Entry tags:
Voidtreckers App
Player Information
Name: Daimon
Age: 33
Contact details:
Other characters: Noctis Lucis Caelum (AU-CRAU), Guy Cecil
Character Information
Name: Tohru Mutou
Canon: Shiki
Canon Point: A couple days before his death (manga chapter 3-4, anime episode 4-5)
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: OU
Age: 18
World Information: Sotoba, where most of canon takes place, is rural Japanese village of about 1300, surrounded by mountains on three sides and at least an hour's drive away from any major urban area. The village itself is home to a temple and is known for producing the grave markers with which it shares it's name with.
The events of canon take place during the summer of 1994 and begin when the Kirishiki family moves into an old mansion at the edge of town. To a large portion of the village, who have nothing better to do than gossip and peer suspiciously at the neighbors, this is one of the more fascinating things to happen in a while.
It seems unrelated when people start dying of mysterious causes. It's not unusual to lose the very old and very young to summer colds or heat-related illnesses, but teenagers and seemingly healthy young adults start dying of what appears to be a sudden epidemic and people start worrying. Specifically, Toshio Ozaki, head of the hospital, suspects something else might be going on and decides to investigate.
From Toshio's...less than ethical investigations and help from Natsuno, one of the village's teenagers, he discovers that the Kirishiki are a family of vampires (the eponymous 'shiki') looking to turn the whole village in order to create a utopia of sorts where they can live without having to hide what they are. Toshio manages to expose one of the family to the rest of the village, sparking a manhunt for any and everyone who had been turned.
Personal History: Tohru was born in Sotoba in 1976 and currently lives with his parents and two younger siblings, Tamotsu and Aoi. Not much is known about his childhood, but it's assumed that he was born in and has lived in Sotoba his entire life so far.
In canon, he doesn't have a lot of screentime, but he does have some impact on the events. He's first introduced a year prior when he waylays Natsuno soon after the Yuuki-Koide family moves in, while Natsuno is pushing his partly disabled bike home. He insists on fixing the flat tire as a gesture of goodwill and as an attempt to try to get to know Natsuno. He successfully fixes the tire but Natsuno, not wanting to get to know anyone in the village or make any sort of conversation, brushes off Tohru's attempts to be friendly and drags the bike off without any air in the tire. He eventually does return when it flattens a second time a few days later, this time making an attempt at being a little more friendly, as best he can. The two eventually do become friends and hang out at Tohru's house and on the bus the neighboring city of Mizobe.
After the first death of the 'epidemic'--a girl named Megumi Shimizu--Natsuno begins hanging out at Tohru's house more often, even sleeping there at night, due to feeling uncomfortable and sleeping poorly at his own. During this time, Tohru meets a member of the Kirishiki household, Tatsumi, and being the friendly person he is, invites him over after Tatsumi retrieves 100 yen Tohru drops near a vending machine.
This turns out to be a bad idea, as inviting Tatsumi over effectively allows any of the other vampires into the household, and Megumi--who has been turned into one of them--takes the advantage of this. She lets herself into the house one night and torments Natsuno with hallucinations and complains to him about how he was so close to Tohru and never gave her the time of day. She appears to bite Tohru, who initially appears to be fine the next morning.
However, over the next couple days, Tohru appears to come down with the same illness Megumi herself seemed to have and ultimately passes away.
(His pull point is during this time, after he's initially bitten but before he dies)
He returns later as a shiki, and is sent after Natsuno, who's vowed to stop the killings. He visits Natsuno at home under orders to kill his friend, lest his entire family die instead. He can't bear the thought of either, and when he comes face-to-face with Natsuno, he flees. Natsuno gives chase and when essentially cornered, Tohru eventually gives in and bites him. Over the next couple nights, he visits again to drain his former friend of blood until he too passes away. He keeps visiting after that to leave flowers in remembrance, until he's discovered and decides to stop in order not to get on the bad side of the other shiki.
Barring one last encounter with Natsuno, the last time Tohru is seen is when the living villagers are going after the dead ones, when he's trying to convince one of the recently turned nurses at the local hospital to bite another nurse in order to keep her from dying a second time. She refuses and convinces him to let the other nurse go, and they decide to face (second) death together.
Personality: In general, Tohru is a cheerful, outgoing, friendly person with an overall positive demeanor. He's extremely kind-hearted and apparently charismatic enough to make friends with just about anyone he meets.
Case in point: Natsuno Yuuki-Koide. Natsuno wanted nothing to do with Sotoba or anyone in it, and Tohru took it upon himself to try to greet and befriend this new, prickly-acting person. And it worked. Not at first, but both of them consider the other to be their best friend--or in Natsuno's case, his only friend. Ritsuko is a friend who Tohru has a huge possibly-requited crush on (it’s debatable whether she actually likes him or just thinks he’s adorable) and who keeps trying to teach him how to drive, with mixed results.
For the most part, he acts the same way around Ritsuko as he does around most of his other friends, at least from what's explicitly seen--there's only two instances where they're actually seen together, and neither of them has them alone for more than a few minutes. He's possibly more polite around her because she's his crush and older than he is, but he certainly doesn't try to impress her or change his attitude to make himself look better--the longest time they're shown together, he's distracted talking to Natsuno while driving, while Ritsuko berates him multiple times for taking his eyes off the road and eventually for taking his hands off of the steering wheel.
It's entirely possible he's friends with Natsuno because he finds the guy interesting. He frequently pokes at Natsuno’s cold personality, telling him he’s smart, ‘but [he] could stand to be nicer’, and frequently gets in his personal space. They do argue, but more often than not, Tohru takes Natsuno's side in arguments
He also has an apparent disdain for following certain social rules and a bit of a stubborn streak. His preferred method for greeting Natsuno is to more or less drape an arm over or around him, he attempts to hug Natsuno on at least one occasion (even after a counter-attempt to keep him at arm’s length), and he just generally does not seem to care that personal space is a thing. When he met Natsuno for the first time and Natsuno refused to give him his first name, he decided to take the easier route and talk to Natsuno’s parents to find out instead.
Tohru is also sort of a slacker. Judging from a comment made by his sister, it’s not unusual for him to skip school in favor of playing video games, or disappear into his room for days...because of video games. He’s explicitly shown to not be the greatest at driving, since he is easily distracted and unable to pay attention to the road if he’s not constantly reminded to do so.
It’s worth nothing that despite being outwardly friendly to everyone, he does dislike some people. He finds the older residents of the village irritating because they’re too obsessed with what everyone else is doing (or not doing). He’s at least polite to people he’s not close to. When he joins the ranks of the shiki, he expresses more than once how much he hates the idea of harming humans to survive and wonders how anyone can not feel bad when they hurt or kill others. He's extremely disturbed by the idea of comparing humans to livestock.
Tohru can also seem like something of a pushover at times, as he tends to go with the path of least resistance in any situation when faced with a choice and is very afraid of challenging authority. He has his opinions, of course, but if expressing them will make things worse, he keeps to himself. He’s quick to break up arguments between other people, either by physically putting himself in between those arguing or by attempting to distract the arguing parties with a different topic of discussion or jokes. He tends not to get involved directly in the arguments, however, preferring to remain neutral until forced into the fray. In a way, this makes it easier for him to keep an optimistic outlook on life. It also makes him seem somewhat oblivious to problems, even though he’s really not.
Despite this, he doesn’t like making decisions that end up bad for others, or even for himself. Especially after his death, when he’s forced to choose between attacking Natsuno or having his entire family killed, and when he’s eventually forced to kill more people just to survive. Both scenarios upset him to the point of crying, as does an instance where Ritsuko chooses to die instead of kill others to benefit herself. Much of the time, he ends up forced into making the decisions, upsetting him even further.
TL;DR Tohru is a cinnamon roll who hates hurting people and doesn't deserve anything that happened to him in this canon.
Key themes: life/death, friendship, tough choices
Main Motivation: It's...hard to say, really. The only life goal of Tohru's that's explicitly shown is his desire to impress his crush by learning to drive so he can take her out. He's seen as something of a slacker most of the time, preferring video games to most other hobbies.
Skills: Nothing noteworthy, unless you count the ability to make friends with just about anyone. Tohru's basically a normal Japanese teenager. He'd likely be able to fight if absolutely necessary, but has no formal training in combat, armed or unarmed.
Item: A picture of his family--his mother and father, him, and his two siblings.
Sample: A TDM thread here and another one and a third. Let me know if I should provide additional samples.
Notes: There's a wiki for this series, but it's not great.