(no subject)
This was brought about by two anon comments made on the concrit post: here and here. My own opinions about whether some of the things said were constructive or not aside, it did cause me to go back through my manga and reread it.
The first thing to remember when it comes to the Sohmas is that there's a certain kind of duality to their personalities. Tohru notices this when she witnesses Hatsuharu shift between two completely different mental states (otherwise known as Black Haru and White Haru -- my source canon is so creative!) and remarks that they all seem to have two sides to their personality. This is entirely true for all of them. Hatsuharu and Kagura have the greatest division in their personalities, however all of the Sohmas possess this duality to a certan extent.
Our first appearance of Kisa is in Chapter 25 of the manga or episode...19 (I think) of the anime. In this, Kisa has transformed into a tiger because she dwells too much on how much her life sucks. Hatsuharu goes looking for her in the rain, finds her and takes her back to Shigure's house -- or rather, was walking by Shigure's house when Yuki and Tohru were outside. Within ten minutes of meeting Tohru, Kisa's bitten her, bitten Haru when he told her off for biting Tohru and then raced off to sulk in the garden. As you do. Tohru comes out after having her hand bandaged to make sure that Kisa's all right...and so Kisa bites her hand again. In fact, she pretty much savages it. However, when Kisa transforms back, she follows Tohru around like a lost duckling for a couple of days, is generally pretty adorable and so forth. The two personality states seem to be poles apart, however if you consider Kisa's mental state at the time of both, it makes sense. Kisa's natural personality is one of polite, sweet gentleness. However, if she feels sufficiently threatened (such as a secret about to come out, etc.) Kisa will fight back, and violently as well. I guess this is possibly a product of her curse.
Kisa hasn't got a lot of self-esteem. A product of being teased mercilessly at school, having her God inform her that she's pretty useless, her best friend not want to be around her for an indefinite period of time etc. etc., Kisa believes herself to be utterly unlikeable, ugly and stupid, with no redeeming traits at all. Most of the time at camp, Kisa is worried that all of her friends aren't really her friends, or that they don't like her as much as she likes them, or that they're just tolerating her presence because they feel sorry for her. It baffles her that these people keep telling her that she's a nice, sweet girl, because how can she be? She's ugly, stupid and unendearing. Kisa has issues. Most of her issues relate to her hair and eye colour -- it's a bright orange, like a tiger. Kisa dislikes it and wishes it was something normal. She also wishes she were taller. One day she'll see herself as being delicate, but for the moment, she's short and skinny.
Unfortunately for Hiro, no-one else sees Kisa in this way. She canonically ends up with a group of boys at Tohru's school trying to get the nerve up to talk to her. Fortunately for Hiro, Hatsuharu picked up Kisa and carried her away before Hiro had an anerysm Kisa got dates with half of Tohru's school. Oddly, Kisa was quite oblivious to this, even with the stormclouds of Hiro!Spaz over Hiro's head. This suggests that Kisa is both quite experienced at tuning out Hiro's spazzing but that she has amazing powers of denial. Or possibly that she believes herself to be ugly, but I like my first one better.
Much like every teenaged Sohma, or teenager in general, Kisa is wary of authority. In fact, Kisa alternates between being afraid of it, trying to befriend it and mocking it. Quietly. Or rather, just sitting around and snuggling up to Haru and Yuki while they do it. A lot of this fear comes from the systematic verbal, emotional and physical abuse that Akito deals out to her Sohmas. It's part of the reason why Kisa wants to be bigger -- Akito can't throw her around as much and she won't feel so small and scared. Unfortunately for Kisa, this isn't about to happen. As such, she's trying to convince herself that the people at camp don't mean her harm, and she's doing okay at that! She's just very, very anxious when interacting with them.
Finally, Kisa demonstrates occasionally that she has a remarkable insight into people. In the canon, this has been limited to those in the family -- telling Hiro that he'll make a good older brother, remarking that Kyou and Tohru are really alike deep down etc. We don't ever see Kisa outside of the family, and as such we don't know if she also demonstrates this insight to outsiders. I'm assuming for the purposes of writing this disjointed ramble that it is a consistent character trait. Chances are, this would either unnerve people, annoy them or have them think that Kisa's a good listener.
On a random note, Kisa is not a bad student. In fact, Kisa's quite intelligent, as evidenced by the fact that she didn't go to school for an unspecified period of time and yet, when she returned to class, no mention is made of her being behind. Most of Kisa's belief that she's unintelligent comes from the idea that she believes she could do better at school than what she is. It doesn't help that her best friend is brilliant. (Thanks, Hiro!)
The first thing to remember when it comes to the Sohmas is that there's a certain kind of duality to their personalities. Tohru notices this when she witnesses Hatsuharu shift between two completely different mental states (otherwise known as Black Haru and White Haru -- my source canon is so creative!) and remarks that they all seem to have two sides to their personality. This is entirely true for all of them. Hatsuharu and Kagura have the greatest division in their personalities, however all of the Sohmas possess this duality to a certan extent.
Our first appearance of Kisa is in Chapter 25 of the manga or episode...19 (I think) of the anime. In this, Kisa has transformed into a tiger because she dwells too much on how much her life sucks. Hatsuharu goes looking for her in the rain, finds her and takes her back to Shigure's house -- or rather, was walking by Shigure's house when Yuki and Tohru were outside. Within ten minutes of meeting Tohru, Kisa's bitten her, bitten Haru when he told her off for biting Tohru and then raced off to sulk in the garden. As you do. Tohru comes out after having her hand bandaged to make sure that Kisa's all right...and so Kisa bites her hand again. In fact, she pretty much savages it. However, when Kisa transforms back, she follows Tohru around like a lost duckling for a couple of days, is generally pretty adorable and so forth. The two personality states seem to be poles apart, however if you consider Kisa's mental state at the time of both, it makes sense. Kisa's natural personality is one of polite, sweet gentleness. However, if she feels sufficiently threatened (such as a secret about to come out, etc.) Kisa will fight back, and violently as well. I guess this is possibly a product of her curse.
Kisa hasn't got a lot of self-esteem. A product of being teased mercilessly at school, having her God inform her that she's pretty useless, her best friend not want to be around her for an indefinite period of time etc. etc., Kisa believes herself to be utterly unlikeable, ugly and stupid, with no redeeming traits at all. Most of the time at camp, Kisa is worried that all of her friends aren't really her friends, or that they don't like her as much as she likes them, or that they're just tolerating her presence because they feel sorry for her. It baffles her that these people keep telling her that she's a nice, sweet girl, because how can she be? She's ugly, stupid and unendearing. Kisa has issues. Most of her issues relate to her hair and eye colour -- it's a bright orange, like a tiger. Kisa dislikes it and wishes it was something normal. She also wishes she were taller. One day she'll see herself as being delicate, but for the moment, she's short and skinny.
Unfortunately for Hiro, no-one else sees Kisa in this way. She canonically ends up with a group of boys at Tohru's school trying to get the nerve up to talk to her. Fortunately for Hiro, Hatsuharu picked up Kisa and carried her away before Hiro had an anerysm Kisa got dates with half of Tohru's school. Oddly, Kisa was quite oblivious to this, even with the stormclouds of Hiro!Spaz over Hiro's head. This suggests that Kisa is both quite experienced at tuning out Hiro's spazzing but that she has amazing powers of denial. Or possibly that she believes herself to be ugly, but I like my first one better.
Much like every teenaged Sohma, or teenager in general, Kisa is wary of authority. In fact, Kisa alternates between being afraid of it, trying to befriend it and mocking it. Quietly. Or rather, just sitting around and snuggling up to Haru and Yuki while they do it. A lot of this fear comes from the systematic verbal, emotional and physical abuse that Akito deals out to her Sohmas. It's part of the reason why Kisa wants to be bigger -- Akito can't throw her around as much and she won't feel so small and scared. Unfortunately for Kisa, this isn't about to happen. As such, she's trying to convince herself that the people at camp don't mean her harm, and she's doing okay at that! She's just very, very anxious when interacting with them.
Finally, Kisa demonstrates occasionally that she has a remarkable insight into people. In the canon, this has been limited to those in the family -- telling Hiro that he'll make a good older brother, remarking that Kyou and Tohru are really alike deep down etc. We don't ever see Kisa outside of the family, and as such we don't know if she also demonstrates this insight to outsiders. I'm assuming for the purposes of writing this disjointed ramble that it is a consistent character trait. Chances are, this would either unnerve people, annoy them or have them think that Kisa's a good listener.
On a random note, Kisa is not a bad student. In fact, Kisa's quite intelligent, as evidenced by the fact that she didn't go to school for an unspecified period of time and yet, when she returned to class, no mention is made of her being behind. Most of Kisa's belief that she's unintelligent comes from the idea that she believes she could do better at school than what she is. It doesn't help that her best friend is brilliant. (Thanks, Hiro!)