Spice and Wolf - "To our profits!"

Spice and Wolf is quite unusual.

It's set in a European-style fantasy world... Society is at a sort of pre-modern phase where harvests have come to be stable, traveling merchants go from city to city and there's a church that insists on religious orthodoxy. In previous days, the peoples of the world used to pay fealty to pagan gods and spirits of the harvest, but that of course died out with the advent of the church.

Sounds like a not-too-unusual brand of fantasy at first, but here's the catch: There's no swordplay to speak of and, with the exception of Ms. Wolf Sage Spirit, there is no magic. Most of the anime is dedicated to haggling, forging business partnerships and just turning out a profit. There really is hardly any action at all.

It is, in other words, something that has absolutely no business being as great as it was.

The premise of the story is that a traveling merchant meets one of these pagan ex-deities along the road, who calls herself a wolf sage spirit. She asks him to bring her north, to her birthplace, for reasons she keeps to herself. The merchant agrees and they begin to travel.

I've found that in any story where you're going to be experimental and try something new, the first thing you need are intensely likable characters. You can't make a show about mercantilism with the Gundam 00 crew and expect success, after all. So let's start with the two mains...


This is Craft Lawerence, the Spice side of the equation.

The first thing most people would notice about Lawrence here is that he's voiced by Jun Fukuyama, aka Lelouch. This is the first time I've really heard Jun outside of his Lelouch role and it took a few moments for me to get my head around the fact that the guy isn't out to viciously take over the world using any and all means.

He's really not what you usually expect from a merchant character. He isn't really all that greedy and he never cheats anyone. He certainly keeps careful track of his money and wants to get rich, but his ambitions are thoroughly wholesome (i.e. he wants to make enough money to settle down, get married and open a shop). It seems that his ideal deal is one where all parties involve profit handsomely and part on amiable terms, with the understanding that further business may be conducted in the future, which gets him into trouble. There's a certain intangible quality to the guy that just makes him thoroughly likeable. His thoughtful mannerisms as he considers a deal and his understated emotions with Horo just make him into the sort of guy you yourself would like to know. It's a rare thing for a character to hit a perfect note, but when one does you always remember them.


This is Horo. As mentioned, she's a Wolf Spirit (which is why she has Wolf ears) who was worshipped by a village for a few generations as a harvest deity, though she herself doesn't make any claims to divinity. She portrays herself as a spirit who just used her powers to help some humans out for a while, until technology progressed to such a level that she was no longer required. She isn't really bitter about this and is in fact pretty cheerful and mischievous throughout the show, but there's a certain unstated sadness to Horo that comes with the knowledge that her time has passed.

She's a bit of a counterpoint to Lawerence (or perhaps Lawerence is the counterpoint to her), in that she is pretty self-indulgent, a bit suspicious and extremely shrewd. Oh, and Geass fans will notice she's voiced by Kallen.


It's really when the two get put together that they really become magnificent. They're rather openly attached to each other, but their relationship is like an incredibly elaborate dance where each is trying to playfully outwit or outdo the other with misdirection and jokes. This isn't the typical anime affair where both parties are just too shy to actually say or do anything about it, but rather that they both seem to have more fun that way. They take a peculiar sort of joy out of making each other jealous and defying each other's expectations ("Why do you want me to stay with you?" "Because you owe me money").

It's a fun thing to see unfold as it goes along. If the show were nothing but these two, I would still highly recommend it.


Where things get even more interesting is in the money aspect. Lawerence sells furs in one town, buys pepper and moves on to the next. Horo helps him out with her sage wisdom (and, very occasionally, wolf magic) and the two are a money-making team. The world they're in is mercantilistic and he has to do things like deal with tariffs, fluctuating currencies, guild regulations and avoid church interference. The show is lovingly researched and structured, but it never gets so obtuse with the financial bits that you lose track of what the hell is going on and the characters make it engaging enough to be pretty dramatic. I never thought I'd be able to cheer for a guy to find a decent price to sell his pepper at, but they somehow pull it off.

There's an old addage that money corrupts that often pervades fiction. It's a literary tradition that reaches back to Shakespeare's Timons of Athens and beyond, so I expected the other merchants to be a pack of jackals... and so I was quite surprised when Lawerence said that he'd testify in a court of law against a company, the immediate response was not 'okay, time to kill you'. It actually took me a moment to realize that maybe the guy just didn't want to profit off of violence and death. Everyone cares about their bottom lines and profit margins, but even when hired thugs are sent out to slit Lawerence's throat in the dark they feel awfully guilty about it. It's a weird portrayal of old world spiritualism and morality combining with modern concepts of self-interest. The Spice with the Wolf, in other words... and I found that really intriguing.

(I feel compelled to mention, since I think I may in fact be one of the few people in the world who is equipped to properly notice this: the scene where Lawerence goes door to door asking friends and business partners for money is, in fact, taken directly from Timons of Athens. I would write a bit about the underlying meaning of that, but I'm already such a nerdy guy so...)

I will be the first to acknowledge that the enjoyment of Spice and Wolf does take a few rather obscure tastes, or at the very least a willingness to give a fantasy concerned primarily with high romance and the tides of commerce a chance. But if you're willing to broaden out your horizons just a little bit, I think you will be well rewarded.