Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf

A story about a merchant who finds himself bound to a wolf harvest goddess, Spice and Wolf is a grown-up anime on par with Frieren.

It has the will-they/won't-they vibe that's core to most rom-coms, but it's treated a little differently here. They have the problem that Holo, the goddess, is immortal (or at least very long lived) while Lawrence (the merchant) isn't.

Add to that, that it's left a little ambiguous as to if Holo's feelings are the effect of her being bound to him, along with Lawrence's own emotional reservations, and you have the makings of a complex relationship arc.

It can get side tracked on trade from time to time, as wheeling and dealing is its stand in for fantasy violence.

And I'd take any comparison with the original series with a grain of salt. I watched most of the new one, then went back and watched a few episodes of the old one, and I felt like the new one was slightly better.

I will say I'm a fan of the English dub. To me the original Japanese sounds a bit caricatured (Lawrence sounds too generic, and Holo sounds too young).