Book Review: Spice and Wolf volume 5

So it appears that before I did have a good reason to worry that Yen Press had only licensed the first six (novel) volumes of Spice and Wolf since that was the case, however recently they announced they had licensed I believe the next three which actually makes me less worried. Sure the whole, 17 volume series isn't licensed but licensing through volume 9 shows that there is a market for them (or at least, the series is selling at or above what they predicted) and that they will license more if there is demand for them. So I guess my job now is to keep reviewing the books and convincing everyone else that they're worth buying huh?

Spice and Wolf (volume five) by Isuna Hasekura, illustrated by Jyuu Ayakura

Summary: Covering the same material as the second arc of the second tv season, Holo and Lawrence have arrived in the town of Lenos where they have heard a town chronicler might have more records of where Holo’s elusive home of Yoitsu lies. A fellow merchant introduces them to him but they want some help in return, help with a risky endeavor involving the town’s fur trade that might end up being more than they can chew.

The Good: The books continue to excel in creating secondary characters that don’t feel like repeats of an earlier side character and are rather fleshed out for characters who (probably) won’t ever appear in the series again. This is a bit easier to accomplish in a story that spends a lot of time with the characters sitting around and talking but when you think about it it’s impressive just how many characters Hasekura has been able to create without repeating traits (and there are still 12 more books to go!). There was also some very good foreshadowing this time around and once again felt like a solid installment.

The Bad: So far the stories have been rather good at explaining the economics and politics that make up the various situations and I’ve been able to follow along (and having already seen many of the stories in anime form has helped) but this one did confuse me quite a bit. This didn’t make me like the story less per-say but when everything was said and done I wasn’t quite sure what had happened and I do hope the economics in the next book are easier to follow.

Despite my trouble with the economic parts I still thought this was a good installment, although I must confess I'm more excited for the next book since then we'll be dealing with completely new material again. Funny enough by now I really want to watch the anime series again, it's been a few years since I've seen it, I've now read all the source material, and Funimation has some rather good prices for both seasons now, hmmmm.

Book Review: Spice and Wolf (volume four)

Funny story here, I didn't actually mean to get a copy of this book when I did. Back in August I had my mom place a RightStuf order for me (since I was going to be out of town when the final Utena set went on pre-order and I was afraid they would sell out of the rings before I had a chance to order) but a few things went screwy, my mom accidentally placed two orders instead of one and I didn't know about this until TRSI had a Yen Press sale and I went to add this volume to my cart and discovered that not only was it already in one of my orders but it had shipped as well. Oops, although I wasn't too unhappy at this turn of events since I wanted to read the volume soon anyway, especially since volume four was not covered by the anime (season one covered volumes 1 & 2, season two covered volumes 3 & 5) so I was curious to see if there was a reason Brains Base had chosen not to animate this novel.

Spice and Wolf by Isuna Hasekura, illustrated by Jyuu Ayakura

  Here is the American cover which is also better than the previous ones but the plain white background bothers me, sure there are regular novels with white backgrounds but it's usually a very minimalistic style cover and this just isn't minimalism, especially with that kind of font used for the title.

Summary: About a week after their last adventure, Holo and Laurence are searching for an abbey they heard about in Kumerson that has a large collection of pagan tales and hopefully more information on Holo's lost hometown. But when they arrive in the village of Tereo they encounter unexpected resistance and an interesting arrangement between the village and the nearby town of Enberch.

The Good: I'm not sure why this story wasn't adapted into the anime version (perhaps it's too similar to the next story?) because it was a fairly solid story that uses yet another point of commerce for it's conflict and has a rather clever solution in the end. Holo and Lawerence's relationship continues to progress forward slowly (it's a little hard to remember that the novels only have a short gap of time between them, that makes the speed the relationship is developing at seem much more realistic) but there certainly is progress for both of them.

The Bad: The ending does feel a little bit like a deus ex machina (funny enough, it both kinda is and is supposed to be seen as one) but I still thought it was a clever solution. Elsa (the priest in Tereo and one of the major characters) felt a little flat to me despite Hasekura's attempts to make her a more rounded character however. She had quite a few scenes and made decisions but never seemed to have a lot of personality to me and I simply had a hard time caring about what she was doing as a result. The other side characters were much more interesting (such as the village elder, the miller and the bar keeper's wife) so I was sad that Elsa felt so dull for the entire story.

The Art: The illustrator for Spice & Wolf is the same as the previous novels so the art remains unchanged. The designs are a little too simple for my taste (which is odd, generally light novel art is more intricate than manga art which is turn is more complicated than anime artwork) but I really do like Holo's look on the cover.

So another good addition to the series, now to hope that it stays that way for the remaining 13 volumes. Funny enough this is the only Yen Press series I'm not behind on, really hoping that next year I can take advantage of more of TRSI's sales so I can try to stay that way since it's so frustrating to be volumes behind on the releases.

Book Review: Spice and Wolf (volume 3)

Wow, I remember reading volume two way back in August but I just had so much else to read/buy that I didn't get this volume until my local Borders hosted their going-out-of-sale sale back in March. Fans of the anime will recognize this arc as the first half of season two (which is streaming on Funimation's website I believe but not yet out on DVD) and, as before, if you haven't read the previous books or seen the first season of the anime you're going to be a bit confused. Yes the plots of each book is rather self-contained but this is a very character driven drama and, if you don't know where the characters are coming from, you can't really appreciate where they're going.

Spice and Wolf by Isuna Hasekura

 
This is the only picture I could find of the American slipcover (I'd provide a better photograph myself but my copy of the slipcover is two hours away) but they're getting more and more similar. My only complain there is for them to get an actual tail and ears for the model to use, the airbrushing in photoshop looks awful and, speaking from experience, the tail and ears aren't even that hard to make.

Summary: Continuing in their travel's north towards Holo's homeland, Holo and Lawrence end up in the town of Kumersun and plan to stay a couple of days to enjoy the festival. But when the young fish merchant, Amati, becomes smitten with Holo and resolves to pay off her "debt" to Lawrence the two end up with a much more exciting stay than they bargained for. 

The Good: It's a new book which means a new economic quandary for Lawrence (and Holo, although she is more the cause of if here and doesn't help out as much) and the solution is very different from what the characters have had to do so far. The book also provides more information on Holo's hometown of Yoitsu (and seems to foreshadow who they will talk to about it in the next book) and hints that there are even more supernatural forces in the world than the duo have encountered so far. The book also tests Lawrence and Holo's feelings for each other even more so the story manages to have character growth, central plot progression and a story that is neatly wrapped up in one volume, not bad at all.

The Bad: Despite how well the story explains the various economic escapades, it's still going to take a little while to understand for the average non-business person to understand Lawrence's plan*. It's also frustrating to see Holo, who is always held to be the more mature one of the pair, simply break down, Lawrence's inability to explain what was really going on and, in the end, it's still somehow his fault and he's the one who has to apologize. Hasekura says that he has finally remembered how to write his characters but they still don't seem quite like the duo from the first book.

The Art: For an 18 or so year old boy, Amati looks awfully young. He looked rather young in the anime as well actually and now it's clear that wasn't a mistake on the animator's part, it comes from the original illustrations. Aside from that bit (which was distracting admittedly, it's hard to take his marriage proposal seriously if he looks that young), the art is consistent with the designs from the other two novels and the cover is rather pretty as well.

So, still liking the story well enough and I believe the final volume has now come out in Japan (volume 16, either that or the final volume will be a collection of short stories, volume 17, haven't seen anyone confirm which one it will be yet, although dammit I found a detailed, unmarked spoiler of the ending on a forum the other day, not happy about that). So just another six more years or so until all the volumes are out in the US, jooooooy.

*I'm speaking from my own experience here, I have a general grasp on economics but it still took me about fifteen minutes of mulling his plan around in my brain before I finally grasped how it was supposed to help him.