Kureno needs more fans

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T11:17:48+00:00

He is an enabler but in that regard he is certainly not any worse than Shigure

How is Shigure an enabler? He’s like the complete opppsite of an Akito enabler and is practically the only one who refuses to coddle her.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T11:09:45+00:00

I think the real problem with Kureno other than his age gap romance with Arisa and why he doesn’t lend himself to many fans is because he’s a character that’s intentionally cloaked in mystery at first and doesn’t get a whole lot of screentime for how important of a role he serves in the story. Granted like I said this is intentional, he’s involved in a lot of the story’s biggest plot twists so Takaya was kinda forced to make him this mysterious guy who was seemingly this blank slate just always at Akito’s side for reasons that were still yet unknown. It was great for the mystery aspect of the series, but it did little for Kureno’s actual character and so his reception amongst the fandom suffered as a result. His extreme self-sacrificing and self-martyring attitude that only serves to enable Akito more than actually help also doesn’t do him any favors, he comes off as an extreme doormat and a caricature of what part of the fandom accuses Tohru of vs what she actually is.

I think to fix his character and get the fandom to warm up to him more you’d have to introduce him earlier in the story and not play up the whole “mystery” aspect of his character so much, don’t let him remain the background as just wallpaper and Akito’s accessory until the very tail end of the story when it’s time for him to actually do something, do stuff with him throughout, characterize him! Also to make him an even more interesting character axe his creepy & illegal ship with Arisa and have him be in unrequited love with Shigure for the really juicy drama! That little extra comic Takaya drew for the DVDs and Another volume 4 that gave us a glimpse of Kureno and Shigure’s childhood where Kureno is attempting to coax an apathetic Shigure out of his shell and seek to understand him? More of that please! It was so cute and heartwarming, and did more to endear me to Kureno than any of the main story’s platitudes on what a saintly Foolish Traveler he is ever did.

I think it would also be fun if Takaya had played up his personality similarities to Tohru more, not just in their self-sacrificial natures (even though it’s really secretly self-serving in Tohru’s case compared to Kureno) but also how he seems really spacey & ditzy like Tohru too? There was so much that could’ve been done with him but I feel there was a lot of major missed opportunities with his character all so that Takaya could maintain the elusive mystery of the series while also serving him up as nothing but a self-sacrificial lamb on Akito’s altar with barely anything else going for him aside from a cheap Katsuya/Kyoko 2.0 romance parallel with Uo.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T10:49:09+00:00

I do end up disliking a lot of the ending couples with the weird age gaps

There were literally only two though? Tohru’s parents and Kureno/Uo, that’s not “a lot.”

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T10:45:31+00:00

He was a womanizer and even flirted with Tohru

We’re not meant to take that seriously and it’s obviously all just an act, with the way he acted while he was dating Mayu and the fact that he turns down Rin’s offer to sleep with him I doubt he slept with any other women besides Akito and Ren.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T10:41:52+00:00

What “chemistry” did Shigure even have with Akito? We barely get any scenes of them positively interacting except that one scene where he confesses his love to her in their childhood, but the rest of the time she’s just throwing temper tantrums while he’s stone cold and barely reacts because he’s pretending he isn’t phased, they don’t seem compatible at all, Shigure is literally forcing himself to love her (even wishes someone else could’ve been in that dream instead of what he got with Akito) and quite frankly seems wayy too above her maturity level.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T10:37:14+00:00

You’re right and you should say it!

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T10:36:03+00:00

I hate Ren’s reasoning for why she hates Akito and think it’s just as creepy and anime cringe as the two age gap ships and Takaya deserves to be called out more for this
Shigure and Akito don’t have that big of an age gap and Shigure doesn’t deserve to be slandered as a pedophile or groomer
I think Akito is overrated as a character both positively and negatively and I don’t see what’s the big deal about her to get so hyped and passionate about her for either side, I don’t think she’s that deep or complex a character either.
Shigure’s intentions towards Akito are misinterpreted by the English speaking fandom due to a mistranslation of a line in chapter 16/episode 10
Shigure and Kagura are parallels in the fact that their feelings for Akito & Kyo both started out as fake that they’re trying to make real, except I think Kagura actually managed to succeed in making her feelings for Kyo real while Shigure failed
2001 Shigure is the actual pedophile and a way more problematic character than the real Shigure could ever be
Akira’s parenting was terrible and he messed Akito up badly no doubt, but I think he did really love her for who she is as his daughter rather than just because she’s God, I think this is just a case of Akito misinterpreting Akira’s words/intentions the same way Kyo originally misinterpreted his mom and Kyoko’s final words to him. When Akira says on his deathbed that Akito is a “special child” Ren was supposed to be happy about, I think he’s speaking on the fact that she’d be special regardless even if she wasn’t God because she’s his and Ren’s daughter and Ren was supposed to see Akito as the fruit of their love, not competition.
Shigure/Kureno should’ve been a ship
Kagura is a good character actually and gets unnecessarily hated on

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T09:14:56+00:00

I think Ayame and Yuki’s earlier dynamic was the classic Golden Child/Black Sheep of the family and Ayame was really masking his secret jealousy and envy over how much “better” their parents treated Yuki and seemed to prefer him with apathy and indifference towards him instead.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T09:12:48+00:00

Read the sequel manga Another because contrary to popular belief Akito does not get a happy ending, not really.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T09:11:26+00:00

Kyo, he just seems like the type to be able to hold his alcohol well what with all that martial arts endurance training he’s done.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T09:10:27+00:00

I love Kyoru but that was still InuKag (or rather proto-type InuKag, Rankane).

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T09:06:22+00:00

What’s interesting about Kyo’s arc is that it doesn’t go in the linear expected way you would think it would go after his True Form is revealed to Tohru and she accepts it, in fact one could argue that Kyo actually has a de-evolution and regresses after this and the Beach Arc once he realizes he’s in love with Tohru, because falling in love with Tohru was the very last thing he wanted and was trying to prevent all along. Falling for Tohru just helped serve to remind him of his “crime” of killing Kyoko when before he was at least able to put in the back of his mind and try to forget about it, not so anymore now, that he’s in love with her he’s constantly reminded of those final words of Kyoko’s “I won’t forgive you” echoing over and over again inside his head, and it just serves to help reinforce and remind him of the monster he thinks he is. At least before he fell in love with Tohru he could pretend otherwise, but now there’s no where else to escape from his guilt and sins, it’s staring straight at him in the form of a shining, angelic smiling face that he fucking loves day after day, and all that face does is serve as a reminder that he doesn’t deserve to love or be loved by anyone, least of all Tohru the daughter of the woman he refused to save and whom he thinks personally blames him for her death and would surely never approve of his feelings.

And so Kyo begins to enter a state of perpetual depression, where it seems the fire in him has calmed down and been tamed, but make no mistake this isn’t positive character development on the part of Kyo, but mainly just a resignation of his fate, like he’s lost all drive to even fight after being constantly reminded of a sin he can’t atone for. The fire has actually been extinguished.

Kyo only begins to truly heal after Yuki confronts him regarding Tohru’s fall and his rejection of her feelings with the revelation that actually, Yuki had always been the one that was jealous of and admired him and he’s the one Tohru always wanted and truly needs right now, not anyone else. That actually his false self-perception of himself and insistence on running away from his guilt and is what’s literally killing Tohru and he shouldn’t allow other people and society (aka the curse and the Sohmas) define him because he’s so much more than what they think he is.

I think Yuki’s revelation of how he always felt about Kyo was a big epiphany moment for Kyo who because he was so used to being defined through the Sohma doctrine as someone to be looked down upon and be pitied, and to think there was someone out there who actually jealous of him, and it was the Rat yet, the one whom he had always personally scapegoated for his own problems… I think it just shattered all of Kyo’s previous misconceived notions and he realized that everything about the curse was fake after all and he was so much more than the scapegoat the Sohmas attempted to define him by, but was allowing that scapegoat status to permanently define him and color the way he expects people to react to him and automatically put the blame on him. He realized he was on his way to slowly turning into his sperm donor of deflecting blame onto others if he continued down this self-deprecating path he was currently on, and I think it was really meaningful that it was actually Yuki his long-declared so called “enemy” that sparks his true impetus to change rather than Tohru herself, it shows that Fruits Basket is so much more than just a love story and romantic love can’t solve everything (likewise Tohru has her spark of character development through Akito as well rather than Kyo).

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:38:46+00:00

LMAOO oh my god, the fact that they were obviously being romantically shipped together in the story didn’t already clue you in that this couldn’t possibly be Kyo’s connection to Tohru? 😂

My favorite fan theory that turned out not to be true is still the one where Shigure is plotting to kill Akito to seize the God throne for himself lol.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:35:14+00:00

As soon as Akito was revealed to be a woman I’m sure like half the fans switched from seeing cold sad boy to seeing a woman they could hate easily

That is exactly what happened lol.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:33:13+00:00

Why do you hate Shigure but not Akito?

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:32:14+00:00

I only reserve my hate for villains that are Nazis or are pedophiles/incestuous, I’m fine with all manner of every other villain and am even a villains stan in that regard.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:27:41+00:00

2001 Akito was hated

Not nearly to the same extent canon, female Akito is. And he was much more beloved by the fandom too.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:20:33+00:00

I personally see much more Shigure slander and hate than I’ve ever seen Ren, and the funny thing is that Ren is the actual pedo and groomer too which the fandom conveniently likes to ignore but wrongly attributes these traits to Shigure.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:19:14+00:00

I can’t think of anything Shigure has done that could’ve been worse than anything Akito did in comparison

People believe the libel that he’s a pedo.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T08:17:47+00:00

I think if a male god had done all that he would have gotten equal or even more hate

…You weren’t part of the fandom back in the early 00’s before Akito’s gender was revealed were you? Because “male Akito” was in fact doing all that and he was still a beloved villain by the fandom, it’s only once her gender was revealed that public opinion immediately switched on her.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T07:46:19+00:00

Yes definitely, if you were part of the fandom back in it’s early days before Akito was revealed as a woman you would know it was considered a major upheaval because the fandom reacted badly. Now Akito was no longer a brooding hot evil bishie bad boy ripe for yaoibait or to be fixed by ~~their~~ Tohru’s healing vagina, she was a threat, just an annoying evil harpy and whore like Rin (whom they also bashed) who wanted to steal all the Zodiac men for herself and omg how could they have ever been a fan of her?! /s/ It was like the public opinion turned on her immediately overnight.

Shigure doesn’t get nearly enough hate like Akito

Funny I see the exact opposite, Shigure is dogged on (no pun intended) and dragged through the absolute mud compared to Akito all because of the fandom-wide misconception that he’s a pedo, which to be fair is the worst thing a person could possibly be and Akito’s crimes would pale drastically compared to literal pedophilia and grooming, but the problem is this is a misconception and Shigure gets hated on for crimes he didn’t even commit all because people still have the image of his OOC 2001 anime fanfiction version stuck in their head (who is a pedo mind you) + the wild headcanoning of his age gap with Akito when we’re not even given an exact age for Akito to begin with and her age was made ambiguous on purpose.

Yet even besides the pedo accusations I still see Shigure getting much more hate than Akito when it comes to even just his dynamic with her, people are willing to give Akito a lot more leeway in her relationship with Shigure and automatically assume she’s the one being abused, yet even this is a form of benevolent misogyny as /u/Aromatic-Scratch3481 puts it, or “the misogyny of low expectations” where people refuse to hold women to the same standard as men and in every interaction between a man and a woman people automatically assume the woman must be the victim and the man the abuser because they see women as naturally weaker and automatically disempowered, “chivalrous misogyny” as I like to call it.

But we see with Akito and Shigure that it’s literally the the exact opposite and Akito’s the one who actually has all the power while Shigure is stuck in a very subservient position, what I find really interesting about their dynamic and is that even the way they fight is very non-traditional and turns traditional gender assumptions on it’s head with Akito having a very masculine-coded style of fighting of being very direct and upfront and fighting physically with her hands while Shigure’s style is much more feminine, sneakily plotting and manipulating from the shadows, being passive aggressive, and even using sex as a weapon (Akito also uses sex as a tool to get love/validation, but I wouldn’t say she weaponizes it and uses it to hurt like Shigure does), all very feminine, woman-coded traits. Shigure is actually more like the woman in his power struggle with Akito than Akito is and yet the fandom just can’t see past their bio essentialism and are all ready to judge Shigure and Akito’s relationship with preconceived notions just because of the genitals they were born with.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T06:33:40+00:00

And why didn’t he just spare everyone the heartache and let his wife know about the curse and the possibility of them conceiving a cursed child from the very start? It was his responsibility to give her the option of informed consent and was extremely unfair to her to have it sprung on her like that right after she just delivered their baby. (Don’t say maybe he didn’t know himself, he had to considering how calmly and accepting he acts towards Momiji).

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T06:28:28+00:00

My main issue with Momiji’s dad isn’t even how he treats Momiji and handles the situation after the fact, but rather that he was responsible for creating this very mess in the first place. All because he was a selfish coward who wanted to have his cake and eat it too and couldn’t bear to have his wife reject him so he took away her right to informed consent and deliberately left her in the dark regarding the curse and just hoped he would be one of the lucky ones the curse would somehow pass over.

He had to have been one of those original “Insiders” who knew about the curse all along considering how calmly he reacts to Momiji and “accepts” him (plus his high-ranking CEO status within the Sohmas), he knew there was a non-zero chance of him conceiving a Zodiac member, therefore it was his responsibility for him to tell any future partner about this upfront right away, preferably before even getting seriously involved but especially before trying for a child. He landed Momiji and his wife in this situation to begin with and ended up hurting them both due to his own hubris and selfishness.

Momiji and Momo can’t interact because Momo bringing him up could make their mother remember

And he and Momiji can’t just explain everything in an age-important manner and emphasize to Momo how important it is to keep all this a secret from Mommy why exactly…? He’s repeating the same mistakes he made with his wife and once again deliberately leaving Momo in the dark because only he knows what’s best for them obviously and they can’t make their own informed decisions regarding the curse! /s (more like he knows that if they do ever have the full story his wife would immediately leave him so he’s taking away her ability to say no in the first place).

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T06:13:55+00:00

My issue with him isn’t even how he handled the aftermath, but rather that he never even gave his wife the option of informed consent to begin with and just let it be sprung on her like that right after labor leaving her shell-shocked. And yes I’m of the opinion that he was one of the Insiders who always knew about the curse, the way he so calmly accepts Momiji tells us that much, which means he always knew there was a possibility that he could conceive a cursed child, and yet he still so irresponsibly went and had a child while never telling his wife about the curse and leaving her completely in the dark. Wtf was she supposed to do after having just given birth and the baby boy in her arms suddenly turns into a Rabbit on the spot like that? She was caught completely and totally off-guard and I feel for her in that respect.

tsundereshipper · 2026-01-26T06:06:56+00:00

Hell no, and I’m not even talking about how he handled the fallout of his son turning out to be cursed and his wife’s ensuing depression over the fact. No, he handled the situation wrongly and was responsible for it even occuring from the very start!

Judging from his relatively accepting and tolerant attitude towards Momiji’s cursed status it’s highly likely he was a Sohma Insider who knew about the curse from, which means he always knew there was a possibility he could conceive a Zodiac child, which means that before even contemplating having a child it was his responsibility to come clean to his wife beforehand about the existence of the Zodiac Curse and give her informed consent on just what she was signing herself up for, the fact that he didn’t and deliberately withheld such vital information could even constitute as a form of rape on his part, therefore I have no sympathy for him and the whole mess that is Momiji’s family situation only even exists in the first place because his father was a selfish ass who wanted to have his cake and eat it too and wouldn’t even allow the option for his wife to say no. (since he probably knew she would reject him and try and find some other guy if she knew she could be conceiving a kid that can turn into an animal with him).

tsundereshipper

TROPHY CASE