Spice and Wolf II
a review by Ampere
a review by Ampere
Introduction
The more seasonal anime that release, the more a certain pattern becomes obvious in the industry. As anime fans consume more content and grow in their knowledge of the medium, certain tropes and common ideas become uninteresting and familiar.
It feels like newer anime suffer from the need to each have more creative, original, and unique content than the last. I am not implying that this content is a bad thing, because it does keep new series fresh and interesting. But a good show can easily be caught up in its gimmicks, falling short of its potential and losing sight of its vision.
Romance is a genre that I feel suffers from this more than any others. Despite having the simple premise of two characters falling in love, romance anime has a reliance on tropes comparable only to shounen. Love triangles, childhood friends, imouto, the entire family of -dere's, the list goes on.
In a genre so diluted with boxes checked to get the maximum number of tags on the seasonals page, it can be easy to sometimes forget the point of romance anime. As much as they might enhance the story, none of these tropes are required. The only thing that is required is a relationship between two characters that grows, changes, or is affected by the story in some way.
In this way, "Spice and Wolf" is exactly the series I was looking for. It does not promise to do anything new, original, or unique. It does not feature any love interests other than the main couple. It does not have any hidden plots involving war, conspiracy, or outer space. It has a single, simple mission: to tell a love story. And in this it is wildly successful.
Synopsis
"Spice and Wolf" consists of two seasons, but since the second directly continues the first, I will be treating the series as a cohesive whole. We open on a festival, some time in the Middle Ages. A small village located in a vast field of wheat is celebrating another successful harvest. The villagers have the wolf deity Holo to thank for their bounty of wheat, or so it seems.
Our protagonist is a peddler by the name of Craft Lawrence, a man driven solely by profit. The merchant's life is a hard one, and living on the road by himself makes every day a challenge. He arrives in this village to trade goods for wheat and meet with his childhood friend Chloe, a fellow merchant who offers him a position alongside her in an incredibly lucrative yet mysterious business deal.
Lawrence declines, out of concern that risky business could cost him more in the long run than careful investment. Although disappointed, Chloe offers him one piece of information: the village no longer sees Holo as the reason for their success. The church has increased its influence over all the land, introducing new technologies and bringing in large sums of money to the village. In exchange, the villagers must subscribe to the church's doctrine and forget their ancient deity.
Even though the much-celebrated harvest festival is tomorrow, Lawrence decides to leave during the night in order to maximize profit for the next day. To his surprise, upon reaching his wagon, a girl with the ears and tail of a wolf climbs out of it and howls at the moon! She introduces herself as the wolf deity Holo, able to appear before him because of the large amount of wheat he had amassed in his cart.
Mind already racing about how he could turn this into a business opportunity, Lawrence agrees to let Holo accompany him on his journey across the continent to become fabulously wealthy and one day open his own merchant shop. He soon proclaims that the price of the clothes and food that he provided Holo was not a gift but a loan, and he expected her to travel with him until it is paid off in full.
The series then sets off on an adventure following the duo to various cities, working together to come out financially successful from whatever adventures befall them in each new location. As I've made clear already, the focal point of the series is romance, so the two gradually bond over the many misfortunes that befall them and develop a close relationship that, seemingly, no money can buy.
Strengths
Lawrence and Holo are by no means flawless characters, and they often struggle with coming to terms with the other's view of the world. Lawrence is a shrewd businessman, seeing every person and opportunity in his life as a potential source of income. Holo is an immortal deity, and her many long years in the wheat field have given her a brutal cynicism towards humanity and its greedy tendencies.
A great strength of the series is seeing how the two reconcile their situations in different ways, and realizing that oftentimes neither of their approaches will result in happiness for either of them. The dynamic between the duo is consistently fantastic, and seeing their relationship develop around their influences on and responses to each other is a treat to witness.
"Spice and Wolf" also surprised me with the fervent heights that its emotional moments could reach. I am going to summarize a particular event from the second season and how it shaped my opinion of the series in this way. Consider skipping the following spoiler if you are interested in watching the series for yourself. Conversely, if you do not care for spoilers or have seen the show already, please open the tab.
However, the night before the transaction is scheduled to take place, Holo discovers that Lawrence has been keeping an important secret from her since the very beginning. Feeling intense betrayal and anger, Holo storms out of the room, proclaiming that once Amarty has paid off her debt, she will indeed accompany him on his travels and never see Lawrence again.
This action drives Lawrence to the depths of despair and causes him to carefully examine himself and his priorities, and is what could be called the turning point for his character, in which he realizes that Holo is more important to him than even making money. This was an exceedingly well executed fakeout by the series authors and despite being a mostly slow-paced and predictable plot, had me entirely convinced that Holo was seriously ready to leave Lawrence behind.
The final success of "Spice and Wolf," and the reason that encouraged me to write this review, is in its masterful understanding of the romance genre and what exactly its fans are looking for. Every episode is packed with these cute, wholesome moments that reinforce over and over again just why the main characters are falling for each other. There are no moments that feel undeserved, and the progression of their relationship feels completely natural and dynamic.
Weaknesses
The most glaring problem I had with this series is in its artistic presentation. Even excepting that this is now over a dozen years old, the art and music were nothing adventurous even during its time. The soundtrack, especially, consists of instrumentation intended to reflect the Middle Ages time period that the series is set in. Certain tracks were often distracting and even grating with shrill notes contrasting the peaceful conversations unfolding on screen.
The lackluster music and art in the series work together in an unfortunate combination that makes it at best, nothing special and at worst, painful to watch. There are never any especially vibrant colors, elaborate canvasses, or moving symphonies to be found in all twenty-six episodes. The focus of the series is obviously on its characters and plot, which is fine, but a little more attention could have been afforded to the presentation.
Conclusion
This series does a fantastic job of achieving wide appeal through its simplicity. Anyone looking for a romance story with some light action pieces will find it enjoyable. However, that same simplicity works against the series by limiting what exactly it can experiment with. The presence of even a few moments of high-stakes drama or action like the spoiler mentioned above give me hope that a series could, in the future, attempt the same formula to reach even greater heights.
"Spice and Wolf" as a series ends up with exactly the same conclusion that its protagonist does. Although sometimes risks can pay off to create success, the best way to achieve something is always to take the most safe and calculated route. It is a fascinating thought to me that the lack of experimentation could be what caused me to enjoy this series so much.
While more and more seasonal anime release each year with wild, sometimes unbelievable gimmicks, it is surprisingly incredibly refreshing to return to a place that tries absolutely nothing new. "Spice and Wolf" does an excellent job of providing a foundation for a more daring experiment to come along and build off its success. Until that show comes along, however, I am going to enjoy the satisfaction that "Spice and Wolf" offered me during the short time I spent with it.
It helps that Holo is incredibly cute as well.
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