Character Profile: Arisa Uotani

Arisa Uotani is a fun character. She has a rough past, but then meets Tohru Honda and her mother. She looks up to Tohru's mother and admires her greatly even before they meet. After Tohru's mother dies, she begins to look out for Tohru, and whenever someone bothers her or whatever, she sticks up for her.

Uotani is a tomboy girl and has the nickname "Yankee", which is Japanese slang for 'female gangster' (which she was before she met Tohru). Yankees wear long skirts, dye their hair, and use eyeliner to make their eyebrows more noticeable. The most interesting of Uo's personality is probably even when things seem to get rough she always tries to get some fun out of it.

She has fun getting Kyo's bad side. Their relationship is fun because it seems so competitive. To summarize this, Uo-chan is just a wild, fun loving type of girl.

Arisa Uotani is a former Yankee or gangster. She met Tohru and Tohru's mother, Kyoko, and tried to become a better person and quit her gang. She's now one of Tohru's best friends.

Arisa is a strong-willed person who cares deeply for her friends. She also hates Yuki's fanclub girls, and carries a led pipe at times.

And now, the following information all comes from the manga....

Arisa debuted into her group at fifth grade and by then had already begun wearing a surgical mask in public, long skirts and plucking her eyebrows. Her mom ran off with her boyfriend when Uo-chan was young and her dad is an alcoholic. He isn't abusive, but appears negligent. Uo-chan grew up in her gang listening to stories of Kyoko "The Red Butterfly", who would apparently beat up men twice her size and, despite being a women, became leader of the suicide squad.

Uo-chan later found out that Kyoko had married a man with the last name Honda [Honda Katsuya] and that her daughter was Uo-chan's age. By this time Uo-chan is in junior high. She doesn't go to school very often but has quite the reputation. She pictures Kyoko's daughter to be a "real Yankee" and cannot wait to meet her. While walking down the hall, a young girl in brown pigtails carrying a mountain load of books crashes into Uo-chan and all of the books fall. Uo-chan calls over a few students to help the girl and the girl introduces herself to Uo-chan. It's Tohru, and when Uo-chan finds out that this is the daughter of the Red Butterfly she is enraged. Upon meeting the "red Butterfly" (who has developed a motherly complex) Uo-chan tries to forget about Kyoko.

After getting into a fight one day and getting severely injured, Uo-chan accidently runs into Tohru several days later. Tohru, freaking out at the state of Uo-chan's injuries, drags her to the Honda residence to be healed. Kyoko listens to Uo-chan's stories and offers advice. From that day forward Uo-chan became a regular at the Honda residence. Finally, Uo-chan decided to leave her group. But you don't quit your gang and expect no one to care- you get beaten severely. Fortunately for Uo-chan, she had someone who honestly cared about her in the gang. This girl went to Kyoko and Kyoko rushed to save Uo-chan. After that, Uo-chan was out of her gang and on the way to being reformed.