Spice & Wolf: merchant meets wise wolf episode 1

Note: Because I find this title obnoxiously long, I will hereafter be titling these Spice & Wolf (2024).

Rating: B+

The base concept here seems simple enough: a great wolf has spent centuries being the goddess of the wheat in one village, but due to the advent of advanced farming methods, she no longer feels needed. Hence she takes human form as a teenage girl and hitches a ride with a traveling merchant who stopped in town during a harvest festival. In exchange for using her great wisdom (and, upon occasion, giant wolf form) to help the merchant in business dealings, he’ll help her get back north to a home forest that she’s been away from for so long that she’s forgotten where it is. Yet this concept has spawned a franchise which now consists of 33 novels (a 34th is due out in Japan shortly), 16 manga volumes, two seasons of anime, two visual novels, and two VR games. And now it’s getting a brand-new anime adaptation, too.

This series is a total reboot of the earlier anime versions, so this is a great jumping-on point for franchise newcomers; the only way previous franchise experience will make any difference here is that those who have read deep into the novels will know the identity of one character coyly obscured in the prologue. (This character did appear in one of the VR games, but this is her first animated appearance.) Anime-only fans and newcomers should forget about that character for now, as this adaptation will have to run for several seasons before she appears again.

Evaluated as a stand-alone effort, the first episode does a solid job of establishing the series’ premise and core relationship. Craft Lawrence is aforementioned traveling merchant, a mid-20s man who has worked hard to be modestly successful and always has a keen eye out for new opportunities. Holo the Wisewolf is the local god who has long lived in the wheat of the villages of Pasloe but escapes it during an annual harvest by transferring herself into a sheaf of wheat in Lawrence’s wagon. She takes on the form of a girl with wolf ears and tail and convinces the initially-reluctant Lawrence to take her with him as he leaves town, for she seeks to find her former home of Yoitsu. Some hints of the byplay between the two, which forms the core of the series and is its biggest draw, are already apparent by the end of the episode, though next episode should explore that much more. The series’ other major hook – the focus on medieval economics – also pops up in small ways and will become much much prevalent in future episodes. If the Lawrence/Holo relationship is the series’ core, the economics is the plot driver.

The technical merits of the first episode are good enough, but only that. They excel most at depicting the bucolic setting (one roughly equivalent to Renaissance-era Europe), but the colors seem a little flat; presumably this was done intentionally to emphasize the more earthy feel of the setting. The other visual star is, of course, Holo, who is enough different in appearance from your typical animal-themed anime girl to stand out, and good attention is paid to the expressiveness of her ears and tail. The use of near-nudity here is also distinct, in the way that Holo is thoroughly unconcerned with Lawrence seeing her naked and only covers up because she’s cold, but she’s not actively trying to seduce him with her body, either. (Seducing him in other ways is a whole different matter.) The musical score by Kevin Penkin also does a sufficient job of evoking the right mood, but so far this isn’t his strongest effort.

Since this is a remake of previous animation, comparisons are inevitable. The prologue is new, and this version replaces anime-only character Chloe with original character Yarei (whose role Chloe took over in the 2008 series), but the structuring of the episode beyond these details and the sequence of events are almost exactly the same. The animation is distinctly sharper in this version, but the colors were less muted in the original, and Holo’s ear design has changed. (They’re smaller in this version.) The biggest difference is on the musical front. The OP and ED for this series give decent efforts, and would be fine but unexceptional evaluated on their own, but they fall well short of the high bars set by melancholic original opener “Tabi no Tochou” and delightfully playful original closer “Ringo Biyori – The Wolf Whistling Song,” which perfectly represented the two competing aspects of the series. Penkin’s score, while not bad, also doesn’t measure up to the sterling original effort by Yuuji Yoshino. But, again, that’s a very high bar for comparison. Character designs in this version generally have a bit more rounded features than in the original, but that’s entirely a matter of personal taste.

Outside of the OP and ED (where I feel there’s a clear and strong difference), whether this version or the original is better is a matter of personal preference, though I lean towards the original. Either way, this is the rare anime series clearly aimed at more mature audiences and one that I strongly recommend for adult viewers.