Saki Hanajima

is one of the recurring characters of the Fruits Basket series. She is also known by her nickname.

She is one of Tohru Honda's best friends. She is depicted as very perceptive; and conducts herself in a deadpan manner. She is considered to be scary by her female schoolmates; though Saki uses her reputation to shield Tohru from the malice of the Prince Yuki Fan Club. With her other best friend Arisa Uotani, Saki swore on Kyoko Honda's grave to look after Tohru, and in their "parental" protection of Tohru, noted by Kyo Sohma and Yuki Sohma, Saki is depicted as the overprotective mother-figure.

Saki is a psychic girl who has the ability to sense people's "waves" and send out electric waves. She had trouble controlling her abilities when she was young and blamed herself for the near-fatal collapse of a boy who was bullying her. Tohru was the first person in school that truly accepted her, which helped her gain control of her powers. She always wears all-black clothing, habits Saki started as a way of signaling her guilt.

In Fruits Basket Another, Saki is married to a foreign man and is the mother of Rio Mosca.

Appearance
Saki is a fair-skinned teenage girl who stands at an average build and height, with a pair of droopy purple eyes. Despite her intimidating aura, she is noted to be very beautiful by the people around her. She has long, wavy black hair that goes down to her hips. She usually wears her hair in a single long braid which is laid over her shoulder, but will sometimes wear it loose outside of school.

Saki is often depicted in her standard classic naval-styled Japanese school uniform, which consists of a white and blue top with a blue jacket. She also wears a rather blue skirt which goes down to her knees, with pleats and ruffles at the hem.

Outside of school, she only wears black clothes; she likes chic, elegant black dresses, veils, and the black cape that matches her younger brother Megumi's (the capes were made by their grandmother). She also wears black fingernail polish; all of these a way of signaling her guilt. However, she later admits that she now genuinely likes black clothing and feels comfortable in it.

Personality
Saki is a natural loner who initially almost completely isolated herself from others due to her past experiences. She was self-loathing to such an extent that she spent most of her childhood punishing herself, believing she deserved to be bullied and ostracized for what she had done. When Tohru and Arisa break through her defenses, she begins forgiving herself and gains much more confidence.

Saki gives off a very aloof, mysterious, quiet, and spooky aura. Although she is polite, she speaks very little; and when she does speak to people who are not her friends, she is very blunt and not afraid to confront people head-on. On the other side, she can be quite humorous and tends to make fun of people with a poker-face on. She also is stoic; always monotone and rarely emotional, and only shows her smile to those closest to her. In fact, Saki does not care about the assumptions and rumors about her, because she knows she has people who cherish her for who she is. Saki is also shown to be very protective of her friends and family. She is very mature for her age and extremely level-headed. Because of her powers, Saki is incredibly perceptive, as she picks up on things that no one else does, and can figure people and their feelings out flawlessly.

On the other hand, Saki can actually be quite air-headed and lazy, preferring to just slack off, to the point that her plan for life after high school is just to muster up the motivation to actually pass high school. She fails school tests on purpose because the makeup tests are easier. She's not stupid, but she pretends to be because the make-up ones are easier. She also dislikes physical exercises and tends to be quite overdramatic to be able to skip her school's physical tests. She would rather just read a book, or play card games. Although she hides her interests quite well, food and Tohru is on her mind most of the time. Her greatest weakness, according to her, will always be Tohru.

Saki also seemed to has a crush on Kazuma Sohma, and Kyo despises the thought of her and his adoptive father together. Saki also seems to be unusually friendly with the other Sohmas, and called Akito Sohma "Ah-chan" upon learning that she's a female and not a male. Despite her rather reserved nature, Saki proves to be quite popular with the boys in her class.

History
Saki Hanajima was born with the power of electric signals, the first person in her family with such a power. With this power, Saki was able to hear the inner voices of her family as well as other people. Despite this unusual phenomenon, her parents and grandmother were endlessly loving and supportive of her, especially when she was being bullied and ostracized at school. They also aren't too bothered by her powers, and are nurturing towards it. Her younger brother Megumi Hanajima takes after them and is protective of her, too.

One day at school, a boy made Saki eat live newts because it was said that witches ate them. When Saki refused, they held her down and shoved them in her mouth. Completely infuriated, Saki began to hate the boy and even wished with all her heart that he would die. All of a sudden, the boy collapsed and Saki was introduced to her electrical waves. Saki felt extremely guilty after that and knew that it was her fault that he collapsed. Everyone believed that Saki "the witch" had cursed the boy, and every little thing that went wrong, was blamed on her. Her parents, grandmother, and brother, however, still stood by her and supported her unconditionally. Megumi prayed for someone to help Saki, be a friend to her, and even love her.

In middle school, Saki began wearing nothing but black clothing and black nail polish, this being a way of signaling her guilt for her past actions. Her teachers were displeased, but Saki did not care. Saki was also an outcast, and although people hated her, they ignored her and put their distance from her because they were afraid of her powers. Saki was content with this, partly because she didn't want to involve herself with people, and partly because she didn't want to hurt anyone else, as she did with her male classmate.

Although she tried to avoid people, rumors, and assumptions always caught up to her. One day, her female classmates pinned her arm down and burned it, as they were curious about the extent of her "waves". When a teacher interrupted, the girls whitewashed the incident by saying that they were only trying to prevent Saki from apparently self-harming. Saki almost sent out her electric waves to this group of girls, but she was able to restrain herself. After this incident, Saki's family decided to move and start a new life for Saki once again.

When Saki transferred to her new school, she met Tohru Honda at lunch when she gave Saki extra food. The fact that she was always smiling and had a very polite speech caught Saki's attention, but she thought Tohru was slightly weird. As she made her way to a table in the corner, Arisa Uotani invited Saki to sit with her and Tohru, as she knew that Saki would sit alone and she didn't want that. Although Saki warned them that she didn't want to associate with them, Tohru and Arisa insisted on being friends with Saki. After spending time with Arisa and Tohru, Saki became friends with them and they formed a friend group.

However, soon enough, two girls found out about Saki's electrical waves and the incident with Saki and the boy back in elementary school. When Saki remembered the incident, she accidentally shot her electrical waves at one of her female classmates who told them about the rumor. Scared, Saki ran away from Tohru and Arisa. Both of them followed her until Saki told them to stay away from her. She apologized for not telling them and again told them to stay away because she didn't want to hurt anyone. Tohru ignored Saki's plea and told her that they had become too close to just give up. Arisa then told Saki that they wanted her back but Saki should decide whether to stay with them or not. Saki decided to stay close friends and then the three of them stayed as a close-knit group ever since.

Because of her new-found support found in Tohru and Arisa, as well as her own family, Saki was eventually able to learn how to control her powers.

Second Year Arc
Saki was cast as Cinderella in the class's cultural festival play. However, her character was completely different from Cinderella's, (as was Tohru's and Kyo's in their roles), causing the scriptwriter to state if the problem was the miscasting, that they should just change the script to agree with their personalities, therefore giving the play the name "Cinderella-ish". When the fairy godmother (Yuki Sohma) asked for her wish (which was to burn down the ballroom) the fairy told her to wish for something innocent. Therefore, she wished for yakiniku (meat).

Third Year Arc
After Tohru went into shock after a talk with Kureno Sohma, Saki came to fetch her. She, Megumi and Arisa organized a small sleepover to cheer her up.

When Tohru is wounded after facing Akito Sohma, Saki bans Kyo from seeing Tohru in the hospital along with Arisa. Only later does she give encourage Kyo to reconcile with Tohru.

When Akito shows up to visit Tohru, Saki is very welcoming and kind to her and even calls her "Ah-chan". It's implied that she realized that Akito is a woman right off the bat, probably due to her denpa waves.

Saki and Arisa accompany Tohru on her first date with Kyo. At the end of the date, when Tohru is away to the washing room, Saki is sad, expressing that Kyo is taking Tohru away from her. However, she immediately patches up the rough situation by comically telling Kyo that she will forgive him, but only if he calls her "Mama" and lets her take care of his adoptive father, Kazuma Sohma. Despite her words, Saki and Arisa express that they do like Kyo as a person, and are now relying on him to take good care of Tohru.

Epilogue
Towards the end of the series, Saki has graduated from high school and landed a job at Kazuma Sohma's dojo, where she will be working as a cook.

The Three Musketeers Arc
Since Tohru and Kyo Sohma have just begun dating, Saki and Arisa have become even more protective of Tohru. Knowing that Tohru and Kyo are all alone in the house since both Shigure Sohma and Yuki Sohma are out, she gets in touch with Akito Sohma so she can acquire Shigure's phone number. When Saki calls Shigure, she starts the conversation with a very threatening voice, and she asks him what he was thinking of leaving a Tohru and Kyo, at their age, alone in the house. Shigure mentions that Saki thinks like Ayame Sohma. However, Shigure soon realizes that Saki had known about it, and that she and Arisa are on their way to accompany Tohru and Kyo on their first date.

Fruits Basket Another
As revealed by her younger brother Megumi, Saki is married to a foreign man and has a son called Rio Mosca. Megumi says Saki's husband had come to visit her by plane, but it did take some time before they got together. It is also mentioned by Hajime Sohma that she and Tohru are still as close as ever. Additionally, it is stated that Saki regularly holds small tea parties with Akito Sohma and Mine Kuramae. This could be a reason to why their sons are so close as they are.

Differences from the source material

 * In the 2001 anime, Saki's backstory is not revealed.
 * Saki had a part of the True Form arc in the 2001 anime, though she was completely absent during the incident in the manga and 2019 anime.
 * When Kyo's true form is revealed, Saki and Arisa head to Kyoko's tombstone once again, after Saki senses negative electric waves coming from Tohru. As they see Tohru there, Saki forbids Arisa from consoling her. She then orders Tohru to continue searching for Kyo.
 * Since the 2001 anime didn't cover the entire manga, which was still ongoing while it still aired, there are notable differences in the ending. From Saki's part, she simply returns to school and greets Tohru with a smile.

Abilities
Saki has an electromagnetic power that allows her to sense the good and evil in people as well as the ability to see their auras. Simply put, she can read people's thoughts by picking up their mental waves. Saki calls her powers for "electrical waves". She explains to Kyo that she has psychic powers, and not spiritual powers, and can henceforth not see occult things such as ghosts. She does mention that dead people do have waves, but that they are much weaker than the waves of the living, so they are almost unrecognizable. She also explains that "waves" are people's thoughts that present like words that come directly to the brain rather than the ear.

Saki is the only one who can see the waves, both her own and other's who emits them. She can also emit "Poison Waves", which is different than her electrical waves. With her poison waves, she can potentially kill with her powers. This almost happened in her childhood, where she loses it after being brutally bullied by a boy and wishing for his death; then her powers go haywire and he almost dies. However, she usually just uses her poison waves to mess with the Prince Yuki Fanclub whenever they are bothering Tohru; so Saki never uses her powers to actively spite or injure people.

Saki had trouble controlling her powers as a young child, and as such, peoples' waves, thoughts, and auras would often pile up in her own mind and overwhelm her. Throughout the years, Saki has learned to control her powers; such as clearing her mind whenever she feels like her poison waves are emitting, as well as spending much time at practicing different methods.

Saki is exceptionally good at playing cards, especially the game "Rich man-Poor man". According to her male classmates and the Sohmas, Saki is unbeatable, always gets good cards, which she plays in her favor as she always ends up winning.

Trivia

 * Her manga symbol is a flower, the meaning of the first kanji (花) of her family name.
 * The Yuki Fan Club is surprised to discover Saki likes to read shoujo manga. She also takes an interest in Shigure's romance novel series Summer-Colored Sigh, and is later shown to have bought three volumes of it.
 * According to Natsuki Takaya, Saki was cast a Cinderella because all the boys in class secretly wanted to see her playing the role.
 * According to Takaya, Saki is the "strongest" character in the series, even surpassing Akito.

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