Since I thoroughly enjoyed the original Fruit Basket series, I decided to take on the sequel. It’s a short series, only 12 chapters since it was supposed to be a limited run in celebration of the original series. As you may guess, it’s the next generation of Sohmas who are just the family that the insecure Sawa needs.

It follows similar themes to the original in tracing the effects of parental abuse as seen by Sawa’s relationship with her unnamed mother. The mom is a complete narcassist who constantly insults Sawa as needy, lazy, ugly, annoying and goes out of her way to ruin Sawa’s friendships behind her back to fuel more insults. All while portraying herself as a hard-working, young single mother with an ungrateful daughter. So by the time Sawa enters high school, she is determined to become invisible so she won’t be as annoying/useless to others as she is to her mothers.

Luckily for her, Hajime (son of Tohura and Hiro) and Mutsuki (son of Yuki) swoop in to invite her to the student government, to dinner and impart the meaningful advice. However, it is not all altruistic, they know Sawa from a secret incident way back in their childhood that she doesn’t remember, and so. . Well it goes into spoiler territory from there but it involves Shigure and Akito’s son, Shike.

It’s a sweet trilogy, it has more high school slice of life than the evolving treatise on love and family that the original was. And I keep mentioning the original because it really is hard to separate these two. The relationship between Hajime and Mutsuki is notable because they are so close and are aware of how much their father’s would appreciate it considering their own lives. The topic of parental legacy and reputation rears here too.

But because of the short length it feels very surface level. Readers know how deep and complex writing can be. But putting it all in 12 chapters makes it feel unfufilled. I wanted to know more about why Sawa’s mother treats her this way, how will she split herself from such toxicity? What is Shike’s trauma? And so on.

Plus in having the next generation of Sohmas without showing their parents, it leaves me wanting more at least. It doesn’t have all the characters. It doesn’t mention how are doing. What happened to Arisa and Kureno and Kisa and so on?

While it’s a cute story, it is bogged down by inevitable comparisons to the original, the shortness and the reliance on the OG characters that overshadow Sawa’s story.