When Tokyopop first announced that they were going to re-release their cash cow Fruits Basket as a series of "Ultimate Edition" hardcover omnibus releases, it seemed like as good a place as any for somebody like me -- who'd never picked up a copy of Fruits Basket before in their life -- to see what they'd been missing out on the past couple of years.  But after reading the first volume, my impressions were mainly one of mild bewilderment: with all this meandering about with ponderous story pacing and an ever-expanding cast, where exactly was Takaya going with this series?

 

Move ahead three years, with Tokyopop's often-delayed Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition compilations now up to their fourth release, and I can't say that my feelings for this series have gotten a whole lot clearer.  Yes, there are some very intriguing questions surrounding Akito and Yuki's seemingly-abusive childhood that I want to see answered as much as anybody else; the explosion in the number of characters has also died down from earlier volumes, giving Takaya more opportunity to individually develop each cast member.  Still, reading through the fourth omnibus installment, I couldn't help but shake my head at some of the downright goofy directions the narrative followed at times: are readers really clamoring for an entire chapter dedicated to a day in the life of one of Yuki's stalkers?

 

To be completely fair, most of my quibbles are directed at just the first half of the book, which constitutes Volume 7 of Fruit Basket's normal print run.  If not for a couple of otherwise-unnoteworthy chapters that introduce Hiro Sohma, I'd want to say the volume is practically superfluous; the remainder of the chapters deal in side stories centered around relatively minor characters.  Even the story-relevant Hiro Sohma arc suffers from overextension, mostly since (at least as portrayed in these two chapters) he's just not that compelling of a character; his main character trait is that he's a brat, which although successfully played for laughs at first against Tohru's trusting nature, wears thin long before the arc's two chapters are up.  In fact, overstaying their welcome seems to be a common fault among all the stories in this part of the book.  The subsequent three-part story detailing the origin of Tohru's and Arisa's friendship, and the closing chapter about the aforementioned stalker, have enough interesting elements at their core to sustain, say, a chapter and a minor subplot respectively ... but not the better part of a volume.  As it stands, most of Volume 7 feels like it was thrown together to have something to publish -- maybe some of these threads will end up paying off somewhere in the future, but without that context these chapters just feel like padding.

 

The second half (normally making up the series's Volume 8) fares better, focusing more tightly on Tohru's continuing integration into the Sohma family.  One of the more interesting dramatic twists reveals Tohru struggling with anxiety and feelings of inadequacy over her future; Takaya's handling of Tohru's feelings, which are probably especially relevant among Fruits Basket's teenage demographic, is short but thoughtful.  Nevertheless, the content here mostly fleshes out existing characters rather than moving the story forward in significant steps: Ritsu drops by for a few of chapters when Haru starts acting out at school, and then everybody else spends the rest of the volume preparing for the upcoming summer vacation.  I don't consider that a problem here, since at least this form of fleshing out is entertaining (especially during the really funny encounter between Ritsu and Shigure's editor) -- though I do hope that the hints dropped at the volume's close are indicators that Takaya's going to pick the story advancement back up a bit in upcoming installments.

 

The main weakness this volume -- the meandering plot in the first half -- isn't really new to the series; but it's certainly not helped by being concentrated all in one spot.  Still, my guess is that it won't influence most people's purchasing decisions: anyone who's gotten this far in the series will either think I'm completely off-base or will already know what to expect.

 

In other words, I'm basically going to echo my recommendation for the first Ultimate Edition volume.  Newcomers to the series who've been dutifully buying the Ultimate Editions as they're released will really have no reason to want to stop now, especially since they continue to be a slightly better value than the earlier paperback versions; but I can't see any reason for anyone but hardcore completists to drop $14.95 on a double-dip that adds little more than nicer packaging to a series they already own.