Marriage to the Wolf: The Tale of an Inter-species Union.

Rating:🍋🍋🍋🍋

Marriage to the Wolf: The Tale of an Inter-species Union (Ookami e no Yomeiri ~Ishu Konintan~) it’s an one volume manga created by Hana Inui. Its the author first work. Published on onBlue between July 2018 and August 2019, the manga drawn attention on Japan and it was ranked second on the 2020 Chil Chil BL Awards, on the Newcomer category.

Warning content: The story has rape and bestiality scenes. These scenes aren’t the main focus of this review, but be warned.

The story presents us to a world of individuals with animal characteristics living on a place similar to the feudal Japan. Kaede, the protagonist, belongs to a rabbit tribe which is going through hardships maintaining themselves. One night, Kaede and his family are surprised with the visit of an individual of the wolf tribe. The visitor proposes that his tribe could provide food to Kaede’s family for some time. The condition? Kaede must go to live with the wolves tribe as their future bride (yes, it’s ‘bride’ that is spoken). Pressured by his relatives and by the scarce situation, Kaede moves to the wolves tribe where he must grow used with his new life and marry with Ren, his chosen fiance.

Something I really liked in the manga was the fact that even with the big arranged marriage cliche, a good portion of the wolf tribe works to make Kaede a part of their family, treating him in a friendly way. Kaede is an interesting character to follow during the story. Thrown in a situation against his will because he worries about his tribe, he tries to make the best of his new life. At the beginning he can look somewhat childish (this can be reinforced by his childlike appearance), but he behaves in a mature way regarding his engagement , treating his newfound family members with politeness and trying to learn the most about them and the place he will have to live. He is very sincere with his emotions, but tries his best to fit within his future home.

It is with his future husband that he has most conflict since they can’t establish any form of communication. Ren, Kaede’s future husband and future tribe’s chief, closes himself for Kaede’s existence. For him, Kaede it’s only a new formal obligation because of his role as the chief.

Because of the lack of understanding between the bethored and the marriage rituals that forces the two of them to engage in sexual activities, the relationship between the two characters becomes a little tiresome to follow at the beginning. It’s hard to not get angry at Ren, whom keeps rejecting Kaede but still makes sexual advances towards him, even if its his ‘obligation’. His selfishness leaves Kaede vulnerable to other person sexual advances in a very uncomfortable manner. Their sexual involvement at the beginning its unpleasant because it’s obvious that they both want no part in these activities, only doing it because of it’s their roles. It’s understandable that this scenario makes the manga unpalatable for readers who doesn’t like these forced situations.

(A warning: most of times they have sex they keep their human appearance. However, in one of the latter chapters they have sex while one of them is out of their mind and totally on his animal form. So, I will leave this as a warning if that’s not your cup of tea either.)

The relationship between the two of them is also tiresome at the beginning. Since we start with Kaede point of view, it’s easy to hate Ren because of the way he treats his bride. It’s from chapter 2 or 3 that their relationship start to advance a bit. Living with other people of the wolves tribe, Kaede has the opportunity to look at his future husband with better eyes since Ren starts to begin to act more natural in his presence. Ren also starts opening himself to Kaede, even if it’s a bit slow. A relationship of trust starts to be built.

It can read like I have a lot of “buts” and “ifs” about the manga over the text, but overall he’s an absolutely delight to read, since it portraits the development (in a very explosive way) of the relationship between two individuals, who don’t even know each other, suddenly thrown in a serious compromise as an engagement. Ren and Kaede are very mean towards each other at the beginning, Ren being the worst of the two of them, for reasons that are explored over the story. However, their relationship evolves in a very simple but enjoyable way, with their world traditions and culture as background.

It’s Hana Inui’s first manga, so I would like to reinforce how much I loved her art. It can be considered very simple, but it’s gorgeous on a lot of scenes. Above all, her colors are wonderful and magnifies her pencil work. The award on the newcomer category it’s more than deserved, both because of the art and the story and I’m very eager to see what new stories she will make on the future.

The manga was licensed in English by futekiya and the first chapter is avaliable to be read for free online.