Tohru Honda

Lore & Background

After her mother Kyoko died in a car accident when Tohru was in middle school, she lived with her grandfather until his house needed remodeling. She moved into a tent on land belonging to the Sohma family. During a rainstorm, her tent was buried in a landslide, prompting Shigure Sohma to invite her to live as their housekeeper. There, she accidentally embraced Kyo Sohma, revealing that thirteen members of the Sohma family are possessed by Chinese zodiac spirits and transform into their animal forms when hugged by the opposite sex or when their body is weak or under great stress. The curse includes the cat, who was not invited to the feast at all; the Rat tricked the Cat into missing the banquet by giving him the wrong date. Tohru never made any promise to keep the secret under threat of memory erasure by Akito Sohma; in canon, she simply agrees to keep the secret out of her own kindness and understanding.

In Their Own Story

As Tohru settled in with Shigure and Yuki, Kyo challenged Yuki to a fight, leading to her witnessing their transformations into a cat, rat, and dog. Initially, Kyo appeared to dislike her, but he was drawn to her kind heart, often apologizing for impulsive angry comments. Tohru met other cursed members like Hatori, Ayame, Kisa, Hiro, and Ritsu, helping them through her sympathy. She encouraged Kisa, which helped Yuki accept his role as student council president. When Kazuma Sohma forced Kyo to reveal his monstrous true form, Tohru stayed despite his violent attempts to push her away. Both Yuki and Kyo fell in love with her without telling her. Distressed by the curse's cost, especially Momiji's separation from his sister Momo and Arisa's longing for Kureno, she resolved to break it. When she confessed her love to Kyo, he ran away after revealing he knew her mother and could have saved her but feared revealing his curse.

Reader's Guide

Tohru is defined by her polite, optimistic, and selfless nature, though friends like Kyo, Rin, and Hanajima warn her not to shoulder everyone's burdens. She avoids staying with friends Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima to avoid being a burden. Her formal speech habit stems from trying to replace her dead father in her mother's eyes after he died of pneumonia when she was three; this was exacerbated by statements that she might be the daughter of an affair. She treasures her mother's photograph and vowed to keep Kyoko as the most important person, feeling distressed if she felt "unfaithful," such as when getting failing marks or falling in love with Kyo. Eventually, she realizes this vow is clinging to the past. After confronting Akito about the curse weakening the family bonds, Tohru fell down a cliff during a rainstorm but survived. In the hospital, she extended friendship to Akito, who accepted it and began to accept her as a person rather than a god.

Did You Know?

• Tohru's name is typically used only for men, but it was given by her mother Kyoko and means 'transparent' or 'to shine through' (透).
• Others address Tohru as "Tohru-kun" for reasons not stated in canon.
• Tohru habitually uses super-polite language incorrectly, a trait she learned from her late mother Kyoko.
• She is so kind-hearted that she could not make herself say mean things while playing a wicked stepsister in a class production of Cinderella.