Spice and Wolf (2024) Ep 5 & 6

We’re finally finished Volume 1! The case of the coins scheme involving the devalued coins has finally come to a closed. Medio Trading was backed by Count Erhendott, and the scheme was led by Yarei. Their village took advantage of exploiting the wheat merchants to help them quietly collect the coins they need to gain profits from this scam. And truly the audacity of Yarei to basically spit in Holo’s face after years of her watching over their village, belittle her and say such terrible things that once she was saved, she couldn’t help but cry about it– and honestly I can’t blame her for it. She has feelings too.

You could say Holo was a bit of a romantic with the way she had wanted Lawrence to personally come and save her, so she ended up feeling flustered and embarrassed of being saved by another. Ultimately getting Holo out of Medio Trading’s grasps was left to the pros from the Milone Trading Company. They has certainly proven their capabilities throughout this incident, so don’t mess with these guys, they got their shit together. It’s no wonder they are one of the largest organizations around.

Although they had managed to securely get Holo out of Medio Trading’s custody, the problem was that they were still being pursued and were eventually traced down to be hiding under the city. Unfortunately they did get surrounded after running into a dead end where the ‘exit’ Holo had thought she smelled turned out to be an abandoned well. And to make matters worse, Lawrence got badly wounded along the way, so bad that he was losing a lot of blood and barely able to stand, let alone stay conscious. Still, gotta hand it to the guy for his determination to protect Holo till the very end, because he still took out his dagger, ready to fight despite being clearly outnumbered. At that point since they had their backs to the wall, Holo took her true form again.

The process of the transformation was a bit difference this time, and turned out to be pretty grotesque, since this time she used the blood from Lawrence’s wound. Holo really didn’t want Lawrence to see her true form again, and understandably so. They did a good job of making her look really creepy, especially her eyes. Some may wonder why she didn’t just use the wheat grains she had on her, but I think she didn’t because there weren’t much to big with, and they are the key to her survival. Either way, more so than eating grains, taking the blood was a sure way to send a message that she wasn’t about to take any prisoners today.

Still, it was pretty brazen of them to still attempt to hunt her down after their own hounds turned their tails and ran from her grand howl, but considering how cocky they were about turning her in to the church, it’s clear beyond their disrespect, they gravely underestimated her. They should count their lucky stars that she was merciful enough not to kill them, truly benevolent for a God that being referred to as a girl possessed by a demon. Fools.

As one would expect, Lawrence was still fearful of her form (after-all this would only be the second time he sees it), but this time he protested her leaving, trying to string along every reason in the book to make her stay (and justified case of economics considering the expensive clothes had been ruined). But funny enough, when the invoice for Holo’s purchases came in to a total of 140 Silver, rather than being appalled Lawrence was elated and relieved since it was a sign she hadn’t left. She did exactly what he said they’d do after this whole shitstorm was done and dealt with, buying some clothes and a lovely comb for her beautiful fur.

At the end of the day, this whole thing didn’t really reap the profits they had hoped for. The King had agreed pay them 350k silver coins at the time of delivery, and Lawrence would get 50% of their profits. However as grand as the numbers are, that was not the final tally. Once the delivery costs, the tariffs and handling fees for the contract are all taken into account, Lawrence only ended up with a measly 120 Silver Coins (which is still less than what he had earned with his furs after Holo managed to score a better deal). So their total profits from the whole thing ended up only being 2,400 Silver Coins, an incredibly disappointing outcome. However there was one silver lining, Medio Trading Company was desperate for the privileges Milone obtained from the King (as they beat them to the punch for that), so they offered an amount Milone Trading Company would accept, which was 1000 Silver Coins. So that trade-off ended up salvaging the payoff. And since Lawrence will be travelling north and winter is approaching, he has decided to choose pepper in the pepper in the form of equivalent value of his profit. Endearingly, this is how Richten referred to Lawrence as ‘Spice’, playing to the title of ‘Spice and Wolf’.

Overall the way the arc was handled was more or less the same (minus Yarei being replaced by an anime original character Chloe) as the original adaption. I enjoyed it. The new character designs took an episode or two to get used to but I’m glad they managed to strike a balance between showing the maturity of Holo’s character, as well as her cute side when she behaves childishly. I thought they handled the animation pretty nicely, though I did feel like they dipped a bit in this particular episode compared to the rest. Holo’s wolf form today did feel a bit inconsistent, but not so much it was immersion breaking– except for the one part, where her head just looked like a giant Shiba(Time Stamp: 12:00, SURELY I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THIS RIGHT?!), which was kind of funny and made me chuckle for all the wrong reasons. After-all Holo would be livid by such a comparison. So if you’re going to ask between this wolf form versus the one we saw in the original, which is better? Hands down the original adaption still takes the cake for that because she actually looked terrifying.