(CR) Spice and Wolf - Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf - General Discussion Thread

[Alchemist007]

I don't hate that we're getting more of this series, but damn a reboot? Like no one has the ability to just watch older seasons (like Devil is a Part Timer). Hell if they just hyped a continuation properly you could make new sales on the older releases, almost free money. Hopefully this is good and I can look forward to S3 in 2027 or something I suppose.

[serenade_beta]

Dang, it's been so long since this sub-forum was revived

Originally Posted by Nachtwandler

Oh yeah, it is so mature to come out in a topic about the anime adaptation a lot of people hoped for to be revived and first proclame you won't watch it anyway and when rant about what a dick the LN author is because of one controvercy that happened like 12 o 13 years ago and that he should never show on public because of this now. I won't write anything more, I just don't like people being dicks to much. Let others enjoy the announcment.

I have the right to point out any amount of problems about any anime, but you don't have the right to harass me about my opinions. I evaluate anime differently from you. Shocking, I know.
If you truly wanted others to enjoy the announcement or whatever, you wouldn't be rambling about me in the "Spice and Wolf" thread in the first place.

The Spice and Wolf author has never apologized for anything he has done either, choosing to do nothing. And no matter how many years pass, I think the public will only reassess their opinion of him if he ever chooses to apologize. Hey, I'm being nicer than him. He said to socially lynch people like himself (among other stuff like animal abuse and fare evasion).

[s07195]

Can't believe this forum is out of the dead threads! Looking forward to the anime... but why is it a reboot? I thought the general opinion of Season 1 was that it was TOO close to the books, dialogue pacing wise.

Also I can't believe I'm back here on Animesuki for the first or second time since the hack. Hope everything is doing fine here. I got tired of reddit (a bit)

[Last Sinner]

I looked up threads in other places and I found that my 2 years theory is becoming more of a reality. Spice and Wolf is considered ancient by newer anime viewers. It takes time for people to want to go back through anime history. But in an age of convenience, if it takes effort for them to find, most won't bother. Heck, I'm guessing anything pre-2020 is considered ancient for the newer crop. So...hence reboot. Seems heavy but...if it gets completed, worth?

As for the author's prior actions, links please. Otherwise, find a local beef bowl place and have it out.

[Kanon]

How many episodes do you think would be needed for a full adaptation? A reboot seems rather risky to me. I don't know if it will attract many newer fans, or if old fans would be willing to go though 24+ episodes of the same stuff again (I would, since it's not like I remember much). It's not like the original series' visuals are dated or anything...

[Last Sinner]

Depends on how long is needed to cover Yoitsu. 40 eps?

[MeoTwister5]

There is a good bit of stuff in the middle volumes you could argue you can cut out without affecting the entire thing. The last 3-4 volumes however will likely need to be more or less preserved as is.

[Nachtwandler]

Originally Posted by Kanon

How many episodes do you think would be needed for a full adaptation? A reboot seems rather risky to me. I don't know if it will attract many newer fans, or if old fans would be willing to go though 24+ episodes of the same stuff again (I would, since it's not like I remember much). It's not like the original series' visuals are dated or anything...

If you cut the side-stories, it's 14 volumes worth of material. Old anime went 6 episodes per volume. Though, as people said, they can lower it to like 4 for most of them. Still, it will need like 5 coures to cover everything.

[Last Sinner]

But that would mean 60 episodes minimum? That's going to require Golden Kamuy level dedication. That manga was still running and doing well. Spice and Wolf is...technically finished for the main duo? What's the payoff? Is there some other game/manga being released we have no idea about?

[Nachtwandler]

As I mentioned above, both new side-story volumes and a sequel LN are coming out regularly (new volume of sequel comes in July). Plus, despite a bunch of otakus dropping it due to dissatisfaction with the author, the franchice is still pretty popular. VR games were success, figures and other merch also still sale (new Holo figurine is anounced recently).

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Nachtwandler

If you cut the side-stories, it's 14 volumes worth of material. Old anime went 6 episodes per volume. Though, as people said, they can lower it to like 4 for most of them. Still, it will need like 5 coures to cover everything.

Maybe they'll give it the Fruits Basket treatment.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Maybe they'll give it the Fruits Basket treatment.

One can hope. And at least there they kept the same VAs.

[relentlessflame]

Regarding the issue with the author from the past, that's not relevant to the discussion of this anime, so let's please leave it alone. I guess if people really want to discuss that side-topic, a separate thread could be created, but we shouldn't derail this thread. This is about the anime not the novels, after all, and this production involves an entire team of people.

Regarding the discussion of it being a reboot, I guess we will see. It is possible that, due to how much time has passed, they are going to start the show with a sort of prologue episode that catches people up on the story, rather than assuming that people will still remember the first two seasons, so it could be the scenes are from that. (And they're re-animating it so that it fits into the new character design look.) Or yeah, maybe they've just decided to start over. The biggest concern I would have either way is if they're going to pace the story too fast -- the first two seasons were at a very nice pace, but most LN adaptations are much more aggressive, and given how many novels there are in the backlog now, I can see the temptation for them to try to move quickly and cover as much content as possible in a sort of "digest" fashion (to try to drive people to buy the novels to get the details). Obviously it would be *nice* if they would actually faithfully adapt all the novels in full until the end, but certainly that'd be impossible at the original pacing (as that'd take like two years of episodes). So yeah, this will be a question of what compromises they make. We'll see.

[s07195]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Maybe they'll give it the Fruits Basket treatment.

One can only dream...

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Regarding the discussion of it being a reboot, I guess we will see. It is possible that, due to how much time has passed, they are going to start the show with a sort of prologue episode that catches people up on the story, rather than assuming that people will still remember the first two seasons, so it could be the scenes are from that. (And they're re-animating it so that it fits into the new character design look.) Or yeah, maybe they've just decided to start over. The biggest concern I would have either way is if they're going to pace the story too fast -- the first two seasons were at a very nice pace, but most LN adaptations are much more aggressive, and given how many novels there are in the backlog now, I can see the temptation for them to try to move quickly and cover as much content as possible in a sort of "digest" fashion (to try to drive people to buy the novels to get the details). Obviously it would be *nice* if they would actually faithfully adapt all the novels in full until the end, but certainly that'd be impossible at the original pacing (as that'd take like two years of episodes). So yeah, this will be a question of what compromises they make. We'll see.

Obviously in the worst case we just get the first two novels again, but even at 4 eps a volume that still only covers up to Vol 3. If this is two-cour (which I haven't heard that it is, correct me if I'm wrong) , then we'd get Vol 4 and Vol 6 adapted hopefully, finally bringing in Col. That's only if they decide not to adapt short stories from Side Colors in between T_T

Even Myuri has a voice now thanks to VR, please give Col one too...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by s07195

Obviously in the worst case we just get the first two novels again, but even at 4 eps a volume that still only covers up to Vol 3. If this is two-cour (which I haven't heard that it is, correct me if I'm wrong) , then we'd get Vol 4 and Vol 6 adapted hopefully, finally bringing in Col. That's only if they decide not to adapt short stories from Side Colors in between T_T

Even Myuri has a voice now thanks to VR, please give Col one too...

I feel like it's pretty likely they'll find some way to bring Col into this because I imagine they want to also use this to promote Wolf & Parchment somehow. (I sort of wonder if, after the S&W anime airs, they might announce a Wolf & Parchment anime.)

Spoiler for Speculation based on the novels/game:

I wonder if one possibility is that they frame the whole show sort of the same way as the second VR game where Lawrence and Holo are re-telling the story of their meeting to Myuri. Myuri's role would be more of a cameo, but it'd give them a reason to include the story of how they met Col. And, it might also give them a reason to skip/skim some of the stuff they already covered in the previous seasons after the first volume so they skip ahead "for Myuri's sake" to the time when they met Col.

The main downside here is that, obviously, it kinda spoils the "end" of their journey for anyone who might be coming into this blind. But at the same time, it feels like that's not a very high risk given how "old" the original set of novels are now (and this question was more-or-less settled by Volume 5/Anime s2 anyway, truthfully). And yeah, as I said before, the odds of them doing a full-length faithful adaptation of the whole original novel series is probably zero, so one way or another they'll have to make some choices. At this point probably better to try to at least cover some of the parts that weren't previously animated.

[CrowKenobi]

Crunchyroll picks up the streaming rights.

Based upon the article, it looks like it could be a reboot.

[EroKing]

[Stark700]

Coming Spring 2024

https://spice-and-wolf.com/news/detail_240101_03.html

[Huh...?]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/87qP9hwrSAs

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[FlareKnight]

Trailers look good. It seems like they'll be giving this the love it deserves.

Season 1 will just feel like a rewatch with better animation though. Honestly I think the original show (especially season 1) nailed it. So I don't think this one can really outshine it and rather just hope to maintain the quality.

Will be nice to see Lawrence and Horo again.