Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

Fruits Basket, Vol. 2 continues Natsuki Takaya's shoujo series about Tohru Honda, an orphaned high schooler who lives with the Sohma family after learning their secret: thirteen family members are possessed by the animals of the Chinese zodiac and transform when embraced by someone of the opposite sex.

This volume widens the cast, introducing two more members of the cursed family — the cheerful, easygoing Momiji and the reserved, guarded Hatori — while everyday teenage life (a school festival, sleepovers, the holidays) keeps threatening to expose what the Sohmas have spent years hiding. Tohru's presence continues to soften the family's guardedness even as she works harder to keep their secret from the outside world.

Fruits Basket was serialized in Hakusensha's Hana to Yume and won the 2001 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo; the series blends romantic comedy and slice-of-life humor with an undercurrent of family trauma running beneath the zodiac curse.