Arisa Uotani

Arisa Uotani (often called Uo-chan by Tohru) is one of Tohru Honda's two closest best friends in the Fruits Basket anime (both the 2001 and 2019 versions).

She's a tall (around 168 cm / 5'6"), fair-skinned high school girl with straight, long blonde hair (reaching her upper back or waist) that she often wears loose or in a low ponytail, and brown eyes (blue in the 2001 anime adaptation). She has a distinctive tough, delinquent-inspired style, frequently wearing long skirts, and she's known for occasionally carrying a lead pipe as a remnant of her past.

Personality-wise, Arisa is tough, brash, direct, and sometimes intimidating or violent on the surface—she speaks in a rough, masculine way (using "boku" in Japanese), bickers competitively with Kyo, and has a no-nonsense attitude. However, beneath that exterior, she's deeply loyal, protective (especially of Tohru, acting like a brash "father figure" alongside Saki Hanajima), and surprisingly emotional—she cries easily when it comes to her friends and has a kind heart shaped by her troubled past.

She was formerly a member of an all-girls delinquent gang called "The Ladies" during her earlier school years, influenced by a difficult home life (including an alcoholic father and absent mother), but she left that life behind after meeting Tohru and being inspired by Tohru's late mother, Kyoko Honda (whom she greatly admired from her own gang days). Arisa is fun-loving in her own way, works part-time jobs, and shows a softer, more vulnerable side in her interactions and personal growth throughout the series.