Rating: B
Fundamentally, Spice & Wolf is the rare fantasy series where conversations, much more so than actions, carry the weight of the series. The only other episode in the series to date where that is as evident as it is in this one might be episode 2, but this time around Holo isn’t involved in either of the two major conversations which dominate this episode. In fact, in this version of the “scheming up the economics” phase of the arc, she only appears in one scene outside of a flashback and doesn’t have any lines. No, this episode is 100% about Lawrence trying to scheme his way out of another mess.
That’s not to say that Holo doesn’t factor in here at all. She is still absolutely the motive force behind how and why both Lawrence and Amati act here as the festival goes on around the trio. She is on both men’s minds as Lawrence hunts down Amati and has drinks with him at a bar. (And she would probably delight in that if she knew.) Here Lawrence is essentially upping Amati’s ante by throwing an additional bet onto the challenge Amati proposed last episode, only this time on his terms: a challenge that essentially involves futures trading on pyrite. Though Amati is taking the risk in the arrangement, he also stands to gain more if the market is in his favor – and it only needs to briefly be in his favor for him to guarantee a profit. Lawrence, on the other hand, shoulders little to no apparent risk but won’t gain anything; his only play is to potentially bust Amati’s financial position.
Of course, that’s assuming Lawrence already has the pyrite in question which is part of the arrangement, and the sticking point at the end of the episode is that he doesn’t. A financial loss is very possible for him if he’s stuck trying to buy up the necessary pyrite the next day, and his oversight in this case is that the person he was going to rely on to get it for him can’t do it. The most interesting part is that his friend won’t help because he’s an established town merchant. While being so provides a lot of perks, the trade-off is being less free to speculate (like a traveling merchant can!), since reputation is as important as any other business factor.
Hanging behind all of this is where Holo stands, and that we don’t learn anything from her directly this episode is deliberate; it leaves her more up in the air to the audience as well as the two young men. She seems to help Lawrence by leaving the letter about Amati’s finances, but also leaving the signed marriage contract is almost certainly either a challenge or warning from her to Lawrence. As emotional as Holo can be, she’s still the Wise Wolf and, by nature, takes the long view on things (for better or worse). Once she’s calmed down, she’s unlikely to be swayed to action so easily by statements made in a moment of weakness, so she’s basically telling Lawrence here “these are the consequences if you screw this up.” She probably still has no actual intention of leaving Lawrence but wants him to sweat the relationship side of things this time. How fair this is to Lawrence is debatable, but Holo does seem to place premium value on men who proves themselves. W
With the Lawrence/Amati and Lawrence/Marc conversations taking up most of the episode, there isn’t much noteworthy here about the artwork. The clash of knights and pagan forces in the festival could be looked at as symbolic of the clash between Lawrence and Amati, and the detail work on this sets the mood of the town well, but that’s about it. This episode also corresponds exactly to episode 4 of season 2 of the original adaptation, with the only slight variance being that Lawrence’s mind runs a bit wilder thinking about Amati and Holo getting together.
The solution to Lawrence’s pyrite access problem turns out to be an impressively sensible one. Pyrite would absolutely be a common substance used by medieval alchemists, as it was a prime traditional source for sulfuric acids and can be used to make ferrous sulfate, which had a wide range of medieval applications in inks and dyes (among others), and others not wanting to openly deal with alchemists would, indeed, make them an isolated market. More importantly in a meta sense, it gives Lawrence a convenient excuse to visit Dian again. Last time, this visit led to trouble. What will happen this time?
USA Anime 