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Tohru Honda (本田 透, Honda Tōru^?) Voiced by: Yui Horie (Japanese), Laura Bailey (voice actress) (English)

An orphaned high school student, Tohru ends up living in the same house with Shigure, Yuki and Kyo Sohma. She loves to cook, is an excellent housekeeper, and has an after school job as a custodian to help pay her tuition fees (since she doesn’t want to bother her grandfather or her “house mates”). She is always polite, and is extremely kind, loving, and naive; in fact, the other characters sometimes have to tell her that she needs to look out for her own interests. She wishes to understand the curse as part of her caring personality. She wishes to help anyone she can.

Kyo Sohma (草摩 夾, Sōma Kyō^?) Voiced by: Tomokazu Seki (Japanese), Jerry Jewell (English)

Kyo is the cat, an animal not in the zodiac, but which legend says would have been if it had not been tricked by the rat into missing the induction feast and wishes to get back at the cat ever since. Kyo hates Yuki (the rat) and is determined to defeat him before high school ends. After the alleged suicide of his mother, and abandonment of his father, Kyo has hated Yuki for everything wrong with his life. He made a bet with Akito: if he defeats Yuki before he finishes high school, he’ll officially be accepted along with the other Jyuunishi by the Sohmas. If he does not, however, Kyo would be forced to live in a small room, the neko/cat room, within the Sohma estate for the rest of his life, which means being locked up in a cage made specially for the cat Jyuunishi. Despite many months of strict training, Kyo has never managed to even land a decent blow on Yuki. Instead, he continually gets beat up by Yuki, often started by himself. Kyo runs away even from the people that want to help him, because he is ashamed of his true form, which he turns into when his rosary bead bracelet made from the bones of a miko (the red ones are blood stained) is removed. When Tohru sees his true form, however, she still accepts him and begs him to stay with her, which forms a bond of sorts between the two. He wants to be appreciated and be special like Yuki. Orange is his natural hair color; a fact proven by Haru. Tohru’s favorite zodiac animal, as a child, was the cat. Tohru even told her mother that she had an idea: “I know! I’ll stop being a dog and I’ll be a cat!” Referring to her being born in the year of the dog.

Yuki Sohma (草摩 由希, Sōma Yuki^?) Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese), Eric Vale (English)

Yuki is the rat of the zodiac. Known as “Prince Charming” or “Prince Yuki” at school, Yuki is very attractive and refined, and has his own fan club at school, but has a hard time being social. He wishes that he could be with people as friends, rather than admired and worshiped from afar, no thanks to his infamous PYFC (Prince Yuki Fan Club). Yuki has suffered a traumatic childhood at the hands of Akito, the head of the Sohma clan, who locked him up and tortured him. Because of this, Yuki has a somewhat low sense of worth and is claustrophobic. With Tohru’s help, however, Yuki is gradually able to loosen up. He is jealous of Kyo because he thinks Kyo can have a normal life, which is something Yuki has always wanted. He is often considered “absolutely the most adorable little mouse in the world” when he is crying in the manga. Because of Tohru always giving advice and being able to be herself around others he often also looks up to her as a mother figure.

Fruits Basket follows the life of the student Tohru Honda, who was recently orphaned when her mother, Kyoko Honda, died in a car accident. After that, Tohru lived with her grandfather, but when remodeling is needed on the house, Tohru resorts to living in a tent and holds down a job to support herself. Despite suffering many hardships, Tohru remains her optimistic self.

One day, Tohru comes upon a house in the forest that she is temporarily living in which is the home of Shigure Sohma and fellow classmate Yuki Sohma, of the Sohma family. When the Sohmas discover that Tohru is living in a tent, they are quite surprised by her inner strength. The entire area is Sohma property, and Tohru pleads to live upon the property in her quaint tent (affectionately dubbed “her castle”). Feeling sorry for her, and desperate to end their days of filthy living conditions, the Sohmas offer her their spare room in exchange for cooking and housework. When her tent is buried that night in a landslide, burying her mother’s picture and school clothes, she has no option but to accept. Soon after she moves in, Kyo Sohma comes to challenge Yuki.

Tohru soon discovers the Sohma family’s secret, and the reason why Yuki is so private and secretive at school: thirteen members of the family are possessed by the 12 animal spirits of the Chinese Zodiac (“Jyūnishi” in Japanese) and the spirit of the cat who was left out of the Zodiac according to legend. They transform into animals when hugged by the opposite gender, when they are under a great amount of stress, or weak in any way (such as being sick). When she promises to keep their secret, the Sohmas allow Tohru to keep her memories rather than hypnotically erasing them, a fate that had previously befallen anyone not on the “Inside” of the Sohma family who had discovered the secret.

The story follows the lives of Tohru and the Sohma family, as they deal with each other and a society where neither quite fits in, as well as the feared Akito Sohma, head of the Sohma family. Soon, after living with the Sohma family she began to like, then love all of the Sohmas.

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