After reading the 2nd volume of VB Rose, I am once again noting how much I enjoy the work of mangaka Banri Hidaka. Her manga are not only well-written and have nicely shoujo art, but also have small (or large) ties to each other.

In the US, we have three of her series - I Hate You More Than Anyone, Tears of a Lamb, and VB Rose, her current series. CMX has the first two, while Tokyopop has the last.

However, I Hate You More Than Anyone is actually the LAST of a series she's been writing since she began (note: all her titles have run in Hana to Yume, home of Fruits Basket, and in fact she and Takaya are friends).

The first is 365-nichi no Koibito, which is a series of short stories involving the Akiyoshi family. Of note, the oldest, Kazuha, is portrayed as a sensible, advice-giving eldest daughter already out in the world - in other words, these stories take place long AFTER I Hate You More Than Anyone, where teenage Kazuha is the star. IHYMTA was written last in the series.

After that is Owaranai Koi no Tame ni, which is still just one volume, but does have one story running through most of the volume. Ari no Mama no Kimi de Ite is the 3rd, one full volume this time, dealing with sister Megumi. Another 1-volume follows, Uta wo Kitasete.

After all those attempts to have a hit series, she finally gets one with I Hate You More Than Anyone, which is 13 volumes. As I noted, it's chronologically first, but written last, and features most of the family members we know from before, at much younger ages. (Of course, none of these are scanlated, so US fans are basically out in the cold. Including me. ^^;;)

After that she wrote Tears of a Lamb, which is 7 volumes, and which startlingly doesn't feature any ties to the previous volumes (at least not in what I've read so far). Her current series, VB Rose, is running in Hana to Yume atm, and is up to 12 volumes to date.

The reason I bring this all up is that in Volume 2 of VB Rose, we meet some friends of Mamoru, who is the BFF of the heroine (despite her masculine name) and essentially the Hanajima of the series. These friends include Rei, who looks very familiar... yup, it's one of the Akiyoshi family! He's older and snarkier than the little boy from IHYMTA, certainly.

Japanese readers, who get to read Hana to Yume every week, likely get far more out of this than we do. XD In any case, it's fun reading her work, and I do recommend it.