Characters / Fruits Basket - Main Characters

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 Honda

Tohru Honda

Voiced by: Hiroko Konishi (Drama CD), Yui Horie (2001 series), Manaka Iwami (2019 series) (JP), Laura Bailey (EN)

The heroine of the story, Tohru ends up in the Sohma household after her mother dies and she sets up tent on their property. She forges friendships with Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure, and eventually comes to befriend the rest of the Sohmas as well.

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See Tohru Honda

Yuki Sohma (The Rat)

Yuki Sohma (The Rat)

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (2001 Series), Nobunaga Shimazaki (teen), Miyuri Shimabukuro (child) (2019 Series) (JP), Eric Vale (teen, both series), Kate Bristol (child, 2001 series), Amanda Lee (child, 2019 series) (EN), Javier Olguín (teen), Atzin Padgett (child) (LA)

Click ^here  to see him as the Rat

The Rat of the Zodiac, younger brother to Ayame, and rival to Kyo. Despite being attractive, accomplished, and popular, Yuki is very reserved and possesses low self-esteem due to years of being controlled by Akito. Tohru helps him become more open with his feelings.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Yuki's hair and eye color is silver in the manga and the 2019 reboot, but they were changed to purple in the 2001 anime.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: As he starts falling in love with Machi, Yuki pats her head to show her affection or comfort her when she's crying.
• All Take and No Give: Has shades of this but it is never intentional on his part. He seeks Tohru's friendship, listening ear, and understanding quite often and has benefited from Hatsuharu's and Ayame's affection for him whenever he's in a tight spot he is unable to get himself out of. When this trait is pointed out to him he resolves to change himself into a person who can give back to the people who care for him.
• Always Someone Better: Kyo has trained in martial arts longer than he has and is more dedicated but he can't reach Yuki's level no matter what. It's implied that this is actually part of the Sohma curse, which makes it so that the Cat can never beat the Rat at anything no matter how hard they try.
• Attractiveness Isolation: The girls of his fan club think Yuki is so perfect that none of them will ever be good enough for him and limit themselves to admiring him from afar. Tohru is the only girl who treats him like a regular boy instead of an idol, which makes him feel at ease. This also adds to Yuki's fangirls hating Tohru because they thought it was an unofficial rule that no girl at their school could get so close to Yuki.
• Babies Ever After: With Machi. Their son Mutsuki becomes one of the main characters of Fruits Basket Another.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • The main reason behind Yuki's fondness of Tohru is that she's the first person who has made him feel accepted and valued for who he truly is.
  • He finds himself falling for Machi because she's the only one who would run all over the school just to greet him. Not only that, she sees right through his princely image.
• Berserk Button: Things that set Yuki off include reminders of his older brother's quirks, being called a woman, the mere thought of crossdressing or being compared unfavorably to Kyo.
• Beta Couple: Starting from the second act of the series, Yuki slowly develops a romantic relationship with his fellow student council member Machi. By the point Yuki meets Machi, he's overcoming the worst traumas with his past and growing into a more confident person thanks to Tohru's influence, which allows him to bond with Machi in a natural way. It also helps Machi is in the dark about the Zodiac curse and never meets Akito. This forms a nice contrast to the heavy drama and obstacles Tohru and Kyo face as the main couple of the series.
• Birds of a Feather: With Machi. Both had difficult childhoods due to being raised by controlling mothers who forced them into being "perfect children" for the sake of money. Thanks to their similar family situations, Yuki and Machi can understand and empathize with each other in ways no one else can. Both also never clean their rooms and have a loud older brother. Gradually, they fall in love and eventually get married.
• Broken Ace: He's intelligent, athletic and good-looking, but due to his past Yuki is so terrified of rejection that he's also an enormous Stepford Smiler who keeps most people at a distance until he befriends Tohru.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gender reversed in his dynamic with Machi. Tohru's influence has made it so that Yuki can reach out and try to understand others better. This is exactly what he needs to bond with Machi who closes herself off from everyone because of her bad family environment that left her emotionally scarred. Yuki wants to hear what Machi has to say and comforts her when she cries, knowing what kind of pain she has been through.
• The Bully: Downplayed; while he's certainly not a bully towards most people, his treatment of Kyo can verge into this at times. While Kyo often brings it on himself, especially early on in the series, there have been multiple occasions where Yuki antagonizes him without provocation, at one point casually trying to force-feed him a leek merely because Kyo griped about not liking them.
• Caring Gardener: He has a private vegetable garden that's some distance away from Shigure's house, which he refers to as his "secret base". Revealing it to Tohru and letting her help him take care of it is a notable sign that he's opening up to her.
• Chick Magnet: Enough that he has a fan club that started up almost as soon as he entered high school, and it's stated that over half of the school's female population are members.
• Curtains Match the Window: His hair and eyes are silver because he's the Rat.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As a young child, he was plagued with severe asthma that inhibited him from doing most things. When he was still very young, his very selfish mother sold him to Akito, who was nice to him at first but then proceeded to torment him physically (is shown whipping him), verbally/emotionally, and especially psychologically (locking him in a windowless, dark room for days on end, and convincing him that no one will accept him for who he is). Yuki tried to go to his brother, Ayame, for help, but was instantly rebuked. Such experiences in his past have left him emotionally withdrawn and exhausted. After it all, however, he manages to empathize with and forgive Akito, and he is well on his way to forming a brotherly bond with Ayame.
• The Defroster: To Machi. After her mother's emotional abuse made her disconnect herself from her emotions, Machi shut herself off from society and was unable to communicate well at all. After they end up together at the student council, Yuki is the only one who shows interest in getting to know Machi and slowly gets her to show her emotions by teasing her and getting flustered reactions out of her. Eventually, Machi opens up to Yuki about how hurt she was by her mother's callous treatment and Yuki's high empathy towards her leads to them falling in love.
• Delicate and Sickly: When he was younger he had pretty severe asthma and other unspecified health problems, but this improves as he gets older.
• Deuteragonist: He becomes one in the second half of the series as more focus is put on his student council activities and his growing relationship with Machi.
• Dragged into Drag: His class puts him in a dress to attract more students to their rice ball stand at the School Festival.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Yuki resents Kyo a lot because he thinks Kyo has the life with parental love and friends he desperately wants. While it's true Kyo has a good adoptive father in Kazuma, he has been very badly traumatized by his mother committing suicide and his biological father treating him like a disgusting monster. While the peers outside of the Sohma clan can act more natural around Kyo because he doesn't put on a perfect front like Yuki, Kyo is still unable to bond with people and pushes them away because of all the anger he has in him over the unfairness of his treatment from the Sohma clan and no one being able to understand him until he meets Tohru.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: He has a bit of a complex about his girly face, has been mistaken for a woman and Kyo often mocks him by calling him "girly boy".
• Effeminate Voice: Yuki is frequently pointed out to have a very feminine appearance, which annoys him. 2001 drove this point home in the Japanese dub by casting a woman as his voice, to add to the Dude Looks Like a Lady gag. This is averted in both the English dub of 2001 as well as both dubs of the 2019 reboot, where he has a male voice actor.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Kakeru and Kimi call him "Yun-Yun" to tease him. Kagura also calls him "Yun-chan."
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: He's very smooth when he's in his charming prince persona, but he struggles to communicate his true feelings in a natural way.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Boys and girls alike swoon over him. Makoto Takei, the first Student Council President, has a very blatant crush on him.
• Fatal Flaw: His tendency to hold grudges. He resents Ayame for often ignoring him as a child and refuses to let him in when he tries making amends, and he'll often antagonize Kyo completely unprovoked out of spite.
• First Love:
  • Played for Laughs when Haru casually admits Yuki was his first crush.
  • In a more serious sense, he was Tohru's childhood crush who helped her find her way back home when she was lost.
  • Later, he becomes this for Machi, who was too traumatized by her parents to even think about love. When she opens up to Yuki, she falls in love with him, something he reciprocates.
• Flower Motif: A white rose in the 2019 anime's fourth ending, symbolizing purity and silence.
• Forgotten First Meeting: He was the boy who guided Tohru back to her house after she got lost one day when she was a child. While both of them remember the event, Tohru can't recall the boy's face and therefore doesn't remember that it was Yuki. Yuki, on the other hand, realizes the girl was Tohru when he sees the hat.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic and Phlegmatic.
• Friendless Background: From a young age, Yuki was basically forced to be Akito's main playmate, which wasn't too bad until Akito turned verbally abusive seemingly out of nowhere and drilled into his head that everyone but her hated him. Because of his higher status as the Rat, he couldn't befriend other members of the Zodiac. Just when he started making friends at his elementary school, he transformed into a rat in front of the other kids and Hatori had to erase their memories. At high school, he's popular, but most people idolize him to the point that they only admire him from afar and the Prince Yuki Fanclub bullies any girl who tries to get closer to him. He doesn't start properly bonding with people until he meets Tohru and later becomes friends with his fellow student council members.
• The Gadfly: Character Development has him start to become this as he interacts more with the other student council members (especially Kakeru), showing how he's more relaxed and not as worried about upholding his image as a Princely Young Man. He particularly likes doing this to his girlfriend Machi.
• Harmful to Minors: Flashbacks are shown of Akito whipping him.
• Heavy Sleeper: Might as well be asleep on his feet in the morning.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Akito did a lot of emotional and mental damage to Yuki, but he comes to admit that above anyone or anything, his biggest enemy is himself as his inferiority complex makes him compare himself to others and feel insecure almost all the time. He often ends up taking out his frustration on the people he envies, mainly Kyo.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: He won't ever forgive anyone who does anything that hurts Tohru, especially Kyo who unwittingly keeps breaking her heart by distancing himself and refusing her love.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Yuki longs to have friends of his own and part of the reason why he hates Kyo so much is because he thinks Kyo makes friends more easily, not understanding Kyo's anger issues keep him from bonding with people much like him, until Tohru comes into their lives. This is why him becoming the Student Council President is so important to his Character Development, as the other members of the council become his first group of friends.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Machi is the only girl who doesn't get flustered over his princely charm, actually gets mad at him when he teases her, and can tell just how much of a lonely person Yuki really is beneath his perfect facade. Unsurprisingly, Yuki ends up falling in love with Machi because she can understand and love his real self.
• Instant Fan Club: The Prince Yuki Fan Club, which formed within a few months of his first year of high school.
• Insulted Awake:
  • Kyo's voice alone is enough.
  • Kakeru calling him a "spoiled little rich girl" woke him up, too.
• Jerkass to One:
  • Due to his circumstances as the Rat, Yuki keeps people at a distance until he bonds with Tohru, but he's still generally civil to those he interacts with. Whenever he's around Kyo, however, Yuki becomes very demeaning and condescending, sometimes going so far to act somewhat like a bully, even after Kyo starts controlling his temper better and isn't antagonistic towards Yuki like he was at the beginning. Yuki acts this way partially because he's jealous that Kyo can freely express his emotions and show signs of improving himself faster than him, and partially because he's annoyed that Kyo wants to be accepted by both the Zodiac and the rest of the Sohma clan while he wants nothing more than to escape from them.
  • Yuki also acts similarly hostile towards his older brother Ayame. In this case, Yuki resents Ayame for never standing up for him when their parents and Akito were abusing Yuki and denying him a normal childhood. In comparison to Kyo, though, Yuki begins reaching an understanding with Ayame sooner.
• Lethal Chef: His cooking will literally make you ill.
• Lonely at the Top: The Rat is the first of the Zodiac animals and the one God is the closest to. Because of this, Yuki's parents were given a lot of money and Yuki was made spend almost all his time with the family head Akito. From the outside, he would seem to have the best position of the Zodiac animals, but Yuki has really been very miserable and lonely because spending so much time with Akito only made him the main outlet for her cruelty, his parents and older brother basically abandoned him to be mercilessly abused by Akito, and he couldn't make friends because of his higher status in the Zodiac and curse alienating from the other kids.
• Lonely Together: Yuki and Machi have both felt alienated and misunderstood by others their entire lives, leading to them forming a bond that quickly turns into romance. Machi even mentions that because of how lonely they were, they were able to find each other.
• Love Epiphany: Played With. In the beach arc, Yuki undergoes an epiphany where he understands Tohru is someone very dear to him and he loves her. At first, this seems to mirror Kyo's romantic epiphany towards Tohru in the same arc, but it's later revealed that Yuki meant he loves Tohru as a mother figure.
• Loving a Shadow: On the receiving end of this as plenty of girls in school like his "princely" image, but are unaware of how much of a Broken Ace and Stepford Smiler he really is.
• Luminescent Blush: When Tohru calls him by his given name for the first time during Haru's visit, he gets one of these as he transforms out of shock.
• Master of the Mixed Message: For a good part of the series, there's a lot of ambiguity in Yuki's feelings for Tohru. He's a lot more open and relaxed around her than other people because she's the first person he can confide in with no fear. Many flirtatious gestures from him, such as kissing Tohru's hair a couple of times, can lead many to believe Yuki is developing romantic feelings for Tohru just like Kyo. The first hints that this isn't the case is when Yuki notices Tohru is falling in love with Kyo and rather than getting jealous, he's only concerned that Kyo might break Tohru's heart. Eventually, Yuki admits to himself and Kakeru that Tohru is very dear to him, as the loving mother figure he never had. His attempts at flirting were actually him trying to hide his filial affection for Tohru because it was a little embarrassing that he wanted motherly love from a girl of his same age.
• Mutual Envy:
  • He envies Kyo for being able to socialize more easily than he can, as well as not having as many restrictions placed on him by the Sohma clan since he isn't seen as a "true" member of the Zodiac due to his status as the Cat. Ironically, Kyo envies Yuki for being seemingly perfect and being accepted as one of the Zodiac.
  • This also happens between him and the student council vice-president Kakeru. Yuki is jealous of Kakeru for the same reason he's jealous of Kyo (they're more open with their thoughts and emotions, making them more approachable than him) while Kakeru is jealous of Yuki's ability to empathize with others. Unlike with Kyo, Yuki can admit his envy much more easily and reaches an understanding with Kakeru early in their friendship.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Noble Male to Kyo's Roguish Male, being the charming prince of his high school.
• No-Sell: At one point Rin tries to get under his skin by calling him "Akito's toy." Little did she know he'd mostly grown past those issues, so her words didn't have the affect she'd hoped. She leaves in a huff.
• Not a Morning Person: He's incredibly tired in the morning, but despite that he's even stronger in this state since he's too sleepy to hold back. Kyo has tried attacking him, but was unsuccessful.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: A big part of him overcoming Akito's, and with it, the curse's control is Yuki learning to not be scared by Akito's cruel words and abuse anymore. Since Akito controls the Zodiac through fear, it becomes clear that the power of the curse is waning.
• The Not-Love Interest: The early part of the series makes it look like Tohru will be in the middle of a Love Triangle, with Yuki and Kyo both being in love with her. It later turns out that Yuki never felt any romantic attraction for Tohru; Yuki loves Tohru in a familial way rather than romantic, because she acts like a motherly figure towards him. Foreshadowed in that, unlike Kyo, he doesn't get flustered around her (except once when she switched to First-Name Basis) and is briefly shown to be jealous when he sees Tohru acting motherly towards the younger Sohmas. While Yuki and Tohru stay close friends, Tohru falls in love with Kyo while Yuki falls in love with Machi.
• Odd Name Out: He and Kyo are the only cursed Sohmas whose names aren't part of the others' Temporal Theme Naming.
• Official Couple: He starts dating Machi near the end of the series. They later get married and have a son that appears in the sequel.
• Platonic Declaration of Love: In the final chapter of the manga and last episode of the second anime, Yuki confesses to Tohru that she has been like a beloved mother to him and thanks her for being there for him while giving him confidence and strength as now he can live as a human thanks to that.
• Pretty Boy: He's prettier than several girls in the series.
• Prince Charming: Parodied when his class put on a performance of Cinderella. He specifically asks that he not be cast as the prince since he's too busy with his role as Student Council President, though it's mainly because he feels he doesn't fit the role. The entire female population of his class disagrees. This bites him in the rear when he is instead cast as the fairy godmother.
• Princely Young Man: His fan club gives him the nickname "Prince Yuki."
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The calm, reserved, grey-haired Blue Oni to Kyo's temperamental, loud, red-haired Red Oni.
• The Scapegoat: Kyo regularly finds ways to blame Yuki for his issues and his unfair treatment from the rest of the Sohma family, because the Rat tricked the Cat out of attending God's banquet in the legend and resulted in the Cat being the Sohmas' pariah. Kyo eventually acknowledges that none of his misfortune was Yuki's fault, but he was so miserable that he needed somebody to blame for his own crappy life.
• School Idol: He's recognized as the most popular guy in school. He has his own fan club and student council members look to him to be student council president.
• Shipper on Deck: A much more subtle example than is common for this trope, but Yuki becomes this for Kyo and Tohru after the beach house arc. Once Yuki realizes that his feelings for Tohru are platonic ones, and that she's in love with Kyo, he begins to use his pull over Kyo to trick him into spending more time with her, such as when he mocks Kyo to get him to set off fireworks with Tohru, or when he chastizes him for going out with Kagura instead of walking Tohru to work.
• Shown Their Work: Rodents kept in captivity can commonly develop respiratory problems ^* usually due to poor bedding quality or air circulation in their cages, explaining why Yuki suffers from something similar.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: He's reserved and struggles with his confidence and self-esteem issues, while his older brother Ayame is loud, flamboyant and brimming with self-confidence. In Ayame's own words, they each have qualities the other lacks.
• Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: He suffered from severe respiratory problems when he was young (and they occasionally come back when he's under emotional stress), but he's largely recovered from them and is an even stronger martial artist than Kyo despite being not as passionate about it.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: For much of the story, Yuki tends to wear tight-fitting, formal clothing outside of school, typically in a distinctly Chinese style. After meeting Kakeru and becoming the Student Council President, he gradually stops wearing Chinese style outfits and leans more towards looser, more casual clothing, showing how he's opening up more to people other than Tohru.
• Slave to PR: Yuki feels like he's trapped in the façade of the ideal prince everyone loves from afar, because Akito drilled into his head that no one would ever accept his real self. His Character Development is about learning to be himself thanks to Tohru's influence and his friendships within the student council.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: He has a complex about his pretty face and he very much dislikes the unwanted attention his beauty draws from both women and men.
• Stepford Smiler: Depressed variety. Because of his Dark and Troubled Past and his desire to have friends, he tends to hide behind a smile. He even comes clean to Tohru about secretly being a greedy and selfish person, though it isn't established if this just Self-Deprecation or if he was being honest.
• Student Council President: He takes up this position during his second year of high school. While he's initially reluctant to do so, he later decides to run since he wants to improve himself as a person, and his relationships with the other members of the student council do help him open up more.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: At first, he's extremely sugarly kind and sweet toward Tohru, but a bit colder to other people and downright hostile to Kyo and Ayame. His Character Development involves him actually opening up to people other than Tohru.
• Tears of Joy: In the sequel, Yuki's son tells him he's very happy to have him and Machi as his parents and loves their home for being such a fun and warm place. Yuki can't hold back the tears after confirming that he has created a family and home his son wants to always return to, as opposed to the Sohma household that made Yuki want to run away his whole life.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Kyo, usually having to do with Tohru. They will cast aside their disdain for one another without a thought if Tohru is in distress or danger, though that doesn't mean they won't spend the entire time sniping at one another.
• Too Much Alike: Yuki and Kyo are constantly at each others' throats because, despite having a Red Oni, Blue Oni dynamic, they're much more similar than they first appear. Both of them have a multitude of issues which has stemmed from the abuse they received during their childhood, both have low self-esteem and feelings of isolation, both are Not Good with Rejection, and they struggle to communicate their true feelings. Recognizing this, and realizing that they both admire and envy each other is what allows them to move on from their hostility and have a better relationship.
• Trash of the Titans: His bedroom is a total mess.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • When Tohru's Jerkass cousin called her a tramp in front of him and Kyo, Yuki calmly got in the guy's face and stunned him and his equally dickish parents speechless with one sentence, without even raising his voice:
    Yuki: Don't you ever talk about Miss Honda that way again, you lowlife.
  • During Ayame's introduction, he transforms and, as a cold-blooded snake, instinctively slithers up Tohru's dress to warm up. Yuki's immediate response is to drag his brother back to the house and, with Empty Eyes and a terrifyingly calm voice, demand that Shigure skin and cook Ayame for dinner.
  • Also seen when Ayame admits to not only have been in the red light district with Shigure in the past, he made a complete fool of himself when sticking up for his classmates. With Bishie Sparkles around him, Yuki calmly tells his brother to get out of the house. It doesn't last long — with Aya continuing, he's eventually yelling to shut up and leave until Hatori shows up.
• Trauma Button: As a child, he was tormented by Akito in all manner of ways, such as being locked up in a windowless dark room for several days and being constantly told that no one would ever accept him aside from her. Being confronted by Akito after missing the first New Year's Banquet leaves him quivering in fear, and when he's accidentally locked in a storage closet, he has a Freak Out and only calms down when Machi breaks down the door.
• Trophy Child: His parents basically sold him to Akito for wealth and status. Yuki's mother in particular openly admits right to his face that he's nothing but her tool so she can get what she wants.
• Unconscious Objector: He defeats Kyo even quicker when he's half asleep. It's because he's too drowsy to hold back like he normally does.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Kakeru have a bit of this. Once when Yuki was depressed, Kakeru cheered him up... by throwing a soccer ball in his face. He and Kakeru also had an insult match that involved them choking each other and then walking off all happy and friendly a couple of panels later.
  • Although "best buds" may be a stretch, he and Kyo do develop this sort of friendship by the end of the manga. They joke around much more, tease and mock each other without getting hostile or violent, and in Another it's revealed that their children grew up together, almost like siblings, suggesting that their relationship has remained close and friendly.
• Volleying Insults: Does this with both Kakeru and Kyo; the former in a fairly lighthearted way, the latter... not so much. Until the end of the manga, that is.
• We Used to Be Friends: He and Akito 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 her. Even after Yuki himself decides to forgive Akito and move on with his life, their relationship is never the same.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He gets pissed off at Kyo for refusing to visit Tohru at the hospital after the landscape accident. When Kyo protests that he doesn't need to do that because Yuki is the one who make everything better and protect Tohru, Yuki makes Kyo understand that there's one thing only he can do; make Tohru happy as the man she loves.
• You Remind Me of X: Yuki almost immediately figures out that Kakeru rubs him the wrong way because his personality reminds him too much of his older brother Ayame.

Kyo Sohma (The Cat)

Kyo Sohma (The Cat)

Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki (teen), Kyousuke Ikeda (child) (2001 series), Yūma Uchida (teen), Asuna Tomari (child) (2019 series) (JP), Jerry Jewell (teen, both series), Avery Rice Williams (child, 2001 series), Alison Viktorin (child, 2019 series seasons 1-2), Suzie Yeung (child, 2019 series season 3) (EN), Alan Bravo (teen), Dante Galván (child) (LA)

Click ^here  to see him as the Cat

Kyo is cursed by the Cat, an animal who would have been part of the zodiac had the Rat not tricked him into missing the ceremony. He turns into a huge, foul-smelling beast if his beads are taken from him. As a result he is looked down on by the rest of the family save his foster father and does not get along with Yuki. Charismatic and hot-blooded, if a bit socially awkward, he gradually cools down thanks to Tohru's kindness.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: His eyes were originally orange to match his hair, but the 2001 anime gives him red eyes. Also, Kyo's beads are red and white in the manga and 2019 reboot since they were made with bones and blood. The 2001 anime made the red beads black.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: He develops a habit of lightly tapping Tohru's head with his fist. It's his peculiar way of showing he cares about her.
• Always Someone Better: He begins the series trying to beat Yuki, but Kyo always loses. We later learn it was a bet with Akito that if Kyo could beat Yuki he wouldn't be confined and the Cat could join the zodiac. It's eventually stated that part of the curse is that the Cat can never beat the Rat.
• Animal Motifs: While the other members of the zodiac all demonstrate motifs related to their animal, Kyo may be the one most blatant with it - aloof but loving once he gets close, listless in rainy weather, preferring to be active and running around, able to jump from very high places and land on his feet, and even his least favorite foods are all ones that are very bad for cats and can lead to renal failure. During the 2019 anime's first ending credits, he's seen sleeping in a tree in a catlike position.
• Babies Ever After: With Tohru. They have three children and their oldest son, Hajime, becomes one of the main characters of Fruits Basket Another.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • His attachment and eventual love for Tohru starts from the moment she states she likes him for being the Cat of the Zodiac, something that caused everyone else to hate him until that point.
  • He also adores his adopted father Kazuma because he was the first member of the Sohma family who treated him like a human being and raised him with all the love no one else would give him.
• Birds of a Feather: For all their differences, Kyo and Tohru can be pretty similar in certain aspects as well. They're both outcasts in their respective abusive families for reasons beyond their control, resulting in severe emotional baggage. Both of them had loving but flawed mothers who died, something that affected them deeply. Neither of them can face their respective issues without the other one being there, supplying comfort and support.
• Big Brother Instinct: When they were younger, he was the one who frequently looked after Haru especially since they both trained together under Kazuma. He even accompanies Haru to the restroom while holding his hand because Haru often gets lost trying to find it.
• Black Sheep: His "role" as the Cat is being treated as the social pariah of the Sohma clan. His adoptive father Kazuma is the only Sohma who fully accepted him from the start.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The Brooding Boy to Tohru's Gentle Girl. Kyo has a lot of issues, to put it mildly, but Tohru's gentleness calms him down and little by little, his heart heals by finding true love in Tohru. In return, he can see past her Stepford Smiler front and help her face her self-doubts.
• Butt-Monkey: He's the go-to target for any form of physical comedy. Yuki frequently trounces him in fights (which Kyo usually brings upon himself) and also develops a habit of shoving leeks into Kyo's mouth whenever he's getting on his nerves. And this is nothing compared to the abuse Kagura puts him through, though fortunately he appears to be Made of Iron when it comes to this. However this is also Played for Drama, as his status as the Cat means that he's essentially treated as an outsider in his own family, and played a huge part in him developing the issues he has as a teenager.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He is not really good about voicing his feelings on anything, let alone romantic ones.
• Cats Are Mean: Subverted because while he can be very rude and temperamental, he's ultimately not a bad person. Also, as shown at the end of the series, the spirit possessing him was a very kind cat, who loved God and only wanted his friend to live his next life surrounded by people.
• Cats Hate Water: He becomes very lethargic and irritatable when it's raining, and during the Beach Arc, he doesn't initially intend to swim, until Haru baits him into a contest with Yuki. He's actually not that bad a swimmer though, and he certainly doesn't hate it as much as leeks.
• Chekhov's Gun: Beads? A "cursed form?" Well, this certainly won't show up in a few dozen chapters.
• Children Do the Housework: Kyo learned how to cook because his adoptive father Kazuma is a Lethal Chef.
• Comically Missing the Point: At least in a few small instances.
  Yuki: Just so you know, Jason isn't a bear, he's a character from a horror movie.
  Kyo: So there's a bear in a horror movie! What do I care!?
• Competition Freak: He gets fired up for any challenge in which he can beat Yuki, even if it's a running race or a simple ping-pong game.
• The Confidant: While Tohru is always ready to listen to the cursed Sohmas' problems, Kyo is the only one who can make Tohru spill out her problems and worries that she hides behind fake smiles. Kyo can easily tell when Tohru is feeling troubled and offers her a comforting presence to calm her down.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Even before he understands why, Kyo gets pissed when other guys hit on Tohru.
• Curtains Match the Window: In the manga and the 2019 anime, he has orange eyes to match his hair.
• Cute Kitten: He lures kittens to himself at one point because his classmates were calling his culture festival idea dumb. They end up nicknaming him "Kyon-Kyon" for the rest of high school because of it.
• Cute Little Fangs: He has them during some comedic moments.
• Defrosting Ice King: Kyo slowly opens up to Tohru and as they become closer, he starts treating her a lot better and falls in love with her.
• Disappointed in You: Towards Tohru. After admitting that he couldn't save Kyoko from her death, Tohru straight out tells Kyo that she loves him regardless, his only response is that he's disappointed by what he's heard and runs off.
• Does Not Like Spam: Much is made of Kyo's dislike of onions, leeks, and miso. It's occasionally used as blackmail to get him to do something. And when he willingly cooks with leeks to make something for Tohru when she's sick, it's one of the earliest indications of how dear she is to him. This is justified since he's the Cat of the Zodiac, and all of those foods are known to be very bad for cats.
• Don't Look At Me: Kyo absolutely doesn't want anyone to see his "true form" because it's so hideous.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He fears people getting close to him since he has difficulty knowing if they genuinely love him or just pity him for his curse.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Kyo resents Yuki for being the Rat, the first of the Zodiac animals and the one closest to God, whereas he's been unfairly ostracized and abused for being the Cat his entire life. What Kyo doesn't realize is that being accepted by the Zodiac isn't necessarily a good thing; Yuki's greedy mother saw him as nothing but a Trophy Child and sold him to Akito, who used him as a punching bag, his parents and older brother abandoned him to such a fate, and he couldn't make friends because of his higher status in the Zodiac and curse alienating him from the other kids.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Near the end of the series, Tohru falls off a cliff. While she's lying on the ground unconscious, Kyo kisses her. To be fair, Tohru regained consciousness for a bit when she noticed Kyo was crying. She said some comforting words to him, then lost consciousness again, and then he kissed her. He also wasn't exactly sure whether she was fully conscious or not, as he even confirms that she wasn't after their second kiss when she acts completely shocked that it's their second and not their first.
• Everyone Can See It: Everyone can tell Kyo's feelings for Tohru. In some cases even before Kyo himself realizes it.
• Evil Smells Bad: In his true form, Kyo smells so bad that Tohru pukes the first time she sees him. "Evil" may be a stretch, but general consensus is that it's not friendly.
• Failure-to-Save Murder: Kyo blames himself for Kyoko's death. He could have gotten her out of harm's way, but he would have transformed in the middle of a busy street, so he did nothing. Nobody else seems to know about it (except possibly Kazuma), but he heavily associates it with his mother's death, which many people do blame him for. It doesn't help that he (mistakenly) believes Kyoko died hating him for his inaction, either.
• Fiery Redhead: He has naturally orange hair due to the curse, and he's very hot-tempered as well, which often leads to him shouting or breaking something. This gradually becomes downplayed as he mellows out and learns to control his temper.
• First Kiss: With Tohru.
• First-Name Basis: At the start of the series, he called Tohru "you." After the conclusion of the true form arc, he switches to "Tohru."
• Flower Motifs: Bamboo in the 2019 anime's fourth ending; the way the bamboo stalks frame him look almost like prison bars, symbolizing how Kyo is trapped by his own issues as well as his fate of being locked away after he graduates due to his status as the Cat.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric and Melancholic.
• Freakiness Shame: Being the Cat is equivalent to being a monster in eyes of the Sohma family. Therefore, Kyo is baffled when Tohru tells him the Cat is her favorite sign of the Zodiac.
• Friendless Background: Despite Yuki's beliefs, Kyo never made any more real friends than him. The only one who was willing to play with him was Kagura and Kyo wants to stay away from her because she beats the crap out of him at the slightest provocation. While people act more naturally around him than with Yuki, Kyo's bad temper made him push people away until he becomes close with Tohru and started letting go of his anger.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: During moments of high emotion Kyo's pupils become cat-like slits. When he gets extremely excited his eyes will start glowing, too. Especially prominent at the start of his Painful Transformation in the 2019 anime.
• Growling Gut: It happens in episode 4 and season 1.
• Grow Old with Me: With Tohru. The final pages show them walking together as elders.
• Guilt Complex: He has a strange mix of both this and Never My Fault tendencies. Being ostracized and treated like a monster all his life, not to mention people blaming him for everything, even things he had no control over (like his mother's suicide and his own existence), means that Kyo is quick to blame himself when something goes wrong and believes himself capable of hurting his loved ones just by being close to them. He carries around a lot of guilt, which he tries to cope with by pushing the blame on Yuki.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He gets extremely angry very easily and usually deals with it by attacking his own family. This lessens over time as he learns to keep his anger under control, especially around Tohru.
• Happily Adopted: He has something of a Cuteness Proximity-style change to his personality when his foster father Kazuma is mentioned. His biological father registers somewhere near the Gendo end of the Sliding Scale of Bastard Fathers, so no wonder.
• Hate at First Sight: From the moment he and Yuki first met, Kyo told him that he hates him and wants him gone because it's the Rat's fault that the Cat is the Sohma's pariah. This fueled the fears Akito implanted in Yuki about everyone but her hating him.
• Heir to the Dojo: After his curse is broken, Kyo decides to inherit Kazuma's dojo, but he will spend some years training in the countryside to prepare for the job until Kazuma retires.
• Hellish Pupils: His pupils become slits like a cat's when he gets extremely angry and when he turns into the cat's True Form.
• Heroic BSoD: Kyo didn't disappear to the mountains for four months to train. After he did nothing to save Kyoko from being hit by a car, Kyo completely shut down out of guilt. He only snapped out of it when he decided to cope with his guilt by blaming Kyoko's death on Yuki.
• Hey, You!: Due to his brash personality, he rarely calls anyone by name. The fact that he starts addressing Tohru by her name after she accepts him in his true form is a big step in their relationship.
• Hope Is Scary: When Kazuma comes back to visit, Kyo claims that he hates to stay at Shigure's house with Yuki and Tohru because it's like an uncomfortable hot bath for him. Kazuma correctly deduces that Kyo doesn't hate to live with Tohru; he loves it and that makes him terrified that Tohru will at some point come to hate and/or fear him like everyone in the Sohma clan.
• Hot-Blooded: He gets riled up and angry very easily, and he'll also jump at the chance to fight or compete in anything, especially if Yuki is involved.
• I Am a Monster: The Cat is viewed like a monster by the Sohma clan and Kyo's own father treats him like an abomination. Because of this and his repulsive cursed form, Kyo thinks of himself as nothing but a hideous thing.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He tells Tohru he will support her when she gets a boyfriend. Since he will be locked away for the rest of his life after he finishes high school, Kyo doesn't believe he has a future with Tohru and wants her to find someone who can give her a happy, normal life. However, Tohru wants to be with no one but Kyo.
• Inconvenient Attraction: The more he falls in love with Tohru, the worse he feels about himself because he's falling for the daughter of the woman he left to die.
• Insecure Love Interest: Even after he realizes he's in love with Tohru, Kyo avoids getting too close to her because he knows his fate as the Cat is to spend the rest of his life after high school locked up in a cage, so he believes pursuing a romance with Tohru will only cause her pain. He views himself as a monster who will never deserve real love from anyone, especially an amazingly kind person like Tohru. He also blames himself for the death of Tohru's mother and sees this as proof that he has no right to be loved by Tohru.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Aside from the 'cat if hugged' thing, he has a second one. Those beads? They keep him from transforming into a hideous, car-sized, stinking monstrosity.
• Irrational Hatred: He's hated Yuki from the moment they first met and blames him for all of his problems, like his unfair treatment at the hands of the rest of the Sohma family, simply because Yuki is the Rat of the Zodiac, the one closest to God, and the Rat's trickery in the legend is the entire reason the Cat is the pariah of the Zodiac in the first place. Eventually, Kyo acknowledges that he never actually hated Yuki for who he was, but was so miserable that he felt he needed somebody to blame just to cope.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: His asshole dad hated him so much that he called Kyo an "it" during his mother's funeral, and continues to do so during the present day.
• It Runs in the Family: Kyo picked up many unpleasant traits from his Jerkass father; he has an Irrational Hatred of Yuki just as his father does him, and also blames Yuki for all of his problems just as said father blames Kyo for all of his own. Unlike his father, however, Kyo eventually learns to let go of his hatred and accept responsibility for his own actions.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His angry and violent approach might give a bad impression of him, but he's just had a very difficult life. His protectiveness of Tohru is the major giveaway of how much of a good guy he really is.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: He gets teased for being this at school after a herd of cats swarms him during a school fair. Since the alternative is telling everyone that cats are attracted to his zodiac spirit, he (grudgingly) lets them believe.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Whenever Tohru is afraid or needs to let out her bottled up issues, Kyo is there to calm her down and give her the courage to face her fears and keep going. Tohru feels the happiest when she's with Kyo, so she can't stand the mere thought of never seeing him again if he's locked up in the Cat's Room.
• Longing Look: He throws a few in Tohru's direction once he realizes his feelings for her.
• Love Epiphany: During his confrontation with Akito in the beach arc, Kyo realizes he has fallen hopelessly in love with Tohru and wants her badly. However, Akito's cruel words and the fact Kyo is going to be imprisoned after high school force Kyo to suppress his desires and decide he should be happy to spend the little freedom he has left with Tohru.
• Made of Iron: Despite constantly getting the crap kicked out of him by Yuki and especially Kagura whenever she's around, Kyo never actually gets seriously injured. This is even lampshaded when Haru trips him when he's racing Yuki, causing him to faceplant but only suffer a minor scrape. Haru then addresses the viewers and warns them to not try this at home, as anyone other than Kyo would receive much more than an Amusing Injury from this.
• Magnetic Hero: An advantage to how hot-headed Kyo is that his wearing his emotions on his sleeves allows him to socialize with his classmates with relative ease. This is something Yuki actually resents him for.
• Manly Tears: When his curse finally breaks.
• Meaningful Name: Unlike the rest of the Sohmas, Kyo's name isn't part of the Temporal Theme Naming. Instead, the kanji used (夾) means "to squeeze/wedge in between," representing his wish to find a place inside the Zodiac circle.
• Murder by Inaction: Near the end of the series, he reveals that he holds himself responsible for the death of Tohru's mother. He was there the day of the accident and could have pushed her out of the way, but doing so would have led to him transforming in a busy street and exposing the Sohma curse, so he stood by and did nothing. The grief and guilt over his role in the accident haunts him to this day, especially since he mistakenly believes Kyoko died hating him for it.
• Mutual Envy: He envies Yuki for being seemingly perfect and being considered a "true" member of the Zodiac as the Rat; Kyo has been ostracized by the Sohma family his whole life for being the Cat, and believes that if he can defeat Yuki in a fight he'll finally be accepted. Ironically, Yuki envies Kyo for being able to socialize with others more easily, and through his own experience has learned that being accepted by the Sohma family isn't necessarily a good thing since his life has been tightly controlled by his parents and Akito.
• My Instincts Are Showing: In the second anime, he's occasionally shown grooming himself in cat form.
• My Kung-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: He constantly fights Yuki and loses.
• Never Be Hurt Again: He tries to keep people at arm's length and even resorts to hurting them so they leave him alone because almost everyone in the Sohma clan has hurt him so much that he's tired of it.
• Never My Fault: Deconstructed. Kyo always wanted to blame Yuki for all his problems, particularly him being excluded from the Zodiac, his mother's suicide and Kyo choosing not to save Kyoko for fear of his curse becoming public, because thinking of himself as the victim of a bad guy made him feel better about himself. Given he had been blamed by literally everyone for things completely beyond his control, like his own existence, it was more of a coping mechanism to keep from mentally falling apart. Towards the end of the series, Kyo acknowledges how unfair and self-serving this way of thinking was.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: The Roguish Male to Yuki's Noble Male, being the Hot-Blooded Tsundere who wears his uniform improperly.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Kyo is very much put off by Kagura's overly aggressive advances and possessive behavior towards him. There's also that she extracted a Childhood Marriage Promise out of him at knifepoint. Kyo ends up falling in love with the demure and gentle Tohru who reaches out to him with patient understanding instead of force.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: He never wears a necktie with his uniform. During the summer, he also wears a t-shirt underneath his uniform shirt.
• No Social Skills: At the start a lot of his rough actions and words come from his Hot-Blooded nature and various issues getting in the way. He's very aware he struggles in that regard and it often makes him think terribly of himself. As the series goes on, he starts moving away from this trope.
• Odd Name Out: He and Yuki are the only cursed Sohmas whose names aren't part of the others' Temporal Theme Naming. In Kyo's case it's more justified since as the Cat, who never became an official part of the zodiac, his animal isn't associated with a month on the Japanese calendar.
• Official Couple: He and Tohru become a couple near the end of the story. In the sequel, they're married and have three children.
• Opposites Attract: With Tohru. Kyo is a hot-headed, tough, rude boy who at first prefers to solve things with his fists, while Tohru is a girl who's very sweet, kind and polite.
• Painful Transformation: Unlike the other cursed Sohmas' transformations, which happen immediately in a puff of colorful smoke, Kyo's transformation into the cat's true form isn't pretty. This is made especially clear in the 2019 anime, where Kyo actually transforms onscreen and he sounds like he's in a lot of pain while it happens.
• Picky Eater: He hates leeks and miso a lot and is very vocal about it, even though those vegetables are used very often in Japanese cooking. He still makes Tohru some leek porridge when she was sick, which shows how much he's starting to care for her. Justified since he's the Cat, and leeks and miso are very bad for cats.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: With Tohru. In the early chapters, Kyo was verbally aggressive to her and even accidentally hits her at one point, but he gets better and learns to control his temper around her.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: To a naked Kagura, after she transforms back.
• Power Limiter: The beads he wears on his left wrist, which prevent him from transforming into the hideous, foul-smelling beast that is the Cat's "true form". They also serve to block Power Incontinence.
• Red-Headed Stepchild: People who don't know about the Sohma family's curse have made fun of Kyo's orange hair since they think it's dyed.
• Redheads Are Uncool: As the Cat, Kyo has naturally orange hair and is treated as the social pariah of the Sohma clan.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The temperamental, loud, red-haired Red Oni to Yuki's calm, reserved, grey-haired Blue Oni.
• Repressed Memories: In the second anime, Kyo repressed his memories of Kyoko's death as he couldn't bear with the painful trauma and guilt of it. The memory is unblocked when he sees his old hat at Tohru's room and it reminds him of his meetings with Kyoko in his childhood.
• The Scapegoat: As the Cat, Kyo is constantly blamed for things beyond his control by other members of the Sohma clan, to the extent they held him completely responsible for his mother's suicide rather than consider that his father's emotional abuse played any part. Shigure even tells Tohru that this is the entire reason the Cat exists: so the other Zodiac members can feel better about themselves because as bad as they may have it, the Cat has it even worse. Towards the end of the story, it's revealed that the Cat from the original Zodiac tale told God that it didn't want to become immortal, and that God and the others should accept that everything eventually ends, even their own bonds. The other animals missed the point of the Cat's words and grew to resent it, leading to the Cat eventually becoming the pariah of the Sohma clan.
  Shigure: Because that is the Cat's "role". All of us are monsters. Miserable, Misshapen creatures. Don't tell me you think we're happy like this? That we enjoy being freaks? Do you know how many handicaps we have, how much pain we go through, just to survive within the framework of this world...? Do you? To us, the existence of the Cat is our salvation. Without him, our lives would be completely unbearable. You see—that monster is the ugliest of us all. He's inferior to us all. So it's only natural for him to be discriminated against, disrespected, and locked up. The rest of us look at the way he's treated—and we sigh with relief. "Thank God," we think. "At least I'm better off than that." You should ask the others sometimes. "Did you know he was going to be confined? Deep down, don't you feel superior to him?" They won't know what to say. The Cat was prepared as an outcast creature...for our sakes.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: He embarrassingly denies there's anything going on between him and Tohru, as it slowly becomes more obvious that he has romantic feelings for her until the end. It's also played more seriously during the beach vacation when he realizes that he does love Tohru but lies to Akito that he doesn't as a way to protect her from Akito's wrath.
• Shown Their Work: Cats are deathly allergic to leeks, onions, and miso, so it makes sense why Kyo (Spirit of the Cat) would hate them.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He has never shown attraction for anyone other than Tohru.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Due to being an aggressive teenager with a Hair-Trigger Temper, it's unsurprising that Kyo has a pretty colorful vocabulary to match at times. While the exact extent of it depends on the translation of the manga or format of the anime, he's pretty much always depicted as having the most foul mouth of the cast by a considerable margin.
• Sitting on the Roof: Shigure lampshades it. "Sulking on the roof is how he shows he cares." He also has a touching moment at that spot with Tohru where he talks about his adoptive father.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: His angry and violent behavior is a defensive mechanism to hide the pain buried deep in his heart due to how unfair and cruel his treatment by the Sohma family is. Whenever he pushes people away, it's to protect himself and/or protect them from him because he often views his own existence as something harmful for those he cares about.
• Sprouting Ears: He's prone to sprouting cat ears and a tail when he's angry during more lighthearted moments, or having flattened cat ears when he's embarrassed. He tends to sprout ears especially often in the 2001 anime.
• Strong Family Resemblance: With his father. Other than sharing the Sohma name, facial features, and anger issues, there is no connection between Kyo and his father.
• Super-Reflexes: His insane reflexes are constantly brought up by his classmates and Takaya's occasional reminder to the reader of his reflexes actually make it very believable that he could have saved Kyoko before the accident, a fact that weighs heavily in Kyo's mind.
• Tame His Anger: A big part of his Character Development is him learning to control his temper and stop resorting to violence for everything.
• They Died Because of You: Many people, particularly his Jerkass father, blame him for his mother being Driven to Suicide since she must have wanted to die after giving birth to a disgusting thing like him. Eventually, Kyo understands it wasn't his fault after he realizes his father also emotionally abused his mother to the point of sending her into suicidal depression.
• Through His Stomach: He cooks for Tohru when she's ill and this gesture earns him a lot of affection points from her.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Thanks to Tohru's influence, Kyo gradually grows into a gentler and emotionally mature person. By the ending of the series, many are surprised by how nice and laidback Kyo has become.
• Too Much Alike: Although they seem like complete opposites at first, Kyo and Yuki are more alike than they think and their mutual antagonism is a result of taking out their problems on each other. Both of them have undergone abuse during their childhoods, especially at their parents' hands, that have left them with serious psychological issues and low self-esteem, they both have a difficult time in social situations and they struggle to let others see their real selves under the masks they wear. What set them apart was how they chose to deal with their trauma, Kyo by keeping people at a distance through his anger, and Yuki by hiding his true feelings behind a smile. Recognizing their similarities, and realizing that they both envy and admire each other is what allows them to move on from their hostility and have a friendlier relationship.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: In the second anime, he seems to have repressed the full details of Kyoko's death over the series. Being reminded of this halfway through the last season causes him to have a silent Freak Out.
• Tritagonist: Kyo is equal in importance to Tohru and Yuki, getting as much focus and Character Development as them.
• Troubled, but Cute: He's rambunctious, but that doesn't stop female classmates from asking him out.
• Troubled Fetal Position: He's shown doing this sometimes when he's extremely upset. One prominent example is when Shigure asked him why he was so determined to hate Yuki and blame all his problems on him, which triggers a memory of Kyoko's death and her (seeming) Dying Declaration Of Hatred, leading Kyo to running off. Tohru finding him like this is her first clue that Kyo has a lot of unresolved emotional baggage that may not be obvious at first.
• Tsundere: A male Harsh type and very much justified due to his difficult childhood. Kyo is abrasive, hotheaded, and violent, but also very sensitive and vulnerable beneath that tough guy act. While it's clear how he feels about Tohru, he doesn't know how to express it aside from getting red-faced around her because he was constantly abused and shunned his entire life. Gradually, he lets Tohru see more of his softer side and by the end of the series, he can openly show his love for her.
• Tsurime Eyes: His sharp eyes are just perfect for a cat-like Tsundere.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Kagura's flashbacks show Kyo as a timid, but an otherwise nice kid who was happy about Kagura telling him she would play with him even if no one else did. He only started lashing out at everyone around him after his mother killed herself and all the Sohma adults but Kazuma blamed him for it.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • With Uo. They bicker and fight, yet he always hangs with her when they're on break in school.
  • By the end of the series, he and Yuki have a similar relationship. While calling them "best buds" might be an exaggeration, their teasing and bickering is shown to be much lighter and friendlier. In Fruits Basket Another, their sons Hajime and Mutsuki have a close, almost sibling-like relationship, suggesting that they managed to maintain a close friendship well into their adulthoods.
• Voice of the Legion: He speaks with an echoing, scary voice when he turns into his monstrous 'true' form.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He wants to become someone his martial arts teacher and surrogate father Kazuma can be proud of. Kazuma already loves him as a son the way he is, though.
• When He Smiles: Tohru's heart melts whenever Kyo shows her a genuinely happy smile.
• Would Hit a Girl: Zig-zagged; he is generally firmly against laying a hand on a woman, but in his first day at the co-ed high school, he becomes overwhelmed by all the attention from other students and, when a girl grabs him to prevent him from leaving, he instinctively puts her into an armbar to avoid transforming in public. This is mostly Played for Laughs as the girl is shown to be fine afterward, but his classmates of course react with confusion and horror that he would retaliate so violently against her.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: An important motto for him - as he knows his strength is above average, he never gets physical with girls intentionally, not even to defend himself against the superbly strong Kagura's violent tendencies, and explicitly tells Uo that "she's lucky she was born a chick" after she shoves him out of his seat due to being "hangry."
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The Cat being treated like dirt by the Sohma clan has taken a big toll on Kyo's self-esteem. Tohru is the first person who has seen the true value in him and called him a wonderful person.
• You're Not My Father: Subverted. He once denied that his guardian Kazuma is his father even though Kyo does think of him as that. He was just afraid that Kazuma would get in trouble for having a problematic son.

Shigure Sohma (The Dog)

Shigure Sohma (The Dog)

Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu (2001 Series), Yūichi Nakamura (adult), Mari Hino (child) (2019 Series) (JP), John Burgmeier (adult, both series), Apphia Yu (child, 2019 series) (EN), Irwin Daayán (adult), Oliver Díaz (child) (LA)

Click ^here  to see him as the Dog

The Dog of the Zodiac, and the owner of the house in which Kyo, Yuki, and Tohru live. Shigure is an author who writes both serious literature and trashy romance. While teasing and kind, he is much more manipulative than he lets on. He is good friends with Ayame and Hatori, and possesses complicated feelings for Akito.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Comedic moments aside, Shigure of the first anime seems a lot more tortured in regards to involving Tohru with the Sohma family's affairs (going so far as to actually stop Akito from verbally abusing Tohru in the woods and subsequently begging her to go after Kyo for everyone's sake) than the absolutely unrepentant Shigure of the manga.
  • He also shows some degree of concern when Kazuma decides to show Kyo’s true form in front of Tohru in the 2019 anime; he’s unsure if Tohru should be the one to burden the gamble, and he’s shown to be clearly unhappy when it happens. Whether this is from genuine concern for Tohru or because he's worried about the plans he's laid getting derailed by Kazuma's plan is up to interpretation.
  • The fifth episode of The Final Season shows, he's visibly saddened and show some guilt when he face Tohru due to how her kindness and caring personality make him realize how his anger instantly disappear when he got back from the main house, showing that he had grown very fond of Tohru herself.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: He tends to provide comic relief in the manga and 2019 anime, but he also has his shady moments and it's later made clear that his silly side is largely Obfuscating Stupidity, since he's actually very manipulative. In the 2001 anime, the darker aspects of his personality are left out and he's pure comic relief.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ayame calls him "Gure-san", while Kagura calls him "Shi-chan". Haru also calls him "Sensei," but it's later revealed that this was part of a deal they made where Shigure would allow Yuki to move in with him if Haru referred to Shigure as "Sensei" from then on.
• At Least I Admit It: He knows he's a sly and self-serving Manipulative Bastard, but unlike others with bad behaviors in this series, Shigure doesn't make excuses for the way he is and openly admits his worst traits.
• Anti-Villain: Similar to how Akito is often considered either a Tragic Villain or Karma Houdini, Shigure's manipulative bastard tendencies involving lying and taking advantage of people can be seen as him maneuvering against the show's main villain Akito in his own selfish, villainous way. As the story progresses and Tohru changes him, he eventually starts becoming more and more heroic, revealing that while not on the level of Akito, his ways are still driven out of a tragic past and deep down he does care for and want the other zodiacs to be free, even if it wasn't his primary goal.
• Bishie Sparkle: When he sings about high school girls.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: "Jerkass" may be pushing it, but Shigure is nonetheless a sly, selfish Manipulative Bastard and makes no effort to hide it, freely referring to himself as "the dirtiest one of all" and "the worst kind of man."
• The Chessmaster: It may take more than one read-through to realize it, but almost everything Shigure does, from asking Akito to allow Tohru to live in his home to being decidedly 'cruel' towards Akito to telling Tohru to leave the house for an errand at exactly the same time Kureno would be out on the street waiting for her is actually completely planned. It's especially notable when something doesn't go according to his plan, such as when Akito brings Kureno to the summer house - he brings it up repeatedly, and is audibly annoyed that something occurred which he couldn't predict, implying that everything major event until that point was part of his scheme. Seriously.
• Chick Magnet: When he goes to Tohru's school, several of her classmates mention how good looking he is, and one of Mitsu's coworkers stated that she was attracted to his good looks as well.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He often jokes about liking "high school girls!" (and, heck, he probably means it), but apart from some harmless flirting he never acts on it. Not even when Rin offers herself to him.
• Cool Big Bro: In his best moments, he acts like a fun-loving older brother figure to Tohru and Yuki who cares about them in his own way.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He wants Akito all to himself. He still bears a huge grudge against her and Kureno for starting a sexual relationship despite knowing how Shigure felt for Akito.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Shigure's honest and cold admission to Tohru of how Kyo would be treated, even adding a clearly false claim that all the Zodiacs hate him is this: By that time, he is apparently no longer able to bring himself to manipulate and lie to her anymore, and decides to both reveal his true nature and force her to accept her feelings for Kyo. While Tohru is clearly devastated to see Shigure act like that, it's apparent that she eventually came to acknowledge that Shigure's way was correct, from how this hasn't impacted their relationship later on.
• Ephebophile: Flirts openly with high school aged Tohru when he first meets her, is eager to meet her friends before Kyo describes how...colorful they are, buys her a blatantly Fanservice-y Meido outfit for White Day hoping she'll clean his house in it, and goes to Tohru's high school under the pretense of retrieving her belongings when he was really going to check out the high school girls (sings a little song about it, too). While he defies this with Isuzu when she offers her body if he tells her how to break the curse and he refuses her, it's still in full force when played for laughs, namely when he laments that Hatori didn't tell him he was going to give her a check up. It's later heavily implied that this is all an act, since the one he truly loves is Akito; though Shigure is several years older than her, Akito is confirmed to be somewhere in her early twenties and thus not a teenager.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Manipulative as he is, Shigure has never outright physically attacked, harmed or killed anyone. This may be one of his redeeming traits. He steps in to save Yuki from Akito's abuse when Haru states it's become physical and later on finally confronts Rin to stop her from endangering herself any further. He is visibly angered when Akito states Tohru fell from a cliff, believing she pushed her off, and despite hating Kureno for years due to his relationship with her, is immediately concerned upon finding out Akito stabbed him.
  • He makes it clear he looks down on his previous sleeping with Ren just to spite Akito. While it doesn't stop him from using that against Akito, he uses it in a way that makes it clear even Shigure himself considers that one act to be foolish. He refuses to sleep with any girl just to satisfy himself afterwards, refusing Rin's offer for sex and never using Mayu for sexual purposes.
• Flower Motifs: The autumn maple leaf in the 2019 anime's fourth ending, symbolizing elegance, beauty, and grace...which he tries to be.
• Foil: To Hatori. Both have been important figures to Akito's life since her birth, but Shigure finds it unforgivable that Akito slept with Kureno, and even exacts his own twisted sort of revenge by sleeping with the person Akito hated the most rather than forgiving her as Hatori does for everything. Shigure is unrepentant if he ends up putting people within Akito's line of fire as long as he gets his desired results, and seems downright callous and indifferent when he hears about other zodiac members' abuse at Akito's hands. Shigure also refuses to act as one of Akito's caretakers out of a sense of duty to her as the head of the family or the God of the zodiac.
• Friends with Benefits: With Mayu, though it was a mutual arrangement from the start — Shigure said "You're lonely, I'm bored — let's date". It was never a genuine romantic relationship, they were aware of it, and in the end Mayu broke it off after a month because she just couldn't keep pretending it was.
• The Gadfly: Shigure happens to push his editor's buttons to the point where she's about a hair away from committing suicide, but he never does so out of maliciousness, he just likes pushing other people's buttons.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He slept with Ren to retaliate against Akito for sleeping with Kureno.
• Harem Nanny: Takes care of Yuki, followed by Tohru and Kyo (though most of the time, Tohru is the one doing the actual caring for the three men).
• Hyper-Awareness: Exhibits this sporadically, but rarely shares his thoughts on his observations to anyone other than Hatori. He very cryptically asks Hatori if he can hear the sound of the curse breaking midway through the manga, and correctly suspects that Kureno's curse had been broken.
• I Banged Your Mom: Turns out he once slept with Akito's mother, Ren. He claims this was only because she slept with Kureno (and because Ren looked like Akito would've looked like, had she been raised as a woman). Akito got so upset about this that she immediately kicked him out of the main Sohma estate.
• It Amused Me: Flirts between this and For the Evulz when it comes to Akito, though Kureno and Hatori note that whatever Shigure says around Akito tends to hurt more than help anything. Played completely straight whenever he and Tohru's teacher Mayuko encounter each other - he ends up attending as Tohru's parent at her parent-teacher conference, and he's more than delighted when Mayu is completely disgusted seeing him in Hatori's suit.
• It's All About Me: Shigure only cares about himself and what he wants, and he openly admits as such. Even his primary motivation for breaking the Sohma curse is just because he loves Akito and wants her all to himself. Though he ultimately loses this bit by bit as Tohru changes him like she did with the other Sohmas.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His favorite hobby is teasing others and even he admits he's an awfully selfish person who thinks of himself before anyone else. Despite all that, he never directly hurts anyone and most of his schemes are to make others happy and/or piss Akito off.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As manipulative and "dirty" as he is, he genuinely gives very good advice when it counts. Most notably, he calls Kureno out on continuing to remain by Akito's side and doing anything she wants from him despite his curse having broken long ago, telling him point-blank that all he's done is made her 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. Near the end of the series, Kureno acknowledges that Shigure was right and blames himself for how Akito turned out.
• Jerkass to One: He's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who likes teasing others, but generally gets along with most people. However, he hates Kureno and openly tells him as such to his face, bitter and angry that Kureno slept with Akito despite full knowledge of Shigure's own feelings for her and played a role in his exile from the main house.
  Shigure: You've got that right. I hate you. I truly, truly do. You really ought to thank me for putting it so bluntly. It'll make it that much easier for you to play the poor, pitiful martyr. Your favorite role.
• Karma Houdini: Arguably, his manipulations and mind screws (especially in regards to Akito, the girl he loves and yet still manipulates) never got him in real trouble.
• Kimono Is Traditional: He always wears kimono when at home, which relates to the Japanese stereotype of writers always wearing traditional clothing. In one manga omake, he reveals to Tohru that he invokes this since he's well aware of the stereotype.
• Love Before First Sight: As Shigure himself puts it, he fell hopelessly in love with Akito ever since he saw her in a dream, at the night of her conception.
• Manipulative Bastard: Shigure himself lampshades this, calling himself 'the dirtiest one of all,' because he is willing to use everyone to achieve his goals. Said manipulations included sleeping with Ren (who he said looked like what Akito raised as a girl would look like) and being deliberately distant with Akito.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Sometimes, when conversations turn serious, he turns to this so he can keep up the facade that he knows more than he lets on. When he's not doing this, he's probably manipulating you.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Tohru knows nothing about his true nature and it scares the heck out of her to the point of driving her to tears when he honestly tells her the nature of the curse and what he (and the rest of the zodiac) really thinks about Kyo's place among them.
• Operation: Jealousy: When he found out Akito had sex with Kureno, Shigure had sex with Ren, Akito's loathed mother, because he knew that was the best way to extraordinarily piss Akito off.
• Papa Wolf: Shigure dotes on Tohru quite a bit, although whether or not it's for his own personal gain is another matter. It's a little more obvious in the first anime, where he actually tells Akito to leave Tohru alone by the end and actually gets up to stop Akito from ripping Tohru's hair out. The second anime downplayed this but it still there, as The Final Season shows he actually look quite saddened and guilty as well when he face Tohru wishing the fact he could met someone like her far more earlier then things wouldn't already very bad right now, showing his growing fondness and kindness toward her. Both in the anime and the manga, it is shown that he actually does care for Tohru a lot and manipulating her becomes the only thing he regrets having to do before she starts affecting him like she did with the other Zodiacs, ultimately making him a better person just like the others. Indeed, when faced with the possibility that Akito threw Tohru off a cliff, he is visibly angered and coldly asks if she was the one who threw her, only calming down and comforting her when she stated it was an accident.
• Parental Substitute:
  • He defies this trope in regards to Akito. When being questioned by Hatori and Kureno as to why Shigure's so cruel to Akito, Shigure's response is that there are enough people being so "gentle" with her and that he doesn't want to become yet another one of Akito's replacements for her deceased father.
  • Downplayed with Tohru. He doesn't view himself as a parental figure towards her, but as she's an orphan and is distant from her remaining family, Shigure takes care of quite a few tasks that would normally fall to one's parent, such as her parent-teacher conferences. He also spares no expense when it comes to giving her presents; Hanajima and Uotani even comment on this during the sleepover, as they remark how soft her bed is and that Shigure must have gone all out for her.
• Pen Name: He uses the pen name "Noa Kiritani" for his romance novels, while publishing his serious works under his real name.
• Pet the Dog:
  • As much as he enjoys tormenting Hatori and Mayuko, he's the only that knows them well enough that 1) Hatori is too bound to his duties to the Sohma estate that he won't attempt to find another relationship and 2) Mayuko was in love with Hatori, but feels guilty pursuing him because of her connection to Kana. He ends up orchestrating a situation in which they could meet each other again and pushes Mayuko into actively pursuing Hatori so both parties are happy. This is notably one of very few instances that Shigure sets up in which he gains nothing for himself.
  • Shigure later on tells Rin that she doesn't have to be so desperate to break the Curse anymore as it will soon break, just to ensure she doesn't try anything that would offend Akito or get her locked in the Cat Room once more.
• The Plan: The driving plot of the series is Shigure trying to use Tohru to break Akito's ties with the Zodiac so he can have her to himself.
• Shipper on Deck: He was a real jerk about it, but it's his actions that ultimately lead to Mayuko and Hatori getting closer and dating eventually.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Akito is the only woman he has ever wanted. He might flirt and play around with other women, but he feels no real attraction to them. He even admits that the only reason why he could have sex with Akito's mom is because she looks like an older, long-haired Akito.
• Smoking Is Cool: He's shown smoking at some points when he's showing his actual personality in the manga. This isn't present in the 2019 anime, where nobody smokes.
• Super-Senses: A very subtle examples compared to most, which may be in part due to the particular spirit he's cursed with, the dog. Shigure is able to sense general things that others can't, shown early in the manga when he's able to discern that a landslide has occurred nearby.
• Trash of the Titans: His house at the beginning of the series, to the extent Tohru describes it as a "toxic jungle." Even after Tohru cleans up the rest of the house, his room is still a junkyard of epic proportions.
• True Companions: The Mabudachi Trio (with Hatori and Ayame)
• The Unfettered: By his own admission, Shigure will readily dirty his hands or sacrifice anything to get his way.
• Took a Level in Kindness: As Shigure himself acknowledged, he once couldn't care less how many people he has to manipulate and hurt to get what he wants (Akito) and even manipulates Tohru herself. However, like she did with the other Zodiacs, Tohru changes him. He goes from being a totally unrepentant but well-meaning jerk to being able to actually show remorse and sadness, growing to genuinely care for Tohru and regretting having to do as he did with her, and reflecting on himself and realizing the error of his ways and admitting that deep down he does wish for the other Zodiacs to find happiness, but it was just buried deep under years of bitterness and grief over his childhood fallout with Akito and Kureno. By the end of the series, he freely admits Tohru has changed him and allowed him to make peace with himself and become much kinder, as he displays by how he coldly but well-intentionally reveals the grim truth about Kyo to Tohru, stops Rin from any further reckless act for no other reason because he can, and even offers Akito a chance to choose another man. He finally starts showing her emotional support and affection afterwards when she chooses him, cementing his full transition to the good side.
• Unflappable Guardian: Invites the girl who was unknowingly living on his property in a tent to live with them immediately because he's using her. To be fair, he does genuinely care for Tohru, but for Shigure, his plans and manipulations come first.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Reputedly sleeps around a lot, but the only proof this might hold some water is Mayu-Sensei and Ren.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was much gentler when he was younger, but his personality dramatically changed after Akito slept with Kureno. Akito is very disappointed that Shigure isn't as kind to her as he was in the past, but refuses to accept that he changed because of her actions.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: One could argue that all his actions throughout the series amount to this: his ultimate goal is having Akito to himself, and if the curse is broken along the way, great!! However, his ideas and methods of how to get what he wants are more or less harmful to at least one person involved in his schemes.
  • This even extends to short term whims such as sending Hatori to Mayu's parents' bookstore in order to give the both of them another chance at romance.
• Yandere: A non-violent one towards Akito. He has been obsessing over her since before she was even born and he torments her with mind games as payback for her having sex with another man. As he himself says, he loves Akito so damn much that sometimes he wants to spoil her rotten, and sometimes he wants to crush her to a pulp.