Tohru Honda is 16. She is an orphaned high school student. Tohru ends up sharing house with Shigure, Yuki and Kyo Sohma.

She loves to cook, is an excellent housekeeper and has an after school job as a janitor to help pay her tuition fees (since she doesn't want to be a burden on her grandfather). She's always polite, and is extremely (to an unbelievable extent) kind and selfless; in fact, the other characters sometimes have to tell her that she needs to look out for her own interests. Both of her parents are deceased. Her Mother, Kyoko, was a celebrated "yankee"-gang leader, and her father was a young high school teacher. Her Father died of pneumonia when Tohru was three years old and her mother of a car accident when Tohru first entered High school.

Tohru is a very kind girl who is always looking on the bright side of everything. Despite the attitude anyone else shows her, she always shows kindness. She even influenced Kyo and Yuki to tone the constant fighting down.

She is usually very deep in thought, and due to this fact, she is very clumsy. In turn for her room at Shigure's house, she cleans the house and makes all their meals for them. And no matter how much Yuki or Kyo get depressed or angry, she never gives up trying to get them to look on the bright side. She even blows all of her money to buy everyone chocolates for Valentine's day.

Before she met Yuki and Shigure, she had been living in a tent on what she did not know was their property. Tohru was at first only offered a night there to recover from a fever. Then in the morning, Yuki asked her if she would like to stay there. Things get interesting when she finds out the Sohma family curse.