Characters / Fruits Basket - Tohru's Friends and Family

Fruits Basket Main Character Index
Main Characters (Tohru Honda) | The Sohma Family (Akito Sohma) | Tohru's Friends and Family | Student Council and Other Characters | Sequel Characters

Tohru's Friends

In General

• Big Sister Instinct: Both Saki and Arisa are extremely protective of Tohru and will not hesitate to defend her from any and all threats, whether they be small, like the Yuki Fan Club bothering her, or much larger, like preventing Kyo from seeing her after he seemingly rejected her confession.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Non-romantically, towards Tohru. Arisa and Saki adore Tohru as their best friend, but once they become aware that Tohru is in love with Kyo, they only want Tohru to be happy even if getting into a relationship with Kyo means she'll hang out with them less. Although, they still decide to hang out with Tohru and Kyo on their first official date to make sure Tohru is in good hands.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: Arisa and Saki were alienated loners before Tohru befriended them.
• Mama Bear: Took over for Kyoko after she passed away, and have Tohru's legion of would-be tormentors too terrified to get near her. Other characters tend to note how they both act like Tohru's parents at times.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Tohru is nice, Arisa was formally mean then is now in-between, Saki is in-between, nice towards her friends, (slightly) mean towards anyone who bothers Tohru.
• Odd Friendship: People certainly find it odd that Nice Girl Tohru is best friends with Uotani the former delinquent and Hanajima the stoic Goth with Psychic Powers. Despite how incredibly different they all are, they're still very close, likely because all three of them were ostracized at some point in their lives and found solace in each other.
• Social Circle Filler: Arisa and Saki are introduced as Tohru's two best friends who she spends the most time with at school, before she becomes friends with Yuki and Kyo. They're more of a downplayed case, as while Tohru ends up spending more time with the Sohma family after discovering the secret of their Hereditary Curse (to the point that Hanajima even feels jealous of the Sohmas for taking Tohru away from her), they never completely fade in importance and they even get full backstories later on.
• Town Girls: We have the traditionally feminine and gentle Tohru (Femme), the seemingly emotionless Goth Saki (Neither) and the laidback former delinquent Arisa (Butch).

Arisa Uotani

Arisa Uotani

Voiced by: Yuka Imai (2001 Series), Atsumi Tanezaki (2019 Series) (JP), Parisa Fakhri (2001 Series), Elizabeth Maxwell (2019 Series) (EN), Lourdes Arruti (LA)

One of Tohru's closest friends and a former gang member. While still a bit rough around the edges due to her delinquent past and her troubled home life, she's a loyal friend to Tohru after she and Kyoko helped her quit her gang and clean up her act during middle school.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Tohru calls her "Uo-chan".
• Age-Gap Romance: With Kureno. She even wondered if it was legal to date a 26-year-old man while she's still in high school.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason she's so protective and loyal to Tohru is because she helped her out when she was a delinquent in middle school, with her and Kyoko showering her in the unconditional love she didn't receive back home.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's warm and friendly towards her friends, but frigid and hostile towards anyone that gets on her nerves, primarily the Prince Yuki Fan Club.
• Big Sister Instinct: She's very protective of Tohru who is sort of a little sister figure to her.
• Boyish Short Hair: She had shorter hair during her middle school days.
• Broken Bird: Her father spent most of his time drinking after Uotani's mother left him and Uotani to run off with another man. The absence of her parents' love made Uotani join a gang to distract herself from the pain and take out her anger in fights. After meeting Tohru and Kyoko, Uotani found a place in which she felt welcomed and that healed her emotional wounds.
• Cool Big Sis: She's the very definition of this to Tohru. In fact, their friendship started when Arisa became like a second daughter to Tohru's mother Kyoko, so it's natural she cares for Tohru like a sister. Arisa also acts like a wise sisterly figure to some delinquent wannabe girls.
• Cross-Cast Role: She's cast as a prince for the Cinderella School Play.
• Death Glare: Gives plenty of these to the Prince Yuki fanclub whenever they harass Tohru, or just in general when she wants to be intimidating.
• Former Teen Rebel: She used to be a sukeban in middle school before Tohru and Kyoko helped her turn her life around and quit her gang. Though she's cleaned up her act for the most part, she still wears a very long skirt with her school uniform (a classic style choice for sukeban) and isn't above intimidating the Prince Yuki Fanclub whenever they're mean to Tohru.
• Freudian Excuse: Her parents divorced when she was little, her mother walked out on her with her new boyfriend and her father spent most of his time drinking. The absence of her parents' love resulted in her joining a gang.
• Generation Xerox: To Kyoko, who isn't even her mother. Like Kyoko, she developed anger issues due to emotional Parental Abandonment from a young age and joined a gang by middle school, was healed by The Power of Love during middle school, and fell for a (seemingly) ordinary Nice Guy with a noticeable age gap. She even looks more like Kyoko than Tohru in their youth, best shown in this chapter cover art◊. The only difference is she's healed by friendly love first (from Tohru and Kyoko) and then fell for Kureno later - and, of course, the fact that Uo's love was affected by the Zodiac Curse, unlike Kyoko's.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Despite being a little rough around the edges due to her delinquent past (and it could be that she bleaches her hair blonde), she has a caring disposition that is emphasized by her blonde hair.
• Heal the Cutie: Back in middle school, Arisa was a violent delinquent because she didn't know how to deal with the abandonment of her mother and the neglect of her alcoholic father. After meeting Tohru and Kyoko, she realized all what she wanted was people who cared about her. She gave up the lifestyle of a delinquent and became Tohru's cheerful, easygoing friend.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Her bangs usually hide her right eye and when she was younger, she was a brooding and antisocial delinquent. She's now a subversion since she kept the hairstyle even after she became more mature and sociable thanks to Tohru's friendship and Kyoko's influence.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Her mother walked out on her and her father was a neglectful alcoholic, which drove Uotani to join a gang. After she met the Hondas, Uotani understood that what she wanted the most was to be part of a loving family.
• Immune to Drugs: She has terrible allergies when spring comes around. When Kyo asks why she doesn't simply take some medication, she offhandedly replies it was because she took so many different drugs in the past, so the prescription medicines don't work on her anymore. This leads her to just wearing a mask and suffering through it, while Kyo worriedly wonders what kind of drugs she had taken.
• Intergenerational Friendship: After rescuing her, Arisa's love and respect of Kyoko grew to the point they pretty much treated each other as friends despite Kyoko being older than her.
• Junior Counterpart: She's a younger version of Kyoko, being a Former Teen Rebel who grew into a wise and mature young woman precisely because of Kyoko's positive influence. Arisa even ends up in a relationship with a man who is almost a decade older than her, just like Kyoko.
• Love at First Sight: She almost instantly falls in love with Kureno when she meets him by coincidence at the convenience store she works at.
• Love Redeems: It was receiving the warmth of the loving Honda family what motivated Arisa to quit the life of a delinquent and live like an honorable civilian.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Does various part time jobs.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Though she's no longer a delinquent, she still wears a long skirt as part of her school uniform to show that she hasn't completely lost her rebellious streak. She also doesn't wear the tie at the end of her sailor collar that female students typically have.
• Obliviously Beautiful: Downplayed. She's very pretty, but it's not brought up that much and most of her schoolmates are used to her rough personality. When thinking about what jobs she'd want in the future, she offhandedly says modeling just because Tohru said she looked tall enough to be a model.
• Opposites Attract: With Kureno. She's cheerful, brash and a former delinquent who still has a rebellious streak while he's reserved, passive and obedient to a fault. She even jokes that he's kind of like Tohru.
• Parental Abandonment: When she was very young, her mother left her and her father to marry another man. This lead to her becoming a delinquent when her father started to neglect her and only got better once she met Tohru and Kyoko.
• Pipe Pain: She still carries around the pipe she used as a delinquent to intimidate the Yuki fanclub when they make rounds on harassing Tohru. It even still has bloodstains on it. When Kyo tries to get past her and Hanajima to meet Tohru at the hospital Uotani acts calm before dropping the act and yelling at Hanajima to get her pipe for her so she could beat Kyo senseless.
  Hanajima: You can't, Arisa. You'll leave physical evidence.
  Kyo and the other students: (internally) She's serious?!
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Back in middle school, she picked fights with gangs to cope with the abandonment of her mother and the neglect of her alcoholic father. Kyoko could understand what she was going through thanks to having been in a similar position before and she helped Arisa grow out of it.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: She and Kureno fell in love with each other over the course of two meetings. However, due to Kureno's obligation to Akito he decided to never see her again even after learning that she wanted to. They are reunited at the end of the series.
• Tears of Remorse: In her backstory, when she admits to Kyoko she was dumb and wanted to be friends with Tohru.
• Test of Pain: When she decides to go straight and leave the gang of sukeban she belongs to, the price she has to pay is to get beaten to a pulp by the other members. She's brutally punched and kicked, and likely would've been beaten badly enough to need to be hospitalized if Tohru's mother hadn't shown up to rescue her (having been tipped off by a member of the gang who was fond of Uotani).
• Tomboyish Voice: Both anime adaptations give her a raspy voice to fit with her easygoing tomboy character.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: She went from a grumpy and depressingly lonely delinquent to a cheerful and outgoing friend for Tohru.
• Took a Level in Kindness: She wasn't as nice and caring before she befriended Tohru. When they first met in middle school, Arisa was a delinquent with a bad attitude until Kyoko convinced her to change her lifestyle.
• Tragic Keepsake: She keeps the deceased Kyoko's Badass Longcoat from the latter's young delinquent days.
• Tsundere: She can easily get angry at Kureno despite her very strong attraction to him.
• Undying Loyalty: Will forever remain loyal to Tohru as her friend, due to her helping her when she was a delinquent in middle school and showing her unconditional love. She's also not afraid to intimidate others or throw hands if it means protecting Tohru.
• Volleying Insults: With Kyo, to the point everyone else around them has become used to it and only really get worried once the two start getting physically violent.

Saki Hanajima

Saki Hanajima

Voiced by: Reiko Yasuhara (2001 Series), Satomi Sato (2019 Series) (JP), Daphne Gere (2001 Series), Jad Saxton (2019 Series) (EN), Karen Vallejo (LA)

One of Tohru's closest friends and a psychic. She was ostracized as a child due to her powers, but was able to accept herself after befriending Tohru and Uotani in middle school. While very stoic and intimidating at first glance, she's a devoted friend to Tohru and isn't without her own eccentricities.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Tohru calls her "Hana-chan".
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: After she accidentally made a bully collapse by wanting him dead, Hanajima became terrified at the possibility that her Psychic Powers could make her kill people by merely thinking it.
• Aloof Big Sister: Subverted. She seems aloof and she insists that she and Megumi look nothing alike (even though they have a very obvious Strong Family Resemblance), but she really loves her little brother and they get along very well.
• Ambiguously Bi: While it's hinted that her feelings for Tohru are most likely romantic—she's expressed sadness over the idea of Tohru getting married more than once, says that she "won't give her up so easily" (when talking about her marrying one of the Sohma boys), considers going to college to "better support [herself and Tohru]" after Uo suggests Tohru get married, and deals with feelings of jealousy when Tohru starts spending more time with Yuki and Kyo—she also gets a crush on Kazuma Sohma and in Another is revealed to have married a foreigner and now has a son.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: She adores Tohru because she was the first person who ever made her feel accepted and deserving of forgiveness despite her unusual powers.
• Book Dumb: She's not really, but she pretends to be because the make-up tests are easier. However, she does become motivated enough to pass her exams before summer vacation, because otherwise she'd be stuck taking make-up exams in a school building with no air conditioning.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She fails school tests on purpose because the makeup tests are easier.
• Broken Bird: The burden of having potentially dangerous powers drove Hanajima to isolate herself and put up with cruel bullying because she believed she deserved no better than that. She only came to accept herself because Tohru befriended her.
• Bully Magnet: When she was in elementary school, some boys tormented Hanajima because she was gloomy and quiet, which made her look like a witch to them. One day, they took their bullying way too far by forcing her to eat a newt and Hanajima accidentally lashed out with her powers, causing one of the bullies to collapse. This only made her classmates treat her even worse, subjecting Hanajima to mocking, shunning and merciless physical abuse all the way to middle school. It got so bad that Hanajima's family moved away and had her transfer to a new school where she met Tohru and Uotani.
• Bullying a Dragon: When she was in elementary school, a bully called her a witch for being weird and force fed her live newts. Hanajima got so angry that she mentally cursed the bully to die many times. Since she didn't have proper control of her Psychic Powers yet, the bully fell unconscious and was put in the hospital. Hanajima was horrified of what she was capable of and did her best to never think something that would hurt people again, no matter how terrible the bullying got later on.
• Cerebus Retcon: Her electric waves power is a comedy element in the present storyline. When her backstory is explained, it's revealed her powers were much more uncontrollable and dangerous when she was younger and this caused Hanajima to be mercilessly bullied for most of her life.
• Chronic Self-Deprecation: For years, Saki hated herself because she believed her psychic powers made her dangerous and she really thought she deserved to be bullied and shunned by everyone around her just for the one time she lost control over her powers and made one of her bullies pass out. She started to accept herself when Tohru and Arisa made clear they weren't afraid of her and wanted to stay friends with her.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She hates the idea of Tohru getting married and feels jealous that she's now spending much more time with the Sohmas than with her. After she hears her younger brother giving a speech about why it's bad to be possessive, Hanajima accepts that it's fine to not be the only important person in Tohru's life. Still, she won't hesitate to tease others like Kyo on how she won't let go of Tohru so easily.
• The Comically Serious: It's sometimes shown that her thought processes can be kind of odd, like how she purposefully fails tests because makeup tests are easier or how she insists that she and her brother Megumi look nothing alike even though they're very obviously related. Combined with her stoic nature, she tends to fall into this trope.
• Creepy Loner Girl: Hanajima is an Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette with a mysterious and stoic personality, often talks about the waves she detects in people and only ever wears black clothing outside of school (and she always wears black nail polish). She was a loner before befriending Tohru and Uotani due to her Psychic Powers alienating her from her peers who called her a freak and bullied her terribly.
• Creepy Monotone: She never raises her voice, which attributes to her Emotionless Girl image.
• Dark Is Not Evil: She dresses all in back when out of her school uniform and has an overall cryptic behavior, yet she's a goodhearted person and a loyal friend to Tohru. It's revealed that she started dressing in black as her "badge of sin" for unintentionally hurting a bully with her Psychic Powers until she finally forgave herself thanks to Tohru's friendship. Nowadays, she keeps wearing black out of habit.
• The Dreaded: To the Yuki Fan Club: while they're certainly intimidated by Arisa, it's Saki they're truly terrified of.
• Dude Magnet: While she was viewed as a Creepy Loner Girl for much of her life and has the Prince Yuki Fanclub terrified of her, Takaya has stated that she's secretly very popular with boys, and that almost all the boys in her class voted for her to play the part of Cinderella for their class play because they wanted to see her in the role. The looks on the boys' faces in this panel◊ say it all. She even catches the eyes of some male passers-by who think to themselves how pretty she looks, but are slightly put off by her dressing in all black.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Raven black hair and pale skin tone are the perfect fit for a stoic Goth girl like Hanajima. She has also been called a witch because of her Psychic Powers.
• Emotionless Girl: She always speaks in monotone and rarely gets emotional. She only really shows a lot more emotions when it comes to Tohru.
• Extreme Doormat: For many years, Hanajima quietly let her classmates shun and bully her, never trying to defend herself or ask for help because she thought she deserved to be treated so cruelly for having such dangerous Psychic Powers.
• Friendless Background: She spent her entire childhood as a victim of cruel bullying. It was until middle school that she found good friends in Tohru and Uotani.
• Goth: Originally, she essentially forced herself into becoming a Lone Psycho Goth because she made the decision to only ever wear black clothing as "punishment" for having used her powers to make one of her bullies collapse. She now wears black out of habit and is a Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette with a stoic, eccentric character, so she still fits into the oddball goth stereotype.
• Goth Girls Know Magic: She wears black gothic dresses and is the only character to have supernatural Psychic Powers that allow her to read minds. Actually, she became a goth because of her powers after she accidentally made a bully pass out, as she decided to always wear black and paint her nails black to remind herself of what happened. Tohru helped her accept and forgive herself for having powers, but she's still a goth out of habit. It's something of a Running Gag that people compare her to a witch for her black dresses and mysterious powers.
• Goths Have It Hard: When Hanajima was in elementary school, she accidentally made a bully pass out with her Psychic Powers and she convinced herself that she had tried to kill him. Ever since then, she only wore black, gothic clothing and painted her nails black to remind herself of her "sin". Her peers either were afraid of her because they thought she would use her powers to hurt them or they bullied her mercilessly to test if her powers were real. After she was befriended by Tohru and Uotani, Hanajima came to accept herself and her powers. She's still a goth because the fashion style became part of her identity after so long.
• Her Own Worst Enemy: After her Psychic Powers made a bully collapse, Saki condemned herself for years and wanted to live in suffering and isolation as a form of self-punishment. It was only when Tohru and Uotani accepted her as their friend that she stopped trying to punish herself for things out of her control.
• Hidden Depths: The Yuki Fan Club is surprised to discover she likes to read shojo manga. She also takes an interest in Shigure's romance novel series Summer Sigh, and is later shown to have bought the first three volumes.
• Hot Witch: Has extremely powerful psychic powers and is noted as being very beautiful by many of the male characters.
• I Am a Monster: She viewed herself as a monstrous individual because of her powers, especially after the incident in which she made a bully collapse with only thinking he should die. After being accepted by Tohru and Uotani, Hanajima accepted herself and her powers.
• Invisible to Normals: Hanajima's denpa waves are something only she can see.
• I Wished You Were Dead: When she was in elementary school, she thought she wanted a boy who bullied her to die over and over again. The boy fainted on the spot and Hanajima blamed her Psychic Powers for it. While the boy didn't die, Hanajima thought what she did more than counted as attempted murder and spent years punishing herself for her "crime".
• Jerkass Realization: She starts getting increasingly bitter and jealous of the extending amount of time Tohru begins to spend with the Sohma family, even stating she "won't give her up so easily." When Megumi tells the Prince Yuki Fanclub off for their entitled behavior regarding Yuki, informing them that their crushes on Yuki do not give them the right to act like he owes it to them to not like someone else, Saki is shocked to realize she's been acting the exact same way towards Tohru.
• Likes Older Men: She develops a crush on Kyo's foster father Kazuma who is in his 40s. She's somewhat concerned that pursuing a relationship with Kazuma means becoming Kyo's adoptive mother. Despite the Ship Tease between them, Hanajima isn't shown to be with him in Another where it's stated she married a foreigner.
• Love at First Sight: The moment she first lays her eyes on Kazuma, she's fascinated by how handsome he is.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Before transferring to Tohru's middle school, Hanajima's classmates thought she was an evil witch because a boy lost consciousness when bullying her. Whenever someone got hurt with her nearby, they immediately accused Hanajima of casting a curse on them. In reality, Hanajima is such a kind soul that her reaction to some bullies burning her skin was feeling relieved that her powers didn't go out of control and hurt anyone.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She's so guilt-ridden over putting a little boy who bullied her into a coma that she spent the rest of her childhood punishing herself, believing she deserved to be bullied and ostracized for what she did. She only forgave herself after meeting Tohru, Arisa, and Kyoko.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Like Uotani, she wears a longer skirt than other female students, though hers only goes to her knees.
• Not So Stoic: The only times she breaks from her stoic expression is when Tohru is concerned. Such as when Kyo tries to visit her at the hospital after her accident and Hanajima seems to angrily threaten to call her "mom" once and he asks if she was telling him to drop dead.
• Obsessed with Food: Downplayed since she doesn't think about food all the time, but there are moments when she's rather preoccupied with it. She decides that she and Uotani shouldn't visit Tohru at Shigure's house right away since they may not have any snacks ready for visitors, and during the class trip to Kyoto, she's more concerned with what foods she'll eat than any of the sights they'll be seeing. She even incorporates it into her role as Cinderella during the class play for the cultural festival, trying to wish for yakiniku instead of a carriage to the ball and opening up a yakiniku shop at the end instead of marrying the prince.
• Parasol of Prettiness: She's occasionally seen walking around with a black parasol as part of her affinity for Goth fashion.
• Power Incontinence: Her abilities were implied to be controlled by her emotions and couldn't be turned off when she was growing up. Nowadays, she has a much better handle on them.
• Professional Slacker: To the point that her plan for life after high school is just to muster up the motivation to actually pass high school. Her teachers are not amused.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Tohru is possibly the most important person to Hanajima. In her backstory, the two share a very intimate moment with strong yuri vibes, complete with the Intertwined Fingers and Headbutt of Love. Even now, she half-jokingly says she would happily make Tohru her wife.
• Psychic Powers: She reads auras and can potentially kill with her "denpa waves". That almost happened in her backstory, where she loses it after being brutally bullied by a boy and wishing for his death... then her powers go haywire and he almost dies.
• The Quiet One: As a child, she very rarely talked and this made her a target of bullying.
• Randomly Gifted: Hanajima was born with Psychic Powers despite everyone else in her family being completely normal. When she was a child, Hanajima felt guilty because she thought that she was a burden to her family because of having such unusual power.
• Ship Tease: She falls for Kyo's foster father, who finds her very charming. While there are some hints late in the manga that they're developing a relationship, it's ultimately left ambiguous. However, she isn't shown to be with him in Another, and Megumi mentions that she is married to a foreigner and she had a son named Rio, who is friends with Shiki and Chizuru.
• Shrouded in Myth: When she transferred to Tohru's school, some of their classmates heard rumors about the incidents of Hanajima's bullying in the past, but they were conveniently modifying the real events to make Hanajima sound like a vicious delinquent when she was always the victim and the one time she hurt someone it was completely unintentional.
• The Stoic: She always has the same contemplative look on her face. Tohru is the only one who can even get a small smile out of her.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's cool and unemotional most of the time, but she turns soft like a marshmallow for anything related to Tohru.
• Unhappy Medium: Her Psychic Powers gave her nothing but trouble through her childhood. She couldn't even take a walk outside with her family without becoming overwhelmed by hearing the thoughts of everyone around her. When she realized that she could hurt people with only her thoughts, Hanajima came to hate having such powers even more.
• Widow's Weeds: When she goes to visit Kyoko's grave, she's wearing a Victorian mourning dress, complete with a veil. Hanajima thinks she looks plain with it.

Megumi Hanajima

Megumi Hanajima

Voiced by: Omi Minami (2001 series), Yukiyo Fujii (2019 series) (JP), Hollie Townson (2001 series), Leah Clark (2019 series) (EN), Sebastián Albavera (LA)

Saki's younger brother.

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• Big Sister Worship: He's especially doting to Hana and wishes for her happiness with the knowledge of how much she suffered as a child. He began studying dark magic when he was young in hopes he'd find something that would help him understand his sister's powers more. He's also there for Hanajima to give her advice or guidance when she needs it.
• Creepy Child: He can be somewhat unsettling because he's unemotional and abnormally mature for a kid.
• Creepy Monotone: He speaks in a very flat, unemotional voice, which is part of why Motoko and her Girl Posse get terrified of him when he merely says their names.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He always wears black colors to emulate his sister and his behavior is ominous overall, but he has a good heart like his sister.
• The Dreaded: He makes Motoko and her Girl Posse run away screaming from his house by simply saying their names before they introduce themselves to him (Megumi found out by spying on them and hearing them talk to each other).
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He's a Goth kid with black hair and pale skin, like his sister.
• Emotionless Boy: Like his sister, Megumi isn't the type to show strong emotions.
• Gender-Blender Name: In Japan, there normally aren't boys named Megumi since that's generally a girl's name.
• Goth: To support his sister, he also started wearing black. Hana encouraged him to move on from it, but admits people would think it weird if he switched to pastel colors and he feels most comfortable in black like his sister.
• Hot Teacher: In Another, an adult Megumi works as a teacher at Kaibara Municipal High School and he's shown to have grown up into a handsome young man.
• I Know Your True Name: His curses work when he knows someone's name.
• Ironic Name: Megumi means "blessing". Megumi's pastime is studying how to put curses on people.
• Likes Older Women: He's pretty subtle about it, but he mentions once how "interesting" it is for him to be the only boy amongst three women (Saki, Tohru, and Arisa). Then there was his forward comment about visiting Arisa at work to see her in a miniskirt... She even lampshades that he sounds like a dirty old man.
• Nightmare Fetishist: He studies the occult, mainly curses, to try and understand his sister's Psychic Powers.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Upon hearing the plan of the Prince Yuki Fan Club girls, he gives them a speech about how they're being selfish by forcing their one-sided affections on Yuki and that he would come to hate them for driving away the people he allows into his life. His words even reach Saki, who had been suffering from her own mild jealousy of Tohru's friendship with the Sohma family.
• Spear Counterpart: He's basically Saki if she was a boy.
• The Stoic: You won't see any more facial expressions out of him than you will see in his sister.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks like a younger, male version of Hana. However, he and his sister deny it.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: While he's stoic and frank, the way he deeply cares about his sister shows a very sweet side to him.
• When He Smiles: Like his older sister, he has a charming smile, but he hides it.
• Wise Beyond His Years: He's possibly only second to Kyoko in terms of maturity and emotional intelligence. That's a big accomplishment for a boy who is just starting middle school.

Tohru's Parents

In General

• Age-Gap Romance: Kyoko was just 14 and Katsuya was 22 when they met, then 16 and 24 when they got married. Their 8-year age difference is commented on often.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gender-reversed. As a teenager, Kyoko was deeply sad and troubled because of being neglected by parents who only cared about themselves. Katsuya brought Kyoko peace by being the first person who understood her loneliness and cared for her.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best:
  • Tohru adores Kyoko and still thinks she's the greatest mother in the world. Arisa and Saki both also see Kyoko in a good light and remember her fondly as well. It's, however, downplayed with the reveal that Kyoko's initial depression over her husband's death caused her to almost commit suicide and this is the root of quite a trauma for her daughter. Although, Tohru doesn't hold it against Kyoko, instead resenting her father for being the reason her mother tried to abandon her.
  • Subverted in regards to Tohru's feelings for her father, as she has few memories of him and after Katsuya died, Kyoko became catatonic with grief to the point of ignoring Tohru. A young Tohru believed back then that in a way, Kyoko's grief meant that her father was taking her mother away also. Years later, the thought still haunts her because she knows Katsuya was a good person and Tohru can't believe she ever thought that way to begin with. It's also the reason why she adopted what few of his speech patterns she could remember - she was trying to remind Kyoko of Katsuya. Though later Tohru admits that blaming her father for something beyond his control is unfair, and understands that in the short time he got to be her father, he loved her and was a genuinely good parent.
• Happily Married: The two of them were very close, doted on their daughter, and were planning to have another child.
• Lonely Together: It's eventually revealed that Katsuya was secretly lonely and unhappy with his life just like Kyoko was, and he also came from a cold and distant family, so they found solace together.
• Opposites Attract: Kyoko was brash and excitable while Katsuya was calm and polite to a fault.
• Posthumous Character: Both of them are dead by the beginning of the series, but their influence is felt through secondary and tertiary connections to other characters.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Katsuya was a student teacher and counselor when he met Kyoko (who in turn almost never showed up to school and never attended a class he helped teach), but he started working for a pharmaceutical company shortly before they got married. He was actually going to her house to ask her parents if he could marry her... and quite in time, since he did it right when the Katsunumas were kicking Kyoko out of the house. He gives them a What the Hell, Hero? speech and takes Kyoko in.
• Together in Death: As of a few months before the start of the series. Kyoko and Katsuya's souls reunite following her death.

Kyoko Honda

Kyoko Honda, née Katsunuma

Voiced by: Reiko Yasuhara (2001 Series), Miyuki Sawashiro (2019 Series) (JP), Julie Mayfield (2001 Series), Lydia Mackay (2019 Series) (EN), Jocelyn Robles (LA)

Tohru's mother, who died from being hit by a car a few months before the story begins. Despite her rough past as a former gang member and losing her husband Katsuya to illness, she still did her best to be a good mother to Tohru, and much of Tohru's worldview was shaped by Kyoko's wisdom.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Katsuya affectionally called her "Miss No Eyebrows", since her eyebrows were extremely thin when they first met. Even after she let her brows grow out, he stuck with the name.
• Alliterative Name: Prior to marrying Katsuya, her name was Kyoko Katsunuma.
• Animal Motifs: She was known as the Red Butterfly and naturally, she's surrounded by crimson butterflies in the 2019 anime's fourth ending. It represents her change from a gangster to a loving mom. They also double as Butterfly of Death and Rebirth because of her untimely death. In Japanese poetry, butterflies are used to represent Star-Crossed Lovers coming Together in Death, perfect for her and her husband reuniting as souls after her death.
• Anti-Climactic Parent: When Arisa first met Tohru, she's a gang member who admires Tohru's mother who was once a ruthless gang leader. She goes to Tohru's home to meet Kyoko and finds out she's a devoted and loving mother, to her major disappointment.
• Badass Longcoat: When she was the member of a gang, she wore a black long coat that made her look awesome and the red butterfly in the back is the source of her Red Baron title. She later passed it down to Uotani.
• Beautiful Tears: Katsuya fell in love with her when he saw her crying because she expressed her sadness in a way he couldn't.
• Berserk Button: In the past, she hated being looked down upon, which would cause her to lash out at any adult who tried to reprimand her.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Kyoko's parents were cold to her and threw her away like trash when they decided they wanted nothing to do with her anymore after her gang beat her up. When she discovered she was pregnant, she was terrified of ending up as a terrible parent too, but she decided everything would be fine if Katsuya was there to help her raise their child... But then, Katsuya died unexpectedly and Kyoko was so depressed and mournful that she practically forgot all about Tohru. When she was about to kill herself, she was reminded that she has a little daughter to take care of, letting her find meaning to her life again and motivating her to never make the mistake of leaving Tohru alone again. For the rest of her life, Kyoko was the most loving mother Tohru could have wished for.
• Broken Bird: Being rejected by her egocentric parents made Kyoko hate the entire world and take her anger out on those around her. Katsuya was the one who healed her heart. Kyoko briefly slipped back into this trope after Katsuya unexpectedly died, but she fortunately recovered when she realized her daughter needed her to be strong. She then became the cheerful and emotionally mature mother in Tohru's memories.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Her parents criticized her for being a delinquent like if she wasn't their problem, so Kyoko snapped at them and yelled they shouldn't have given birth to her if she was nothing but a disappointment to them.
• Color Motif: She's often associated with the color red for being a Fiery Redhead and her delinquent nickname "The Red Butterfly".
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She was closed off and angry at the world when she was younger, to the point of becoming a delinquent to take out her frustrations on those around her. After she met Katsuya, his emotional support made her mellow out significantly.
• Died Happily Ever After: After entrusting Tohru's happiness to Kyo, Kyoko dies from her wounds and her spirit is greeted by her husband in the afterlife.
• Distaff Counterpart: Kyoko is essentially a female adult version of Kyo post-Character Development. Even her name is a female equivalent of Kyo.
• Doting Parent: Despite being a single mother who had to work hard to make ends meet, Kyoko is still shown to have doted on Tohru and tried to make her as happy as she could. She would frequently hug Tohru while proclaiming how cute she was, and wasn't shy about bragging about her to Uotani.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: After Katsuya's death, Kyoko spiraled down into a deep depression, with her eyes having this look for a while until she snaps back later.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: Subverted. Tohru's mother Kyoko tells Kyo, "I'll never forgive you," as she lies dying after being hit by a car that he could have saved her from but didn't due to fear of revealing his curse. A later flashback reveals Kyoko's intended last words were along the lines of, "If you don't protect Tohru, I'll never forgive you." Unfortunately, because she was heavily injured and on the verge of death, she wasn't able to speak clearly and only got the second half out.
• Excessive Mourning: Kyoko's despair over her husband's sudden death left her deeply depressed, causing her to neglect the little Tohru for some time. Not bearing to be forced to live without Katsuya, Kyoko almost took her own life and nearly forgot her young daughter still needed her badly. Fortunately, she snapped out of it and dedicated the rest of her life to taking care of Tohru with all the love in the world.
• Expecting Someone Taller: When Arisa Uotani was excited to finally meet her gang idol, she was shocked to find out her idol is now a doting loving mother.
• Fiery Redhead: It's pointed out early on that Kyoko had orange hair, like Kyo. Turns out that she also had a loud and destructive behavior very similar to Kyo's when she was a teenager, but grew out of it after getting married.
• Former Teen Rebel: In her teenage years, she was part of a gang where she engaged in delinquent behavior to cope with having unloving parents. She turned her life around after she met and fell in love with Katsuya, going on to become the saintly mother of Tohru. Her rebellious past is the reason why no one in Katsuya's family (except for his father) ever accepted her and Tohru.
• Friend to All Children: After having Tohru, Kyoko gains an incredibly amount of empathy towards children and teens. She even became friendly with a child Kyo who would come to her and talk sometimes.
• Good Counterpart: To Ren Sohma, though the two have never met. Both women were looked down on by the families of their respective spouses for their social standing (Kyoko for being a Former Teen Rebel, Ren for being a mere maid), and both were crushed by their husbands' untimely deaths by illness. However, while Kyoko was able to move past Katsuya's death and raise Tohru with love and compassion, Ren never got over Akira's death and treated Akito with nothing but hatred and scorn. Effectively, Ren serves as Kyoko's Shadow Archetype, representing what she could have become if she was never able to move past her grief.
• Happily Failed Suicide: After Katsuya dies and the rest of her family abandons her, she decides to throw herself into the sea. Hearing a mother and child talking reminds her of Tohru and snaps her back from the brink, and after that she vows never to abandon Tohru again, considering the attempted suicide her greatest failure.
• Happily Married: To her husband Katsuya, where Tohru's grandfather noted how happy she seemed to make his son.
• Hates Being Alone: Her parents never gave her positive attention and outright told her nobody needed her. The young Kyoko claimed that she hated everyone in the world, but Katsuya immediately knew what she really hated was the feeling of loneliness.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: When she got married to Katsuya, the one thing she wasn't happy about was the idea of wearing a wedding dress.
• Heal the Cutie: She went through this in her backstory. The Parental Neglect from Katsunumas made Kyoko into an angry and violent delinquent who blamed everyone for her sadness. After she met the love of her life, Kyoko's heart started to heal. Even after her husband died and she came very close to killing herself, Kyoko remembered she had a daughter who needed her love and care. From then on, she became a very loving and cheerful mother who gave nothing but love and wisdom to her daughter and other young people in her life.
• Her Heart Will Go On: When her husband passed away, Kyoko became so depressed that she almost killed herself, but she realized if she died, Tohru would have been left all alone. She spent the rest of her life raising Tohru with the best disposition possible, which is why her daughter greatly admires her strength and kindness.
• Humanizing Tears: In her early teenage years, Kyoko was an angry and violent delinquent who hated everyone. The only person who tried to understand her was Katsuya, who realized she simply felt lonely and wanted to be loved. Overwhelmed at being treated with kindness and compassion for the first time, Kyoko broke down in tears.
• I Have No Son!: Her parents disowned her after she got out of the hospital once she left her gang. Her last phone call to them after Katsuya's death was her calling her father out on his bullshit before quietly hanging up on him.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: In her youth, having incredibly self-centered parents made Kyoko desperate for someone who would make her feel loved and needed. Katsuya gave her that and even after he died, Kyoko understood she still had a daughter to take care of.
• Innocently Insensitive: Kyoko often said Tohru speaking politely was super adorable. She never realized that whenever she said that, Tohru worried that Kyoko only loved her because Tohru was deliberately trying to remind her of Katsuya, who also used polite speech.
• Intergenerational Friendship: She was friends with a young Kyo enough for her to share the story of her life.
• Interrupted Suicide: When she goes to the beach to commit suicide, the sound of a crying child snaps her out of her stupor, and she realizes she's left her preschool-aged daughter home alone for hours and rushes back to her.
• Jerkass Realization: When she got pregnant with Tohru, Kyoko began to worry about being such a bad mother that her child would wish she had never been born. Kyoko is stunned when she realizes she said that awful thing to her own parents and now she knows how terribly she would feel if her child said that to her.
• Last Request: Dies saying "I will never forgive you". Kyo interpreted this as her cursing him for not saving her despite being able to, which later becomes his biggest regret. In fact, Kyoko actually meant to say along the lines of "I will never forgive you if you do not your keep your promise to protect Tohru". Alas, her death throes prevented her from saying this in full.
• Look Both Ways: Subverted; she was killed from being hit by a car, but it wasn't because she was being careless about the traffic. Rather, it was because the driver, Komaki's father, suffered a heart attack while driving that caused him to hit Kyoko and also resulted in his own death.
• Love Redeems: Katsuya treating her with the love and understanding no one ever gave her before made Kyoko quit the life of a delinquent and her personality greatly improved thanks to his influence.
• Mama Bear: She dearly loves Tohru, and her love for her daughter is so fierce that she even scared a young Yuki who was watching the scene unfold from nearby as Kyoko is panicking over Tohru's dissappearance. When the police attempt to get a profile of Tohru from Kyoko to find her daughter, she can only scream aggressively about how cute Tohru was before she attempts to storm off and look for her daughter herself. When Uotan is being beat up by her gang, she does not hesitate to find her, beat the others up herself and carry the bruised girl back to her home where Tohru was waiting for them.
• Married Too Young: She got married to the significantly older Katsuya right after finishing middle school. This is one of the reasons why their marriage was frowned upon by her husband's family.
• Misery Builds Character: She firmly believed this, as seen when she told Uotani that often people can't mature and become emotionally strong until they have expressed lots of pain and hardships. Kyoko herself went through a lot, mainly being disowned by her parents and losing her husband, and it nearly broke her, but because she still had a daughter to take care of, she knew how to turn her bad experiences into wisdom. As a result, Kyoko became the most emotionally intelligent and strong-willed character in the series.
• Missing Mom: Her mother was emotionally distant with her, and after Katsuya died she was so suicidally depressed that she neglected Tohru for a long while, and almost left her to commit suicide.
• The Mourning After: She stayed loyal to her late husband up to her own death.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She was appalled at herself when she snapped out of her suicidal grief over losing her husband at the last minute, realizing that she was about to make her little daughter an orphan and neglected her like Kyoko's own awful parents did to her.
• My Greatest Failure: She considered her depression following Katsuya's death as such. She neglected baby Tohru for days on end before leaving her alone in the house to kill herself. Only seeing a mother and child talking on the beach snapped her out of it, after which Kyoko was reminded she still has a daughter to take care of. Horrified that she neglected her daughter just as her own parents did her, Kyoko pulled herself together and returned home, vowing to never leave Tohru alone again.
• Nice Girl: No wonder Tohru grew up to be a kind and caring lady thanks to her. She didn't start out this way as she was a delinquent gang member as a teenager until she and Katsuya got together as wife and husband.
• The Nicknamer: She was the one who bestowed Uotani with her nickname "Uo-chan". When Uotani and Tohru first met Hanajima, they decided to call her "Hana-chan" because that's what Kyoko would have called her if they had met at the time.
• No Brows: When she was a teenager, Katsuya liked to tease Kyoko about her thin eyebrows, which lead her to use eyeliners.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She tries to leave the gang she was a part of and clean up her act; as a result, said gang puts her in the hospital, and when she gets out, she loses her chance of getting into high school and is disowned by her Abusive Parents.
• Open-Minded Parent: Knowing she wanted her child to grow up happy was pretty much her mindset throughout her years as Tohru's mother. The only thing she really wanted Tohru to do for her was to graduate high school, since she never went to high school herself.
• Parental Substitute: Besides being Tohru's actual mother, Kyoko took the role of a mother figure to her daughter's friend Uotani whose own mother abandoned her after a bad divorce. She was also motherly towards Kyo during the short time they knew each other in his childhood.
• Parents as People: When her husband Katsuya died, Kyoko had an emotional breakdown and neglected Tohru for a while out of depression. Thankfully, she snapped out of it before she killed herself and any lasting harm could be done, but she regards it as My Greatest Failure. This could be why she dotes so heavily on her daughter up until her death.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: After her husband died, Kyoko tearfully pleaded him to not leave her behind.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Kyoko's death essentially kicks off the whole plot, since many of the story's events would never have happened otherwise.
• Posthumous Character: She was killed in a road accident a few months before the story starts.
• The Promise: When Kyo was little and saw how lonely Tohru was whenever Kyoko had to go work, he makes a promise to Kyoko he would look after Tohru. After Kyoko's accident when Kyo heard her muttering "I won't forgive you" to him, she was actually trying to convey the promise he made to her to look after Tohru and protect her. She was swearing she would not forgive him if he doesn't live up to that promise.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: When she was in a gang, Arisa idolized Kyoko as the infamous "Red Butterfly", but when she went to meet her, she was disgusted to learn she'd become a loving mother to a Nice Girl like Tohru. However, Kyoko eventually helped her see that her anger was misplaced and gang life isn't the answer, and helped her turn her life around. Then Arisa idolized her for real.
• Red Baron: She was known as "The Red Butterfly" during her delinquent days, since the red taillight on her motorcycle was said to resemble a flitting butterfly as she rode it.
• Red Spider Lilies of Mourning: Kyoko is surrounded by red spider lilies in the 2019 anime's fourth ending, symbolizing her death and Tohru mourning her.
• Retired Badass: As Arisa's origin story shows us, she still possessed the skills she learned during her delinquent years while saving Arisa from being attacked by her gang members.
• Shading/Colour Dissonance: Kyoko's hair color is orange, just like Kyo. However, in the manga, Kyo's hair is given a grayscale shading while Kyoko's hair has no shading, making it easy to imagine her as a blonde like Uotani instead.
• Shipper on Deck: She was the very first TohruxKyo supporter. The reason why Kyo is so protective of Tohru from the beginning is because Kyoko often talked to the little Kyo about how wonderful her daughter is. Kyoko even spent her final moments hoping that Kyo would love Tohru a lot after she was gone. Thankfully, Kyoko's dying wish came true.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Katsuya giving her the love and care her parents denied her was the reason why she was deeply in love with him.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She's dead by the time the story starts and only appears in flashbacks, but Tohru's entire outlook in life, and by extension her resolve to help the Sohma clan through kindness, is rooted in her mother's loving upbringing. Her death is also what kicks off the plot as a whole, since Tohru would likely never have become involved with the Sohma clan otherwise.
• Sorry That I'm Dying: Once she realized she was about to die, Kyoko apologized to Tohru in her thoughts for having to leave her beloved daughter alone.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: In her delinquent days, she acted out because she was so lonely and unhappy. Katsuya was the first person to recognize this, and helped her grow out of it.
• Struggling Single Mother: She was a young mother who was tragically widowed when her daughter was a toddler. Despite facing problems in earning enough income to maintain herself and Tohru, Kyoko was truly happy with raising her daughter because it gave her someone to love. She never once complained about anything no matter how much she had to work.
• Take Care of the Kids: What she really meant to say to Kyo in her final moments was that she expected him to protect and love Tohru in her place and wouldn't forgive him if he didn't keep his promise.
• Tame Her Anger: When she was a teenager, she was constantly angry and engaged in violence to discharge her negative emotions. Thanks to Katsuya, she learned to control her temper to the point she was always calm and happy as an adult.
• Teen Pregnancy: She was only about sixteen years old when she gave birth to Tohru. Unlike most examples, she was married at the time, but she still ends up as a young single parent without a high school education after her husband dies a couple years later.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: As a teenager, she was depressed, grumpy and desperately lonely. As an adult, she was lively, optimistic and always smiling.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Kyoko wasn't always the gentle mother Tohru remembers. In her teenage years, Kyoko was abrasive, ill-tempered and violent. She only started to change thanks to Katsuya's influence.
• Tsundere: She was a Harsh type as a teenager. She had a bad temper and was prone to violence, but Katsuya could easily calm her down and make her embarrassed with his teasing.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her last words to Kyo end up preventing him from acting up on his feelings for Tohru and to reject her when she confesses. The latter indirectly contributes to Tohru's landslide accident. In her defense, she wasn’t able to articulate clearly, since she was, you know, dying.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Although she dies still as a young woman, she has a great deal of kindness and patience with struggling people— most of it earned the hard way. After her death, Tohru relies on her mother's wisdom greatly.
• Would Hurt a Child: Even after being retired as the "Red Butterfly", she has not rusted a bit as she coldly took on Uotani's former gang to protect the girl. She later laughs about it saying there was nothing cool about her beating up a bunch of kids.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: After marrying Katsuya, she is happy to be a loving mother and House Wife and finally experience living in a happy family... and then, in Uotani's backstory, we see that she beats the tar out of a group of delinquents to save Arisa. In Yuki's flashback to when little Tohru went missing, we also see her threaten to "rain death upon [the police's] miserable souls" if they don't find her baby. That's the kind of inner iron that separates the pushover Extreme Doormat House Wife from Yamato Nadeshiko.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Katsuya's belief that she was more than just a violent delinquent helped her become just that. Likewise, her assertion that he was much nicer than he gave himself credit for helped him open up too.

Katsuya Honda

Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya (JP), J. Michael Tatum (EN)

Tohru's father and Kyoko's husband, who died from pneumonia when Tohru was only three years old. His connection to Kyoko during his time as a student teacher led to Kyoko leaving her gang as a middle schooler and turning her life around. Though Tohru lacks memories of him due to his passing away so early in her life, she notably gets her very polite speech patterns from what little she remembers of how he spoke to others.

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• Big Brother Mentor: He was this to Kyoko, before they fell in love.
• Death by Irony: A pharmaceutical company employee's death from an ill-treated cold that developed into pneumonia.
• Defrosting Ice King: Flashbacks reveal that while he was an extremely polite speaker, Katsuya was very cold and distant with everyone before he met Kyoko. Falling in love with her helped defrost him.
• Disappeared Dad: Died of pneumonia when Tohru was a toddler.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: He was an extremely polite speaker, which signified his overly professional attitude. He mellowed out considerably after falling in love with Kyoko, though he never dropped his polite speech patterns. Tohru would later adopt this habit for herself.
• Hot Teacher: He was Kyoko's student teacher when they met, but he ultimately decided that it wasn't for him. It's implied that falling in love with Kyoko was part of the reason he decided not to become a teacher.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Katsuya had a severe cough with his cold and died from the pneumonia while working overnight at the office.
• Let's Have Another Baby: His last conversation with Kyoko before he died had him asking her to help him give Tohru a younger sibling.
• Living Emotional Crutch: He made Kyoko confront her demons and gave her a reason to live happily by marrying her. Losing him drove her to suicidal despair and she only snapped out of it after remembering she still had the daughter Katsuya left her to raise and love.
• Love Redeems: Twice. He and his father didn't start getting along until his mother died of an illness and they subsequently turned to each other for support. His father thanks Kyoko for the second time love changes Katsuya, noting that Katsuya hardly showed interest in anyone or anything in his daily life and he didn't think he'd see Katsuya living a genuinely happy life with the experience of having his own family.
• The Mourning After: Kyoko never remarried (meaning that Tohru never got any sort of stepdad), even when she died herself.
• Nice Guy: Not actually a straight example at first, as he's introduced as polite but reserved and distant from most people. Meeting Kyoko and empathizing with her causes him to defrost and becomes much happier with her. He even defended her by calling out her callous parents for disowning her when apparently she was about to quit her days as a delinquent, and he was a genuinely loving father to Tohru until his death.
• One Head Taller: He topped Kyoko's height by a full head, emphasizing the age difference between them.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives a swift but fantastic one to Kyoko's Abusive Parents when they disowned her for daring to need help after she got beaten up badly enough to be hospitalized (because she was trying to quit her gang and turn her life around).
• Smart People Wear Glasses: When he was a student teacher at Kyoko's school, he wore glasses to give himself a more professional appearance.
• The Stoic: Flashbacks reveal that one of the reasons he fell for Kyoko was because she was able to express her emotions so openly and honestly, while he'd suppressed his emotions for so long he no longer knew how to express them. Falling for Kyoko and parenting Tohru helped bring out his warmer, loving side.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: When he first met Kyoko, he was polite but cold and reserved around everyone but her. Their marriage helped him grow past this, to the point that his father was delighted to see him so openly and honestly in love, and happy with his family.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Kyoko and Katsuya both had this opinion of each other. He saw her as more than just a violent delinquent, and she thought he was much nicer than he gave himself credit for. They both grew from each other's mutual love and support.
• You're Insane!: Kyoko's father's reaction when he told him he wanted to marry Kyoko.