#would she complain? would she become a doormat? she mentioned fearing being like her mother and driving rick away and you did NOTHING.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

just finished season 3 and i have. thoughts.

[imagine-fight-write]

yc(via Comparison: Tohru & Other Kind Hearted Heroines) I just found this blog, soaringwingsblog.wordpress.com, and I’m enjoying it. However, I do disagree with soaringwings’s statement that Tohru is simply a doormat. She’s not. What I find strange is soaringwings apparently likes  Ahiru / Duck from Princess Tutu (which is an awesome anime everyone should watch.)

 Ahiru and Tohru are very much alike (if you wish for me to expand on this, I will.) I’m concerned in this article on soaringwings’s emphasis on strength and intelligence. Not everyone can be strong or smart but that shouldn’t be something to value whether a character or a real person is worth knowing or not.

I do hope soaringwings continues to read Fruits Basket because, like most people you meet, there is more to Tohru than what meets the eye. In fact, a lot of the characters start out as somewhat sterotyical, like Yuki and Kyo, and change as the reader and Tohru get to know them better. 

Also, there is a whole range of very different characters in Fruits Basket, and more than a few also share traits that Tohru has, and they are men. One is a fashion designer. I think that should be worth noting. Tohru’s traits, which soaringwings clearly doesn’t like, are not just shown to be “female traits”. That’s important. 

Before I explain more about Tohru, I want to say I had a friend in middle / high school who was like Tohru. She wasn’t smart (or at least she struggled at school), she was very kind and optimistic (I think I saw her actually mad once or twice). 

She wasn’t physically strong, not good at sports and didn’t, far as I knew, have any real interest in much of what people would consider important or worthy hobbies. Like fashion and makeup - oh no!

 Yet she was kind and a wonderful friend. It was easy to relax and have a good time with her. She was wonderful at simply accepting other people and she often put other’s interests before her own. She wasn’t very assertive either.

I have another friend now who apologizes a lot. Does that make her or my other friend any less worthy or interesting as a human being? Of course not. Being loud and tough and tomboyish doesn’t make a person or character interesting.

I hope the world doesn’t keep valuing what have usually been considered “masculine” traits, such as being physically strong or smart, over equally valuable “female” ones such as being patience, optimistic, NOT wanting to cause fights or arguments, and needing a community of friends.

That’s a main point of Fruits Basket - that being quietly determined, optimistic and compassionate / thinking of others is just as valuable as physical strength and intelligence, if not more so. And having friends to be there for you is important. 

To be brief, Tohru’s traits stem from a past when she was bullied, so she often is smiling and kind as a defense (and I bet is a lot less naive then she pretends). Being good at cooking and housework also stems from her past, and as a kind hearted person she often puts others before herself - and aren’t heroes supposed to be selfless like that?

And did I mention the girl’s had a tough life? Both her parents are dead at the beginning of the series and she is living in a tent. By her own choice. And she also gets a job while in high school. Despite being also bad at school work. She needed Yuki’s help.  

Tohru’s traits also aren’t portrayed as being good for her and you learn throughout the series that yes, even kind, smiling Tohru has problems that bother her and really upset her, and there’s even someone she slowly learns not to hate.

First, I’m not going to deny Tohru doesn’t have problems. Of course she does. I find her too ditzy and naive myself. Yes, she apologizes too much & needs to stand up for herself. But - here’s the important thing - those traits are NOT portrayed as good by other characters in the manga / anime.

 Kyo, for example, often tells her she should stand up for herself more. (Kyo, by the way, is also a good cook.) So do her best friends. Tohru often worries her friends because she is naive, ditzy and clumsy. And the reader is often shown how Tohru gets into trouble for not being assertive and being overly kind. She gets duped and has her stuff stolen.

Tohru I also think pretends to be more ditzy than she actually is so when people such as Shigure tease her it doesn’t work, she simply responds “Huh?” so he moves on to Kyo and Yuki, who do respond (Shigure is a sadist). But note, at the hot springs vacation, there is a scene where Tohru realizes someone is older than he looks. and is VERY embarrassed. Clearly she’s not totally naive or she’d just go, “Huh?”

Second, Tohru does have goals and ambitions. She isn’t smart at all, yet she’s determined to finish high school because that’s what her mom wanted. She looks up to her mom as a role model, who used to be in a gang. She becomes interested in gardening and martial arts because she meets people who are also interested in it (that’s how I got interested in manga / anime by the way.)

Tohru is a hard worker and rarely complains - that’s a trait everyone should admire. She is very determined, as you see a bit later in the manga, both when she finds out Kyo’s secret and when she meets Akito.

 She actively tries to figure out what she can do to solve the curse of the Sohma family. She tries her best to learn about it and talks several times about how frustrated she is at her own inability to help, even as she learns just how much the curse is ruining everyone’s lives. Even people outside of the Sohma family. She fights to help everyone because she cares about them, in the only way she can.

As stated, she not physically weak and not smart, so all she can do is simply be there and listen and give advice, usually stuff she got from her mother. And yet that does help. Her optimism helps. Really the only annoying trait is she’s clumbsy and even that isn’t viewed as attractive or a good thing.  

Finally, while Tohru is the main female lead, she is by no means the only female in Fruits Basket and Fruits Basket is very good at fleshing out all of the characters. There is a whole range of different females (and males) in Fruits Basket. Tohru is by no means held up as the female token or even the best one. 

In fact, as I mentioned earlier, Tohru’s mom is probably the most idealized character, partly because Tohru and her friends idolize her. So I don’t think there’s any fear of a reader thinking “Oh I must be like Tohru if I ever want to get a guy!” And the reader even gets a chance to view Tohru’s mom’s life and see that she isn’t perfect either. 

So to finish, while I can see why at first glance Tohru seems like a doormat, and sometimes is, she is more than that. Tohru has her own sort of strength and one that is just as valuable as being loud and assertive and strong and intelligent.