Fruits Basket delves deep into the realm of psychology regarding its characters, their personalities, and their behaviors. It explores these topics in such a way that the creator, Natsuki Takaya, seems like an expert in the field. However, the truth is that the mangaka just has an excellent grip of the human mind, and how one processes trauma.

For audiences who take an interest in human psychology, Fruits Basket is an absolute gold mine for studying and analyzing the behaviors of others. The accuracy of the consequences of trauma, loneliness, and child abuse portrayed to perfection, with the cast's unfortunate tragic pasts that completely haunt them and essentially form who they are. Here's a rundown of the three main characters of Fruits Basket and their struggles with mental health.

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Tohru Honda Struggles With Grief and Loss

fruits basket tohru honda doesn't stand up for herself

At the start of Fruit's Basket, Tohru Honda, the lead protagonist, is introduced as a young woman who is parentless, with her mother passing a short time before the story begins, and that her father had passed away in her early childhood as well.

At first glance, Tohru may seem like the typical always smiling, happy-go-lucky, character with a sunny disposition. When she actually struggles with what's called smiling depression. This is shown whenever she's alone, remembering her mother, the positive appearance she keeps up drops, and reveals a very depressed and pained Tohru. She overly commits herself to staying busy as a way to not have to think about or feel her own feelings about how much she misses her mother and father.

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fruits basket psychology tohru honda crying inside

Tohru Honda also engages in people-pleasing to a fault, to the point where she doesn't defend herself at all no matter how much Kyo and Yuki bully her in the beginning of Fruits Basket. In the world of psychology, people-pleasing is often a cause of trauma, especially during childhood. Contrary to belief, people-pleasing is not being kind, or considerate towards others, but is actually a serious biological trauma response.

Children or young teenagers that have been through traumatic events, especially after the death of a loved one, can sometimes feel unprocessed guilt and believe that what happened was their fault. As a result, they may excessively engage in people-pleasing whenever they feel uncomfortable around others, as making others feel happier gives the image of having fixed the issue that made them feel uncomfortable in the first place.

This is why Tohru Honda endlessly looks to help everyone she comes across, and never makes time to consider her own well-being. That's not to say that her entire character is based on people-pleasing, her natural personality is strong, caring, and loving, as her mother and father were.

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Kyo Has Self-Esteem Issues Due To Childhood Neglect

fruits basket psychology young kyo hated by everyone

Our favorite rowdy and angry cat in Fruits Basket, Kyo, faced extreme neglect as a child. From the moment Kyo was born, he was hated and despised for being the cat. His mother secretly thought he was disgusting because of his cat form, and she ended up committing suicide.

After this, his father disowned him, and the entire Sohma family hated Kyo for being the reason his mother died. He also understands that because he's the cat, his destiny is to be the sacrifice for the Sohma -- his fate is to be locked up in prison until his death.

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fruits basket kyo psychology shows a tear

Both his mother and his father refused to take care of him or show him love when he was a child--although his mother tried her best. Refusing to care for a child is the most common form of child neglect, which is also considered child abuse. Early childhood neglect can cause self-esteem, anxiety, anger issues, or even cause the onset of what's called opposition defiant disorder. ODD is a behavioral disorder that causes someone to consistently show rebellious and defiant behavior, such as never listening to adults or constantly causing arguments with others.

This could be why Kyo always acts out and fights everyone, and struggles to deepen his relationships with others. Although he acts unreasonably, knowing that he's going to be a sacrifice, to be locked up in prison, for people who don't accept him and hate him -- it's clear that this would affect many others' mental health the same way it does with Kyo.

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Yuki Faced Manipulative, Psychological Abuse

fruits basket young yuki sohma abused by akito ptsd

Known as Prince Charming, being the most desired guy in his high school, Yuki Sohma faced arguably the worst childhood out of all the Sohmas. Practically sold by his parents for wealth and status, he was forced to stay in a darkroom being a toy for psychological abuse by Akito, the head of the family. He would end up locked in a dark room with no windows for days without end, while Akito would verbally and psychologically abuse him by constantly yelling at him depreciative things such as "No one will ever accept you."

Eventually, Yuki began believing the things that Akito said, causing Yuki to become emotionally numb later in life. He ends up having PTSD, which triggers whenever he sees Akito, or Akito talks to him, as he tightens up and shakes, unable to speak. This is called the freeze stress response, which happens when your body feels that you can't fight or run away from a situation.

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fruits basket psychology cptsd yuki sohma akito freeze

Although Yuki is the most desired in his high school, to the point that there is a fanclub dedicated to him, he struggles with low self-esteem due to the manipulative treatment he suffered as a child. He feels a great amount of loneliness even when around others, and still feels that he can never be truly accepted by anyone.

His friendship and rivalry with Kyo is possibly the one thing that's been keeping him from falling further into darkness, as the two are very similar in the way that the lack self-esteem and suffered nearly the same form of childhood abuse. Fruits Basket does an amazing job of portraying characters with low self-esteem as the common image of someone with low self-esteem is a shy and quiet person lacking in confidence, which is not the case at all. There are some people who may seem like the most confident person on the planet but lack self-love or think lowly of themselves.

Yuki Sohma from Fruits Basket

Now, the great thing about Fruits Basket in terms of studying the characters, is that all the characters have had such tragic pasts. The series goes well in-depth when exploring the feelings and thoughts of the characters regarding their backstories. Many topics related to psychology are subtly shown or discussed can be appreciated by those interested in psychology.

These include learned helplessness, the importance of memories and relationships, anxiety disorders, and codependency, and enabling. Important life lessons such as how to deal with an overwhelming amount of anxiety, or how could a person regain self-esteem and learn how to love themselves, are beautifully touched on through many of the heart-warming and memorable moments. For fans of the psychological genre, Fruit's Basket is the one anime, filled with a tremendous amount of psychological knowledge, that can't be missed.

Fruits Basket (2019) is currently available to stream on Crunchyroll.