“Seeking strength and glory, the adventurer Lecan challenges monster and maze alike. Until one day, he finds a mysterious black hole…leading to another world! But even in a different world, the path of the “One-Eyed Wolf” remains unchanged. The only question is can he survive the new world? ” (Yen Press)
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One can contest that dark fantasy manga is held up to the highest artistic standards within the medium. From its early years with Go Nagai's “Devil Man” to the iconic “Berserk” from Kentaro Miura, the genre has been defined by ridiculously detailed and stunning visuals. In this regard, It is obvious that artist Gonbe Shinkawa draws heavy influence from those that defined the genre before him, as his panels can be utterly stunning and on par with the best out there. However, dialogue-heavy panels can feature odd facial expressions and the grandiose battle sequences don't capture motion with total clarity.
Regardless, the series' most prominent feature is the artistic direction, and the overall style is captivating in its approach. This is further reflected in the story, as the narrative in volume one feels rather generic and offers little to draw the reader into the world of the “One-Eyed World”. This is slightly surprising, given the book being tackled by a team; Shienbishop, Gonbe Shinkawa & Kichi Taga play the role of writer, artist, and character design in that order. The end product does not feel like a cumulated effort, though this could have also been the case of too many people working on one project.
In fact, some of the narrative elements are generic to the point of being mundane, and adding in some aspects of dungeon crawling and iseaki into the dark landscape does little to inject some uniqueness into the end product. Furthermore, the characters lack an immediate depth that pushes them beyond common tropes. Essentially, you have your “bad-a**” and the Princess that sees beyond his brutish exterior, while everyone else around these characters fills roles of nobility or servants whose only relevance comes with how they interact with either of the previously mentioned characters. Sadly, this makes it really easy to disconnect from the characters and difficult to pull more from the book beyond its superb moments of artistic flair.
Sadly, there is little reason to get excited about a turnaround as the original Japanese series was canceled after three volumes, so readers can expect the book to come to a rather abrupt end. This is very unfortunate, the potential was certainly there to craft a memorable dark fantasy epic. Consequently, the art of Gonbe Shinkawa (though inconsistent) at least gives the book a strong lasting impression and reason to collect the short-lived series.
While the above may seem overly negative, I enjoyed the release for its moments of visual flair and straightforward storytelling. At face value, “The Wolf Never Sleeps” is a competent entry in the dark fantasy that should please any completist of the genre. In addition, Yen Press putting out the book in a larger edition shows that they possibly understood the appeal lies in the art of Shinkawa over the story. Ultimately, “The Wolf Never Sleeps” makes for a striking addition to the library, but readers should be aware of both the limited run and lack of narrative prowess before diving in.
