How does this compare to the original?

The new version is indeed closer to the source material. It's a good thing for purists. It's also a way to get new fans, if they simply continued the show from where it stopped, newer spectators would have been screwed. They would have been forced to roll with some of the changes the first anime did too.

But if I'm honest, I not only prefer the older anime, but I also genuinely think it's superior in term of direction and more interesting.

To begin with I feel the LN is rather flawed. I read it because I loved the anime and... it wasn't what I expected. For instance the romantic/sexual tension between Holo and Lawrence hits differently. In the anime you had many silences and short glances/long gazes that implied a lot. In the LN you can read everything Lawrence thinks, and oh boy, you don't want to... It feels like a cheap teenage teasing romcom instead of the more mature feeling the anime had.

Hopefully this should stay the same in both anime (welp, you never know, in 10 years teasing has become a rather popular genre in itself... So they might try their hand at that type of comedy to get closer to the LN too...). But I have actual example of mediocre directing in the new anime. For instance in episode 5 of the new anime, you have a long ass discussion between Lawrence and Marhait and you'll only see their ugly mugs for half of the episode. In the older anime you had picture to illustrate what they were talking about. Do note that they're talking about something rather technical but abstract that can be hard to grasp for some people.
Another instance of odd directing in the new anime would be the use of the harp for the chase... That's... unusual. I think the new anime has far less care and charm than the old one.

I also think the old anime simply tried to fix some of the meh writing of the LN with it's reinterpretation.

Now do I think Spice and Wolf needed a remake? It's a tough one... As I said earlier a continuation would have been hard to pull. But this isn't Furuba where the anime just creates its own end and makes it hard to come back to the story. The end of S2 was a smart innuendo, nothing more. It was rather elegant.
I also think that visually the old anime holds up very well... I actually prefer its visuals and I'm not a fan of Holo's design in the new anime. She feels younger and more childish. Voice actors have aged too, and I personally perceive a gap in their performance... But to be fair someone who didn't see the first anime could be fine with it... And casting new people would have pissed a part of the fanbase.

More than anything, this new adaptation is a business decision. If I'm not a fan of it, I really loved what they did with the begining of episode 1 that teases something in a far future. I also see it as a way to promote the sequel of the show.

I'll probably end up prefering the first anime. Adaptation that make changes aren't bad, I don't necessarily want 1 for 1 adaptations. But I'm fine with them giving the opportunity to newer fans to discover something closer to the original story.
I do think that there are MANY anime that could have benefited from this more tho... Some stuff just blatantly need remakes. Spice and Wolf wasn't really one of those things. And it's perfectly fine to watch the first anime, call it a day and continue with the LN.

Absurdly better in every way, unless you’re blinded by nostalgia.

The new version is indeed closer to the source material. It's a good thing for purists. It's also a way to get new fans, if they simply continued the show from where it stopped, newer spectators would have been screwed. They would have been forced to roll with some of the changes the first anime did too.

But if I'm honest, I not only prefer the older anime, but I also genuinely think it's superior in term of direction and more interesting.

To begin with I feel the LN is rather flawed. I read it because I loved the anime and... it wasn't what I expected. For instance the romantic/sexual tension between Holo and Lawrence hits differently. In the anime you had many silences and short glances/long gazes that implied a lot. In the LN you can read everything Lawrence thinks, and oh boy, you don't want to... It feels like a cheap teenage teasing romcom instead of the more mature feeling the anime had.

Hopefully this should stay the same in both anime (welp, you never know, in 10 years teasing has become a rather popular genre in itself... So they might try their hand at that type of comedy to get closer to the LN too...). But I have actual example of mediocre directing in the new anime. For instance in episode 5 of the new anime, you have a long ass discussion between Lawrence and Marhait and you'll only see their ugly mugs for half of the episode. In the older anime you had picture to illustrate what they were talking about. Do note that they're talking about something rather technical but abstract that can be hard to grasp for some people.
Another instance of odd directing in the new anime would be the use of the harp for the chase... That's... unusual. I think the new anime has far less care and charm than the old one.

I also think the old anime simply tried to fix some of the meh writing of the LN with it's reinterpretation.

Now do I think Spice and Wolf needed a remake? It's a tough one... As I said earlier a continuation would have been hard to pull. But this isn't Furuba where the anime just creates its own end and makes it hard to come back to the story. The end of S2 was a smart innuendo, nothing more. It was rather elegant.
I also think that visually the old anime holds up very well... I actually prefer its visuals and I'm not a fan of Holo's design in the new anime. She feels younger and more childish. Voice actors have aged too, and I personally perceive a gap in their performance... But to be fair someone who didn't see the first anime could be fine with it... And casting new people would have pissed a part of the fanbase.

More than anything, this new adaptation is a business decision. If I'm not a fan of it, I really loved what they did with the begining of episode 1 that teases something in a far future. I also see it as a way to promote the sequel of the show.

I'll probably end up prefering the first anime. Adaptation that make changes aren't bad, I don't necessarily want 1 for 1 adaptations. But I'm fine with them giving the opportunity to newer fans to discover something closer to the original story.
I do think that there are MANY anime that could have benefited from this more tho... Some stuff just blatantly need remakes. Spice and Wolf wasn't really one of those things. And it's perfectly fine to watch the first anime, call it a day and continue with the LN.

@R-e_n I miss when Anime took liberties with the source material. Kino no Tabi and FMA (both 2003) would not be as good if they stuck to the manga closely. Of course we have cases like Excel Saga where it makes no sense but hey it's a comedy so I guess it gets a pass.

For me I don't care so much about the art direction, or even the music, but it's the way that Holo and Lawrence are written that bothers me. In the original anime Holo had more of a sassy, flirtatious, and often times outright teasing/bullying (playfully) attitude early on. I felt like she was a lot more challenging of a character, and someone who truly kept Lawrence on his toes. There's still elements of that in this version, but it's much more dialled back, and I think that's a shame.

In the new version she's often just so agreeable that she hardly seems like the same character to me. Even when she does get upset, it's only briefly. For instance, in the sewer scene where she was upset because she expected Lawrence to be the one to come, they just gloss over her embarrassment/anger so quick it has less of an impact, where I feel both in the original anime and light novel that was a pretty major character point for her early on and revealed a lot about her emotions.

Overall I don't begrudge the new version for existing, and for a modern audience they might find the new art styles etc. more familiar to them. That's fine. I just feel the character dynamic between Holo and Lawrence is different than I expected, and for a lack of other words, more bland. For me the main reason to watch Spice and Wolf was that relationship between the two of them--they challenged each other, and the sort of cat and mouse game between them was a refreshing change from the typical anime romance plot.

The Remake is better than the original and a remake was needed to hook as many new fans as possible

@anizawa89 "I miss when Anime took liberties with the source material."

Well, I don't. A lot... and I mean A LOT of those so-called liberties were just nothing else, just a shit hitting the fan or utterly unnecessary to the overall picture. There were a few that really needed some, but not just comedy. Normal, character-driven stories also, such as for instances, drama (e.g. Galaxy Express 999). But in most of the cases liberties were just destructive to the adaptation (e.g. Da Capo, Green Green, Devilman TV and so on). Most of the original S&W liberties just flipped the already set table (e.g. the new character at the very beginning of the story).

@Ricz Demon Slayer would've been forgotten as a subpar shounen if not for UFOTable taking liberties. MAPPA elevated Jujutsu Kaisen to greatness with the way it re-interpreted scenes.

For me I don't care so much about the art direction, or even the music, but it's the way that Holo and Lawrence are written that bothers me. In the original anime Holo had more of a sassy, flirtatious, and often times outright teasing/bullying (playfully) attitude early on. I felt like she was a lot more challenging of a character, and someone who truly kept Lawrence on his toes. There's still elements of that in this version, but it's much more dialled back, and I think that's a shame.

In the new version she's often just so agreeable that she hardly seems like the same character to me. Even when she does get upset, it's only briefly. For instance, in the sewer scene where she was upset because she expected Lawrence to be the one to come, they just gloss over her embarrassment/anger so quick it has less of an impact, where I feel both in the original anime and light novel that was a pretty major character point for her early on and revealed a lot about her emotions.

Overall I don't begrudge the new version for existing, and for a modern audience they might find the new art styles etc. more familiar to them. That's fine. I just feel the character dynamic between Holo and Lawrence is different than I expected, and for a lack of other words, more bland. For me the main reason to watch Spice and Wolf was that relationship between the two of them--they challenged each other, and the sort of cat and mouse game between them was a refreshing change from the typical anime romance plot.

Having rewatched the original last year before we all knew this was going to be a reboot and not a sequel, I'm finding this reboot to be rather dry and flat by comparison.

A couple of comments above have addressed that by addressing the difference with Lawrence and Holo's relationship, but even beyond that the general direction of this reboot is fairly simple and lacklustre with little being done to make any particular scene stand out over another.

In terms of this adaptation being more faithful, I can't comment having not read the source material beyond the first volume years and years ago. However, what I would say as my general stance on adaptations is that the best adaptations know when to make adjustments to suit the change of medium or otherwise enhance the story. Being perfectly faithful and one-to-one to the source material isn't the be all and end all and can often feel like the show is just going through the motions, which is kind of the feeling I'm getting from this reboot. Of the main change I am aware of so far, I think replacing Chloe with Yarei to be more faithful to the source material was a noticeable step down for the first arc as there's no emotion to be garnered from his betrayal of Lawrence like there was with Chloe in the original.

Perhaps more to the point for me though is that this reboot has the same director and voice cast as the original series did. So, if you were going to go to the trouble of bringing everyone back, why not just continue the story from where the second season left off? A gap of 15 years between seasons of a show is by no means unprecedented in anime, especially in the last couple of years where production committees and studios are realising there are still markets for these shows that were left incomplete all those years ago. From what this reboot has changed so far, I don't really see why it was necessary to go back to the beginning at all.

I don't believe that people who watched the original when it was released or years ago are making objective and reliable comments. If there's any, I'd like to hear the thoughts of people who watched the original and the remake around the same time or at least, at relatively close dates. But to do that, the remake has to finish airing and that's still 4-5 months away.

I don't believe that people who watched the original when it was released or years ago are making objective and reliable comments. If there's any, I'd like to hear the thoughts of people who watched the original and the remake around the same time or at least, at relatively close dates. But to do that, the remake has to finish airing and that's still 4-5 months away.