Akito Sohma (God)
Voiced by: Murasaki Wakaba (adult), Yuka Imai (child) (2001 series), Junko Minagawa (The Last Story Voice Comic), Maaya Sakamoto (2019 Series) (JP), Chad Cline (adult), Aaron Dismuke (child) (2001 series), Colleen Clinkenbeard (adult), Trina Nishimura (child) (2019 series) (EN), Marisol Romero (LA)
The head of the Sohma family, representing the God who commands the Zodiac (known as the Jade Emperor in Chinese culture). Despite her frail health, Akito is short-tempered, controlling, and abusive as a result of her crippling abandonment issues, and is in some way responsible for many of the issues currently plaguing the family.
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- Adaptational Nice Guy: Not really a "nice guy", but Akito in the 2001 anime has a moment in Hatori's backstory where, after slashing Hatori's eyes by mistake in his furious thrashing, he sees Hatori reeling in pain and asks him what has happened in worry, realizing what he'd done without meaning to though still shifting the blame to Kana. Whereas in the manga and 2019 anime, Akito immediately jumps to crying that it's Kana's fault that Hatori will go blind without even sparing a glance at Hatori's pain.
- All Take and No Give: This is what Akito's relationship with Kureno is all about. Kureno is the only one in the Zodiac who obeys Akito without any reluctance and gives her all his attention even though he's no longer forced to by the curse since it broke for him years ago. Akito keeps Kureno with her at all times and doesn't want him to interact with anyone else or go anywhere without her permission. Shigure calls Kureno out on how him doing anything Akito wants from him despite his curse breaking only made Akito worse as a person as she still thinks she can get away with expecting to be loved by others while giving nothing but abuse and spite in return.
- All That Glitters: Akito was told that a small black box contained her father's soul. It didn't.
- Animal Motifs: Subverted in the manga and 2019 anime, played with in the 2001 anime—early on, she's frequently shown with birds. Small birds perching on her hand/shoulder, fluttering over her estate, laying dead in her room with the strong implication that she killed them etc. While this motif makes the readers (and Tohru) assume that Akito is the Rooster, it turns out that the birds were actually Kureno's animal motif, and Akito presumably keeps them around because they remind her of him. In the 2001 anime, Kureno isn't present at all, but it's made very clear that Akito is not the rooster...
- Anti-Villain: Akito acts the part of a villain to the younger Sohma family members for her immensely cruel and manipulative treatment of them. The latter part of the series makes clear Akito's apparently evil actions are motivated by a fear of abandonment and a huge Inferiority Superiority Complex caused by being deprived of a normal childhood because of her status as the Zodiac "God", her mother being a spiteful and unstable woman who hates her for getting more attention from the family than her, and the Sohma retainers enabling her abusive behavior. After she realizes her abuse of the Zodiac only drove them away from her and Tohru offers her friendship, Akito chooses to become a better person.
- The Atoner: At the end of the series, with Tohru's help, Akito realizes what a monster she had become and how cruel her treatment of the Zodiac members really was and resolves to better herself, even if she acknowledges that her actions were unforgivable and mere words aren't enough to make for it.
- Attention Whore: Akito will never accept that the Zodiac members even consider giving some attention to anyone other than her. This stems from her father Akira telling her at a young age that as the God of the Zodiac, she was "born to be loved" and no one would ever leave her; things only got worse after Akira died, giving Akito intense codependency and abandonment issues.
- Authority in Name Only: Played With. As head of the Sohma family and God of the Zodiac, Akito does have the genuine loyalty of the maids, but it's made clear the Zodiac only stay with and follow her orders because the curse forces them to. The point is proven when Momiji is freed from the curse; unlike Kureno, who ultimately couldn't bring himself to abandon Akito even after his curse broke, Momiji doesn't hesitate to rebuff Akito's pleas and leave her, calling her weak and pitiful while wondering why he ever let her dominate his life in the first place.
- Ax-Crazy: Someone who beats the crap out of a child and pushes a woman out of a window for having a boyfriend is definitely not the epitome of mental health. She snaps completely when several Sohmas are freed from the curse, stabbing Kureno in the back and trying to murder Tohru in a frenzy.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Implied. She has birds living around her estate and while she seems to treat them well most of the time, there was one page where a bird could be seen lying dead on her floor, implying that she killed it.
- Be All My Sins Remembered: Even after her Heel–Face Turn and being forgiven by the rest of the Zodiac members, Akito doesn't quite forgive herself and acknowledges that no good she does will undo the physical and psychological damage she caused them; when Rin can't forgive her, Akito doesn't blame her at all. Come Another, she isolates herself from everyone outside of her immediate family and Tohru out of guilt and feels she deserves any pain inflicted upon her.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Two of Akito's most personal and lasting relationships were formed with people who were genuinely kind to her, and not compelled by the Zodiac curse:
- Played with for Shigure. As a child, Shigure was already in love with Akito since her conception, and was gentle and compassionate with her. Akito reciprocated the love for years, but because she went insane from Ren's abuse, Shigure pulled back because he refused to satisfy Akito's electra complex in the wake of her father's death. They eventually reconcile by the end of the series and start a genuine relationship.
- Tohru, while investigating how to break the Zodiac curse, learned about Akito's horrific childhood and that the latter was driven by fear of loneliness and attachment to her deceased father. Realizing the connections between the two, Tohru reached out to Akito out of empathy and understanding when the latter needed it the most. Akito would finally move on with Tohru's help, and they would remain close friends even into adulthood.
- Beautiful All Along: When dressed up in a female kimono, she's very beautiful. Lampshaded by Ritsu's comment when he gets to see Akito all dolled up and is shocked by how gorgeous she looks.
- Berserk Button:
- If you're a Sohma, do not tell Akito you're leaving the family in ANY way.
- Whether you're an outsider or family member, don't get close to any of the Zodiac members. You will regret it.
- Bifauxnen: Akito is a woman, but due to being Raised as the Opposite Gender, she's seen in suits during functions out of the Sohma estate. She looks androgynous enough that no one suspects that she's a woman and most people are shocked by the Gender Reveal.
- Big Bad: Essentially the story's only true antagonist and responsible for pretty much everything that's wrong with her fellow Sohma's. Although her mother Ren is significantly more evil and cruel than she is, Ren's involvement in the plot is more minimal as a Greater-Scope Villain.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The first time Akito speaks with Tohru, she acts all nice and says she's happy Yuki and Kyo are being taken care of by such a cute girl. Afterwards, Akito tells Shigure Tohru is an ugly, pathetic girl and she's convinced Yuki and Kyo will be disappointed by Tohru in no time.
- Boyish Short Hair: She has short hair as a result of her masculine upbringing.
- Break the Cutie: Attempts this on Kisa and Tohru. Has this inflicted on her as a little girl, via Ren.
- Break the Haughty: Begins to experience this as the curse gets broken and each member goes free.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Perhaps the biggest example in Another. Akito's mother Ren hated her from before she was born for something as petty as that she didn't want to share her husband's love. For her entire life, Ren did everything she could to make Akito feel unlovable and poisoned her with serious abandonment issues. After Akito decided to change for the better thanks to Tohru, she raises her and Shigure's son Shiki with a lot of love and care. Shiki himself says Akito is a great mother he loves very much.
- Broken Bird: Manifested less as hypercompetency or great worldliness, but rather through wild mood swings and constant abuse to the family members. All of which springs from a really bad childhood with a loving Disappeared Dad who died when she was a little girl, a very cruel and arguably crazy Evil Matriarch of a mother, and being forcefully raised as a boy to avoid being seen as a threat by said mother, who poisoned her with hatred and insecurity.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Due to the incredibly antagonistic relationship she has with her mother, Akito either refers to her by her name or just calls her "that woman".
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Taken to the extreme. Akito has zero tolerance to the male Zodiac members favoring other women. When she found out Hatori, Hiro and Haru had romantic feelings for other girls, she would go completely nuts and take out her anger on whoever was the object of their affections. Poor Kana, Kisa and Rin had more than their share of pain because of Akito's jealous wrath. The root lies in her completely enabled behavior and insanely Jealous Parent.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: When she finally snapped under Ren's abuse, the first thing she did was subject Yuki to this on multiple levels, locking him up in a windowless dark room for days on end, telling him repeatedly that he was worthless and no one would ever love him, and finally whipping him. It got to the point that when Haru saw for himself how bad it was, he literally begged Shigure to get Yuki away from Akito.
- Control Freak: As their God, Akito firmly believes she can use the Zodiac whenever and however she feels like; this was instilled in her by her father and the Sohma retainers, who outright told her that she was "born to be loved" and that the Zodiac members exist solely to live and die for her. If they even think of having plans or lives outside of her total control, she'll use any means necessary, from intimidation to physical violence, to ensure they don't follow through with it.
- Corporal Punishment: On top of being a Manipulative Bitch. Some examples are: beating little Kisa bloody, slapping Momiji and Kureno (and apparently Shigure) at least once, beating Yuki and Kyo in the past, rendering Hatori almost blind in one eye, throwing Rin out a window and later forcibly cutting her long hair before locking her up in a dark room, stabbing Kureno etc.
- Crashing Dreams: Akito has a flashback dream where she asks Shigure if he loves her. After Shigure responds, gives her a flower and kisses her, he says her name, at which point so does Kureno, causing Akito to wake up in the car.
- Creepy Child: As a kid, she's seen painting her room black and claiming she hates everyone, after she snaps as a product of Ren's psychological abuse.
- Daddy's Girl: Akito's father Akira loved her as much as possible, while her mother rarely looked at her. Akira's death greatly affected her, as it gave her severe abandonment issues and a borderline Electra complex.
- Delicate and Sickly: Akito is said to have been sickly since childhood, although she's physically healthier than her father was.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Because of her father spoiling her and her mother treating her like garbage, Akito is desperate for displays of affection and clings on to the family curse because she believes it keeps her bonded to the Zodiac. Even when she was a child, she would go around the household asking everyone if they loved her.
- Dirty Coward: Akito takes full advantage of the curse to do as she pleases to the Zodiac members, since the curse compels them to follow along with whatever she says and does as their God and prevents them from standing up to her. When Haru discovers she locked Rin up in the Cat's Room to starve to death, he's pushed into such an Unstoppable Rage that he's able to override this, leaving Akito in wide-eyed shock
when he manhandles her and nearly punches her out. - Disproportionate Retribution:
- What does Akito think is a fitting punishment for Rin daring to "touch her things" by starting a relationship with Haru? Throw her out of an upper floor window and send her to the hospital!
- On Ren's orders, Rin sneaks into Akito's room to steal a little box and gets caught in the act. Akito is so furious that she locks Rin inside the Cat's Room for weeks, subjects her to Traumatic Haircut and pretty much leaves her to starve to death. Thank goodness Kureno intervened before Rin's condition got critical.
- Domestic Abuse: Akito is both a physical and emotional abuser of the worst kind to the Zodiac. Nearly all the cursed Sohmas were deeply scarred by Akito's intimidation and violence against them, particularly Yuki and Rin. Akito herself is on the receiving end of emotional abuse from her mother, whose cruelty warped Akito's kindness and sanity into the vile women we meet at the start of the story.
- Don't Look At Me: One of the ways that Akito can tell when someone's curse has broken is them looking at her with distant eyes, causing Akito to beg them to stop looking at her in such an unloving way.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!:
- Several desperate variations of this are scattered throughout the last third of the series where it's revealed that Kureno's curse had already been broken a long time ago. Though it's not explicitly stated, a young Akito realizes that Kureno is looking at her differently after he is released with distant eyes - i.e. eyes that no longer understand the bond that Akito tried to hold onto so tightly and pity Akito for doing so. Akito cries for Kureno to stop looking at her like that and begs him to stay by her side. A similar instance occurs with Momiji. Really, anyone looking at her with 'those eyes' sets off this feeling in her, though she reacts in various ways - at the New Years Banquet during which Yuki tells Akito he's not going to blame Akito anymore, Akito is reminded of Kureno's look and smashes what seems to be a small sake bottle into his face.
- In the middle of a Villainous Breakdown, Tohru tells Akito they can start over and become friends. Akita snaps because she thinks Tohru is being nice to her out of pity now that the curse is breaking and Akito thinks she's going to be left all alone because of Tohru, but Tohru makes clear it isn't pity.
- The Dreaded: Given her status as their God, and an abusive Jerkass to boot, all of the Sohmas, especially the Zodiac members, are terrified of Akito and make it a point to avoid doing anything that may anger her, which is exactly what Akito wants. When confronted by her after missing the New Year's Banquet, Yuki is left petrified with fear.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Deconstructed. One of the aspects of the family curse is that the Zodiac members have to forgive Akito no matter what she does to them or other people, even if they clearly don't approve of her misdeeds. This has added to many of their emotional issues and Akito continues to abuse the Zodiac's inability to blame her to the extreme. Akito is very reliant on this as its one of her primary ways of controlling the Zodiac, instilling fear and sadness in them, but they're forced to forgive through the curse and love her unconditionally. When Yuki gains the strength to move on from the past thanks to Tohru's healing, he willingly forgives Akito on his own without the curse forcing him. This causes Akito to freak out since it shows that Yuki is capable of growing and bonding with others beyond the Sohma family.
- Played straight at the end of the manga. With the curse completely broken, the Zodiac members now have the option of hating Akito for how she treated them, but they choose not to because Tohru's influence allow them to let go of any bad feelings they might have for Akito. The only one who still doesn't want to forgive Akito is Rin, who was the biggest victim of her abuse, and yet Rin feels more awful about this than Akito does. The 2019 anime changes this and keeps it more ambiguous which members of the family forgive her and which don't (save for Rin, who still blatantly does not forgive her.)
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Akito is black-haired and pale-skinned because of her sickly condition. She also throws out negative vibes like no tomorrow.
- Entitled Bitch: As God of the Zodiac and head of the Sohma family, Akito feels she has the right to do whatever she wants and no one has any right to stop her. No better is this shown with her relationship with the Zodiac members, expecting them to love her unconditionally despite giving them nothing but abuse and spite in return.
- Entitled to Have You: Akito insists the male Zodiac members are obligated to only love her because she believes the Zodiac animals should direct all their affection to their God. Akito strictly forbids the Zodiac from forming romantic relationships with other women and whenever they start dating someone anyway, Akito throws a tantrum and takes her anger out on whoever is the object of their affections (usually to the point of putting them in the hospital). This stems from her hatred towards her mother and the loss of her father, the latter because she wants to feel the fatherly love she dearly misses, and the former out of a mixture of "proving" Ren's abuse wrong and because of the Psychological Projection mentioned below.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Akito feels betrayed by Kureno and Haru when they jump to Rin's defense even though Rin tried to steal a possession of hers. Take into account this is after Akito already punished Rin by trapping her in the Cat's Room and leaving her to starve for weeks. Of course, Kureno and Haru would berate Akito for that, yet Akito doesn't understand why her Zodiac would be mad at her for whatever reason.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While she hates her mother to the point of wanting her dead, even at her worst Akito deeply loved her father. A significant portion of her issues stem from his death.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
- During the vacation trip, she keeps ordering the Zodiac to come to her manor leaving Tohru alone with Kyo to make her miserable. When told she is having fun with Kyo, Akito is completely baffled how Tohru could be enjoying her time with "that monster".
- Later, when Kureno and Haru berate her for trapping Rin in the Cat's Room and essentially leaving her to starve to death, Akito honestly doesn't seem to understand why they would be mad at or disgusted with her for such a thing, or why Kureno would free Rin behind her back.Akito: Why am I always the one to blame?!
- Evil Counterpart: To Tohru. Both girls struggle with the loss of a beloved parent, are secretly afraid of being alone and abandoned, and have traditionally masculine names. Parallels are drawn between Tohru's devotion to her dead mother tying her down emotionally and Akito's obsession with the "eternal bonds" of the Zodiac curse. However, whereas Tohru is a Nice Girl who treats others kindly in spite of her issues, Akito is a Yandere who let her issues consume her and is abusive and cruel to everyone around her. In many ways, Akito represents what Tohru could have become had she been raised by an Ax-Crazy, abusive mother like Ren rather than a doting but still wise mother like Kyoko. During the series' climax, Tohru herself acknowledges that she and Akito aren't so different.
- Evil Is Petty: "Evil" may be a stretch, but Akito is prone to losing her temper and violently lashing out for the simplest of slights, especially when she has the slightest inkling that the Zodiac members are thinking of leaving her or loving anyone else. She physically beat Kisa, a little girl, to the point of hospitalization after finding out Hiro had a crush on her, and aside from throwing Rin out a window for sleeping with Haru, she later gives her a Traumatic Haircut and locks her in the Cat's Room for weeks on end simply because Rin, on Ren's orders/manipulation, tried to steal a box from Akito's room that Akito herself knew was empty and worthless.
- Evil Plan: Originally it was to possess the Zodiac, then it became drive Tohru away and then possess the Zodiac.
- Evil Wears Black: Her casual clothes are always black, adding to her malevolent image.
- Eye Scream: Performed on Hatori and very nearly on Yuki.
- Family Theme Naming: Her father was named Akira, which is very similar to Akito.
- Fauxshadow: She does a Heel–Face Turn about 30 chapters later.
- Faux Affably Evil: She can put on a civil and polite act, but her Hair-Trigger Temper and Mood-Swinger tendencies make it hard for her to keep it up. Cemented when she first meets Tohru: Akito acts all friendly, calling her cute... and the minute she's out of earshot, calls her ugly and is certain it won't be long before Kyo and Yuki are sick of her. It's especially pronounced when interacting with the Zodiac members; she can go from polite and reasonable to a screaming, violent rage at a moment's notice.
- Female Misogynist: Akito hates women despite being a woman herself. More specifically, Akito hates women who try taking the male Zodiac members away, even if they're also one of the Zodiac members or even other Sohmas. This is another flaw she shares with her mother; in fact, Ren is the cause of Akito's misogyny, since she projects everything she hates about her mother onto other women.
- Flower Motifs: Associated with red camellias (benitsubaki), which are a symbol of love in the language of flowers. This is also the kind of flower Shigure gave her when she was little and he confessed his love.
- Flowers of Femininity: Flower imagery is used during the reveal that Akito is a woman. Near the end of the manga, Akito puts on a woman's kimono with a floral pattern and wears a flower in her hair when she stops posing as a man and chooses to live as a woman from now on.
- Foil: With Tohru Honda. Aside from both having commonly boyish names and deceased fathers, the two are said to strongly resemble a parent they resent. Played with in how Tohru is very little like Katsuya, aside from copying his very polite speech habits. It can be said much of Akito's personality was shaped by Ren's even worse one, they look so much alike Shigure only saw Ren as an older, feminine Akito when he slept with her, and since Akito was Raised as the Opposite Gender, speaks masculinely. They both realize they have to let go of the memories of a parent they adored in order to move on, while reconciling with the other one. They aren't able to make verbal amends, however Katsuya's dead. Ren just refuses to talk. At the end, like Tohru, Akito tries reaching out to someone that spent their entire life wanting things to stay the same. However, this time they walk away instead.
- Freak Out: Has one whenever she thinks a Zodiac member is leaving her or someone is taking them away from her.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Akito horribly abuses the Zodiac members to take out her anger over the death of her father and the complete rejection by her mother. Whenever one of the Zodiac members directs their attention to anyone other than her, Akito is overcome with fear that she's going to be abandoned like her mother said. Akito resorts to physical and mental torture to make everyone too afraid of her to leave her.
- Akito's extreme hatred and jealousy towards other women also has its roots in her mother Ren being a petty Jealous Parent who only treated Akito as a rival for Akito's father's love instead of her and Akira's child. When Akira was in his deathbed, instead of telling Akito he loved her for being her, he basically told her he cared about her because the God being his and Ren's child was proof that their love was "special." That lead to Akito developing the mindset that other women only exist to take away the men who should love her and whenever she hears one of the Zodiac men is in love with another woman, Akito goes Yandere. Similarly, Akito's affinity for the older men in the Zodiac like Kureno, Shigure, and Hatori is suggested to be driven by a yearning to fill the void left by her father, who was the one man in her life to shower her with unconditional affection and tell her everything she could want to hear.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: As bad as her childhood and abuse by her mother was, it's made clear that it does not excuse Akito's actions in the slightest and has destroyed the livelihoods of the other Zodiac members; once Tohru offers her friendship, Akito realizes as such and resolves to become a better person.
G-R
- Gender-Blender Name: "Akito" is generally a male name. Combined with her masculine appearance, this managed to fool readers (and some other characters) into believing she was male right up until the Unsettling Gender-Reveal.
- Gender-Concealing Voice: In the 2019 anime, Maaya Sakamoto's voice makes Akito sound like a young boy in an attempt to conceal that Akito is a woman Raised as the Opposite Gender.
- Gender Flip: Because the first anime stopped before Volume 17 was released, the animators made Akito biologically male. They make it very clear◊.
- "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: While she does go through a genuine Heel–Face Turn, Akito still ends the original series by earning her happy ending with Shigure and receiving no punishment for the years of physical and emotional abuse she heaped on the Zodiac members. While they acknowledge that what she did was wrong, the members understand that Akito herself was a victim, that she's remorseful for her actions, and simply want to move on.
- Girl of My Dreams: The night of her conception, Akito appeared in the dreams of the oldest Zodiac members, making them shed Tears of Joy. Shigure fell madly in love with Akito after seeing that dream.
- Girliness Upgrade: At the end of the series, after the curse is finally broken, Akito stops posing as a man and begins dressing like a woman. This symbolizes her first step into living as herself instead of the person the Sohma adults want her to be.
- A God Am I:
- She let her position as the God of the Zodiac go to her head, to put it mildly. Primarily, Akito justifies her controlling and abusive treatment of the Zodiac members by claiming that a God can do whatever they please and no one can punish them for it.
- This gets downplayed later on. In reality Akito doesn’t think she has any self worth beyond her title; she only latches on to her "God" status so badly because Ren convinced her she‘s worthless and will never be truly loved by anyone. After the death of her father Akira, the one person who loved her unconditionally, Akito started to desperately cling onto her position as the “God” and control the Zodiac to enforce her belief that she’ll never alone if she keeps all of them with her, no matter how toxic or false it may be.
- God in Human Form: Akito is the "God" of the Zodiac, who the other Zodiac members feel compelled to be subservient to no matter how much she abuses them. Aside from this, though, she doesn't have any kind of godlike power.
- Good Girl Gone Bad: Akito was a good little girl until the day her father died and she let her crazy mother's cruel words screw with her head. Ever since then, she became terribly abusive and controlling of the Zodiac members.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Akito goes from calm to physically violent with minimal provocation, especially when she thinks the Zodiac members are entertaining the idea of leaving her. Hatori's request to marry Kana resulted in her injuring his eye in a fit of rage, Rin was bodily thrown out a window for dating Haru, and a few taunts from Ren were enough to provoke her into tackling her through the door and nearly choking her to death. It's not a product of Ren's abuse either; flashbacks show that Akito was always short-tempered, with Yuki's respiratory problems and coughing fits being enough to set her off.
- Hated by All: Most other members of the Sohma clan can't stand her to the point a separate faction formed. Considering the fact that she's abused them all physically and verbally at least once, one can't really blame them. Unfortunately, due to the power Akito holds as the head of the Sohma family and the God of the Zodiac, there's generally very little most them can actually do to fight back against her. Even come Another, where she has undergone a Heel–Face Turn and Taken a Level in Kindness, she's not very popular outside of her immediate family, with several retainers harassing her son Shiki by telling him what a horrible person she used to be; one flat-out refers to Akito as "human garbage."
- Hates Being Alone: Her mother's constant taunting of being abandoned or unloved caused Akito to fear the Zodiac abandoning her so much that she rules them by fear in order to keep them from possibly leaving her side.
- Hates Their Parent: Akito can't stand the mere fact that her mother Ren is alive and the feeling is mutual, and it's completely understandable, since Ren has emotionally and psychologically abused her for years. In fact, the only reason Akito hasn't killed Ren is because Ren wants to die so she can be with Akito's father, Akira.
- Heel–Face Turn: At the end of the series, Akito finally understands her mistreatment of the Zodiac only made them want to leave her. Taking Tohru's endless forgiveness as an example, Akito vows to never hurt anyone again and aims to become a better person, even though she knows no good she does will undo the damage she caused for the cursed Sohmas. She's even willing to reconcile with her mother, who rejects the truce.
- Heel Realization: For most of the series, Akito is horrifically abusive and controlling to the rest of the Sohma family, inflicting all manner of physical and mental scars on them out of a fear of abandonment brought about by her mother's extensive emotional abuse; on top of this, Akito, by her own admission, doesn't know right from wrong because of everyone around her either abusing her, ignoring her, or enabling her. When she's in the midst of a Villainous Breakdown, Tohru reaches out to her and offers her genuine friendship; this, combined with Tohru subsequently falling off a cliff and nearly dying, gets Akito to finally realize what a horrible person she's become and work towards redeeming herself.Akito She taught me it wasn’t too late to believe in “fateful encounters” and “new beginnings”.
- Hidden Buxom: She's been accustomed to flattening her chest to conceal her female gender. She often looks perfectly androgynous when wearing masculine clothing, but she has a very feminine figure when she finally puts on girl's clothes.
- Homeschooled Kids: She was homeschooled during her high school years, due to her frail health.
- I Control My Minions Through...: While not minions per se, Akito keeps the Sohma family under her thumb through fear. When Yuki forgives her and makes it clear he's no longer afraid of her, Akito flips out since it means the Zodiac members are capable of leaving her and the negative influence of the Sohma family.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: For her entire life, Akito has convinced herself that she's special and important because she's a "god" as a desperate way to cope with nonexistent self-esteem, loneliness and a crippling fear of the world.
- Irony: Akito wanted to use Tohru to prove she's always right and didn't need to change, and wouldn’t stop going on about how much she hated Tohru. But Tohru offering Akito genuine friendship caused the latter to realize her mistakes and pull a Heel–Face Turn, proving that Akito was the one who needed the most help, and Akito came to cherish Tohru just as much as the rest of the family.
- It Runs in the Family: Akito picked up the Yandere tendencies of her mother after her father died. If it hadn't been for Akito having a change of heart because of Tohru offering her friendship, Akito would have ended up as a solitary crazy lady like Ren.
- It's All About Me: Akito takes having a god complex up to eleven, believing she's automatically entitled to do and have whatever she wants, most notably the undivided attention of the Zodiac members, and throwing destructive temper tantrums the instant she doesn't get her way. Case in point: she has the gall to be pissed at Shigure for sleeping with Ren and banish him from the main house, despite the fact that he did it in retaliation for Akito herself having sex with Kureno despite her own feelings for Shigure and full knowledge that he's been in love with her since she was born.
- Jerkass: Akito is incredibly selfish, immature and cruel. She causes much more pain and trauma for some of the Zodiac members than the curse.
- Jerkass God: Akito is controlling and horribly abusive to her fellow Zodiac members, believing that as God of the Zodiac, she's entitled to do as she pleases. This attitude was most likely instilled in her by the head maid, her Parental Substitute, who enabled her behavior for that very reason.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Akito may be a psychotic Yandere, but she occasionally makes good points that the Zodiac members are unable to refute:
- When Haru calls her out on her treatment of Rin, especially after she locked her up in the Cat's Room to starve, Akito retorts that he's just as much to blame for choosing to pursue Rin despite full knowledge that Akito herself wouldn't approve and would undoubtedly hurt one of them for it. While it's a strong case of Why Did You Make Me Hit You?, Haru himself acknowledges that he knew the consequences, but wanted Rin so badly that he didn't care.
- When Kureno grows a spine and gives her a Rousing Speech, trying to assure her that it's better to live while moving forward instead of being fixated on the generations-old Sohma curse, Akito responds with a Shut Up, Kirk!, ranting at him for choosing to stay with her even after his curse broke because it contributed to her current mental state and gave her false hope. This is particularly poignant because Shigure made that exact same point to Kureno earlier.Shigure: Leaving may have been better for everyone involved, including Akito. And you know, it's not too late.
- Jerkass to One:
- While nobody in the Sohma family is truly safe from Akito's abusive behavior, she tends to treat Isuzu even more poorly than the rest of the Zodiac solely because her long black hair reminds her of her hated mother Ren, even spitefully nicknaming her "Rin" because it sounds like Ren's name. As a result, Rin receives some of the most horrific abuse any of the Zodiac suffers from Akito, being verbally bullied to tears, thrown out a second-story window, suffering a Traumatic Haircut, and locked in the Cat's Room for weeks where she nearly starves to death. By the end of the series, while the other Zodiac members choose to forgive Akito for her treatment of them, Rin doesn't.
- Akito is similarly hostile and cruel toward Kyo for being the Cat, the pariah of the Zodiac and Sohma clan, calling him a monster to his face, mocking him for his inability to beat Yuki at anything, and deliberately excluding him from such things as her visit to the summer house to see the rest of the Zodiac.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: At the end of the original series, Akito gets her happy ending with Shigure and goes off without receiving any comeuppance for the years she spent inflicting very cruel physical and emotional abuse on the Zodiac members. However, Akito has to live with the guilt of her actions for the rest of her life, and has shown that she's not going to let herself forget anytime soon. The sequel expands a bit more on how Akito's life isn't easy despite having her husband and son who love her. First of all, Ren is still around in the Sohma main house and more hateful than ever because she can't stand that Akito has a happy family, driving Ren to verbally abuse Akito's son Shiki and Akito got stabbed once while protecting Shiki from Ren. There's also the Sohma retainers who disapprove of the changes Akito made in the household after the curse broke and they're shown harassing Shiki by telling him what an awful person his mother was in the past. Shiki also mentions that Akito greatly regrets her past actions towards the cursed Sohmas and distances herself from the people in the family besides Shigure, Shiki and Tohru.
- Kick the Dog: Akito does this a lot, and is to blame for the numerous scars, both physical and mental, that the Zodiac members suffer:
- She brutally tormented Yuki in all manner of ways for years, such as by whipping him, locking him in a dark, windowless room for days on end and convincing him that no one will accept him for who he is.
- When Hatori requested to marry Kana, Akito responded by nearly blinding him in one eye before guilt-tripping Kana into accepting blame for the injury.
- When Hiro admitted he loved Kisa, she responded by beating Kisa, a little girl, to a bloody pulp and landing her in the hospital for two weeks, with Kisa having no idea what she did to deserve it.
- In response to Haru dating Rin, Akito throws her out a second-floor window and lands her in the hospital. When Rin later tries to steal a box from her room on Ren's orders, Akito one-ups herself by giving her a Traumatic Haircut and locking her in the Cat's Room to starve. The latter act is what finally gets Kureno, who had gone along with everything she did or said for years, to finally grow a spine, going behind Akito's back to save Rin and even calling her out over it.
- When Kureno, the only member of the Zodiac who obeyed her without question and stayed by her side for years even after his curse broke, tries to give her a Cooldown Hug and Rousing Speech over how it's better to move on with her life than cling to the curse, Akito responds by literally stabbing him In the Back and leaving him for dead.
- Kimono Is Traditional: To fit her position of the family head of an exaggeratedly traditional clan, Akito is almost always seen in a male kimono. Towards the end of the series, she changes it for a female kimono since she's still going to lead the Sohma clan, but she's not going to hide her gender anymore.
- Knight of Cerebus: Fruits Basket begins as an adorable, lighthearted series that follows a cute high school girl who befriends a lot of pretty boys who transform into adorable animals... until Akito makes her debut and it's revealed that she's abused all of the Zodiac members in various horrific ways, both physical and mental. Whereas most cases of abuse or violence in the series are used for Amusing Injuries and are generally Played for Laughs, Akito is a Domestic Abuser played completely straight; nothing she does to the Zodiac members, as well as any "outsiders" who butt in, is meant to be funny in the slightest, especially since she's caused long-term or even permanent damage to several of them. Every time Akito appears on-screen, the comedy and light-hearted vibes virtually disappear.
- Let Me at Him!: The older Sohma members have had to hold Akito back from continuing to beat other members of the family on numerous occasions.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: She's the controlling, manipulative, and cruel Dark Feminine to Tohru's gentle, compassionate, and sensitive Light Feminine.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: To her mother Ren. Despite their mutual hatred, they're very similar, being unhinged Yanderes who can't stand it when other people get more attention and get violent when it happens. However, Akito has a Freudian Excuse for her actions and eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn, whereas Ren is just a crazy bitch who even at her best is worse than Akito at her worst, is responsible for Akito's issues and bad behavior in the first place, and refuses to change her ways.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Deconstructed. When she was a child, Akito developed a crush on Shigure because the gentle way he treated her reminded her of her father. She's greatly displeased by how his attitude towards her drastically changed after she slept with Kureno because her father would have never been so cold to her. Also, Shigure knew Akito has one big Electra complex and he refused to be a replacement for her deceased father in her eyes.
- Limited Wardrobe: She's almost always seen in a male kimono, but is seen in suits during functions out of the Sohma estate and a longsleeved turtleneck during the one instance at Tohru's high school. Towards the end of the series, she wears a female kimono.
- Lonely at the Top: Because of her status as both the head of the Sohma clan and the Zodiac God, nobody corrected her unstable behavior growing up nor treated her as an equal rather than someone feared by all or pitied by few. This prevented her from ever learning right from wrong, isolating her from interpersonal development and understanding healthy relationships. The only people who could try to help her either catered to her whims, ignored her, or abused her; Tohru was the very first person to try to empathize with her and talk her through her issues, as well as offer the "God" the chance to genuinely befriend someone outside the Zodiac. It worked.
- Love Hungry: From childhood, Akito's father got in her head that she was born to be loved by her Zodiac. Everyone in the Zodiac must love Akito only, especially the males. If anyone tries to leave her or comes to love someone other than her, Akito flips her shit and resorts to abusing them cruelly so they have no choice but to love her.
- Loving a Shadow: Akito is desperately attached to the older male members of the Zodiac in particular because of the comfort they can provide in place of the father she lost when she was young. Part of the reason Shigure refuses to completely adhere to her demands compared to Hatori or Kureno is because he refuses to be seen as yet another father figure in her life.
- Machiavelli Was Wrong: Akito runs the Sohma family through fear, inflicting physical and emotional abuse upon the Zodiac members to make them afraid to leave her, in direct contrast to Tohru, who helps them heal from their traumas and treats them far more decently than Akito ever did; needless to say, the Zodiac all gravitate towards Tohru over Akito and grow to view her as family, leading Akito to freak out because it means the Zodiacs' bonds with her aren't eternal or immutable after all.
- Make an Example of Them: When she learns of Hiro's crush on Kisa, Akito beats her senseless and lands her in the hospital for two weeks, sending Hiro a warning on what will happen to the Zodiacs if they direct their affections to anyone but their God.
- Manipulative Bitch: She can keep the Sohma under a tight leash with mood swings, abuse, and convincing them it's really their fault when it isn't.
- Matricide: There are multiple occasions in the story where Akito tries to kill her mother Ren. The one thing holding her back from going through with it is that Ren wants to join Akira in death. In the process of her Villainous Breakdown, it's implied Akito would have totally murdered Ren without remorse if Hiro hadn't been released from the curse at that exact moment and distracted Akito from doing so.
- Mind Rape: Akito is both a perpetrator towards the Zodiac members (most notably towards Yuki) and a victim thanks to her abusive mother Ren.
- Mirror Character: To Tohru. While they have similar traits (Gender Blender Names, attachment to beloved dead parents, and a fear of being alone), they're also as different as night and day. While Tohru is an incredibly sweet and selfless Nice Girl who always puts others' happiness before her own, Akito is an incredibly cruel and selfish Jerkass who puts her own happiness before everyone else's, especially the Zodiac members'. While Akito envies the unconditional love Tohru receives, Tohru herself has deeply-repressed selfish urges (mainly her desire to have her mother all to herself, hating her father for "taking" her mother even though she knows such hatred is wrong). Over the course of the manga, Tohru comes to terms with the idea that it's okay to be selfish once in awhile, and Akito is able to let go of the curse and accept that not everyone will like her.
- Misplaced Retribution: Hiro tells Akito that he has a crush on Kisa and wants to make her his girlfriend. What does Akito do? Beat the living daylights out of Kisa, who is still a middle school student, resulting in poor Kisa being hospitalized for two weeks. That should teach Hiro a lesson on why none of the Zodiacs can direct their affections to anyone but Akito.
- Mood-Swinger: She can be calm one moment and having a screaming tantrum the next, though this is partly done on purpose in order to keep the members of the Zodiac in line.
- My God, What Have I Done?: While she spends most of the series with an extreme case of Never My Fault, in the end, Akito realizes how wrong her abusive behavior toward the rest of the Zodiac was and deeply regrets it. Come Another, she's still living with the guilt and keeps her distance from the other Sohmas sans Shigure, Shiki, and Tohru because of it.
- Never My Fault: Akito cannot fathom being to blame for anything. This has been ingrained in her mind since she was a child.
- She's bitter and angry at Shigure for sleeping with her hated mother and not being as kind to her as he used to be, ignoring the fact that both are the direct result of her having sex with Kureno despite full knowledge that Shigure has been in love with her for years.
- A particularly vicious example is when Akito blinded Hatori in one eye after he and Kana asked for permission to marry, and immediately accused Kana, Hatori's innocent would-be fiancée, of being responsible for Hatori's pain. Kana ended up blaming herself, which resulted in her falling into depression and Hatori being forced to erase her memories of their relationship so she would recover.
- Taken to even worse extremes in her abuse of Rin. First, she nearly killed Rin by throwing her out of a window while claiming Rin only got what was coming for her after she started dating Haru, who can only belong to Akito like the other Zodiac males. Later, she locks Rin in isolation for weeks and cuts nearly all her hair after Rin tried to steal a "special" box that Akito knows is clearly empty. When confronted about it by Haru and Kureno, Akito insists it's perfectly justified, chewing Kureno out for betraying her by freeing Rin behind her back. And then Haru calls Akito out for almost killing Rin twice because she hates women for no good reason (although he doesn't know how Akito's mother is like). Akito counters with telling him that it was really his fault that Rin was put in danger at all, because he dated Rin despite knowing how much of a Yandere Akito is for the Zodiac males. Surprisingly, Haru agrees that he is partially to blame for poor Rin's suffering.
- Finally, when several Sohmas are freed from the curse or otherwise turn on her, Akito desperately puts the blame on Tohru, not wanting to even consider that perhaps the Zodiacs gravitated to Tohru because she was much kinder and more decent to them than Akito ever was. Ultimately subverted, as the ensuing confrontation between herself and Tohru is what finally gets Akito to realize and acknowledge that she has no one to blame but herself for the Zodiac wanting to leave her and her own misery as a whole.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: She allowed Tohru to stay with the Sohmas to prove to Kyo and Yuki (and by extension the other Zodiacs), they cannot be loved by others and they'll eventually be abandoned. Instead, Tohru allows Kyo to find true love and his future wife, Yuki the family he never had, and all the Zodiacs regain hope and happiness. Had Akito not said yes to the presence of Tohru in Shigure's household, the cursed Sohmas would have stayed under Akito's toxic control and the curse would never have been broken. But by the time she realized this, Akito finally understood her mistakes and decided to end the cycle of abuse by defying the family's expectations of her as the head of house and returning to the kinder, forgiving person she was as a child.
- Not Me This Time: Akito has a history of physical violence, hospitalizing both Kisa and Isuzu in a fit of rage, inflicting an Eye Scream on Hatori, smashing a vase over Yuki's head, and ultimately stabbing Kureno In the Back during her Villainous Breakdown. So when Tohru falls off the cliff during their fateful confrontation, Shigure is quick to assume Akito pushed her off.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Despite being a Domestic Abuser towards the Zodiac members, Akito loves getting close to them, especially the boys and men.
- Not Good with Rejection: Her mother emotionally abused her to the point that Akito can't stand the mere prospect of being rejected and unloved by the people in the outside world. She clings on to the Zodiac curse because it's impossible for the cursed Sohmas to ever hate their "God". Possibly the biggest part of Akito's Character Development is accepting that there's people who won't like her, but she mustn't think that will be the case with everyone.
- Obliviously Evil: For most of the series, Akito seems to see nothing wrong with horribly abusing the Zodiac members or not accepting blame for anything she's done; thanks to her mother's abuse and the maids enabling her behavior and encouraging her God complex, she never learned right from wrong. Tohru's presence and offer of friendship gets her to realize how horrific her treatment of the Zodiac really was, and she's reduced to tears of remorse. Even before that, she sobs to Kureno that she doesn't have a sense of right and wrong due to her upbringing.Akito: Don't you see? Nobody taught me otherwise! This was the life they gave me! Nobody ever offered me another one! So how do I ask when I don't know what to ask?!
- Odd Friendship: In Another, despite isolating from the family out of guilt, she still finds friends in Hanajima and Mine since her son is friends with their sons, having tea with them and enjoying Hanajima's foreign-style cuisine.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Whenever one of the Zodiac members leaves her as her intimidation loses effect, Akito is reduced to pathetically begging them to not leave her alone and asking why everyone keeps betraying her. This is a result of her mother's emotional abuse. When Kureno's curse is lifted, Akito went ballistic and started screaming hysterically while begging him to not abandon her. Momiji's curse breaking, however, is a little calmer and she asks him to stay with her and be taken care of by her. He didn't accept her offer, though. By the time she has a chance to talk to Hiro, she's already mellowed out and doesn't ask him to stay. Plus, the curse breaks completely shortly after.
- Psychological Projection: Akito treats other women like her worst enemy because she's projecting her demented Abusive Mom onto them. This is especially evident in her cruelty towards poor Rin because the latter's long black hair heavily reminds Akito of Ren, to the point Akito first gave her the nickname "Rin" because it sounds like Ren.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: She's essentially the same at age 19 as she was when she was little: a Spoiled Brat with a god complex and crippling fear of abandonment. All thanks to mental and emotional abuse from her mother, who's even worse in this regard.
- Psychotic Smirk: She's shown to have done this often while Yuki was her prisoner.
- Raised as the Opposite Gender: When she found out her child would be a girl, Ren demanded Akito to be raised as a boy and that no one should even be allowed to know her true gender after her birth. Ren used the excuse that a female family head would look bad, but her true motive was to make Akito less desirable because she hated the mere idea that her daughter could be more popular with men than her.
- Red Herring: When Tohru has met twelve of the thirteen cursed Sohmas, she (and the audience) assumes that Akito is the Rooster by process of elimination. She's not, since she actually represents the "God" who brought the animals of the Zodiac together.
S-Y
- Sanity Slippage: Akito started out as a kind and gentle girl, if a bit temperamental, until the day Ren's constant abuse broke her (implied to have coincided with the timing of Kureno's Zodiac curse breaking); she snapped, painted her room black, and tortured Yuki so brutally that Hatsuharu literally begged Shigure to get him away from her. In the series proper, her mental state only gets worse as more of the Zodiac members are freed from the curse, until she literally stabs Kureno In the Back and goes after Tohru with a knife.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Akito's status as both God of the Zodiac and head of the Sohma family effectively makes her exempt from scorn or punishment for any of her actions; the Zodiac members are compelled to forgive and honor her no matter what due to the curse, and the maids just allow her to do whatever she wants on the grounds that a God can do as they please.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: She horrifically abuses the Zodiac members, controls them through fear, and keeps them in a constant state of misery to ensure they'd be too scared to leave her. All it does is make them want to leave Akito even more and gravitate towards Tohru for treating them decently, but Akito refuses to acknowledge this until near the end of the series.
- Sex for Solace: Some time after Kureno's curse broke, Akito had sex with Kureno to satiate her starvation for male affection after her father died and to make sure Kureno felt responsible enough of her to never leave her side.
- Shadow Archetype: Akito ultimately embodies the unstable and abusive woman Tohru could have become if she had been raised by an insane Abusive Mom instead of the loving and nurturing Kyoko. They also both struggle with the loss of a beloved parent and are secretly afraid of being alone and abandoned; however, while Tohru is still kind to others in spite of her issues, Akito desperately clings to the "eternal bonds" of the Zodiac curse and is abusive and controlling towards the cursed Sohmas to keep them from leaving her.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: During her Villainous Breakdown, Kureno tries to give her a Coldown Hug and give her a Rousing Speech, assuring her it's better to start over than cling to the Zodiac bond. Akito responds by literally stabbing him in the back, ranting that her current mental state is all his fault for not having the guts to leave her when his curse broke.
- Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: Just one member of the Sohma family trying to leave is more than enough for Akito to flip her shit. A big part of Akito's Character Development is learning to accept that not everyone will like her.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Akito shows herself as an intimidating, cruel and abusive family head, but she's really a crybaby who is terrified of being abandoned and unloved.
- Spoiled Brat: Her father and the members of the Sohma household spoiled her rotten, giving a pass to her increasingly bad temper tantrums and encouraging the A God Am I mindset that causes Akito to believe everyone must do as she says. As a child, Akito was more of a pampered sweet girl, as evidenced by her genuine kindness when she played with Yuki. But once Ren's psychological abuse broke her, her kindness warped into insanity and cruelty and she began to really act like an entitled brat.
- Strong Family Resemblance: To her mother. Shigure notes Ren looks like Akito would've looked like, had she been raised as a woman.
- Taking Advantage of Generosity: Kureno was unable to bring himself to abandon her when his curse first broke, so he agreed to remain by her side to stop her from feeling lonely. Akito took full advantage of his kindness, making him stay in near-isolation at the Sohma estate and refusing to let him interact with anyone else or even leave the house without her permission. It's just one of many things Akito is disgusted with herself over come her Heel Realization.
- Tomboyish Name: Akito was given a boy's name because her spiteful mother only accepted to give birth to her if her daughter was never allowed to live like a woman.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Akito spends most of the series being nothing but awful and abusive towards the Zodiac members. Near the end, she undergoes a Villainous Breakdown as the curse keeps breaking and Tohru offers Akito her friendship despite all the despicable things she did. Being inspired by Tohru's kindness, Akito starts acting like the gentle child she once was and now wants to become the sort of person who can help others like Tohru does.
- Trauma Conga Line: Her father's death, Kureno's curse breaking, and Ren's mental abuse did a real number on her as a child. Combine that with the A God Am I complex instilled in her by the curse, lofty expectations as both Sohma Head and "God", and being given a pass on every wrong thing she did, you get the Psychopathic Womanchild Akito became.
- Troubled Abuser: Akito's mental problems and abusive behavior are a product of the Sohma clan's toxic environment and conditioning like the rest of the Zodiac members. From the moment she was born, Akito was made to believe that the only reason why she was lovable and important is because she was the Zodiac's "God"; even her own father basically told her he doted on her because the "God" being his and Ren's child was proof of how "special" they were. Akito's mother was insanely jealous of her husband and everyone in the Sohma household showering Akito with attention while she was shunned for being a former maid, so she took it out on Akito by constantly telling her that she was worthless and eventually, everyone would hate and leave her. This all resulted in Akito developing an obsessive dependency on the Zodiac "bond" because she desperately wanted to believe the Zodiac animals would always love her and stay with her. Then, Akito discovered the bond was not eternal when Kureno's curse broke and this was a big hit to her mental and emotional stability. Ever since then, she has controlled the Zodiac members through extremely cruel physical and emotional abuse, especially the women due to her issues with her evil mother.
- Tsundere: She was a straightforward one in her childhood. Yuki recalls that Akito was a nice playmate and never did anything worse than occasionally yell at Yuki when impatient (like during one of his asthma coughing fits), but would quickly calm down and be nice again. Ren's abuse made her into a Yandere. She still shows shades of tsun-tsun around Shigure; it's obvious Akito has feelings for him, but she cannot forgive him for having slept with her hated mother just to get back at her for sleeping with Kureno. During a heated argument, she goes from yelling at Shigure for hurting her to abruptly seducing him.
- The Unfettered: Threats, intimidation, physical violence... there's no low Akito won't stoop to to ensure that the Zodiac members focus on and love her and her alone.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Everyone not in the know (except Uotani) reacts like this to The Reveal about Akito's gender and identification. A good example is what happened to Tohru when she learned about it through Kureno. Apparently, she was so shocked that she stood in the snow for hours.
- Unstoppable Rage: Akito becomes violent when she thinks that a Zodiac member is leaving her or taking attention away from her. She blinded Hatori in one eye for trying to marry Kana, shoved Rin out of a second story window for being romantically involved with Hatsuharu, and later stabs Kureno for trying to leave her.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Various flashbacks reveal that Akito was very kind and gentle (if a bit temperamental) as a child. Then one day, Ren's abuse just got to be too much and Akito snapped, painted her walls black, and tortured Yuki physically and psychologically from then on. It all went downhill from there.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The series is generally light-hearted as it follows a cute high school girl who befriends a lot of pretty boys who transform into adorable animals. Then we are introduced to Akito, who we learn has been committing various forms of physical and psychological abuse on various family members, and has no problem with doing the same to any "outsiders" who look like they're butting in. Every time Akito makes a major appearance, the story's tone becomes darker and more dramatic.
- Villainous Breakdown: An absolutely epic one across several chapters/episodes before she finally starts to understand the weight of everything she's done.
- Walking Spoiler: No one can go into too much detail when discussing about Akito without revealing that she's the God of the Zodiac and that she's a woman being forced to pose as a man by her Abusive Mom, both facts which are big revelations in the later part of the story.
- We Used to Be Friends: She and Yuki used to be close as kids, regularly playing together in her room... but everything changed when she snapped under Ren's abuse. She took her anger out on Yuki by abusing him in all manner of horrific ways, from locking him in a windowless dark room for days, to telling him that he was worthless and no one would ever love him for who he is, to outright whipping him. It got to the point that Haru, after seeing how bad it was, literally begged Shigure to get Yuki away from Akito. Even after Yuki himself decides to forgive Akito and move on with his life, their relationship is never the same.
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: A good part of Akito's Manipulative Bitch strategy is to convince her victims that her abuse towards them is really their fault and they deserve it, which she can easily make use of since the curse makes the Zodiac members unable to hate her for her actions.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Whether or not one can excuse her actions, Akito counts. Despite beating the living daylights out of several Zodiac members for the majority of their childhood(s) and emotionally abusing everyone, Tohru can't help but feel sorry for her. One, she learned just how badly Akito herself was emotionally abused, and how her upbringing influenced her outlook on life. The psychological abuse heaped onto her by her mother and Evil Matriarch extraordinaire, Ren, led to a pathological fear of abandonment, driving her to do anything to make sure no one will leave her. Being told that no one loves you, everyone will abandon you, and no one even respects you, and having your boyfriend sleep with Ren to spite you for sleeping with another man (which you partly did to get back at said boyfriend, and partly to stop said man from abandoning you) will do that to you.
- Would Hit a Girl: In the 2001 anime, where Akito has a Gender Flipnote ; the final episode has him furiously manhandle Tohru and pull her hair.
- Would Hurt a Child: Not even the children of the Zodiac are safe from Akito's abuse; when she found out Hiro was in love with Kisa, Akito's immediate response was to physically assault her, beating her so brutally that Kisa spent two weeks in the hospital.
- Yandere: Akito is very mentally unstable and is willing to do anything to keep members the Zodiac from leaving and being loved by other people. It certainly doesn't help that she's the daughter of another Yandere, one who was more than willing to abort her out of jealousy.
- You Are What You Hate: Despite hating her mother's guts, Akito is really the same as her: a Psychopathic Womanchild who is obsessed with proving that only she deserves to be loved by the Sohma men and gets insanely jealous over other women who "steal" their attention.
- You Monster!: While Akito talks down to everyone in the Zodiac, Kyo is the only one she calls a monster because of his true form and him being blamed for his mother's suicide. To be even crueler, when she finds out Tohru and Kyo are falling in love because Tohru accept the Cat's true form, Akito insults Tohru in front of Kyo by saying that if Tohru can love a monster, she must be a monster too.
- Your Days Are Numbered: What the curse burdens Akito with in the 2001 anime adaptation only. Henote has a shortened lifespan due to bearing what Shigure explains to Tohru as the "core" of the curse. It also serves as his Freudian Excuse in said adaptation as well.
