I was late to the party on this, but managed to get them all without overpaying. Sadly, this is the end of these nice hardcover editions since Tokyopop is no more. At least the whole series came out on paperback, so I can start getting the paperbacks with volume 13. This is the furthest I have read into the series, and I regret not reading it back when it was first being published. At that time, I had dismissed it as so similar to the anime, word for word, that it would hardly be worth reading. The amount of material they didn't put into the anime, even from the stories that were included, is astounding. Also, while the Kyo story that was used as the climax for the anime made an appropriate climax, having it happen early in the story creates much more tension, as well as interesting dialogue. In the end, I would love to see a season 2 of the anime, but more than anything, I'd like to see a director's cut version of the already released series, with scenes that were not included inserted, and stories juggled back into proper order. It's really better with the Kyo true form story out of the way early on. It leaves much more room for Kyo to grow, as well as Yuki and Tohru. It also removes the need to rewrite later scenes to explain away certain differences the anime had as far as character motivations... I supposed when you look at it like this, it becomes apparent that they never intended to make more than one season, regardless of how popular it was.
