Keep It or Trade It?: Tales of Graces f (PS3)
Keep It or Delete It?: Ketzal’s Corridors (3DS eShop)
Keep It or Trade It?: Prototype 2 (360)
Keep It or Trade It?: Tekken 3D: Prime Edition (3DS)
Keep It or Delete It? : Mass Effect Infiltrator (iPad)
When Yen Press first announced that they licensed the Spice and Wolf light novels, North American fans rejoiced at the chance to read the story in English. Then there was an uproar over the cover art which traded a cute anime-style wolf girl for a darkened female silhouette with a tail that is probably more intriguing to a Twilight fan than an anime fan. My best guess is that Yen Press was assuming that they already captured the anime and manga fan market that they were going to get, and by using a different cover, they might grab some new eyes when it was on the shelf, but in doing so, they alienated part of their initial market. They attempted to rectify the problem by offering a dust jacket for the book from certain retailers, but the only one ever announced was RightStuf. While they deserve some credit for trying to fix the situation, it was not the best course of action. We all know the old adage; so, regardless of what the cover looks like, how is the actual book?
Isuna Hasekura originally wrote the first volume of Spice and Wolf in 2006. Since then, the ongoing light novel series has thirteen volumes and has spawned two season of anime, two video games, and a manga series. The story centers around Kraft Lawrence, a traveling merchant who happens to find a wolf goddess named Holo in his cart after visiting a small village to buy wheat. The story follows the pair on their travels from town to town as Kraft trades goods and tries to find information about Holo’s home. The first volume covers the start of the anime through the dealings with Medio and Milone trading company in Pazzio.
If you have seen the anime, apparently there were very few adaptations from the light novel. In the novel there is a different merchant (Yarei not Chloe) in the first village, and the novel goes into more narrative detail than the anime, as expected from a written medium. The translation is pretty good; I didn’t notice any flagrant mistranslations, but there was one spot that I had to read a few times because it was worded oddly. Otherwise, the novel is a fairly easy read and provides a little supplement for those who have already watched the anime.
Since it is a light novel and not a manga, art is not a major factor in the book. There are a few illustrations done by Jyuu Ayakura throughout the book, and they are not a high quality as one might like. The first few pictures before the start of the story are in color, while the interstitials during the story are in black and white. The drawings of Holo maker her look a bit younger than her anime version, closer to the “mid-teen” age she is supposed to look. The other art consideration comes from the book cover. As I mentioned above, the original North American cover is shadowy and nothing like the story itself, a very disappointing choice. The supplimental dust jacket that has the Japanese cover on it is much better; it’s unfortunate that it isn’t widely available, though. The paper quality seems a little thinner than an average paperback or manga, but similar to the thickness of a Japanese light novel, still firm enough that you don’t have to be overprotective with the book.
All in all, Spice and Wolf volume 1 is a good read; though it has been overshadowed in some corners of the internet due to the way Yen Press handled its launch. Hopefully, Yen Press has learned from this experience and volume 2 will not have to go through the same rigamarole.
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Spice and Wolf Light Novels Approaching the End | G.A.M.E.S. on 12 Sep 2010 at 1:43 pm #
[...] a manga series, and two Nintendo DS games in Japan. In North America, Yen Press publishes the light novel series and the third novel is due out in December. FUNimation licensed the two anime series based [...]