The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

Sating the Wolf

What's It About? 

Noah, a wolf with no family, was banished from his beloved pack after presenting as an Omega. While wandering alone in a village of herbivores, he meets Henri, a rabbit who lives alone with his little brothers. In a town where carnivores are feared, Henri bravely takes Noah in and offers him a job. When Noah accidentally goes into heat, it suddenly awakens Henri's Alpha instincts.

Will a world divided between carnivores and herbivores accept the relationship between a little Alpha rabbit and a big Omega wolf?

Sating the Wolf has story and art by Troy Arukuno. The English translation is by Dylan Jeckels and lettered by Vibrraant Publishing Studio. Published under Tokyopop's LoveLove label. (October 24, 2023).

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Did you enjoy Tokyopop's height difference BL titles but wish that the height difference was even more pronounced? Then do they have the book for you! Sating the Wolf takes the whole alpha/omega thing and pairs it with the herbivore/carnivore trope to tell the story of an omega wolf named Noah and an alpha rabbit named Henri. It's actually charming in an explicit way.

Noah and Henri meet when Noah is thrown out of his pack for being one of the two rarest things, an omega carnivore. He was already an oddity among the other wolves because he doesn't eat meat; when Zeke found him as a child, he had been traumatized from witnessing other wolves attack and kill some herbivores. The whole omega bit was just too much if the pack order was to be maintained, although we do see Zeke regret that later on, which is good because he's essentially ousted his son. With nowhere else to go, Noah wanders around and ends up in an herbivore town where he saves two young bunnies from a false accusation. They take him home to meet their older brother Henri, and the rest of the story unfolds from there.

A few severely underdeveloped elements of this book drag it down. The major one is that Henri's parents were killed by wolves when he was younger, and his little brothers were babies; this seems to tie in with Noah's traumatic past. Were Noah's parents the wolves who killed Henri's parents? We don't strictly need to know, but it would have been interesting, mostly because it would have further developed the theme of how children aren't the exact replicas of their parents and change is possible. Similarly, we don't get enough of Noah and Henri's developing romance. They seem to be getting along; Noah goes into heat and triggers Henri as an alpha, and then things move quickly from there. If you're only reading this for the sex, it's less of an issue, but if you're in it for the love story, it gets a bit short-changed.

Not that it's entirely devoid of cuteness. Henri is determined not to let their alpha and omega statuses influence their relationship any more than their species, and he really works to make Noah understand that he loves him for his entire self, not just because of his pheromones. Towards the end of the book, there's a scene where Henri brings Noah to the town meeting to inform all of the other rabbits that they're in love and getting married, no matter what they say, and seeing him stand up for the person he loves is a lovely thing. Even Zeke eventually figures it all out, painting Noah and Henri as proof that none of the labeling nonsense matters at the end of the day, which seems to be the point of the entire story. As points go, it's a good one, and the art is also easy on the eyes. This would have been better as a two-volume series, but even as just one book, it manages to hit a lot of the right notes.