Akito- Returning to Love

There is a beautiful scene in Fruits Basket, one that has remained burned into my memory, haunting me, softening my heart, speaking to me ever since I first saw it. It is one I think of often, and that I dare say I even feel healed by.

There are certain reflections you see sometimes in media and art that cause you to see yourself, to feel the emotions of the characters in your own heart and life, to understand yourself better.

This scene is one of those, and it comes at the end of the series, so if you don’t want spoilers I suggest tuning out now… This scene revolves around one controversial character: Akito.

Today I am going to be exploring parts of Akito’s character and character development, in particular how I believe one scene at the end beautifully captures and concludes her entire journey through the story, and how her story can be seen as a dim but beautiful reflection of the reality that Christians experience with God.

Hated by many as the cruel, heartless, disturbed antagonist of the show, Akito is anything but one dimensional. Her emotions are many and wild; she is broken, spiteful, selfish, jealous, controlling, manipulative, highly disturbed… I could go on.

For a long time she has topped the charts of my list of most hated anime villains. She is terrible, and in her terror she is purposeful and intentional. But underneath you begin to see themes emerge: She is scared; as a child born of a promise, she was told she was born to be loved. That there were bonds meant to tie her to others and to belong, to give her hope and meaning. Purpose. A truly wondrous thing. But somewhere along the lines evil and jealousy snuck in and began their careful craft of corruption. Akito was born to be loved, and this can be said of all of us, we too were born to be loved. But there were parameters for this love, and she didn’t believe that the love offered to her was real.

The irony is that the one thing she always wanted, the one thing she was meant to have, she already had, but because of the distortion brought into her life, she had begun to cling to an idea, a seed planted ….you are not loved, no one would ever love you. This idea that had been planted within her had begun to grow: that the love she needed was something different. That what had been given to her, what was offered freely to her wasn’t enough; and in her desperation to attain what she could not see that she already had and believed was being withheld, she began to corrupt and destroy those around her. In this tragedy her feeble attempts at securing love wound up taking love further and further away from her.

What do I mean by this? Akito was already loved, she was adored by her father, and destined to be loved by the Zodiac spirits residing in members of the Sohma family. And indeed, many of them had been waiting for her, and she was loved and wanted before she was even born. Shigure, when they were both still children, proclaimed his purpose in life was to stand by her and always love her. He was fiercely devoted, with a jealous love that burned only for her, wanted only her, and had been waiting his entire life for her to see and accept this love.

But in her trauma from her mother, and the lies planted in her mind, Akito began to seek love elsewhere. She demanded it, and crushed others for not loving her enough, for not healing her. She rejects who she is, and lives a life that is a lie. Pretending to be someone that she is not while demanding from others things that they can never actually give to her: Purpose and rest for her soul.

She terrorizes and abuses Yuki, causing him great psychological harm. Through her misunderstanding of what love truly was because of the trauma she herself endured, someone who was meant to be a companion for her became a caged slave.

She verbally abuses and betrays the rest of the Zodiac members; she pushes Rin out a window, and she even stabs Hatori and Kureno, all in the name of jealousy. Jealousy born out of a desperate fear that these people who were destined to be closest to her may love others, and may leave her. Her view of love is entirely selfish, unable to accept or see that anyone else should be given love; it is entirely infant-like. She is empty, she is unable to give love, and can only take. The idea of love being given to anyone other than herself is unthinkable. Indeed it is terrifying.

You see wakes of pain and grief left everywhere she goes. The more she tries to become who she is not, the greater the despair, the more she strives after protecting herself, the greater the pain. The loyalty she demands is not borne out of love, but of fear. But even as you discover more and more of the great damage she has caused, you see more and more glimpses into her broken and tormented mind. She is scared, scared of being alone, scared of being left behind. Scared of being unloved. So she descends into madness.

There is no excusing her evil, she must live through the consequences of what she has done. But it can be understood that her misapplied search for love and belonging is what led her to this place. In her attempts at securing love for herself, she has neglected love all along. She has neglected it because she has rejected how it was designed to be given to her. You could even go so far as to say she rejected who was designed to give it to her; he had already promised it, and yet she ran, and ran, and kept running.

What I find fascinating in this story is watching Shigure, and his devotion to a woman who has been running from him. Who betrays him. Who is unfaithful. Someone who abuses him, who rejects him time and time again, who returns to him only to wound him even deeper. Analogies eventually break down, and Shigure is not always loving, and definitely isn’t faithful in return. He uses trickery and deceit of his own to purposefully push Akito to the brink as a way of revenge for being rejected. However wrong and immoral his methods are, I do still find it fascinating how, even if twisted, his every move was calculated in order to eventually bring Akito back to himself. He knows (for the sake of the plot) that she was meant to be with him, that if only she would return to him, then she could be healed and all could be well. He is fiercely committed to his plans of bringing her home; home being with him where she belongs.

There are many perspectives we could interpret from this, and lenses through which we can view his actions. And I fully admit most are not great. Shigure is also selfish, and we can question whether he does actually love her or if he is only playing chess for his own benefit. Regardless, there is a lens by which you can view this story and say ahh, I see biblical reflections of the gospel.

In our brokenness and the lies our heads are filled with, we run from the one who was designed to give us love. We were born to be loved, loved by our creator, the one who has known us before we were even born. But because of sin and evil in the world, we have become lost and seek love where it won’t be found, demanding it and leaving devastation in our wake. We have lost track of the one who promised love to us all along, who is waiting for us. And he has crafted and weaved our stories that we might return to him. He allows circumstances in our lives to happen that we might remember who was meant to give us the love we have been searching for our whole lives. He is a fiercely jealous and loving God, but unlike Shigure, he is faithful and will never use immoral deceit to bring us back to himself. He uses gentleness and love to melt our broken hearts of stone and call us home.

In the end of the story, Akito is driven to the end of herself and has to finally accept what she has done, and she is met with grace and forgiveness from Tohru. Tohru is a type of a Christ in this moment when she, despite being abused by the very women standing in front of her, extends her hand to Akito and says she wants to start over and be friends. A grace that Akito has never experienced, and one that in this moment becomes the catalyst she needs to finally correct her trajectory. Akito has reached the bottom, and looking up she finds grace.

In the episodes that follow this tragic turn of events, Akito has changed. She has stopped running, has accepted the consequences of her actions, and is returning home. Home. She vows to right her wrongs, and to undo the years of hiding and running. She doesn’t ask for forgiveness from the Sohma’s, but knows that a life of repentance is what is required. She must show by her actions that she has changed. She has spent her whole life pretending to be something that she isn’t. Someone that she wasn’t, and rejected what had been offered her the whole time. In her first act of love, she releases them all from the binds that tie them to her.

She finally sees that you cannot force love, for love is given freely.

In one of the most beautiful secular displays of repentance, you see Akito finally showing herself as she was meant to be. She embraces herself as a woman, puts on a beautiful Kimono, and declares to everyone who she truly is, her new identity. She is not only showing that she is turning away from who she used to be, who she pretended to be, but she is walking forward in the newness of her actual, intended identity. She then goes to Shigure, who has been waiting for her. He places his hand gently on her face, and she closes her eyes, leaning into his touch. She finally finds contentment and peace as she embraces his words, ‘you look beautiful’. Here at last, the love she had been looking for, the love that had been waiting for her. He speaks truth over her, calling her what she is: ‘beautiful’. Her identity has been restored, she has found peace. She has found love. She has found rest.

Song of Solomon 2:13-15-

My beloved speaks and says to me:

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

and come away,

for behold, the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth,

the time of singing[d] has come,

let me see your face,

let me hear your voice,

for your voice is sweet,

and your face is lovely.”

I simply adore this scene. And I see myself and God in the whispers of it. There are times I’ve been off seeking love elsewhere from people and places other than my creator, and when I come back to him he takes me in his arms, he calls me beautiful, and he restores me. Akito could have come to Shigure in her normal clothes, dressed as a man, but there is something about her coming in all her splendor as a woman in a beautiful kimono, that displays the great change. That signifies the putting off of the old, and embracing of the new. And I feel that loveliness in my heart and soul when I think of how Jesus makes us new, cleanses us from the old, puts on the new that symbolizes who we truly are, and tells us we are lovely.

His love is waiting for us, for we are fully loved, fully known. Through the power of redemption, a tragic character has become beautiful. The rose that once was dead, has bloomed.