Tooru Honda

Tooru Honda is the main protagonist from the Fruits Basket anime and manga.

Tooru is an orphaned high school student who one day stumbles upon the biggest secret of the Souma Family, which is that some of its members are possessed by the 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals. She begins life with the Souma's and her life begins to get more lively than ever. She is optimistic, cheerful, sort of clumsy, loves household chores, but has a formidable past of her own.

Appearance
Tooru is a slim young girl of average height with long straight brown hair, that sometimes looks black, and has an eyebrow-length fringe that frames her large eyes (blue in the anime, brown in the manga). She is considered quite cute. She usually has blue coloured bows in her hair, sometimes they're yellow and purple. She either wears a large one in the back or two smaller ones that pull her hair back to the sides. On weekends she often has her hair in pigtails.

Her school uniform is a classic naval-styled Japanese school uniform. The uniform has a blue mini-skirt with pleats and ruffles at the hem, and a white and blue top with a jacket. She wears blue socks that go up to mid-shin, and brown slip-on shoes. This is the outfit she is most commonly seen in, although she is known for wearing other short dresses.

Despite the splash images between chapters and volumes that depict the cast in nicer fashion, Tooru wears simple and practical clothes when she is not in her uniform. Her work uniform as a janitor is a light blue shirt and pants. She wears whites gloves and styles her hair in pigtals, which she covers with a white bandana. Her swimsuit is a one piece with daisies. The only times she dresses up is when other characters like Ayame Souma or Mine Kuramae dress her. She wears a large ballgown as a costume when she plays the "not-so-evil stepsister" in the school play, Sorta Cinderella, in the manga.

Personality
Tooru is an extremely empathetic, cheerful, and over-optimistic girl. She loves her friends and family dearly and treats everyone she meets with kindness. However, this often causes her to put other's needs before her own.

She has a deep devotion to her late mother and can oftentimes be seen talking to a picture she carries around of her. Most of the advice Tooru gives to other characters in the series comes from conversations she had with Kyoko or as a result of her slowly healing from the pain her mother's death.

Her naive and spaced-out demeanor often get her ordered around by more bombastic characters, such as Ayame Souma and Hiro Souma, causing her friends to call her a "pushover". Her forgiving and kind nature is seen as a sign of weakness by several characters. Despite this, she stands up for her friends and can be quite stubborn about doing the right thing. She also dislikes taking advantage of people, as she always tries to pay people back for any help they give her.

As the series goes on, she grows more serious and emotional, oftentimes to the point of crying, and becomes embittered towards the circumstances of the Souma curse. She continues to act optimistic and cheerful outwardly, but characters who know her well recognize she is struggling to remain hopeful. Upon breaking the curse, she returns to her normal state.

Trivia

 * According to Natsuki Takaya, Tooru was the first character she created for the series, with Yuki and Kyou Sohma soon after. When asked how she came up with Tooru's personality and background, she said: "I thought that for a girl to accept other people's feelings so wholeheartedly, she'd have to have a slightly unusual way of looking at things so that she wouldn't be crushed by having so much empathy. But I still worried that I needed something else to flesh her out. And then the thought, 'Oh, yeah—I'll make her use super-polite language, and use it incorrectly!' came to me all at once. After that, her character was completed in no time".
 * Takaya described Tooru, Yuki Souma, Kyou Souma and Shigure Souma as the main cast.
 * As revealed in the manga, Tooru's favorite color is pink.
 * The tent that Tooru lives in is in the shape of a half cylinder in the manga; but in the anime, it is much smaller and in the shape of a triangular prism.
 * While many sites list Tooru as an Aries, she is actually a Taurus. The mix up exists due to a fanfiction about Tohru's birthday (Entitled "Happy Birthday, Miss Tooru!"), the story was published on April 5th, 2006. On most search engines April 5th 2006 shows up when a search is done for Tooru's birthday. All character profiles on websites predating this story list her as a Taurus. Her real birthday is May 6th.
 * Despite not being able to transform, Tooru is represented by a rice ball with a "plum on the back".
 * In the Funimation dub, Tooru is voiced by Laura Bailey, known for her work in Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, and Dragon Ball Z.
 * Laura Bailey said that Tooru's character has helped her be more positive: "I was so inspired by her character by her, joy, and outlook on life that, you know, you wanna emulate that."