Spice & Wolf: merchant meets the wise wolf

Episode 13

This week's Spice & Wolf episode is a lesson that I hope you all take to heart: not even the wisest wolf can escape the mild wrath of the dreaded nondescript anime cold. Its vague symptoms and overwhelming malaise shackle Holo to her bed and blankets. Fortunately, Lawrence just skimmed through a couple of Wikipedia entries on homeopathy, and he's pretty sure he has this medicine thing down pat. At least, I hope he does, lest this season be truncated before the summer even fully kicks in.

Let's start with some inside baseball. This story, while chronologically set between volumes two and three of the light novel, wasn't written until several volumes later as part of a collection of short stories. However, fans of the old anime will still recognize it because it was adapted into an OVA that functioned as a prologue to the second season. Its presence here signals to the audience that the reboot isn't averse to animating these one-offs, so we may see more of them in the future. I like that, although I'm still skeptical they'll maintain the momentum to tell the whole story.

Do the math with me: not counting the side stories or epilogue volumes, 13 light novels make up Spice & Wolf's main narrative. At the current pace of two volumes per cours, we'd need 6.5 cours in total to cover it all—bump it up to seven to create some breathing room, and maybe call it an even eight to allow for more shorts and the epilogue. That's three additional seasons of equivalent length on top of this one, or about 100 episodes total. While not unheard of, that's an increasingly tall order for the current industry. Does Spice & Wolf have the juice to get that done? I'd hope so, but it's not up to me.

Anyway, shifting our focus back to this week's episode, I think this is a fitting place for an interlude. Obviously, it's the chronological midpoint of the season—perfect for an intermission—but story-wise, it's a smart place to give Holo more interiority. Lawrence is our usual POV character, so our impressions of Holo get filtered through her dialogue with him. While that interplay paints an appreciably rich portrait of her character, and while this episode doesn't drop any bombshells, it's still valuable to spend some time inside her head. Her fatigue and fever-addled dreams drift to memories of the lonesome boredom that plagued her years as a harvest goddess. Thanks to her travels with Lawrence, she's stopped tallying her time in centuries and has started doing so in units of days, hours, and minutes. In fact, it's only due to her illness that she finds herself reminiscing at all; nowadays, she's typically too busy to do so. I can relate to that. When I'm sick, my body's vulnerability inevitably drags my mind into the same territory.

However, we already knew about Holo's loneliness. That's how she and Lawrence bonded in the first place. Her second dream is a little meatier because it explores a more unfamiliar facet of her personality and history: her sense of duty. She colors her time in Yoitsu and her time in Pasloe in surprisingly resentful terms. She's not quite bitter, but she clearly laments the depersonalization thrust upon her as a powerful deity with legitimate responsibilities. She compares it to imprisonment, and she acknowledges herself as both warden and inmate. I think, if she really wanted to, she could have escaped Pasloe at any time, but she wouldn't bring herself to forfeit her promise to the place and its people. But she's not perfect either. When Lawrence gives her a loophole to exploit, she jumps on it. What he really gives her, though, is an opportunity to be a person, not a god. That's deeper than just companionship. Holo's pride hasn't gone anywhere, of course. She'll proclaim herself the Wise Wolf of Yoitsu when it's convenient, funny, or flirtatious to do so. But humility has its own set of perks, and Holo continues to discover them.

Lawrence also gives Holo a bunch of quack medical advice. This is by far the most amusing part of the episode. His diatribe on humors is one thing; we can laugh at it because we (most of us, at any rate) know a thing or two about germ theory. But the truly hilarious part is Lawrence's wholly unearned confidence in his new font of knowledge. He reads a couple of books, and all of a sudden, he's speaking authoritatively about optimal food wetness. Thank goodness for Holo's quiet yet obvious skepticism, although she grows amenable to his ravings the instant they produce a yummy meal for her to enjoy. I can't argue with that logic. Still, I probably won't ask Lawrence for advice the next time I have a runny nose.

Did we need this episode? You could argue we didn't, but I think any argument applied in that direction would, by necessity, apply to the existence of this reboot in its totality, and then we'd be back rehashing that old chestnut. I had a good time, and I liked the additional development of Holo's character, so I say it can stay. We'll arrive at the next arc soon enough. In the meantime, it can be nice to stop and smell the porridge brewed with sheep's milk.

Rating:

Spice & Wolf: merchant meets the wise wolf is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve is on Twitter while it lasts. He still knows "The Wolf Whistling Song" by heart. You can also catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.