Character · Fruits Basket
Momiji Sohma
The cheerful blond in the girls' uniform is a Sohma, turns into a rabbit, and carries the saddest history in the house.
In Otakana the clue reads: Half-German boy who turns into a rabbit
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Fruits Basket
- Letters
- 6 · Normal
Momiji Sohma is half German and half Japanese, speaks both languages, and introduces himself to Tohru by hugging her, which is how anyone finds out which animal a Sohma gets. His is the rabbit. He is loud, affectionate, small for his age, and wears the girls' school uniform because he wants to and nobody has produced a good argument against it.
The cheerfulness is a decision rather than a temperament. His mother could not live with having a cursed child, so her memory of him was erased at her own request, and Momiji grew up in the same house watching her raise his younger sister and greet him as a stranger. He still goes to see her. He explains all of this to Tohru without dropping the smile, which lands harder than crying would.
Natsuki Takaya used the zodiac curse to write about families that hurt their own members and stay together anyway, and Momiji is the clearest case in the book. The 2019 anime from TMS adapted the entire manga for the first time and gave his story the room the 2001 version never had. The boy behaving like a small child is the one who understands the curse best.
Spelling MOMIJI
MOMIJI is six letters with a rare one buried inside it. The J locks the row, because very little else in the answer list wants a J in the fourth position. The name is the Japanese word for the red maple leaves of autumn, and the spelling follows the sound exactly: mo-mi-ji. Two M's, two I's, and the second beat is MI rather than MO, which is where memory slips.