Akito Character Design and Soma family influence

nushrathumaira said:
This is the first time in my nearly two decades of anime watching that I felt so much bothered personally, that I wanted to vent to others through forum. I was late watching Furuba adaptation since the old adaptation that I watched in 2008 didn’t leave much impression on me. And I forgot almost everything so this time around the character Akito came as total surprise to me. Assuming this adaptation is faithful to the manga, I am seriously wondering why the author intended to design the character like this. I can’t bring myself to start season 3 because of Akito

First of all, a character who is abusive, manipulative isnt new, but the delivery of abuse is disturbing, unnecessary and takes up half the screen time. To me, Akito is always kind of crawling and slithering across the floor, then inappropriately touching everyone all over the place, on top of that was this trait really necessary to show the abuse? And everyone, inside or outside of Soma family freeze and suffer through this.

Akito hitting the nail on the core of everyone’s psychological issues and use that to abuse them every time also seems far fetched. Going into this anime, I thought the biggest hurdle would be breaking the curse since that itself is serious enough, but now it seems to be all about Akito. Whatever the backstory of Akitos life I don’t care to know and won’t change the creepy sensation this character gives me.
Also how

I can’t seem to move past this because I don’t think I can stand Akito anymore to watch the actual story on zodiac curse that I am interested.
Also what was the case for previous family heads. They were the same? So same pattern of relationship existed? How far does Soma family influence go so that no one dares to break out of this family and live their own life.
This one character is giving me headaches , I am getting too old for anime maybe.

CQLLIST said:
As you move forward with Akito's progression, there'll be more emphasis and you'll somehow get a clearer understanding of why Akito abuses other people's own psychological and well obviously a character like her is meant to be hated in the end but if you can't handle it, just drop the series, simple.

MK17_2 said:

You're never too old for anime my dude

1nsert__Usernam3 said:
The reason fruits basket is so highly rated is because of the great story telling and akito is one of if not the best written characters I’ve seen in 20 years of watching anime / reading manga.

nushrathumaira said:
This is the first time in my nearly two decades of anime watching that I felt so much bothered personally, that I wanted to vent to others through forum. I was late watching Furuba adaptation since the old adaptation that I watched in 2008 didn’t leave much impression on me. And I forgot almost everything so this time around the character Akito came as total surprise to me. Assuming this adaptation is faithful to the manga, I am seriously wondering why the author intended to design the character like this. I can’t bring myself to start season 3 because of Akito

First of all, a character who is abusive, manipulative isnt new, but the delivery of abuse is disturbing, unnecessary and takes up half the screen time. To me, Akito is always kind of crawling and slithering across the floor, then inappropriately touching everyone all over the place, on top of that was this trait really necessary to show the abuse? And everyone, inside or outside of Soma family freeze and suffer through this.

Akito hitting the nail on the core of everyone’s psychological issues and use that to abuse them every time also seems far fetched. Going into this anime, I thought the biggest hurdle would be breaking the curse since that itself is serious enough, but now it seems to be all about Akito. Whatever the backstory of Akitos life I don’t care to know and won’t change the creepy sensation this character gives me.
Also how

I can’t seem to move past this because I don’t think I can stand Akito anymore to watch the actual story on zodiac curse that I am interested.
Also what was the case for previous family heads. They were the same? So same pattern of relationship existed? How far does Soma family influence go so that no one dares to break out of this family and live their own life.
This one character is giving me headaches , I am getting too old for anime maybe.

Anayan_Kashyap said:
First time in 2 decades you are watching a dark season?

The whole thing is you feel uncomfortable and disturbed by Akito's behaviour
Well that's a reason bro, like every villain, she was also cheated on by her own family members. So ofc she is violent towards them.

But try to watch s3 bro, it's darker but it's also beautiful. You will surely like it just complete it, if u have come this far.

Itsumo_Issho said:

You’ll need to watch season 3 to know about that
If you want spoilers, I can elaborate why I loved her redemption arc and how everything related to her character felt believable once I saw season 3

nushrathumaira said:

I don’t consider fruis basket dark, psychological complexes caused by abuse and somewhat fictional yet realistic concepts, but not dark. At the end, the problem about zodiac and god are not real enough for me. Also, Not every violated person retaliate, and a child being that twisted from early age isn’t that common, in my opinion.
But my point was actually different, it was about the portrayal of her as villain. It feels childish, vein and so creepy. And my peeve about a single person influencing everything everyone is questionable, I need to know about the previous god and zodiac relationships.

Almost everything in the second season was about Akito, I can see more coming, maybe from Shigure if I suspect what he wants is true.

All aside, I like the way you tried to speak the positives, I respect your point.

MK17_2 said:
It is rather conflicting...I wouldn't go as far to tell you to drop it. It's not my fave season but I must say it had some beautiful moments.

I'm not pleased with her arc etc. Not at all. Her character is scum like. Attitude legit oozes some entitled god complex. Many people did suffer and are still going to carry her abuse with them for a long time.

Nothing can justify her and what she did. Cause she still did it, kept hurting people and played the victim to great lengths. Jeez I needa stop ranting soz.

However, I do believe that her character adds some sort of depth to the story and to the other characters. A damn good story always seems to have a well written villan. I don't like that idea but it's like undeniable at times. And that's what I find peace of mind in.

Shitty characters like her are supposed to provoke us (even tho they're 2D SOBs) and just trigger you (universal you) like nobody's damn business it's insane. I think you're apretty decent person to be triggered by scum like behaviour.

We don't have to like her but her stupid complex character in a way is needed to rattle your core. Make you feel something.

I'm not defending her. But her existence isn't entirely an unnecessary thing. But ey that's just my take on it. I do get what you're saying tho.

See it through. Find something worthwhile in it. Like why not

Anayan_Kashyap said:

Hmm I see, you want to know more about previous Gods. But since those Previous God's aren't the main focus in the series you won't get a good generation wise explanation like JOJO.

But season 3 will reveal the origin of this Zodiac curse that binds the Sohma family, the story of the first God and the animals, also the Cat is a misunderstanding.Trust me s3 reveals a lot of things, every episode reveals something shocking. And it also shows Akito's father and how Akito misunderstands about the whole 'God' thing. And after you finish s3 trust me Akito will become a decent if not good character in your eyes.

And yes, the redemption is satisfying, it is just 2 eps, if i remember correctly , ofc Akito doesn't get the whole screentime. It's watchable. Because there is another big twist, I don't wanna spoil you.

nushrathumaira said:

I do want to finish this story, yet I would like if that redemption or backstory doesn’t take more than one episode. I felt slightly annoyed by the elaborated flaskback of Yuki’s story when I still can’t grasp his parents mindset.

nushrathumaira said:
needless to say I disagree on the character part, but storytelling wise yes old and new adaptations or the manga itself is good. As a central or pivotal character to influence everything, I just don’t like the character design and it takes away focus from all others, adds repetitive flashbacks of same abusive scenes over and over.

nushrathumaira said:


Thank you, honestly the way you brought out the points , good and bad, making me think more. My problem isn’t with how rotten or shitty Akito is, but the way that behavior seemed to be pivotal and sometimes can easily be ignored by some of her victims , imo. Its also the way author is clearly setting up redemption so all vileness will be excused. While that may be the case in season 3, I really didn’t expect her to be pivotal to everything, bigger than the damning curse.

And why author decided to add creepiness on top of everything, makes me uncomfortable more than hateful.
I don’t drop stuff unless its that type of harem anime that bothers me. And this shoujo anime combines slice of life with supernatural, my most watched genres. So I am clearly torn about not liking it as much when everyone else do and can’t move past 80% Akito content in the first two seasons.

I will try my best to start season 3 one of these days. I think I will regret more if I don’t finish it.

domidesade said:

repeated flashbacks of abuse is what you call trauma, my friend. almost every character is deeply traumatized in this series and the repeated flashbacks of what caused the trauma the best way to show just how debilitating it is for these characters. akito cut deep and no normal person could just forget what happened to them. if it seems repetitive to you, maybe this isn’t the anime for you, but i personally think it’s worth finishing!

byu2 said:
Originally yes I was so thrown off by Akito's character potrayal and how she totally have no self awareness or whatsoever, but she's the key to the story. Once you get pass her redemption arc, you'd understand why the author created Tohru in such way, and eventually would move on from Akito's nasty personality, to Tohru's character. I would say it's not necessary to create such an abusive character, but in this case they have explained the root of her behaviour, and that works, even though it still isn't acceptable to become abusive after being the victim of abuse. At the end of the day she's just a fictional character, and if you're uncomfortable with the potrayal then it's 100% okay to drop the anime

_Jiahao_ said:
I also hate akito, iirc akito doesn't really appear that much.
IMO it's just 1 downside of this sublime anime, I would definitely finish it for the ships and all that, specially tohru and kyo.

My trouble is I didn’t go into this anime to drop it, since I wasn’t into the 2001 version long time ago, this time around I wanted to give all to this adaptation as it is highly faithful. If I cared less, would have dropped in first season. I honestly didn’t anticipate that Akito is that important, to me Tohru , Kyo, Haru, Tohru’s friends they are most important in the story. Akito still isn’t enough for me to drop, but I lost my enthusiasm at this point. I am that person if I wanted to like something, in the end I wouldn’t rate badly even if I didn’t like it.