Yen Press brings “Fruits Basket Another” (Furubana), the continuation of Natsuki Takaya’s 1998 hit series “Fruits Basket” (Furuba) to English-reading fans.

Misfortune follows student Sawa Mitoma and her first year of high school has a terrible start with her arriving late and losing her student I.D. People either scold her or distance themselves away from her due to her presence and her constantly-absent mother. However an upperclassman intervenes when one of the teachers reprimands her of her tardiness and it is Mutsuki Sohma. The second-year student is the vice president of the school student council while his older relative Hajime is president. Both have a large reputation on campus due to their position but also from their surname. All she wants to do is to cause little to no commotion at school but their small act of kindness leads to an avalanche of activities in the spotlight.

Takaya revealed some details about Furubana during her 2015 interview with website Comic Natalie  while talking about the special re-release of Furuba (which is available in Volume 12 of the FB Collector’s Edition). Regarding the kids’ personalities, he said “I wanted to create a feeling of happiness radiating from the children” in order to match the warm finale of the previous manga. She also said that she wanted to have this new series be one people can read without any prior knowledge of Furuba and does not aim to bring the FB parents nor all of the children. She agreed with the question that Sawa will be the focal point of “Fruits Basket Another” and her development.

Though this manga deals with a new set of characters, dedicated fans of “Furuba” will be easily able to recognize the roles some of them play from the previous generation. However, each of them break away from the mold of their predecessors in their personalities. Sawa herself looks similar and acts similar to Tohru Honda of the first series, but seems closer to Sakuya from Takaya’s other series “Twinkle Star”. There are pages with a lot of her inner struggle, and it gives a real feel of stress and anxiety. However, it seems that there is always a Sohma nearby to help her. Takaya definitely accomplished the happy disposition of the Sohma kids but the portions of drama and mystery might give readers something to ponder about this new generation.

Takaya planned “Fruits Basket Another” to be a very short series and its third volume will be a conclusion but her tweet from last year along with an image from the final page showed that she will be moving on to feature other characters. Volume Three is set to release in Japan in March 20 in which English readers will wait for its eventual translation.

Check out Yen Press for more information on both “Fruits Basket” and “Fruits Basket Another”. Those waiting for Volume Three of Furubana can check out the latest anime adaptation streaming on FunimationNow and Crunchyroll.