I absolutely missed the boat on Spice & Wolf when it first aired – which probably may have worked out for the best, since the main series of novels was still ongoing at the time, so the original TV adaptation was never quite able to provide an adaptation of the big emotional climax of the story and its core romance. Fortunately, the series is back with a reboot, with much of the original cast returning, making for a good time to jump on board and see the story told once again.
The premise seems unexciting on paper – in a faux fantasy middle ages, traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence (in the grand tradition of writers of anime series almost-but-not-quite getting a reasonable sounding Western name) picks up a shipment of grain from a town that he’s purchased from many time before. As he departs he discovers he has a passenger – a woman with a wolf tail and ears. She is the harvest goddess Holo, the Wise Wolf, who had been the patron goddess of her village. Worship of her had been falling off in favor of the “True Religion” (Medieval Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off). She wants to return to her homeland – so she travels with Lawrence and has various adventures on their way, often involving Lawrence’s business dealings – as the two eventually fall for each other.
It’s important to say that this is not an “action” series – this is a series about dialog, planning, and scheming in the business dealings, along with explaining, flirting, and teasing in the romance side of the story. It’s a series that’s all about small little character details with the character interactions, and which is also dependant on the vocal chemistry of the actors, and with it the way that chemistry is expressed in the animation. Fortunately, Studio Passione and director Takeo Takahashi are really good at this. Weirdly, it kind of helps that Takahashi has directed a fair bit of… let’s just say softcore erotica in his past (such as the Aki Sora OVAs) – which honestly matters a fair bit, since good erotica is dependent on getting the small little character details right. (Bad erotica coasts on spending a bunch of time on the sex and assuming the audience will fast forward through everything else).
The business plan part of Spice & Wolf often involves Lawrence either running into someone else’s scheme, or running a scheme of his own, explaining the scheme to Holo, and getting into hot water that either requires Holo’s help to get out of – or which Holo got him into and he has to get out of by proving his feelings for her. On paper this sounds monotonous and dull, but it’s not, it’s really not. The writing is well thought out and works with various aspects of the world, and the economics of the world in interesting ways – all of which is helped by the fact that it’s just fun to watch Lawrence and Holo flirt with each other.
I realize that this isn’t the best way to sell a concept to someone, but ultimately this series lives and dies by Holo and Lawrence’s chemistry, and it’s just good. Holo is cute, Kraft Lawrence is a silver fox (even if the’s a 30-something Silver Fox), and they are cute together, and it all clicks through the small little moments, just like any other relationship. I can’t really describe it any better than that.
Spice & Wolf (2024) is available for streaming on Crunchyroll – it’s gone further thus far than the first series of the show, and we’re getting a second season.
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