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
Main Characters (Tohru Honda) | The Sohma Family (Akito Sohma) | Tohru's Friends and Family | Student Council and Other Characters | Sequel Characters
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Kaibara Municipal High School
The Student Council
Machi Kuragi
Voiced by: Yuki Kaida (CD dramas), Ai Kakuma (2019 Series) (JP), Caitlin Glass (EN), Alicia Vélez (LA, season 1), Azul Valadez (LA, seasons 2 and 3)
The student council treasurer during Yuki's presidency. She is Hatsuharu and Momiji's classmate, and Kakeru's half-sister.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Machi's hair is dark brown in the manga and dark gray hair in the 2019 anime.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: She makes an Early-Bird Cameo in the first season finale of the 2019 anime when Yuki passes her in the stairs at school.
- Babies Ever After: With Yuki. Their son Mutsuki becomes one of the main characters of Fruits Basket Another.
- Beta Couple: She and Yuki gradually fall in love after he becomes the Student Council President. Since Machi doesn't know about the Zodiac curse, the relationship between Yuki and Machi develops about as any normal high school romance. This is a sharp contrast to all the drama surrounding the romance of Tohru and Kyo.
- Birds of a Feather: With Yuki. Both were forced to be "perfect children" by their Abusive Parents. They bond and fall in love because they can see past each other's coping mechanisms and understand their suppressed real feelings. In addition, both make a mess out of their rooms and have a hammy older brother.
- The Bore: Her mother and classmates call her boring and dull because of her reserved personality. Machi herself doesn't disagree, as she sees herself as a "void" since she knows she has no particular interests or hobbies that make her interesting.
- Broken Bird: She was forced by her mother into a bitter inheritance rivalry with her illegitimate half-brother, the result being that Machi became quiet, removed from society, and prone to lose control of herself whenever she sees something "perfect".Machi: I'm like a doll with missing parts. A broken doll unable to become human. Defective.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: She develops a gender-reversed version of the dynamic with Yuki. Machi is very badly damaged because of being emotionally abused by her mother and this makes her unable to express herself and control her emotions. Thanks to Tohru's positive influence, Yuki can reach out to Machi and understands just how harsh her life must have been since he had similar experiences. Machi slowly opens up to Yuki enough to cry and talk about her problems with him so he can comfort her.
- Bully Magnet: She gets harassed by her classmates who accuse her of being rude for saying Yuki isn't the Princely Young Man they all think he is.
- Character Tics: Has a habit of holding objects at arm's length to examine them. Yuki eventually picks up that this means she likes something.
- Closet Geek: At least in the Manga, she turns out to be a big Mogeta fan, to the point where two of Yuki's gifts to her are Mogeta figures (though she doesn't so much deliberately try to hide it as is just too reserved to ever bring it up).
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Introduced as a quiet and withdrawn girl, she becomes more expressive and approachable as she and Yuki bond with each other.
- Endearingly Dorky: Yuki finds it adorable that Machi would run all over the school until she found him just because she wanted to say hi to him.
- Friendless Background: At first, she doesn't interact much with anyone aside from her half-brother.
- Heir Club for Men: Machi's mother decided to make her second child the potential heir of the family fortune only because he's a boy and despite Machi being the first-born legitimate child of her parents.
- Hime Cut: She has straight full bangs, collarbone length sidelocks, and upper back length straight hair. It's mentioned her father is very rich.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: To Yuki.
- Infant Sibling Jealousy: Subverted. Her parents kicked her out of the house because they believed she was jealous of her little brother for taking the position of family heir from her and went as far as accusing her of trying to kill him. The truth is Machi was never jealous and only wanted to be a good sister, but her parents now won't even let her near her little brother.
- Irony: She was introduced as the girl who had the least interest in Yuki because she feels no attraction to the fake perfect Princely Young Man mask he wears around others. She goes on to fall in love with him for his true self, and becomes the only girl he romantically falls in love with because she saw through his mask rather than the other girls who are only infatuated with his princely image.
- It Was a Gift: She treasures the autumn leaf Yuki gave her enough to make it into a bookmark.
- Last-Name Basis: Even though Kakeru is her older half-brother, she only refers to him by his surname, Manabe.
- Lonely Together: Machi mentions that because she and Yuki were so alone, they were able to find each other.
- Minor Living Alone: Machi is forced to live in an apartment by herself because her parents threw her out of the house after they mistook her putting a blanket on her baby brother with her trying to smother him.
- Mistaken for Murderer: All Machi wanted to do was make sure her baby brother stayed warm while he slept. Her parents came in and assumed she was trying to smother him with a blanket. This resulted in Machi being kicked out of the house and bad rumours about her spread in the school too.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Machi's classmates think she's a stuck-up girl who says rude things to get attention. Those who know her better, like Kakeru and later Yuki, are aware Machi is a good person, but her difficult family situation has made her antisocial and given her poor communication skills.
- No Social Skills: She has trouble communicating with other people, and when she does try to communicate she's initially very blunt, which doesn't exactly make her popular with her classmates. As a result, she initially has no friends at all aside from her half-brother Kakeru.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: Similarly to Hanajima, she wears a knee-length skirt with her uniform rather than the shorter skirt most other female students wear.
- Not So Stoic: Machi comes off as emotionally distant and unexpressive most of the time. That's until she suddenly loses it and goes into a rampage to destroy a clean room. Or Yuki says something that makes her flustered.
- Official Couple: She becomes Yuki's girlfriend near the end of the series. In the sequel, they're married and have a son together.
- Practically Different Generations: She has a little brother who is at least ten years younger than her.
- The Quiet One: At first, she hardly talks directly to anyone. She becomes more talkative as she grows closer to Yuki.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: At first, she rarely changes out of her school uniform. This is later subverted, since she starts wearing other outfits as she slowly defrosts while opening up to Yuki.
- Shading/Colour Dissonance: Machi has dark brown hair, but its lack of shading in the manga suggests a much lighter hair color.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With Kakeru, even though they are only half-siblings. She's reserved and avoids social interaction, he's carefree and likes to tease others.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: She initially only ever wears her school uniform, but she gradually starts wearing other outfits outside of school as she opens up to Yuki.
- Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: Played With. Machi is paired with the "high school prince" Yuki, but his popularity and princely mask didn't make her attracted to him at all. Instead, it's seeing past his popular image and getting to know him as a real, flawed person, and the fact that he's willing to go out of his way for her, is what makes her love him.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She falls in love with Yuki because he's the first to show genuine interest and care for her as a person, such as wanting to know her likes and dislikes. And because he drops the princely act around her, she gets the genuine Yuki who's there to support her.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's standoffish, quiet, and emotionally detached as a result of the strict upbringing she got from her mother. Yuki eventually discovers how tender, considerate and soft she can be as they become closer.
- Trash of the Titans: Machi has a bad habit of making a mess out of any room she's in. Kakeru teases her for how her apartment has her things scattered all over the floor. This is part of her pathological hatred for anything she views as perfect and organized.
- Trauma Button: Machi can't stand seeing anything organized and "perfect" because it triggers the trauma caused by her mother constantly demanding her to be perfect as she grew up. As a result, she has a habit of compulsively breaking things or making a mess in the room she's in.
- Trophy Child: Machi's mother only wanted to use Machi to inherit the fortune of her husband by forcing her to be a better successor than her illegitimate half-brother. After her mother gave birth to a son, she pretty much forgot about Machi just because a daughter is less likely to be chosen as the family heir.
- Tsundere: Harsh type. She's antisocial and unapproachable when Yuki first meets her, but as he gets to know her, she falls in love with him. She gets easily irritated and embarrassed around him, but that just makes obvious how hard she's falling for him. For example, when Yuki notices she keeps the leaf he gave her as a bookmark, Machi claims it isn't the same leaf, but it could be. It's also justified because the way her Abusive Mom treated her left Machi with great difficulty at expressing herself honestly.
- The Un-Favourite: Machi was constantly pressured to be perfect by her mother, who largely viewed her as a Trophy Child who could inherit her husband's fortune, but she was essentially tossed aside once her younger brother was born. Her mother openly tells a friend that Machi is "dull" and that she prefers her new baby boy because a male heir has better chances at getting the fortune.
Kakeru Manabe
Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (CD dramas), Takuya Eguchi (2019 Series) (JP), Aaron Dismuke (EN), José Ángel Torres (LA)
Vice president of the student council during Yuki's presidency. He is Machi's older half-brother.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: He, along with Machi, gets an Early-Bird Cameo in the first season finale of the 2019 anime, where he catches a glimpse of Yuki walking with Tohru at the school.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While he remains mostly the same from the manga, the 2019 anime leaves out his subplot with Tohru, which means his Kick the Dog moment below from his backstory gets inadvertently cut out as well.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Kakeru teases his girlfriend a lot, but they really do love each other.
- Best Friends-in-Law: Kakeru becomes Yuki's closest friend and years later, he also becomes his brother-in-law since Yuki marries Kakeru's half-sister Machi.
- Big Brother Instinct: While he was lucky enough to get his own mother to see what the inheritance race had done to Kakeru, he suspects that Machi wasn't so lucky. Thus he actively tries to look out for her.
- Didn't Think This Through: Due to his inability to comprehending others feelings and not knowing that Tohru was orphaned as a result of her mother’s passing, he felt like he was justified in his telling off Tohru for grieving, thinking that he was doing Komaki a favour and she would be grateful for ‘coming to her aid’. Needless to say, Komaki ended up nearly dumping him when she found out what happened, breaking down in tears in horror and disgust at what he had done before ordering him to apologize to Tohru. In present day, after Kakeru had some time to learn how to understand others, even he had to admit that he was just assuming Komaki would just agree with his own feelings on the matter just because she was his girlfriend and he didn’t actually consider her own feelings at all.
- Heroic Bastard: He's the son of his father's mistress.
- Hey, You!: Claims this is one of his nicknames.
- Hidden Depths: His headstrong approach to his daily life continually wears out Yuki and most everyone around him, but the quiet moments between him and Yuki show that he's capable of being empathetic as a friend to Yuki and brother to Machi. He also feels incredible guilt towards what he said to Tohru at her mother's funeral years ago, and it weighs on his mind until he and Tohru talk about it.
- Jerkass Realization: He gets hit by this in response to the Kick the Dog moment below, especially after Komaki threatened to dump him in disgust, and it weighs on his mind for years afterwards.
- Kick the Dog: He had the gall to tell Tohru to her face, right in the middle of her mother's funeral, that she wasn't the only one who lost a parent in the accident and that she was whiny and disgusting for openly grieving. Komaki was so furious with him when she found out that she nearly broke up with him.
- Lack of Empathy: While not actively malicious, Kakeru has a hard time comprehending others' feelings and can't understand other people's points of view. In the backstory, he told Tohru off for openly grieving over Kyoko's death, telling her she's sickening and whiny for doing so and acting like she was the only one affected, especially since his girlfriend Komaki's father was the one who hit Kyoko and also died in the accident. In his point of view, he was just confronting Tohru on Komaki's behalf, only to discover that Komaki didn't feel the same way; in fact, she was furious with him for disrespecting Tohru's feelings and nearly dumped him. Kakeru soon suffers a Jerkass Realization and resolves to work on understanding people better.
- Large Ham: Enough that Yuki compares him to Ayame among Kakeru's other personality traits.
- Metaphorically True: In his point of view, Komaki also lost her parent in the same incident that killed Kyoko and he thinks that Tohru is being self-centered when she openly grieved for her mother, unaware that Tohru is essentially orphaned with Kyoko's passing.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Manabe may act like the local joker most of the time, but he also show signs to be much more observant than he lets on.
- Quit Your Whining: As established under Kick the Dog above, he told Tohru to her face that she wasn't the only one to lose a parent in the accident and she was whiny and disgusting for openly grieving over it.
- Secretly Selfish: Zig-Zagged, while he did really care for Komaki back then, he ultimately concludes that his Kick the Dog was this all along, as it was ultimately him acting on his own feelings and he had arrogantly assumed that she would immediately agree with his feelings simply because she was his girlfriend, making him fail to realize just how much he would hurt her by doing it.
- Shipper on Deck: He definitely wants Yuki and Machi to be together, especially since Yuki has been a positive influence for his half-sister.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With Machi, his half-sister. He's carefree and likes to tease others, she's reserved and avoids social interaction.
- Sleepyhead: He likes to take naps instead of doing his job at the student council.
Kimi Todou
Voiced by: Yukari Tamura (CD dramas), Rumi Ōkubo (2019 series) (Japanese), Cherami Leigh (English), Jessica Ángeles (LA)
One of the student council secretaries during Yuki's presidency.
- Attention Whore: She loves having all the guys' attention to herself.
- Brainless Beauty: Admits to it, and is completely unbothered by it (likely because it's largely a facade.)
- The Fake Cutie: She intentionally plays up her cuteness to get attention from boys and annoy the Prince Yuki Fanclub. In the 2019 anime, she also tends to speak in a high-pitched, cutesy voice most of the time, but her voice becomes much lower whenever she drops the cutesy act.
- Gold Digger: A rare good-hearted version, as she doesn't use the gifts she gets for her own benefit but for the council's. The other student council members are still rather put off by her claim that the most important thing about a man is the size of his wallet.
- Insult Backfire: In middle school, some female bullies tried to shame her into humility by calling her a Brainless Beauty who could only get by on her looks. Kimi thought that was a brilliant idea, and Yuki secretly muses that her former bullies are probably still kicking themselves for giving her the idea to this day.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Cute, vain, spoiled, popular with the boys, and intentionally antagonizes the Prince Yuki Fanclub but is otherwise pretty harmless to everyone else.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: While she acts like an oblivious, happy-go-lucky airhead, there are moments that indicate she is actually anything but.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Her creator Natsuki Takaya states that Kimi was a character specifically created to have absolutely no connection to the dramatic parts of the story. Specifically, the Sohma Family.
- Third-Person Person: She refers to herself in third person as part of her cutesy persona.
- Troll: Kimi is one of the only people who actually thoroughly enjoys interacting with the Prince Yuki Fanclub since she knows exactly what buttons to push when messing with them.
Naohito Sakuragi
Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (CD dramas), Aoi Ichikawa (2019 series) (JP), Micah Solusod (EN), Bruno Coronel (LA)
One of the student council secretaries during Yuki's presidency. He considers Yuki his rival, as he crushes on the president of Yuki's fan club, Motoko Minagawa.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He was envious of Yuki for being the object of interest of Motoko's heart and isn't pleasant with him as a result.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He's generally annoyed by default, so it doesn't take much to get him screaming.
- Hopeless Suitor: He has a crush on Motoko, who similarly has an unrequited crush on Yuki.
- The Napoleon: He's the most irritable of the student council members, and this is partly because of his insecurity about his short height. It doesn't help that Manabe's nickname for him is "Chibisuke."
- Only Sane Man: In his eyes, at least.
- Perpetual Frowner: Never seen smiling.
Makoto Takei
Voiced by: Yuji Ueda (2001 series), Jun Fukushima (2019 series) (JP), Kyle Hebert (EN), Roberto Gutiérrez (LA)
The former Student Council President.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Is head over heels for Yuki, much to the latter's dismay.
- Eyes Out of Sight: His eyes are rarely, if ever, seen through his Opaque Lenses.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's obnoxious and full of himself, but he's not a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination.
- Large Ham: It's incredibly rare to see him not bellowing dramatically about something.
- Love Father, Love Son: In the sequel, it appears his adoration for Yuki ends up extending to Yuki's son.
- Opaque Lenses: His glasses obscure his eyes.
- Pride: Something Haru calls him out on—he's a bit too obsessed with enforcing the rules and generally has a "my way or the high way" attitude.
- Single-Target Sexuality: He only has eyes for Yuki.
- Straight Gay: He's as enamored with Yuki as the female students are, and even gets into a fight with Motoko about it, but he shows no "camp" or stereotypical qualities.
- Student Council President: And a particularly obnoxious one too, considering how strict and arrogant he is.
- Teacher/Student Romance: In the sequel, Makoto now is a teacher at Kaibara High and he seems to have as big of a crush on the student Mutsuki as he did on Yuki, who happens to be Mutsuki's father.
Prince Yuki's Fanclub
A group of girls devoted to adoring Yuki Sohma and keeping him single. In General
- Characterization Marches On: Minami, Mio, and Mai were interchangeable from one another in the 2001 anime during their early appearances. It was around their A Day in the Limelight episode where they were given names and distinctions between their personalities began to show. Minami and Mio tend to squabble between one another with Minami taking the lead whenever Motoko wasn't around, while Mai was sort of a harmless Cloudcuckoolander who didn't seem to have any genuine ill will towards Tohru other than being jealous of her hanging around Yuki.
- The Chew Toy: Their attempts at bullying Tohru always fail and Hanajima (or Hanajima's brother in one occasion) scares them away by acting creepy.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: If you're a girl and you're anywhere near Yuki, then be ready to be jumped by these girls.
- Dirty Coward: They love to throw their weight around and threaten Tohru, but due to Arisa and Saki's presence, they don't have the guts to actually do anything to her. The general routine is them hassling Tohru, Arisa and Saki showing up to tell them off, and the fan club fleeing in terror.
- Entitled to Have You: Motoko and her Girl Posse act as if Tohru has stolen Yuki away from them when they don't even have the courage to approach him themselves and express their feelings for him. Basically, they objectify Yuki and pretend that he doesn't have the right to favor someone else for no reason other than them liking him. Megumi calls them out on this behavior and tells them that just because they like Yuki a lot that doesn't mean he owes them to not like someone else by his own choice.
- Expy: The hair styles, hair color, and similar names of Minami, Mio and Mai in the 2001 anime bring to mind Nanami Kiryuu's lackeys Keiko, Yuuko, and Aiko from Revolutionary Girl Utena. It helps that Minami, the pigtailed brunette, serves as Motoko's Beta Bitch just as Keiko was Nanami's.
- Girl Posse: Minami, Mio, Mai, and Rika usually follow Motoko around and back her up when she's acting like an Alpha Bitch who tries to intimidate any girl who gets close to Yuki, mainly Tohru. When Motoko isn't around, the others follow Minami instead.
- Green-Eyed Monster: They constantly get on Tohru's case about being friendly with Yuki, since they're envious of how close she is to him while they're only willing to admire him from afar.
- Groupie Brigade: Despite Yuki simply being popular at school rather than a celebrity, they essentially function as this. They're a high school club dedicated to worshipping Yuki and making sure no one tries to date him.
- Harmless Villain: They constantly plot against Tohru, but they're never really able to carry out any of their harassment, since they're terrified of Arisa and Saki. They also try it on Kimi, but she just blows them off. Machi has a little more trouble with them until Kakeru and Yuki intervene.
- Hopeless Suitor: All of them have a big crush on Yuki, who has zero interest in them.
- Loving a Shadow: They're all smitten with Yuki's image as a Princely Young Man, but none of them have any idea how much of a Broken Ace he really is. They're also shocked whenever Yuki does anything that doesn't fit their image of him, like revealing he likes natto.
- Pet the Dog: When Yuki is made to wear a dress at the cultural festival and is visibly embarrassed about it, the Prince Yuki Fanclub make a barrier around him to keep crowds of other adoring fangirls and fanboys who want to see him in the dress up close from getting too near him and making him feel even less comfortable. One of the few times they're shown to be thoughtful about what their prince might actually be feeling.
- Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: The Prince Yuki fanclub is dedicated to worshipping Yuki who the members consider the prettiest and most charming guy at their high school. It's also Deconstructed; the story addresses just how shallow these girls' affections for Yuki are, particularly because they keep idealizing him as a prince they admire from afar without ever trying to find out what he's really like as a person.
- Stalker with a Crush: They only seem to live for following Yuki around the school. In one of her spacier moments, Mai is appalled at Rika Aida not properly utilizing her lock picking skills... because they could use them to sneak into Yuki's house.
Motoko Minagawa
Voiced by: Kaori Shimizu (2001 anime), Mao Ichimichi (2019 anime) (JP), Jamie Marchi (EN), Dulce Chino (LA)
The president of the Prince Yuki Fan Club and Yuki's senpai.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: In the 2001 anime, she has reddish brown hair in contrast to the manga and 2019 anime's charcoal.
- Alpha Bitch: Played with; while she fulfills the role as the leader of a group who hates the kindhearted Tohru and plans to be rid of her, and she certainly has a fitting personality for the trope, she doesn't seem to be particularly popular at school and she's not from a rich family (her parents are greengrocers).
- Cannot Spit It Out: For all her jealousy and entitlement, Motoko is too cowardly to tell Yuki how she feels about him. She finally confesses to him on her graduation day, which also allows her to finally let go of her infatuation with him and move on.
- Character Development: Unlike the rest of her club who remain static, Minagawa ends up having a Heel Realization and fixing her attitude, with even her love confession to Yuki being a means of letting him go because she just wants him to be happy and to be free to find her own happiness with someone else.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She gets jealous over any girl getting Yuki's attention. She gets better later, though.
- Formal Characters Use Keigo: Subverted. She speaks in an extremely polite manner, which emphasizes her haughty personality. However, despite behaving like an arrogant Ojou stereotype, she's not from a wealthy or influential family, since her parents run a produce store.
- Gibberish of Love: Despite claiming to like Yuki, she has never had a real conversation with Yuki because she gets too nervous when speaking in his presence. She either stutters a lot or talks very fast around Yuki before getting away from him.
- Humanizing Tears: In a rare moment where she stops acting arrogant, she tearfully breaks down when she shows Yuki her "ugly" side, mentioning that she hates herself.
- Hypocrite: She makes a passionate, jealousy-fueled outburst telling Tohru (who was not even present) to stay away from Yuki. She leaves to clear her head and realizes that the selfish fangirls she despises who want Yuki all to themselves have negative qualities that she sees in herself.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Beneath her haughty attitude, she doesn't view herself as special or interesting and focuses all her energy on Yuki.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She decides to let Yuki go after she confesses to him on her graduation day.
- Large Ham: She's very passionate when it comes to her crush on Yuki, and she'll often be loud and overly dramatic about him.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Post Character Development, she mellows out into this.
- Love at First Sight: When she met Yuki, the first thing she did was compliment how beautiful he is and she fell for his smile.
- Properly Paranoid: From the moment Yuki becomes the Student Council President, Motoko is insistent on finding out whether there's a female member in the council out of fear that Yuki might fall in love with her. Indeed, Yuki ends up in a romantic relationship with Machi, the student council treasurer.
- Satellite Character: All her characterization and role are completely focused on her unrequited crush on Yuki.
- Shading/Colour Dissonance: Motoko's canon hair color is charcoal, as seen in the second anime. The manga uses a shade that's very similar to the one used for Kyo's hair (which is orange), so the 2001 anime makes her hair reddish brown.
- Something about a Rose: Roses often appear in the background when she's being dramatic.
Minami Kinoshita
Voiced by: Hiromi Asai (2001 anime), Shizuka Ishigami (2019 anime) (JP), Susan Hubernote (2001 anime), Natalie Hoover (2019 anime) (EN), Angélica Villa (LA)
The vice-president of the Prince Yuki Fan Club and a second-year student.
- Beta Bitch: She serves as the Vice President of Yuki's fanclub and thus one level below Motoko. Since she's in the same class as Tohru, she actually antagonizes Tohru more often than Motoko does.
- Didn't Think This Through: Minami has Tohru cast as one of the evil stepsisters for their class' School Play of Cinderella. She believes once Yuki sees Tohru acting mean, he would be disgusted with her and leave. However, Mio points out to Minami that she will be playing the evil stepmother. Minami facepalms at this and mutters how karma got her.
- Girlish Pigtails: She has her hair in pigtails, fitting with her immature fixation on Yuki.
- Hate Sink: Unlike Motoko, she doesn't have any sympathetic side to her, leaving her as a petty Clingy Jealous Girl who merely exists to be mean to Tohru and stalk Yuki. Downplayed in the 2001 adaptation, where she doesn't seem to harbor any more malice towards Tohru than Mio and Mai do, and all three girls' Jerkass attitudes and Fangirl antics are played up as pure comic relief.
- Jerkass: She spends most of her screentime being mean to Tohru for getting close to Yuki, and doesn't have any other redeeming qualities.
Mio Yamagishi
Voiced by: Yuuki Kajita (2001 anime), Anzu Haruno (2019 anime) (JP), Kasey Buckley (2001 anime), Emily Neves (2019 anime) (EN), Ileana Escalante (LA)
The first-year representative for the club.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: She has greenish-black hair in the 2019 anime, but it was brown in the 2001 anime.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Motoko is about to graduate, Minami is all set to take over leadership of the fanclub next year, while Mio comments that she'll take over after Minami. The author notes in an aside that Mio still hasn't realized that when Minami graduates, Yuki's going to graduate too, therefore the Yuki fanclub will lose the purpose to exist by the time Mio can take it over.
Rika Aida
Voiced by: Miwa Matsumoto (2001 anime), Chika Anzai (2019 anime) (JP), Elise Baughman (2001 anime), Amber Lee Connors (2019 anime) (EN), Alicia Barragán (LA)
A third-year member of the club.
- Informed Ability: She claims that there's no door she can't open. However, the one time she attempts to pick a lock, it turns out the door was already open.
Mai Gotou
Voiced by: Kaoru Suzuki (JP), Meredith McCoy (EN)
A 2001 anime-only member of the Prince Yuki Fan Club.
- Canon Foreigner: She's an original character of the 2001 anime, although she does stand-in for an unnamed fanclub member that was named Mai Iwata in the 2019 reboot, probably after her.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: When the Club was planning to infiltrate Hana's house to learn her weakness, Mai asks why they don't go to Tohru's instead since she's the one they have a problem with. While Motoko explains they need to get Hana out of the picture before they get rid of Tohru, if the Club had followed Tohru home they would've learned she's living with Yuki.
- Fearless Fool: She used to lose her shit with the rest of her friends when Hana threatened to use her electric waves on them. By the end of the 2001 anime, Mai would still voice displeasure at the concept but the very sight of Hana no longer sends her running in sheer horror.
- Friendly Enemy: Is openly jealous of Tohru getting to be friends with Yuki, but Mai has no issue being civil and friendly towards Tohru's group even if she's with the Fan Club.
- Karmic Protection: She gradually becomes the least antagonistic of the Prince Yuki Fan Club and thus less likely to be targeted for punishment like the others. She manages to avoid the possibility of getting cursed by Megumi because her name was never revealed. Mai also seems to be aware on some level she has this going, as she doesn't freak out like she once did at the prospect of Hana using her waves even if she's not fond of the prospect.
- Token Good Teammate: In the 2001 anime, Mai Gotou seemed to become the least offensive of the group while still showing jealousy towards Tohru for hanging around Yuki. She at one point even cheerfully waves goodbye to Tohru's group as Motoko starts screaming at Hana for Megumi possibly cursing on them. Also, Mai was just as obnoxious as Minami and Mio when they first appeared, but in later episodes of the 2001 anime, it seems like she needed to be prompted to remember hating Tohru for getting Yuki's attention.
School Staff
Mayuko Shiraki
Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame (JP), Anastasia Muñoz (EN), Rebeca Gómez (LA)
Tohru, Arisa, Saki, Yuki, and Kyo's homeroom teacher.
- A-Cup Angst: When Hatori suggests going to the beach together very late in the manga, she angsts briefly about wearing a swimsuit.
- Adapted Out: She never appeared in the 2001 anime, where she was replaced by an unnamed male teacher. Averted in the 2019 series, where she's not only recurring but also gains her own A Day in the Limelight episode.
- Affectionate Nickname: "Mayu" from her friends, students, and eventually, Hatori.
- Beautiful Tears: Hatori is moved when Mayuko bursts into tears because she can't stand to see him bottling up his emotions, not even allow himself to cry over losing Kana. It's implied this moment is where he starts developing feelings for Mayuko.
- Cool Big Sis: Sometimes she seems more like this to her students than their teacher, having a friendly rapport with the students in her class despite still being strict towards them.
- Early-Bird Cameo: In the second anime, she appears at the end of episode 4 to tell Tohru about her grandpa's call.
- Establishing Character Moment: Introduced blocking Kyo's attempted flight from class with a book to the face and threatening to dye his hair black if he doesn't go back to his seat, setting her no-nonsense, Cool Big Sis persona towards her students.
- He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: When she sees Hatori is still in pain because of what happened with Kana, Mayuko can't stand to see him repressing his sadness and cries her eyes out.
- Humanizing Tears: Given how serious and no-nonsense she usually is, it's moving to see her sobbing her heart out because of Hatori's heartbreak over Kana.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She loved Hatori from the beginning, but she also was Kana's closest friend. She was a Shipper on Deck for him and Kana, and was genuinely grief-stricken when it went to hell.
- Important Haircut: She eventually cuts her hair short after she finally starts going out with Hatori.
- Insecure Love Interest: She is in love with Hatori, but she never thought she would be good enough for him especially when he already had a wonderful girlfriend like Kana. After Hatori was forced to break up with Kana and erase her memories, Mayuko could never bring herself to pursue him since she doesn't believe she can ever make him as happy as Kana did.
- Locked Out of the Loop: She doesn't know about the Sohma curse or the exact circumstances of why Hatori and Kana broke up, though she does mention that Shigure told her about Kana's memory being wiped in order to improve her mental health.
- Love at First Sight: Even though Hatori was dating her best friend at the time, Mayuko loved him since their first meeting.
- Old Maid: Her exact age is unknown, but her mother pressures her to hurry up and get married. Mayuko herself isn't in much of a rush to do so, but she later starts dating Hatori and eventually marries him.
- One Degree of Separation: Tohru's homeroom teacher is the best friend of Hatori's ex-fiancée.
- Second Love: She's the second woman Hatori falls in love with and eventually marries her once he gets over his heartbreak over his first girlfriend Kana. In fact, Mayu even felt guilty for "taking Kana's place" in his heart at first.
- Sensei-chan: After some of her female students address her as "Mayu-chan-sensei", she demands (jokingly) that they call her "Mayuko-daisensei-sama" instead (or in some translations, "Great Teacher Mayuko"). Despite this, she's actually more of a downplayed example of this trope, acting like a usually-stern Cool Big Sis towards her students rather than an immature Womanchild like most examples.
- Stern Teacher: She acts strict and no-nonsense in front of her students, which makes sense considering their antics. Despite this, her students still seem to be fond of her, and she does show a more caring and supportive side towards them at times (particularly during the parent-teacher conferences).
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's very serious and firm most of the time, but her feelings for Hatori show how caring and sensitive she can be.
Other Characters
Komaki Nakao
Kakeru's girlfriend.
- Adapted Out: She's mentioned once by Kakeru in the 2019 anime but never appears, as Kakeru's subplot with Tohru from the manga, where Komaki played an important role, was cut out from the adaptation.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even though she was also dealing with her own grief over her father’s passing, she was absolutely disgusted and horrified when Kakeru called Tohru disgusting and whiney supposedly for ‘her sake’, breaking down in tears due to what he did to Tohru and his reasoning for it and nearly breaking up with him despite making him apologize.
- Genki Girl: She's almost always energetic and cheerful.
- Satellite Love Interest: She doesn't have much of a role in the story aside from being Kakeru's girlfriend. She's also the reason behind Kakeru's minor drama with Tohru because Komaki's father was the one who caused the car crash that killed both himself and Kyoko.
- Super Gullible: She always falls for Kakeru's lies.
- Trademark Favorite Food: She loves meat more than anything. Kakeru calls her his "Meat Angel".
- Tsundere: Sweet type. She's a very nice girl and a loving girlfriend to Kakeru, but Kakeru's teasing and insensitivity can get on her nerves to the point of hitting him sometimes.
- Turned Off By The Jerkass: She is rightfully furious at Kakeru for calling Tohru whiny and disgusting while she was mourning her mother, refusing to accept his justification that he was doing it for her sake and almost breaking up with him, forcing him to apologize to Tohru.
- What the Hell, Hero?: To Kakeru, who told Tohru during Kyoko's funeral that she wasn't the only one who had lost a parent in the accident and that she was whiny and disgusting for openly grieving. Komaki was very pissed off when she found out and almost broke up with him, forcing him to apologize.
- Women Are Wiser: In comparison to Kakeru. He thought telling Tohru off for openly grieving her mother because Komaki lost her father in the same accident was an appropriate response, and that he was simply being a good boyfriend by doing so. Komaki, however, was outraged that he could be so callous and chews him out for disrespecting Tohru's feelings.
Mine Kuramae
Voiced by: Miki Takahashi (JP), Yuka Iguchi (2019 anime) (JP), Amber Cotton (2001 anime), Monica Rial (2019 anime) (EN), Leyla Rangel (LA)
A clothing designer who works in Ayame's store.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: She's introduced in the 2001 anime at an earlier point than in the manga and 2019 anime, before Kazuma visits Shigure's house.
- Ambiguously Bi: Her boyfriend Ayame says that every time she sees a cute girl, she want to dress them in cute clothes, which seems to be true and she also blushes around them. Despite this, she's still in a committed relationship with Ayame.
- Bespectacled Cutie: She wears glasses and is quite cute.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: When she's asked why she dresses like a Meido at work, she answers that she simply likes dressing like that because cosplay outfits are cute.
- Early-Bird Cameo: She appears in the second opening of the 2019 reboot as the woman standing next to Ayame behind the gothic lolita umbrella.
- Eccentric Fashion Designer: She's passionate about making clothes, which is why she works as a seamstress at Ayame's store. Whenever she meets someone cute, her first reaction is wanting to put them in one of her frilly dresses.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: She loves the style and in the 2019 reboot, she has a gothic lolita styled umbrella.
- Girlish Pigtails: She keeps her hair in two braids that make her look even cuter in her Meido cosplay.
- Meido: One of the many things she wears is a maid uniform. Yuki asks her if the maid outfit is her uniform when working at the shop, but Mine replies that she wears it because she likes it.
- Nice Girl: She's a very friendly girl.
- Official Couple: She officially becomes Ayame's girlfriend. Another reveals that they got married and had two children, Hibika and Chizuru.
- Perpetual Smiler: Very few scenes show her not smiling.
- Satellite Love Interest: Her only role in the story is being Ayame's perky girlfriend and she doesn't receive any Character Development unlike the other characters in a relationship.
- Secret-Keeper: Implied to have known about the curse, though not explicitly stated. During a somber conversation with Ayame, Yuki asks Ayame if Mine knows about the curse, and Ayame not-so-subtly (Yuki even lampshades it) changes the topic of conversation to something else. Yuki notes that he wouldn't be surprised if Mine did know - because he doesn't think that Ayame would have been capable of keeping it a secret from her for so long. The anime confirms that Mine knows about the curse, and she reassures him that the possibility of being cursed forever doesn't change her feelings about him.
- Tears of Joy: She cries when the newly-released Ayame is finally able to hug her near the end of the series.
Mitsuru
Voiced by: Akemi Okamura (2001 series), Chinatsu Akasaki (2019 series) (JP), Cynthia Cranz (EN), Valentina Souza (LA)
Shigure's editor.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Her hair is brown in the 2001 series, but a light gray in the 2019 reboot.
- Adaptation Expansion: The 2019 anime gives her a bit more of a presence by adding screentime with Mitsuru bonding with Ritsu before they start dating.
- Ambiguously Bi:
Word of God says that she neither knows or cares what gender Ritsu is. It's not clear whether this means she's bisexual or if it's a case of If It's You, It's Okay. - Beleaguered Assistant: Well, editor, but Shigure still drives the poor woman crazy.
- Birds of a Feather: She and her boyfriend Ritsu are both overly emotional people with anxiety problems and prone to panic over small things, which causes them to have low self-esteem.
- Butt-Monkey: She's the biggest victim of Shigure's Trolling. About all her appearances have Shigure driving her crazy by acting flaky, to the point she's on verge of killing herself.
- Hysterical Woman: She acts like it's the end of the world whenever it looks like Shigure isn't going to have his manuscript ready on time.
- No Full Name Given: Unlike other named characters, Mitsuru's surname is never mentioned in the story.
- Prone to Tears: She's so emotional that it doesn't take much for Shigure to make her cry by messing with her a little.
- Suicide as Comedy: When Tohru meets her, she's on the verge of killing herself with a box cutter because Shigure has run off without meeting his deadlines again. Later, we see her writing a suicide note to her parents for the exact same reason. Shigure thinks it's funny.
Tohru's paternal grandfather
Voiced by: Hiroshi Masuoka (2001 anime), Uoken (2019 anime) (JP), Brice Armstrong (2001 anime), Doug Jackson (2019 anime) (EN), Eduardo Tejedo (LA)
- Accidental Misnaming: He typically calls Tohru "Kyoko-san" after Kyoko's death. While at first it seems like it's due to being a Scatterbrained Senior, it's actually subverted since he calls Tohru by Kyoko's name because he wants to let Tohru know that there's at least one other person besides her who remembers Kyoko after her death.
- Anti-Climactic Parent: So many people in the Honda family were against Katsuya and Kyoko's marriage that Kyoko wound up psyching herself up to think that Katsuya's father (who he used to be at odds with) would be the worst of the lot. He winds up being the only family member who happily approves of them, and eventually the only one willing to take in their daughter Tohru once both her parents have died.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He's quiet flighty. To say the least. Played With though, as he isn't as flighty as he seems at times.
- Good Parents: To Katsuya and later Kyoko when she becomes a part of Katsuya's life. He later becomes the best grandparent he can be to Tohru, even if that means letting her live with another family since he knows his own family won't treat her well.
- Innocently Insensitive: Subverted. He begins habitually calling Tohru "Kyoko-san" after Kyoko passes away, which everyone seems to write off as a result of his age, but Kyo points out that it's a bit insensitive for him to do so. Then Tohru's grandfather admits he's aware he does it, and says that he started doing it because after Kyoko's funeral, it looked like Tohru was going to fall apart if there wasn't some sort of reminder every so often that her mother was once alive and that other people think of her as well.
- Played straight when he throws his back out and Tohru comes to visit him. He's reminiscing about Katsuya and Kyoko, telling Tohru that it would be nice to see them again, even as ghosts, before he died. What he doesn't know is that the phrase "I want to see them again," triggers a painful memory for Tohru - one where after Katsuya's death, Kyoko left her alone in the house to wander aimlessly without thinking of Tohru.
- Love Redeems: When his son was alive, their relationship suffered from a strain. When his wife passed away, he changed and became the kind-hearted man Tohru knew.
- Nice Guy: He was the only person in the Honda family who didn't ostracize Kyoko, and later he remains kind to Tohru even when all of her other relatives treat her like crap.
- No Name Given: We never get to know what his given name is.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: As Katsuya says in a flashback, "He's lost his edge." However, there are infrequent instances in the manga that suggest he's capable of being just as disagreeable as his son was, but doesn't act on it until he feels he needs to.
- Papa Wolf: Do not make any crude comments about his granddaughter. Even if you're family, he will hit you.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Subverted; his odd behavior makes him seem as though his mind is declining from old age, but it's later made clear that much of this is Obfuscating Stupidity.
- Token Good Teammate: Of the entire Honda family, being the only one to not only approve of Kyoko's relationship with Katsuya, but the only one to treat or speak to Kyoko and Tohru with anything even close to kindness and respect.
- Useless Bystander Parent: One of the more sympathetic examples from the manga. He really does love his son, but it's implied he had very little hand in Katsuya's upbringing because the two rarely saw eye-to-eye. In present times in the series, he loves Tohru dearly, but his poor health means that he has to be cared for by Tohru's aunt and uncle. Realizing he can't do much to protect her from their cruelty and not wanting her to feel trapped, the best he can do is urge her to go somewhere else, if there's a place she'd rather be at.
- Your Favorite: The food which he brings to Kyoko's grave.
The Honda family
Aunt voiced by: Keiko Kōmyōji (2001 anime), Mie Sonozaki (2019 anime) (JP), Cynthia Cranz (2001 anime), Nazia Chaudhry (2019 anime) (EN), Karina Altamirano (LA)
Male cousin voiced by: Masahito Yabe (2001 anime), Akinori Egoshi (2019 anime) (JP), Chris Cantrell (2001 anime), Stephen Fu (2019 anime) (EN), Eduardo Ramírez (LA)
Female cousin voiced by: Kaoru Suzuki (2001 anime), Ryoko Maekawa (2019 anime) (JP), Kasey Buckley (2001 anime), Kristin Sutton (2019 anime) (EN), Marysol Lobo (LA)
Tohru's other relatives on her father's side, who ostracized Kyoko and continue to do the same to Tohru herself.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Their apathy and disdain for Tohru is present in every version, but in the manga, it was far more downplayed compared to the second anime.
- Entitled Bastard: They automatically expect Tohru's grandfather to side with them when they're mocking Tohru, only to be offended and shocked when he slaps her male cousin and openly calls them nasty people by nature.
- Hate Sink: During the short time Tohru was living with them and her grandpa, it's clear they're not meant to be liked, treating Tohru like an unwanted guest at best and a humiliating burden at worst even when she's nothing but nice and polite to them. Granted, they didn't agree to the relationship between her parents, as they mostly disliked that her father, Katsuya, married her mother, Kyoko, who was a delinquent in her youth, but that's no reason to assume Tohru is just as bad, and then accuse her of "shacking up" with Kyo, Yuki, and Shigure, after they hire a detective agency to investigate the poor girl. They even had enough gall to mock her, Katsuya, and presumably Kyoko, at their respective funerals.
- Irrational Hatred: Tohru is a Nice Girl who's never anything but polite to them, but they don't reciprocate her kindness and hate her simply because her mother was a Former Teen Rebel and they automatically assume that Tohru will turn out the same way. It reaches the point where her grandfather actually encourages Tohru to go back to the Sohmas just to get away from them.
- Jerkass: They're openly rude and disrespectful to Tohru, having made disparaging remarks right to her face since she was a child, and have nothing nice to say about her late mother, either. Her grandfather himself admits that they're "terribly unpleasant people."
- Karma Houdini: They treated Tohru like crap before the story began, treated her like crap when the readers/viewers see them momentarily, and then Tohru leaves for good and we never learn if they repent, regret or get any kind of consequences. The most punishment any of them get for their cruelty is the male cousin getting a slap and a scolding from Tohru's grandfather and some vague threats from Yuki.
- Last Disrespects: When Katsuya passed away, his relatives' conversations during the funeral ceremony quickly devolve from the circumstances surrounding his death to expressing their disapproval of Kyoko by berating or gossiping about her, saying that Katsuya was better off single. In a separate recollection of the same funeral, Tohru's grandfather brings up how the relatives would say disparaging remarks toward Tohru right in her face, thinking she would not understand.
- Moral Myopia: Tohru's aunt stands back and watches as her son gets in Tohru's face and slut-shames her with a smug smirk, then has the gall to be shocked and call her father out for slapping said son over it and their overall treatment of Tohru.
- No Name Given: Their given names are never revealed.
- Obliviously Evil: Not only do they think their hatred of Kyoko and treatment of Tohru is perfectly justified and acceptable, they're in complete shock when Tohru's grandfather calls them out on it, openly referring to them as terribly unpleasant and nasty people by nature. This does not make them more sympathetic or tragic.
- Pet the Dog: For all of her Jerkassery, Tohru's aunt did have enough of a heart to inform her of her grandfather's back injury, assuring her that he would be fine and even offering to attend her parent-teacher conference in his place.
- Slut-Shaming: They're quick to assume that Tohru was sleeping around and/or molested by the Sohma men she was staying with. They also accuse her mother of being wanton and a slut, because she'd been in a biker gang in her youth. In the English dub of the 2019 anime, when Kyo and Yuki come to retrieve her, Tohru's cousin recognizes them as "the two guys the little tramp was shacking up with." In response, Yuki, in full Tranquil Fury mode, gets in his face, calls him a lowlife, and warns him to never talk about Tohru like that again, leaving Tohru's cuz speechless.note
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Even after her death, they have nothing nice to say about Kyoko and have no qualms against insulting her to Tohru's face.
Mr. Uotani
Voiced by: Masashi Nogawa (JP), Josh Martin (EN)
Arisa's father and a recovering alcoholic.
- Alcoholic Parent: Until a few years ago, he tried to drink his sorrows away because of his wife running off with another man. Arisa has been helping him with his recovery.
- Parental Neglect: After his wife left him, he would spend all day drinking and blankly staring at the TV, never once even trying to look after Arisa. This was the cause of Arisa joining a gang to cope with her frustration at being unattended by her father.
- Recovered Addict: Arisa somehow managed to get him out of his drinking habit, although she still needs to keep an eye on him in case he tries sipping a beer every once in a while.
- Unnamed Parent: We never get to know his given name.
Mr. and Mrs. Hanajima
Saki's father is voiced by: Hirofumi Nojima (JP), Christopher Wehkamp (EN), Dave Ramos (LA)
Saki's mother is voiced by: Yumi Kakazu (JP), Jenny Ledel (EN), Mariana Ortiz (LA)
Saki's parents.
- Good Parents: They are endlessly loving and supportive of Saki, especially when she was being bullied and ostracized.
- Open-Minded Parent: They aren't bothered by Saki's Psychic Powers and did everything they could to help her through the problems her lack of control over her powers brought to her when she was growing up. Many of the Sohma parents should learn from them when it comes to raising a child born with a supernatural trait.
- Shading/Colour Dissonance: Their hair lacks any shading in the manga, which is odd given that both their kids have black hair. According to the 2019 anime, Saki and Megumi get their black hair from their father and their mother has brown hair.
- Unnamed Parent: Their given names are never revealed.
Mr. and Mrs. Katsunuma
Kyoko's father voiced by: Hiroki Maeda (JP), Phil Parsons (EN)
Kyoko's mother voiced by: Misa Ishii (JP), Alicyn Packard (EN)
Kyoko's parents who were callous and unloving to the point that they disowned Kyoko.
- Abusive Dad: The father treated Kyoko like dirt because she got herself in delinquent life, cruelly telling her the world doesn't need people like her. His first scene alone has him slapping Kyoko and kicking her out, and this was before her permanent disownment post-hospitalization.
- Extreme Doormat: Implied with Mrs. Katsunuma in the movie, where it's shown she didn't have much say in her husband's decision to kick their own daughter out of the house permanently.
- The Faceless: Their faces are never drawn clearly in the manga.
- Hate Sink: They're yet another example of disgustingly bad parents in a series overloaded with those. It was their callous treatment what made Kyoko involve herself with gangs when she was a teenager.
- I Have No Daughter!: Kyoko's father finally got sick of her after she was put in the hospital in her attempt to abandon her gang. The day Kyoko left the hospital, the father threw her out of the house while cruelly telling her to "never bother him again".
- Jerkass: They are unbelievably egocentric and heartless adults who care for nothing but their image.
- Kick the Dog: After they already kicked Kyoko out of the house, the father went out of his way to call her after Katsuya's funeral to tell her not to bother coming back with Tohru.
- Parental Neglect: They emotionally ignored Kyoko throughout her childhood. Kyoko said that they would never even eat at the table as a family, and they wouldn’t even hug her at any point of her life.
- Never My Fault: Both condemned Kyoko for choosing the life of a delinquent without any consideration of how badly it would make them look. Neither of them wanted to even consider that Kyoko's bad behavior was a direct result of their extremely neglectful treatment of her. Kyoko’s mother is definitely the worst out of the two, since she has the audacity to outright ask Kyoko why she’s turn out the way she did, as she’s witnessing her husband slapping and calling Kyoko worthless. Kyoko roars out to her mother that she shouldn’t have given birth to her in the first place if she didn’t want her.
- Slave to PR: The only reason why they complained about Kyoko joining a gang was that having a delinquent for a daughter was bad for their image in society.
- Unnamed Parent: Like most parents in the series outside of Tohru's, Kyoko's parents are never named.
- Useless Bystander Parent: While the father abused and later disowned Kyoko, the mother did nothing but fret and wonder how her daughter turned out so poorly and what the neighbors would think.
Mrs. Kuragi
Voiced by: Ryōka Yuzuki (JP), Brianna Roberts (EN)
Machi's cold mother who kicked her out of the house after accusing Machi of trying to kill her own baby brother.
- Abusive Mom: She was just as abusive and controlling towards Machi as Yuki's mother was towards her son, before casting her aside like garbage once her son was born. Even now, she continues verbally abusing Machi whenever they speak. Come Another, it's made clear that they never reconciled, with Machi and Yuki's son believing they never will.
- The Faceless: We don't see her face in Machi's flashbacks.
- Greed: She only ever saw Machi as a Trophy Child she could use to get at her husband's wealth. When she had a son, she immediately cast Machi out and focused on her younger brother solely because as a boy, the baby has a better chance of being chosen as an heir than Machi.
- Hate Sink: The little that is shown of her only has the purpose of making the audience hate her for treating Machi so callously.
- Insane Troll Logic: When she saw Machi leaning over her baby brother with a blanket in the middle of the night, her mother accused her of trying to smother him out of jealousy rather than the far more believable or logical explanation that she was trying to keep him warm.
- My Beloved Smother: She heaped all manner of pressure on Machi to be perfect, seeing her as nothing but a Trophy Child she could use to inherit her husband's fortune. When her son was born, she cast Machi out.
- Never My Fault: She deflects blame from herself for how Machi turned out in the present, even though it was her forcing Machi to be perfect in everything that Machi became the way she is.
- Parental Favoritism: She only cares about her young son while treating Machi like a bother.
- Psychological Projection: She believed Machi could want to kill her baby brother because she really thought her daughter was as selfish and inheritance-obsessed as she is.
- Unnamed Parent: Like many parents in the series, we don't know her given name.
Mr. Nakao
Komaki's father who died recently.
- Accidental Murder: He was the driver who killed Kyoko, by accidentally hitting her with his car before crashing and perishing.
- Disappeared Dad: He died in a car crash a while ago. The same that killed Kyoko, in fact.
- Posthumous Character: He's already dead during the series.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He's a very minor character who doesn't even have a name, but he's the one who caused Kyoko's death by accidentally hitting her with his car, and Kyoko's death is what kickstarts the plot as a whole.
- Unnamed Parent: His given name is never mentioned.
The Sohma's Head Maid
Voiced by: Hitomi Shogawa (JP), Linda Leonard (EN), Ana Teresa Ávila (LA)
An Old Retainer of the Sohma. She has been working with them for more than twenty years.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In the manga, the maid coldly disapproved of the changes Akito was making following her Heel–Face Turn and stated she liked the old Akito better. In the anime, it's lessened to the maid admitting she's envious of Akito wanting and being able to move on so easily and angsting over her inability to do the same, having served the Sohmas for decades and being used to the family traditions brought about from the curse.
- Adults Are Useless: One of the most blatant examples in the series. Not only does she do nothing about Akito's bratty behavior and regular abuse of the Zodiac members, she encourages it on the grounds that it's her right as the Zodiac's God and head of the family and has the gall to be angry when none of the other Sohmas do the same.
- All That Glitters: She gave an empty box to a very young Akito and told her it had her recently deceased father Akira's soul, in an attempt to help her cope.
- Dismotivation: She's the head of the system that encourages the cult-like traditions and customs of the Sohma clan centered around preserving the "bond" of the Zodiac. As she tells Akito after her Heel–Face Turn, she's much too old now to be able to accept drastic new changes into the strictly traditional Sohma family, even saying how she liked the old Akito better when Akito is finally showing signs of self-improvement by abandoning the A God Am I complex that made her hurt so many people. This is changed in the second anime, instead admitting that she's envious of Akito wanting to move on so easily.
- Everyone Has Standards: For all of her faults, even she can't stand Ren Sohma for not only being a mere maid who won Akira's heart, but for being an Abusive Parent to Akito. On at least one occasion, she's openly stated that it would be for the best if Akito simply banished Ren from the Sohma estate completely.
- Evil Old Folks: "Evil" may be a stretch, but she's not entirely nice, either. She played the Yes-Man for Akito for her entire life, spoiling her rotten and putting it in her head that as God of the Zodiac, she's entitled to do whatever she wants. She reaches an entirely new level when she gives Kureno a completely unjustified What the Hell, Hero? over "betraying" Akito by saving Rin from confinement in the Cat's Room despite the fact that she was left in there to starve, harshly telling Kureno to know his place and that he and the rest of the cursed Sohmas exist solely to follow Akito's wishes. When Akito undergoes a Heel–Face Turn after the curse, the maid disapproves of the changes she's making, going so far as to say that she liked the old Akito, a Yandere Jerkass God, better.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While she is a bit too much a yes-man for letting Akito do whatever she wanted, her objection to Ren falling in love with Akira was definitely not unfounded.
- Kimono Is Traditional: She's always seen wearing a kimono, as a sign of her being a member of a very old-fashioned environment.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: She goes along with anything Akito says or does, no matter how heinous or immoral, because Akito's the head of the Sohma family and God of the Zodiac, and believes that the rest of the Zodiac should always do the same. She goes so far as to chew out Kureno for going against Akito's wishes by breaking Rin out of the Cat's Room where Akito had locked her up, disregarding the fact that Rin would have starved to death otherwise.
- No Name Given: Her actual name is never mentioned.
- Old Retainer: She has been working in the Sohma household for decades. The second anime adds to this with her having been born into the estate, so she genuinely doesn't know any other way to live.
- Parental Substitute: She's the closest thing to a parental figure Akito has because her father died when she was a toddler and her mother never wanted to have anything to do with her. She's also pretty much the only woman Akito gets along with.
- Poor Communication Kills: After the death of Akira, she gave Akito a box to help her cope, telling her it contained her father's soul. In reality, the box is empty,but she doesn't bother telling anyone else in the house this because she thought anyone with common sense would have figured it out themselves. Unfortunately for a lot of people, Ren didn't figure it out, became convinced that it contained a treasure of Akira's, and went to incredible lengths to steal it from Akito on the grounds that anything Akira owned is rightfully hers. It's only after she breaks into Akito's room with a knife, fully intending to kill her own daughter for it, that she and everyone else discovers the truth; Ren is left an Empty Shell of her former self while the head maid is immediately chewed out by the other maids for not telling anyone else, let alone giving Akito the box, to begin with.
- Pushover Parents: She took over raising Akito after her father died not only due to Ren wanting nothing to do with her daughter, but because of her misguided beliefs about the roles of the Zodiac. She enabled Akito's increasingly abusive behavior towards everyone around her because "a god can do whatever they please."
- Shipping Torpedo: She opposed quite a bit to her then fellow maid Ren and the former family head Akira's relationship.
- Thought They Knew Already: Her justification for not telling anyone that the box she gave Akito was just an ordinary, empty box; she believed it was obvious and anyone would have figured it out.Maid: That's just common sense!
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By making Akito a part of her own ongoing feud with Ren Sohma, perpetuating the spoiling treatment of her that Akira began, and lying to her about Akira's soul being inside an empty box, the head maid ends up creating many more troubles for the Sohma family that end up with devastating consequences later on down the line. Her closeness with Akito has her sharing an antagonistic role with her in almost all of the Zodiacs' backstory.
- What the Hell, Hero?: On both the giving and receiving ends:
- First, she calls out Kureno for getting Rin out of the Cat's Room after Akito left her there to starve, accusing him of siding with Ren over Akito, his God.
- She herself gets it from the other maids when Ren tries to steal the box she gave Akito, only to discover it was empty, which she didn't tell anyone under the belief that anyone would have figured that out themselves.
- Yes-Man: She goes along with what Akito says and does without question, stating that as the head of the family and God of the Zodiac, Akito is free to do whatever she wants. As shown when she confronts Kureno after he breaks Rin out of the Cat's Room where Akito had her confined, she firmly believes everyone in the Sohma family, especially the Zodiac members, should do the same.
The Zodiac God (Spoilers)
Voiced by: Hiroshi Kamiya (JP), Matthew Mercer (EN), Héctor Emmanuel Gómez (LA)
Once upon a time, there was a very lonely man who became friends with thirteen animals who regarded him as a "god". Not wanting to part with his friends, the man cast a spell that would bind him and the animals in an everlasting bond throughout their next lives. This is the origin of the Sohma family curse.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: His tale is told near the end of the manga right after the curse is finally broken. In the 2019 anime, he appears in the very first scene of the first episode when he's casting the spell that linked him to the Zodiac animals.
- Ambiguously Human: While the Zodiac animals viewed him as a god, it's not entirely clear whether or not he really was one; while he did have magical abilities, he wasn't immortal and he eventually died.
- Better with Non-Human Company: Because no humans would get close to the man, he chose to make friends with animals instead.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The animals only called him "God".
- Eyes Out of Sight: His eyes are obscured throughout the origin story of the Sohma curse.
- Immortality Seeker: He wanted the banquet with his animal friends to never end. To accomplish that, he prepared an elixir of immortality that would make them reincarnate endlessly.
- Limited Social Circle: Basically, this is the basis of the "curse". Since the "God" only wished to be connected to his animal friends forever, they are not allowed to form proper connections with anyone else but the "God". The answer to breaking the curse is to bond with people outside the Zodiac, which Tohru does by befriending all the cursed Sohma.
- Mystical White Hair: He had long white hair to represent his importance as the caster of the spell that became the curse.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: All he wanted was to stay connected to his animal friends for eternity even after death. He never intended for this bond to become the source of generations of angst and abuse in the Sohma linage.
- Walking Spoiler: As the originator of the Sohma curse, his very existence is a spoiler.
