Spice & Wolf

Spice and Wolf Manga Review - Non Spoiler Chapters: 100 Genre: Adventure, Seinen, Fantasy, Romance, Drama, Supernatural, Historical Mangaka: Isuna Hasekura This is a review about a very unique manga that's way too UNDERRATED IMO, where most fantasy themed manga are about swords and magic this takes on a more trade and economic route and adds in witty dialogs, great story, amazing characters, plot twists and WHOLESOMENESS. You might think that this manga being about trades and economic in the medieval ages would be boring but here I am reviewing this masterpiece. PLOT: A traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence meets the Goddess of Harvest Holo in her human form (also known asHolo the Wisewolf). A contract is formed between the two that Lawrence will help Holo reach her homeland while she'll lend him her wisdom in his day to day trading. And here starts a beautiful journey where they face many challenges, obstacles, meet new people, visit new places all the while getting to know more about each other and growing affectionate about each other (not that they show it openly and while reading you're dying on the inside and screaming CONFESS ALREADY DAMMIT! *breathes*). While the main goal is finding Holo's homeland, our merchant also has a wish to establish his own business, buy a store in a popular town and live off it. While traveling to many new places they try to acquire knowledge about where Holo's from and make some profit as well after all he is a merchant. ARTSTYLE: The artstyle was decent and simple yet felt so in-sync with the manga's theme. The thing that really caught my attention was the amount of effort put into the backgrounds to make them more appealing and to make the setting more accurate to the medieval ages. The characters well drawn (didn't find any lazy drawings anywhere). All from Holo's angry to playful expression were masterfully drawn. CHARACTERS/CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: The characters especially the main are extremely well made, we have the intelligent experienced merchant Kraft who at times is as naive as a baby and then there's Holo one of the BEST if not the best female leads in manga history, her wisdom, personality, charms and quick thinking to read and adapt to situations accordingly literally puts her at the top. The chemistry of the two is so good that you'll grin like an idiot each time they have a conversation (at least I did) As far as character development goes, you can't perfect already that is perfect aside from their growing feelings for each other and compatibility that grows with time. Holo is undoubtedly the PERFECT Waifu. Ranked in god-tier waifus. MY THOUGHTS: This manga is indeed a masterpiece, the very definition of WHOLESOMENESS and as I've always said a very REFRESHING read. The flow of the dialogs especially between the main characters Kraft and Holo is amazingly done, like when they're teasing each other or throwing quick hilarious comebacks or brainstorming for ideas all are wonderful to read and you'll even get a laugh out of it. But one thing, the amount of details about old age trading and economics was surprising, the gain/fall of currency and profit/loses of trade all were easy to understand but some took some understanding. And all this was added beautifully with the main goal that is the journey to Holo's homeland. All-in-all, I can simply summarize the entire experience in this that it was... REFRESHING FAVORITE QUOTES: “Stories are better when they have an ending, are they not?” – Kraft Lawrence (and this one was certainly great, sad that it's ended though) "If you change your perspective, a situation right in front of you, can reverse itself.” – Holo The Wise Wolf Honestly it's hard having a favorite quote when this manga is a gold mine for them. RATINGS: 9.5/10 Though personally it's a 12/10 for me, because I loved the characters, the feelings, the excitement and the story. If you haven't read this then this is my top manga recommendation. Especially if you've watched the anime.

tl;dr: A manga adaptation that has some weaknesses, but is overall a very good blend of romance and economics. This manga is an adaptation of a light novel that was also adapted into a pretty popular anime. It is primarily centered around two core aspects. The first core aspect is the story of Holo and Lawrence, their relationship and their growth. It's an incredibly slow burn romance. A lot of their interactions stem from them both constantly teasing each other, with Holo generally being the one to start things off, but they're both also very cool headed and able to respond well to such teasing, andthus it's like something of a game between the two. There's some very subtle shifting in this which shows their relationship progress, but it's really subtle and thus overall, the relationship does feel quite slow. There are moments in the story that break from this and have more intense and honest moments, but for the relationship buildup things are very rarely explicit. They do eventually properly become honest with each other and their relationship fully clicks, but that felt like it was a bit weak in that the transition wasn't handled that intensely or with enough impact, even though their relationship did clearly change afterwards. Them properly in a relationship was handled quite well too, where they properly consider together various things like what's most important to them and what they want to do and how that's changed from how things were before. Though it felt like there was a lot that was touched upon but not discussed in that much depth, such as Holo's immortality. This aspect also ended incredibly well with a pretty lengthy epilogue dedicated entirely just to it that finished off the manga perfectly, though I believe the novels continued past this and are still continuing. The second core aspect is the various economic schemes and such that Lawrence gets involved with. I'm certainly not an economist, and know pretty much nothing about medieval economics, but what was shown and described felt pretty believable and consistent. The schemes themselves felt pretty well thought out and told pretty well in that they had good pacing with twists that worked well. Still, it did feel like it wasn't explaining things in that much depth. This was fine for most of the schemes, because they weren't too complicated, but the last couple were on another level and felt like they definitely could have used more explaining because I had to think about parts of them quite a bit, rereading portions in the process, in order to understand them and certain parts still don't completely make sense to me. These schemes are episodic, in that very little from earlier ones affect later ones. I should note thought, that it is very clear that parts were definitely skipped, and that felt a bit jarring at times. All but the last episode also have very little to do with Lawrence or Holo personally, but rather are them simply being involved in situations where they may make or lose a lot of money. There are pretty solid stories behind each of these schemes, and the side characters that are involved with them are pretty decently fleshed out as side characters, though only to the level of side characters. Still, their relationship with Lawrence and Holo, and just as importantly their effect on the relationship between Lawrence and Holo, was substantial and well worth reading. Each of these episodes is self contained and has a pretty solid ending in their own right, but the ending of the manga overall does a good job of bringing them all together in that it doesn't involve any sort of scheme of it's own but it does bring everyone from all the episodes together which is a great way to end things as it makes the impactful ending focused on Holo and Lawrence even more impactful. The art was decent, in that it could definitely be good at times, and consistently was with covers and full page illustrations as well as in both the beginning the end, but for the most part it didn't feel like it was trying all that hard and though there were panels that stood out, for the most part it looked kind of dull.

I'm not going to lie, having such a great memories of the first anime adaptation from when I was a teenager, this manga has been quite a disappointment. The setting of Spice & Wolf is quite original (an itinerant merchant who begins traveling with a harvest "goddess" in a medieval world), and the first 40% of the story (precisely the part that was adapted into the anime) is excellent, full of interesting characters and clever developments... But after that, the quality begins to decline rapidly, with situations dragging on far too long (arcs that would have been wrapped up in little more than one volume now fillalmost four volumes with a ton of unnecessary details and side talks), and their resolutions feeling much clumsier and even boring (it's as if the author ran out of good ideas after the first part). And don't even get me started on its rather generic ending... Another thing I noticed in this manga adaptation is that the conversations between the two protagonists (which should be one of the main pillars of a work like this) feel weaker: it's as if the author wanted them to be constantly witty and subtle, but he's just not that good at it, so at times they feel childish and in some cases even choppy or just don't make sense. It's also worth mentioning that this manga, supposedly a romantic seinen, feels like it's been heavily censored: at some point it's completely obvious that they're a couple, so it's pretty ridiculous that you can't see a single kiss until the very last chapter. And lastly, the art is much worse here than in the anime adaptations, and not only because of the obvious "lack of movement", but because the drawing style of this comic is too simple, and at times it seems that the artist only put in the minimum effort necessary to convey the idea. And of course, it also hurts not to be accompanied by the excellent soundtrack from the first anime adaptation. TO BE CLEAR, THIS MANGA IS NOT THAT BAD, it's just that its mediocre second half and the flaws mentioned above ruins what could have been a masterpiece. If you want to get into the world of Spice & Wolf, do yourself a favor and just watch one of its two anime adaptations (I'd say the first one has a better soundtrack, but the second one has more modern animation). P.S.: I noticed that the entire Kumersun arc was erased in this manga adaptation, I have no idea why.

I start this review by saying that spice and wolf is, for me, one of the few Japanese works that can uniquely describe a medieval / fantasy world, implementing slice of life facets to a solid and interesting story. Moreover, unlike many lovers of spice and wolf, I believe that the manga is a work that has nothing to envy to the anime and the light novel, since it presents the engaging story of spice and wolf, adding however the fantastic drawings of koume sensei, which give peculiar details to Holo (in particular), and make Lawrence a character who demonstrates many more emotions. Now Ifinish giving my personal judgments and list the reasons why I highly recommend reading spice and wolf to lovers of the genre, or to those who know this work but are reluctant to read the manga transposition. Story (8,5/10) The story follows the travels of Holo and Lawrence, respectively a divine wolf, who would like to return to his native land after a long stay in the village of Pasloe, where she is no longer respected by the inhabitants; and a merchant, who would like to open his own business and stop wandering, settling in one place and staying there for life. The story of the manga sometimes differs from that of the light novel, as it ended first, and the light novel still continues. However, in any case, the adaptation of sensei Koume is still enjoyable, sometimes it presents very long dialogues, but they're are very well chosen, and make perfectly understand the problems and adventures that gravitate around the economy. Characters (8,5/10) Characters are one of the strengths of spice and wolf. The imagination and effort put into creating main characters like Lawrence and Holo are remarkable. Moreover, even the secondary characters are very interesting and unique in their own way. The characters fit perfectly into the story, and never feel boring or underdeveloped. Indeed, in each narrative arc it is possible to discover interesting secondary characters useful for the resolution of the specific economic problem, who come into contact with Lawrence and Holo (who always find themselves in the midst of events and must resolve conflicts between cities or commercial companies). Sometimes these characters help the protagonists and sometimes they get in the way, but they are never bland or badly characterized. Art style (9/10) The art style of sensei Koume is elaborate, but at the same time it almost seems like a sketch at times. The expressions of Holo are priceless, as are the rural and medieval landscapes that are drawn by the sensei. Koume was really the right mangaka to draw this genre of manga, even if most of his works are h-manga, I must say that he is really talented and I would be happy if he could also adapt other works like spice and wolf. Enjoyment (9,5/10) In this section there is not much to say ... The manga is relaxing from start to finish, and its medieval atmosphere makes it even more enjoyable. Moreover, the alternation of serious and happy moments, with the continuous and inevitable company of the divine Holo (best waifu) make it one of my favorites. Overall (9) To finish this review, I recommend you to also read the original source and watch the anime, as they are worth all the time and money you will invest in watching / reading them.