Arisa Uotani

Arisa stands taller than most girls her age and wishes she were taller still, with a lean, fair-skinned frame. Her blonde hair reaches past her upper back and hangs loose or in a low tail, framed by long M-shaped bangs that sometimes fall across her right eye until she pins them back. Her eyes are brown, though the 2001 series colors them blue.

At school she wears the regular uniform over a purple shirt with a long skirt down to her ankles, and off campus she leans into purple nail polish, three-quarter sleeves, and the old Red Butterfly jacket Kyoko once passed to her. Years later she trims her hair to shoulder length and lets shorter bangs fall free of her eyes.

In her troubled early years Arisa was hot-tempered and quick to violence, so soured on words like peaceful and kind that the loving home Kyoko and Tohru shared actually turned her stomach, a bitter echo of the mother who left her and the father who ignored her. Once the Hondas helped her walk away from her gang, she changed for good.

The Arisa of the present is laid-back, tough, and a little stand-offish, yet startlingly tender, prone to crying over small things despite a short fuse she shares with Kyo. Kureno notes that she wears every feeling openly, weeping when sad and shouting when angry. Loyal to the bone, she plays the big-sister role and channels her past into steering wayward kids straight, while showing no patience for anyone who crosses her, especially the Prince Yuki Fan Club. Direct and tomboyish, she even refers to herself with the masculine boku.

Arisa's mother walked out during her daughter's early school years to be with another man, leaving her in the hands of an alcoholic father whose neglect drove the girl into loneliness. She quit attending class and fell in with The Ladies in fifth grade, and through it all she worshipped the gang legend known as the Red Butterfly, Kyoko Honda. Learning that Kyoko lived close by and had a daughter at the same middle school, Arisa sought the woman out through Tohru, only to be crushed that her idol was now a gentle, doting parent rather than the fighter she had imagined. The warmth in that household stung at first, reminding her of everything she lacked, and she pushed both Hondas away.

Tohru refused to give up, even rescuing her from a beating, and little by little Arisa embraced the family she had never known and returned to school. When she resolved to leave the gang for good, her former comrades nearly killed her, and Kyoko saved her life after Akimoto ran for help. From then on she and Tohru were inseparable, and in eighth grade the pair welcomed the ostracized Saki Hanajima into their circle, forming a trio that never came apart.

Much later, Arisa falls for Kureno Sohma at first sight, only for him to withdraw because of his vow to stay beside Akito. Once he finally leaves the Sohma estate, she is there to help him go, admitting she has waited for him all along. After finishing high school she takes work in the countryside where he lives and prepares to build a life at his side.