My Rating: 3.5 stars
I feel mostly the same about Fruits Basket Another vol. 2 as I did about the first volume. I loved being back in the Fruits Basket world, but I was still quite confused most of the time. The pacing is far better though. We continue to meet more second generation Sohmas, particularly Ayame and Mine’s children: Hibika and Chizuru. While Hibika is just as over the top as her parents, Chizuru is the exact opposite of all of them, which I loved! He’s kind of brusque and just generally done with his family’s crap (who can blame him). It was nice to see a character who was so profoundly different from his parents, which somewhat made up for the fact that Hajime continues to be the exact same person as Kyo. I even noticed that he’s wearing a similar bracelet! Why would he want to wear that? Why would Kyo let him?!
We finally get to meet Sawa’s mother in this volume, and oh boy. Takaya is going to make me cry again by the end of this, I can already tell. Fruits Basket has always been about the ways parents traumatize their children, and this sequel series is following suit. While Tohru helped heal the traumas in the Sohma family in the original series, it seems like the Sohmas will help with Sawa’s trauma. I was really happy to get more information about Sawa. Seeing some of her home life explains why she acts the way she does and makes her feel less like Tohru. Her mother may be number one on the list of worst parents in this series. And that’s seriously saying something.
The best part about this volume is the bonus story at the end! It focuses on Mutsuki, and we get to see Yuki and Machi! Okay, so not their faces, but they’re still there. And we get to see them being adorable parents bringing little Mutsuki out to make footprints in the snow! The main focus of this story is Yuki telling Mutsuki about the curse. It’s just really beautiful, and it almost brought the volume up to a full four stars for me. I wish it had been longer!
Overall, this volume of Fruits Basket Another moves slightly toward being an original story instead of just rehashing the same characters from the first series. It’s not quite there yet, but it was still an enjoyable read.
A Literary Princess 