Dancing Mad About Anime: Spice & Wolf

The fantasy genre, what can you say about it? It’s probably one of the most prevalent forms of fiction in well, the world. Indeed, mythos have their fantasy tropes, epic poems have them as do most religions. Those are just the earliest forms of fantasy, I can not even begin to tell you about fantasy in this day in age; which cover nearly every facet of media, there’s too much of it to even list. I could provide excellent examples of really awesome novels, comics, televisions shows, movies and even music if you can believe it or not (see a lot of the Led Zeppelin songs that were inspired by The Lord of the Rings).

And of course one can not forget anime in all this. Anime exploits many of the fantasy tropes to the limits and beyond. Because if it’s one thing about the Japanese they really know how to take an idea and push it to it’s boundaries, until it’s on it’s knees begging you to stop as you laugh and revel in the humiliations you caused and you start do-
Excuse me, its seems we’ve dipped into the dark recesses of my porn folder. Moving on then. Basically, the fantasy genre has numerous tropes, stereotypes, clichés, whatever you want to call them; there are certain connotations people have come to accept with fantasy as a whole and anime for all the boundaries it pushes or tries to push in fantasy also is not shy to the usual charm of the tropes or the various clichés and storytelling devices common with fantasy. You have fantasy stories revolving around magic, swords, and the supernatural in anime. Others revolve around the good old Role-Playing Game style of fantasy with a band of heroes getting together searching for shiny trinkets and getting entangled into having to stop the forces of evil. Lesser known examples involve the mercenary for hire angle in fantasy anime. In fact that not only works well in Fantasy but as well as Comedy.



Surely there are many more examples that pop to mind with fantasy anime or fantasy in general really many people can think of other than the ones I names about magic, swords, and adventuring. I’m not even getting into fantasy off-shoots such as Steampunk or even into Science Fiction with Fantasy elements (or vice-versa). But how about economics? It does not seem like it would work or even be much of an important plot device in fantasy, particularly anime-fantasy. Well, that’s the subject of this review. Let’s see how I go dancing mad over Spice & Wolf



Spice & Wolf started out as a series of light novels by Isuna Hasekura after he entered the then unreleased first volume in Dengeki’s 12 Annual Novel Prize and won the silver prize for it, which is a modest 300, 000 yen prize. Of course the novel was published, released and thus a series begun. Granted this is information you can find on Wikipedia, but it’s still something to go on by if you want some background on the story. Now, I haven’t read the light novels or the manga adaptation that followed so I do not know how the differences with the transition from the novels to the anime. But, that should not be too much of a problem for this review.

The basic story revolves around a traveling merchant named Kraft Lawrence… we’ll refer to him as just Lawrence as I am sorry, but Kraft Lawrence is not a fucking name. To nitpick this a bit, Kraft is his given name and Lawrence is his surname. This is not chalked up to the Japanese custom of putting the surname before the given name (which would be stupid in any case of this anime as none of the characters are Japanese). Plus, Lawrence is simply reference to Lawrence anyway, so I see no reason why his official name is “Kraft Lawrence.” Anyway, Lawrence is a merchant, he goes around from each town and sells various goods for a profit for various trading companies. In one particular town during a festival he comes across the other main character, the Wolf of “Spice & Wolf”, Holo. And before anyone complains or argues “isn’t it Horo?” No actually, I was surprised when I found out too, but Word of God confirms Holo time and time again and I personally don’t have too much a problem with it as the name grew on me. Holo is our main female lead and she’s a wolf girl. Not just any wolf girl, but the wolf god of harvest. Holo, after meeting Lawrence tells him she wants to return to her homeland in the North as Lawrence travels to sell goods and trade currencies. Well, I think you can guess what Lawrence says, after all there would be no story had Lawrence said “no” or ran away from Holo.

While the main core of the plot follows the relationship of Lawrence and Holo, this is where our perceptions of the usual and normal tropes of fantasy are forgotten as the big storytelling piece here revolves around currency. In this case coins. There are many coins, many discussions about the various silver coins in the world of Spice & Wolf. I’ll give you a basic example here. The silver coins in Spice & Wolf are numerous and many of the silver coins differ in value and purity according to what nation or kingdom they belong to. Which is important here particularly for the main character whose profession is selling merchandise and dealing with money. However, while economics is an interesting subject in fantasy such as Spice & Wolf it requires a lot of dialogue to explain. In fact, 90% of the conflict involves talking, so if you have a hard time accepting a show that is built upon a fantasy setting without a great deal in action, this is going to be a weird experience for you. Paying attention to the conversations that revolve around economics is crucial if you want a grasp on the conflict of the plot. Which is why it’s highly recommended to watch this anime in English only. The talks of coins will only be more confusing if you also have to follow subtitles.

Character-wise, everyone seems really well-written, genuine and very believable. Lawrence is a methodical, calculated, business man; though he exhibits gullibility a lot and his emotions do get the better of him from time to time. Holo is snarky. Very snarky, cool, funny, and charming; she has a bit of an ego and does employ some light tsundere traits but it works well for her personality. There is really good chemistry between Lawrence and Holo which does make for entertaining and funny conversations. The other characters in this anime are relatively minor but they do contribute to the already heavy dialogue nicely. The only other major character here besides Holo and Lawrence is Nora, but she appears late into the season, and while welcomed and very important to those last few episodes calling her a major supporting character is barely pushing it.



Let’s quickly go over the soundtrack and the English and Japanese audio before I close this review. The soundtrack for this anime is pretty good, it’s a tad repetitive, but it’s well-suited in the series. The guitar/mandolin for the back ground music is always pleasant. The opening theme is awesome. Honestly, “Tabi no Tochuu” is ridiculously good, it capture the mood of the show in just the opening song alone. “Tabi no Tochuu” or “En Route on the Journey” is sung very well by Natsumi Kiyoura whose voice does feel natural with a show such as this. Though, the opening theme I did find delightful, the ending theme “Ringo Hiyori” by Rocky Chalk not so much. It feels very cutesy, too cutesy. While there are a lot of moments like that in the show, this song does not capture that and the Engrish vocals do not help me appreciate the show any better.



Here’s a rule of thumb I use when watching anime, usually when a show takes place in Japan or is very school oriented it tends to make a lot more sense in it’s original language; everything else is fair game and personal preference. Spice & Wolf is a show that works so much better in English for many reasons. Not only does it take place in a setting that is not Japan, the characters have English and European names for the most part, and it’s so much easier to understand the economics in English. Those are all things I brought up earlier, but even without all that, the performances are reasonably stronger by Funimation's brilliant staff of voice actors then their Japanese counterparts. Nothing against Jun Fukuyama or Ami Koshimizu, I just feel J. Michael Tatum and Brina Palencia performed better for Lawrence and Holo respectively. While I found Fukuyama’s performance rather dry for Lawrence, I found Ami Koshimizu excellent as Holo; however, Brina Palencia brought a better stage presence to the character of Holo and the entire cast in English was really well directed.

There are 13 episodes in total, and the DVD box set was released near the end of 2009. The original light novels and manga adaptation have and are being translated and released in English by Yen Press if you find yourself wanting to know what happens in the novels or manga after the anime. A second season has already been released and finished airing in Japan with Funimation already planning another English adaptation. I have high expectations for this, I hope you do as well!