As usual with any Season 2 Review of mine, I am going to assume you are familiar with season one or have read my previous review. I do this because a season two review is a little pointless if you don't even know what to expect from season one, and if you are that familiar with it going over certain aspects of the show is redundant. So I'll link to my first review for anyone unfamiliar with the show at all, and the rest of this review will just be focused on how well the show had progressed since. I'll leave it at 'It is a worthy follow up to the first season' for anyone who has yet to see season one. You don't have to worry about a drop in quality as you continue to watch the show.
That out of the way, the focus of Season two begins to shift. Whereas season one is just establishing and building the bonds between characters, season two we start to see how their growth has affected them, as well as a focus on the most intriguing aspect of the narrative thus far, what the Curse of the Zodiac is, and Tohru wanting to find a way to break it. We see Tohru have a goal to work towards now, as well as see even more of the inner workings of Akito and the Zodiacs. While you still have a few episodes like last seasons Sheep and Tiger focused episodes, ones that feel pointless and dull, by and large, I think this season did a better job at keeping more of its episodes entertaining.
Where things start to get interesting are the new characters introduced. We never got to see them in the first series, but now we have the Rooster and Horse Zodiacs (Akito was referred to as the Horse in the original anime, though now that is not the case as it's following the Manga more closely). The Rooster is very closely associated with Akito and rarely leaves his side or associates with the other members of the Zodiac. The Horse, Isuzu, has been searching for a way to break the Curse of the Zodiac herself. Both characters give an incredible amount of insight into the world of the Zodiacs that we didn't have before this. The Rooster in particular is involved in a twist come seasons end that does a lot to add context to the actions of Akito (No, not a twist involving a certain character's gender. That twist was dumb and doesn't change anything, it feels like it was added in to try and ramp things up, something that wasn't needed and that the twist failed to do anyway). Needless to say, The Rooster is in serious running for my favorite character of the show.
One thing I liked more than I was expecting was seeing Yuki become Student Council president. We're seeing him interact with new characters, none of which were part of season one or have any connection to the Zodiac or even any other character in the show. On one hand, it sounds kind of pointless and is something that seems entirely unrelated to the plot, on the other hand, in terms of Yuki's personal story it makes a lot of sense for something like this to happen. It helps they are some pretty great characters (Okay, the two siblings are great, the other two are a bit dull but have their moments). Yuki feels like he is finally starting to become the person he wants to be, and it's nice to see.
And that is what you get out of season two. The show does a fantastic job of increasing the stakes, building upon the world established in season one, and feeling like it's building to something worthwhile. For reasons I won't get into, for the first time being able to do something about the Curse of the Zodiac doesn't feel completely out of reach, so there is a very real sense of progress to the whole narrative. If you liked Season One, or are at least interested in checking it out and were worried it's a show that would go downhill after the first season, it's worth jumping into.