Isuzu Sohma

**Isuzu Sohma** (草摩 依鈴, *Sōma Isuzu*), more commonly known by her nickname **Rin** (鈴, *****Rin*****), is the secondary female protagonist of the series.

She is the Horse of the Chinese Zodiac. A cold, stubborn, proud, and fiercely independent woman who despises the way the other members of her clan submit to Akito Sohma, Rin is very closed-off as a result of her abusive and traumatic past. Since she was rejected by her parents, Rin lives with Kagura Sohma and her family.

Rin had a romantic relationship with Hatsuharu Sohma prior to the beginning of the series, but she later breaks up with him in order to protect him until she can find a way to break the curse.

However, she soon enters a romantic relationship with Asia Ritter, becoming her girlfriend.

## Description

### Appearance

Rin is a beautiful, tall young woman with a fair complexion, sharp, dark-brown eyes (which can sometimes be depicted as black), hip length, jet black hair styled in a hime-cut, and a voluptuous stature.

For the most part, she is seen wearing her hair down, but will opt to style it in either twin-tails or ponytails whenever she wants her hair out of the way.

Rin usually likes to wear dark-colored, revealing clothes, some of which have a goth influence on them. The accessories that she wears along with her outfits are especially handmade by Haru.

When seen in her school uniform, it consists of a white tailored sweater and yellow ribbon with a black turtleneck underneath, a short, white skirt, long, black stockings, and brown loafers.

### Personality

Prior to the start of the series, Rin was noted to be a sweet, happy, and outgoing girl. However, after suffering from constant abuse and abandonment from her parents in her childhood years, her self-worth and trust in people (aside from Haru) were destroyed badly. Although she'd blame herself for her own suffering and that she came to believe that her parents wouldn’t have hated and abandoned her if she wasn't a “bad” child, she grew majorly depressed as a result. However, thanks to Haru and his kindness, she retained her sweet and kind personality. At the point when Rin came clean to Akito about sleeping with Haru, as a means of having to protect him, and that she finds herself facing the latter's wrath soon after, not only did the latter scornfully convince Rin that someone damaged like herself doesn’t deserve someone like Haru, and that Akito managed to trigger Rin's emotions some more with hurtful comments, she proceeds to throw her out of a second story window.

Soon after, Rin's former personality undergoes a major change, to the point where she becomes the aggressive, emotionally distant, jaded and unkind young woman she is during her debut. Though sharp-tongued and wielding words as a weapon just to lash out at the world for the cruelty she experienced, Haru mentions that Rin doesn’t hesitate to say things that will hurt people, but she doesn’t say anything to protect herself either. While Rin is a lone wolf who prefers to depend on herself and herself only, this is shown when she becomes incredibly determined to find a way to break the curse without the help or interference from anyone, not even from someone like Tohru Honda. Behind her uncaring and aloof front, however, Rin is deeply loyal and passionately emotional, and is tremendously self-sacrificing and selfless, as her entire reason to breaking the curse is to free Haru and find his true happiness, even if it would mean that she would be left with nothing in her hands.

Although it initially appears that Rin dislikes kindhearted people such as Tohru Honda, she, in reality, respects them deeply— but believes their compassion makes them gullible and unable to protect themselves, and thus doesn’t want them to get hurt or suffer. She also feels like kind people remind herself of how weak she is and how badly she craves acceptance from those kinds of people who she can depend on and cling to. But exactly because of that, she avoids kind people since she is unwilling to let herself become a burden.

As time goes on, Rin begins opening up more, especially after she breaks down in tears in front of both Tohru and Haru on two different occasions. Although she still doesn’t like to show herself emotionally open and her distant and hostile personality remains, she grows openly protective towards Tohru, mellows down to a slightly gentler person, has come to depend on others more, and Haru makes her promise him that she won't ever try to do everything alone again.

She is also noted to be quite dishonest with her feelings, rarely shows her feelings of happiness, can have somewhat of a *tsundere* personality, especially towards Tohru. After the curse is broken, although she feels horrible about it, she refuses to forgive Akito Sohma for not only the pain she had inflicted on her, but everyone in the Sohma family. She also reveals that she'd hoped all of her pain and emotional issues would go away once the curse broke, but they didn't.

## Etymology

* The name **Isuzu** means “fifty bells” or 凛 (**Rin**) meaning "dignified, severe, cold".

## Trivia

* The name Isuzu is derived from the sixth month, ***Isuzu*kuretsuki** or "month of the last cool spring days", which is the month of the Horse of the traditional Japanese calendar.
* Rin's flashy way dressing is partially a rejection of the cute outfits she wore as a child.
* She dislikes eating in front of people.
* She doesn't like sleep, and never seems to want to sleep either.
* She hates most food and has a very little appetite.
* Rin and Haru gave each other their nicknames “Rin” and “Haru”, when their were children out of affection.
* Ever since Rin started to spend time in Kagura’s house, she slowly gained an interest in fashion as a hobby; not because of Haru’s influence, but because those two gradually rubbed off on one another.
* Rin does not have piercings, because she is afraid of it being painful. But she doesn’t have any negative feelings towards Haru’s piercings.
* Her given name, “Isuzu” is a rare name. When written as two kanji characters, it means “dependable bell“, which many consider represents her personality and appearance quite well.
* Her nickname is “Rin”, because that is an alternate reading of 鈴 *(suzu)*, the second kanji of her given name; *suzu* translates to “small bell” in Japanese, and *“rin”* resembles the sound a small bell makes.
* Rin hates hospitals and escapes every time she’s sent to one, since it reminds her of the time her mother told her, in a hospital, that she and Rin’s father didn't want her anymore.
* Rin is a very talented artist but doesn’t have much confidence in her artistic abilities.
* She often has nightmares caused by the traumas her abusive parents and Akito gave her.
* Haru is the only one who can be close to her while she is sleeping without waking her, since he is used to waking her from nightmares.
* Rin suffers from stomach ulcers, and her eating habits are sparse, probably due to her stress and trauma. The only food she likes is gelatin.
* According to Kazuma, Rin rarely raises her voice and only does so when she’s excited (like when Tohru visits her).
* Rin gets restless when she has to sit still and often wants to move around and do chores like sweeping the floors.
* Rin goes to an all-girls private school.
* Rin suffers from Irritable Bowel Syndrome.