If you turned into this without a bracelet, you'd push people away too.
Fruits Basket may have The Power of Friendship and The Power of Love as two of its main themes, but don't be fooled. Frightening elements abound, especially as Cerebus Syndrome kicks in.
- Kyo's true form as shown in the page image, a monstrous beast with an appearance that looks less like a cat and more like a mix between an insect and a reptile, complete with oversized and elongated limbs, razor-sharp teeth and a horrific smell that makes Tohru vomit the first time she encounters it. The only thing that stops him from transforming is the bracelet of Juzu beads he wears on his wrist at all times.
- The bracelet itself is a source of this. According to Kyo, it's made from human bone and dyed in human blood.
- The anime adaptations (especially the 2019 version) waste no effort into showing how agonizing Kyo's transformation is, making it look like something straight from Resident Evil.
- The extent of just how much of a Big, Screwed-Up Family the Sohmas really are. Abusive Parents are the norm, those cursed by the Zodiac animals all have massive psychological issues, the one cursed with the Cat is automatically deemed a pariah and abomination who exists to be shunned, persecuted, and ultimately locked up in solitary confinement for life, and nobody has the nerve to stand up to Akito for her abusive behavior. And as indicated by the flashback showing Ren's early days with Akira, they've been that way for generations.
- Akito is a good source of this whenever she appears on-screen. The head of the Sohma family and God of the Zodiac, who happens to be an Ax-Crazy Psychopathic Manchild and Mood-Swinger who can go from calm to physically violent at a moment's notice. Whereas Kagura beating Kyo senseless in nearly every scene they have together is entirely Played for Laughs, NOTHING Akito does to the Zodiac members or any other targets of her wrath is funny and only serve to highlight how fucked up in the head she is:
- Hatori is nearly blind in his left eye because Akito attacked him simply for asking for permission to marry Kana. The manga doesn't show what happened, but both versions of the anime do; in the 2001 anime, Akito threw a vase at his head, and in the 2019, she slammed him face-first into a mirror. Kana was so traumatized by the incident (not helped by Akito gaslighting her into taking the blame) that Hatori was forced to wipe her memory.
- Rin gets the worst of it from her. In response to Haru dating Rin, Akito throws the latter out a second-floor window and lands her in the hospital. When Rin later tries to steal a box from her room on Ren's orders, Akito one-ups herself by giving her a Traumatic Haircut and locking her in the Cat's Room to starve. It's hardly surprising that at the end of the series, Rin is the only member of the Zodiac who refuses to forgive Akito for everything she's done.
- Her relationship with Yuki started out friendly... until she snapped and started using him as an outlet for her cruelty, from locking him up in a windowless dark room for days on end to outright giving him A Taste of the Lash, with his parents and brother doing nothing to stop it even as he begged them for help. It was so bad that Haru literally begged Shigure to let Yuki stay with him so he could get away from her.
- Not even children are safe. When Hiro lets it slip that he loves Kisa, Akito responded by beating Kisa so brutally she landed her in the hospital for two weeks.
- The real kicker? Akito Used to Be a Sweet Kid until she snapped under the heavy abuse of her mentally unstable mother Ren, who hated her from before she was born out of petty jealousy that her husband could possibly love another woman, even their own daughter; she went so far as to threaten to abort Akito unless Akira agreed to have her Raised as the Opposite Gender. As a whole, Ren is all of Akito's worst traits rolled into one, only amplified tenfold and minus any Freudian Excuse or anything remotely positive or redeemable, and whereas Akito is able to undergo a Heel–Face Turn and work on being a better person at the end of the series, Ren never does.
- Hana's Psychic Powers are largely used as a comedic element, such as when she largely uses them to intimidate the Prince Yuki Fanclub whenever they harass Tohru, but her backstory reveals that her threats against them are not idle and she really can use them to cause harm. After being tormented by a bully and force-fed live newts, Hana snapped and wished with all her heart for him to die... and the bully immediately collapsed and landed in the hospital, much to her horror.
