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〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
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CHRONOLOGY: Episode 25 of the 2019 Anime (Roughly Chapter 35 of the Manga)
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BACKGROUND:

Fandom Wiki for Tohru | Manga Chapters

Tohru is the ditzy girl who always smiles and makes the best of everything. You'd hardly guess that she recently lost her mother-- her one parent-- in an accident and almost ended up living in a tent!

When Tohru was very young, her father died of pneumonia. Kyoko had once been in a gang and was feared as a scary Yankee, but the widowed woman was devastated. In that moment, as Tohru watched her grieving mother become more and more distant, she decided to do all in her power to keep them together. The two became very close, to the point that Tohru even felt her reason for living may be her mother.

But then Kyoko died when Tohru was in high school. Though she had two best friends to help her grieve, Tohru was terrified of truly "losing" her mother. She kept a photo of her mother on her always and spoke to her frequently.
At the funeral, Tohru experienced first hand how much her relatives had disliked her mother. Well, they were her father's relatives. Kyoko's family had disowned her when she was in the gang. Tohru was sent to live with her grandfather, as he was the only one who wanted her. The arrangement was short lived, since her aunt also planned to move in. That would require that the house be remodeled, and everyone would need to stay elsewhere for a while. Tohru didn't want to impose on her friends or family, so she decided...

SHE WOULD LIVE IN A TENT!

Yeah, that went really well. She pitched her tent on private property and met the land owners not soon after. The land belonged to the Sohma Family, and the only house on the property was occupied by Shigure and Yuki Sohma. Tohru ended up living with them in a spare bedroom, in exchange for doing the household chores. And it only took her like three hours to discover the family's curse.

Certain Sohmas were cursed by the Chinese Zodiac. When hugged by a member of the opposite sex, they turned into their respective animals. That even included the Cat, Kyo Sohma, who also came to live in the same house.

Tohru was sworn to secrecy. As her school days went on, she grew closer to Yuki and Kyo. She also met many of the other Zodiac members and gradually befriended them. Tohru's kind and accepting nature gave their hurting souls the gentle push needed to confront themselves. Slowly but surely, everyone began to change for the better. Tohru was well loved by those she encountered.

Except by Akito, the Head of the Sohma Family. Though her friends tried to keep her away from Akito, Tohru finally had a "real" encounter with Akito Sohma during a trip to the beach. She's finally realized just how horrible the Zodiac Curse is, and what it means for the twelve members. Tohru will be coming from this canon point, where Akito has just confronted her after striking Momiji.

PERSONALITY:

On a surface level, Tohru is a Good Girl™. She is always smiling, endlessly positive, good at making friends, and has those old ol'Shoujo Manga Heroine vibes. While these traits are certainly true, Tohru is far from perfect. If she was to be summarized in one sentence, it would be a lyric from the first anime opening:

"Let's stay together, always."

For starters, Tohru is quite polite. She speaks in an usually formal manner, with characters commenting that it can be charming. It almost comes full circle and sounds comical, as she misuses polite phrases. She learned this from her deceased father, in an attempt to attract her mother's attention. This is the earliest application of Tohru's philosophy of "staying together, always." Tohru saw her mother was drifting away, so adapted her own personal tics in order to keep Kyoko's attention.

Throughout the series, Tohru's role is to bring people closer. She does have some degree of a naturally magnetic charm to her. First impressions of Tohru would be things like "ditzy," "naive," "cheerful," and "trusting." She's someone who gives off an aura of childlike innocence despite her actual maturity, which makes people want to protect her. This is seen in how her best friends act like her guardians, even before she's orphaned. Combine this with how she is optimistic, confrontation avoidant, and generous, you get someone who is hard to dislike. But these are not the traits that truly allow Tohru to keep people together.

Tohru is a very honest person. She sometimes goes on comical tangents where she blurts out honest words in moments of panic, showing that Tohru's response to pressure is to be truthful. She understands the difference between kind lies and lies that only seem kind. A strong example of this is in Kyo's True Form Arc: Everyone else lies to Kyo and says they're okay with his true form because they love him. Tohru admits that it disgusts and horrifies her, but that she loves him too much to let him go.
This sort of difference in approach is what allows Tohru to take down the many walls among the Sohma family. Tohru kindly extends an offer to love and understand every person she meets. And when she doesn't understand how to extend love to someone, she'll admit it while attempting to reach an understanding. She is someone who understands suffering and she understands that you must admit to pain in order to heal it.

Through teaching this form of grieving to the Sohmas, Tohru also has to teach it to herself. At her current canon point, Tohru is being a hypocrite: She has not applied her "admit pain to heal pain" philosophy to her own grief. This manifests in a slightly unhealthy attachment to her dead mother. When reading the manga for the first time it is easy to miss, but nearly every one of Tohru's "kindness speeches" involves the phrase "my mom told me." Tohru desperately tries to tie her mother to her life, refusing to let Kyoko die and disappear. She brings Kyoko up frequently in conversations and is constantly passing her mother's wisdom along, to solidify that Kyoko lived.

Even physically, Tohru carries her mother's portrait with her and obsesses over it. Tohru has described losing the photo as "kidnapping." If anything happens to that photo, Tohru reacts as if her mother is in actual danger. And to some degree, Tohru does realize that she isn't grieving in a healthy manner. She also purposefully puts a lid on that grief, as she isn't ready to deal with it. It would later be revealed that Tohru viewed Kyoko as her reason for living, which is why she's so lost without her.

... Not that you would guess that Tohru is a girl plagued by grief! She's openly a cheerful and optimistic girl. Tohru works very hard towards her/mother's goals and tries her best to be self-reliant. She pays her own school expenses, despite being an orphan, and tries not to impose on her legal guardian. Though only 16, Tohru knows how to be a responsible adult. Or at least, she tries to figure it out.
Tohru is a generous person who shares happiness. There is a folktale brought up frequently in canon called "The Foolish Traveler," which mocks a person like Tohru: She would give up everything and ask nothing in return, and feel completely fulfilled doing so. After all: Tohru wants to stay together, always. If she can connect herself to others, then she's happy. Others may see Tohru as selfless, but she is being her own form of selfish. She does fulfill a personal desire through her kindness.

She's also an incredibly grateful person. Tohru frequently stops to count her blessings and treats everything like a big deal. Things like going to an onsen and riding a charter bus made Tohru feel like a Princess. She gets excited about little gifts and gestures. Counting her blessings can also become a flaw, as Tohru talks herself out of asking for more. She tells herself that to ask for more is to be ungrateful for what she has.
Tohru also has a horrible fear of failing others, because she feels she needs to live up to her blessings. There's a point where she fails an exam and becomes so distressed that she runs a fever: All because Yuki helped tutor her, and she feels like she failed him. Both of these traits are ones that the Sohmas actively remind her are unhealthy, but learning to let them go is a process. After all, that gratefulness is what has helped Tohru sail through her grieving. To let them go completely will mean finding a new coping mechanism, and she isn't ready to do that yet.

All in all: Tohru is a good girl. A good, lonely orphan girl who wants to keep her friends together. She can't grieve to save her life, but damn. Does she know how to clean a house.

POWER:

Tohru has no superpowers! So her power umbrellas are entirely made-up for MoM.
▶ Disney Princess Vibes When Tohru makes weird 'anime girl noises,' she attracts nearby animals. She can't communicate , she attracts animals to her. She can then communicate with them through her weird noises. Though she cannot order them to do anything, her noises are fairly persuasive; She can communicate simple requests, like "grab that" or "carry this." Rarely would she ask an animal to attack anything, but it is an option.

When she's communicating, Tohru cannot use actual words. She can only communicate through meaningless noises. She's going to look and sound ridiculous.
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〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

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