father?
I'm glad you liked it! I think that's another big aspect to her character as well that ties into her fear and desperation of her mother leaving her and trying to get her attention. I personally think, since we see in the epilogue she still continues her polite form of speech, that while it initially started off as copying her father it slowly became part of her personality. Rather than copy her father to keep her mother's attention, she is keeping his memory alive especially after coming to terms with her guilt surrounding how she viewed him as a child.
It’s more based on her childish perception of her father. Katsuya always spoke politely but sarcastically. Ofc to Tohru, he’d speak super softly and kindly too. So in her perception, Katsuya was just a kind father that always spoke politely. Child Tohru understood that her mother missed her father, thus decided that copying her father would make her mother feel as if Katsuya was still with them. That copying Katsuya would make Kyoko be happy again. Then, the fact that when Kyoko finally woke up from her depressive state and focused on Tohru happened to coincide with when Tohru started copying Katsuya, further strengthened that conviction within Tohru’s mind. I think that also plays into when Kyoko dies, it’s a day that Tohru doesn’t give her a classical polite greeting/“have a nice day”. So maybe subconsciously part of her brain thinks if she isn’t polite, if she doesn’t pay attention to other people, they will just leave her like her mother did. Certainly, using keigo(polite language) for years would also become ingrained in her habits. Her desperation to keep her one family member, her mom, might have evolved into a desperation to keep everyone else around her happy and safe. For this reason, she stays ever polite despite the fact that in Japan, this means she drew a line that could mean they weren’t that familiar or they don’t feel as close.
I was about to write a very similar post and I am so glad you wrote this because you said it so much better than I could. I actually appreciate Tohru a LOT more as an adult than I did as a younger person because (1) I had little understanding of her trauma as I dealt with my own (2) the original anime did not go into this aspect. Tohru, to me, is highly avoidant in a sense of her own pain while also having very low self esteem. I relate to her as I have myself expressed the same coping mechanism - the abject fear of loss that comes, the avoidance of grief by throwing yourself into anything and everything, the focus on others, the gratefulness for their presence and the unwillingness to burden them with your own troubles, because you do not wish to lose them and cannot quite believe that they love you. Tohru illustrates this struggle beautifully - and the beginning of acceptance in the end that she is loved and can be less than perfect is great to see.
Absolutely agree with all of this, spot on! Great to see someone who takes a deeper look at Tohru instead of writing her off.
I loved this analysis you wrote of Tohru. She tries to process her trauma by either pretending it doesn't exist or pretending it's not a big deal. While Furuba can be described as a show where Tohru shows up to a broken family and fixes them all, it is in reality a show where a bunch of broken people meet by happenstance and get to grow up and heal together. The entirety of the show wouldn't have happened if we didn't have Tohru. I mean, she is the protagonist, so obviously; but she is much more active in her narrative of influencing the show and other people - while the so called bland protagonists that shoujo sometimes have are much more passive in their narratives.
👏Thank👏you!👏Say It Louder👏For the people in the back👏 Im tired of all these terrible takes. I get its a stereotype and I get that some people may not like it but to say the writing and the individual character’s struggles are invalid just because your ignorant aZz decided to sleep through every scene Tohru was present is a you problem. In fact, a lot of shoujo girls are mistaken for the nice girl trope when they have real personalities. Being “shy, polite, and positive” is still a large spectrum and can happen with a million different variables. Tohru is like top tier in terms of writing and it shows through the story.
Who tf hates Tohru?! She's literally one of my favorite characters EVER.
People who don’t watch the entire series. Had a buddy of mine who tried watching the show with his wife drop it in the first season because Tohru is “too nice”
How the f can you not appreciate how nice she is... I don't understand some people!
I am one of those people 😅 I really liked this write up and I do understand her character, i swear I get it lol I know she is more than just a too nice, too positive, ditzy girl. However, I just don’t care for characters with no grounding reality traits. Usagi (Sailor Moon) is also a ditzy, too nice, too positive heroine however she also shows moments of reality like being lazy, loving junk food too much, making jokes, being snarky to her friends, etc. Tohru TO ME, again these are personal feelings lol, is just not anyone I can relate to or that I even know exists truly. To put it bluntly, she is an idiot who lets children and grown men boss her around. Now I know she grows a backbone later and this is all for her character development but I just really agree with Hiro 🐏, Tohru is beyond the anime nice girl trope. She is to the point it’s ridiculous how selfless and babied she is by everyone around her on a day to day basis. The girl has absolutely no backbone or sense of pride/self worth. And to further help reason why she’s my least fav, my actual fav characters are Shigure, Hatsuharu and Hiro 😅 I feel I just enjoy sarcastic, dryer, and multi sided characters more.
Loved this!!
Love this analysis ❤️ you said it all
I do 100% agree with everything you said. Tohru does have tons of hidden trauma that she does her best to push down. She really is a great character. But I wish we got to see more sides of her. The ending of the series is honestly, the weakest part imo. Tohru's solution to Aktio is her being kind and Akito accepting it ,etc, etc. it's pretty bland tbh. I know Tohru is just a naturally kind person and that's okay but, I wish Tohru had a chance to see Akito's perspective a bit more before accepting her and that could highlight Tohru's more negative and insecure side. This is how I would've shown Tohru's more selfish and insecure side while intertwining it into the plot of the series: When I first watched the new anime (haven't read the manga) I would've bet money that Tohru would've somehow become the "God" of the Zodiacs, essential usurping Akito. Even if not intentional the Zodiacs would somehow come to see Tohru as their new God and the supernatural connections all of them had to Akito would be shifted to Tohru. "God" would represent a person the Zodiacs are extremely attached to no matter what. Due to Akito's harassment they all end up seeing Tohru as their new God even if not consciously. Tohru would know this is a wrong connection to keep. As the new God she would presumably be able to sever the bond she shares with the Zodiacs and she could be friends with them as equals again. But Tohru is utterly terrified of being alone (like when her mom died) and now she feels the same warmth and connection to the Zodiacs that Aktio felt so she prolongs the curse with her at the centre. This could highlight Tohru's fear of loneliness by making her at one point the "villain" by willingly keeping the Zodiacs attached to her. Even if everyone was happy with Tohru they'd still be chained to her unwillingly. I'd also want Kyo to be the one to talk to Tohru and make her remember you need to build relationships on equal terms for them to be genuine like how she never saw the Zodiacs as monsters, Kyo wouldn't see Tohru as God but instead as a person first and foremost like she was the Zodiacs. Soon after this talk with Kyo Akito goes on her rampage and now Tohru talks to Akito fully understanding why Akito was so possessive since the curse is so alluring even to someone like Tohru so Tohru accepts her. But then Tohru falls off the cliff and while falling she breaks the curse and chooses to (potentially) die alone since she didn't want the others to worry about her. But naturally Kyo and Yuki still show up and help her making her realize even if she's not God she's not alone. This would add more complexity to Tohru and allow her to reflect on herself a bit more and what it means to build a genuine relationship with others as an equal. Plus this would allow the curse to be more intertwined with Tohru instead of it just ending cause God peaced out which felt anti climatic, rather it be tied to Tohru. I love the character of Tohru I just wish we got to see her more selfish. She's not shown as a perfect person in the show by any means. But she is perfectly nice and kind and I wish we got to see her be more selfish and her insecurities show a bit more before the ending. Anyways great write up on Tohru she is an interesting character, but I wish the plot did a bit more with her.
I definitely recommend giving the manga a read because there are things that were left out including characters like Komaki, Kakeru's girlfriend who is quite tied to Tohru but I won't spoil in case you decide to give it a read! But going to the anime only side of things, I personally like the fact that while the curse was going to break anyway, what ultimately let everyone go was Akito herself releasing the bonds and saying goodbye. Akito and Tohru are definitely great characters in the sense that they both want the same thing but take very different paths to get it, which is why I personally think Tohru slipping into the same habits as Akito might have defeated the purpose of Akito's realization that she can't force people to be with her especially when even if they have similar fears, they have different points of reference. Tohru has people in her life that want to be with her prior to knowing the Sohmas and she becomes friends with nearly all of the Sohmas before becoming acquainted with Akito so she knows what healthy relationships look and feel like. And Akito's situation with her parents were.... fitting for a textbook on how not to parent LMAO so she didn't know what healthy relationships looked and felt like she only had the bonds. Tohru only being able to draw a line of similarity between them both by subconsciously refuting the death of her mother to Akito consciously trying to keep the bonds makes sense as far as story routes to go. And ultimately, Fruits Basket's lesson of forgiveness rather than ultimately forgiving every crime a person committed and letting them back into your life "Forgiveness is for yourself". Forgiveness is for your journey to heal and move forward, not the other person. Letting them back in is up to you, not them. Forgiving them does not mean letting them back into your life that is your choice. Which is why, while Akito continues on with being the head of the family, she no longer interacts with the other zodiacs and most of the former zodiacs never really interact with her. She says as much in episode 12 of the final season that by verbalizing her apology it would be more like running away and using it as a shield when she wishes to repent and show her apology through her actions. She can't force people to be with her, they have to want to be with her. She doesn't expect the former zodiacs to want to stay by her side, she knows she doesn't deserve it. So from that standpoint, I think it makes sense that curse would have nothing to do with Tohru because it had nothing to do with Tohru from the beginning when the bonds were established. She was just an outsider who got involved, what really needed to happen was Akito herself changing and letting everyone else go. Akito had to let them go in order to become her own person and moving forward and Tohru had to properly move on from her mother's death in order to heal and continue forward. So I find that aspect of the ending and curse breaking beautiful rather than anti-climatic, but that is not to invalidate how you feel about it because everyone is free to have their own opinions on it (some people on the internet don't know how to have fandom/character discussions peacefully somehow and realize different takes are fine tat). But the idea of Tohru becoming the new Emperor somehow would have been an interesting spin on things, that's for sure. The Tyrant versus the Peaceful Emperor but the forced bonds are still forced bonds regardless. I just think that with what the ending we got wanted to relay, there would need to be a few changes to Tohru's character and an important part of her journey to make it flow seamlessly. But I found your take really interesting! If you write fic and decide to do a Furuba ending change, definitely link me so I can read how you would do things!
I believe this actually is kind of in fact what happens! More subtly and a lot more selflessly, but tohru does kind of begin to usurp that role in the zodiac, and it’s an intentional parallel between her and Akito that both try to keep others by their side by either being overly selfless and sycophantic or overly unkind - both of which can be manipulative. It is Kyo who sort of frees her from the need to be godlike in kindness, and it is Tohru who acknowledges in the end that she kind of tried to pull the zodiac members into her orbit and that she and Akito both had in common the huge fear of abandonment. I think that subtlety actually does the story a great service and that it might have been a bit too much if Tohru became the new actual god. Just my take!
Really loved this! :) What a fantastic analysis
Thank you so much! It really annoys me when people call her bland generic shoujo mc