Spice and Wolf is a series I have recently been engrossed in, even though I have known of it since sometime in 2008. I have just recently finished the first season of the anime (in english, the dub is pretty good) and became an instant fan. I guess I’m a sucker for a good story, haha.
For a quick summary, here is the series description from Yen Press:

The life of a traveling merchant is a lonely one, a fact with which Kraft Lawrence is well acquainted. Wandering from town to town with just his horse, cart, and whatever wares have come his way, the peddler has pretty well settled into his routine—that is, until the night Lawrence finds a wolf goddess asleep in his cart. Taking the form of a fetching girl with wolf ears and a tail, Holo has wearied of tending to harvests in the countryside and strikes up a bargain with the merchant to lend him the cunning of “Holo the Wisewolf” to increase his profits in exchange for taking her along on his travels. What kind of businessman could turn down such an offer? Lawrence soon learns, though, that having an ancient goddess as a traveling companion can be a bit of a mixed blessing. Will this wolf girl turn out to be too wild to tame?

You know, reading that totally makes it seem like such an unmanly thing to like… but whatever, don’t judge me – I love this series.

Spice and Wolf originally started out as a light novel (its like a short book with some illustrations), and then moved into other forms such as a manga and an anime adaption. I first found out about the series though its anime back when it started airing in Japan, sometime in 2008. I watched some of it and then lost interest because the subs were horrible (i probably just had some bad luck picking a group…). It was still on my ‘watch sometime later’ list until I found it on Netflix a few weeks ago, and then I spent all Sunday afternoon watching it (season 1 is a short 13 episodes, only took me 5 or 6 hours). Since the 2nd season isn’t out in English until August this year, I decided to pick up some of the translated books so I could advance through the story, though the first 2 books are the same as the first anime season. The third book is supposedly the same as episodes 1 – 6 of season 2, but I haven’t read any of them yet.

I have been refusing to watch Spice and Wolf season 2 subbed because I want to watch it dubbed. I have this strange affinity with dubs, especially when I watch the majority of a title with them. Since i saw all of season 1 dubbed, i must watch season 2 dubbed for consistency. It doesn’t bother me though, because the Spice and Wolf dub is pretty good. Until the 2nd season comes out however, i will read the books. The 4th book comes out later this month (June 24 i believe), and that will probably cover season 2 episodes 7 – 12 (Well, the anime covers the books, not the other way around. The books are the original media).

The only thing about the English novels is that the translator and publisher, Yen Press, decided to Americanize the covers (As seen above, the first book has a different cover style) to reach a wider audience. They released the first book this way, but after fan outcry, released the next 2 novels with the original cover and just included a dust jacket with an American cover (seen below). However the only way to get the original cover for the first book is through a semi-rare dust jacket that I hope I can find, because I actually like that cover a lot more.

I know I have wide range of topics for posts, from programming, vehicles, internet shenanigans, music, and video games; but this is another topic in which I will be talking about as well, Anime, Manga, and Japanese related stuff in general. This all incorporates into who I am, so if you don’t like this stuff, feel free to skip to one of my other articles that you would find more interesting.

I will voice my thoughts on each book individually after I have read them… maybe not as a review, but just my general thoughts about them. It might be awhile until then, but we’ll see. The books are generally short, the first being 230 pages, second being 280, third being 246. I could probably read them all in three days, but there is no fun in just blowing through them all. As I said, I will post my thoughts on the books as I read through them!