Spice and Wolf Season 2 - Episode 4

Well I'll be damned. It didn't turn out exactly as I predicted last episode. But I still stand by my prediction, just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen. It just looks like the producers are going to drag this out and kick it around a little. Not that I have anything against that since this arc seems pretty decent on its own. The thing that really surprised me was that Horo signed the marriage paper with Amati. I wonder how they're going to reverse that?

This week trading was pretty mind boggling actually since Lawrence is planning to get back Horo by essentially trying to crash the pyrite market so Amati would be unable to pay off Horo's debt leaving her no choice but to stay with Lawrence. So maybe Lawrence won't reverse the marriage contract and instead forcefully drag Horo along. Pretty smart, but pretty harsh...

It was all pretty complicated but I'm going to try and summarise it to the best of my ability.

• Lawrence makes a deal with Amati to sell 500 Trenni Silvers worth of pyrite to Amarty by evening of the next day on credit.
• Amati agrees to this and Lawrence on credit.
• Because Lawrence sold the pyrite on credit, even if the price of pyrite crashes, the 500 Trenni Silver won't be affected.
• Next, Lawrence plots with his friend (the wheat store owner) to crash the pyrite market by getting his apprentice to the spread word around that "the price of wheat is rising". This will crash the pyrite market since most merchants came here primarily to deal wheat anyway and pyrite was more like a souvenir to them.
• His friend refuses to give Lawrence any aid as this could potentially tarnish his name in the town and he cannot risk it since he is a town merchant unlike Lawrence who is a traveling merchant.
• However, his friend suggests that Lawrence should go talk to the alchemists (who were mentioned early on, a couple of episode ago) who have their own separate pyrite stash which is completely secluded from the market. Therefore by leaking these pyrite into the market, Lawrence can still crash it!

Spice and Wolf Season 2 - Episode 3

The Contract

Pyrite (i.e. Fool's Gold)

This episode was surprisingly dramatic. This is probably the first time we have witnessed Horo and Lawrence seriously fighting since usualy it's just friendly banter between them. It was kind of creepy with Horo freaking out, as demonstrated in the picture above, because she found out from the letter the witch lady (last episode) sent that her hometown has been destroyed. In addition, with Amati has settled a deal "sealed by blood" with Lawrence in which he promises to repay all (1000 Trenni Silver) of Horo's debt so she will be free from her creditor (Lawrence), he plans to ask Horo to marry him. This convenient set up coupled with Horo panic attack means that this might spell the end of LawrencexHoro.

Meh... it was dramatic and all. But we know that Horo and Lawrence are inseperable. Plus it way too early for anything that significant to happen. I'm predicting that next episode Lawrence will make up with Horo by saying something like "Even if the record say they are destroyed, there's still a chance, lets find it together!" or something cheesy like that.

Heck that's just my prediction but I will be VERY surprised if I am proven wrong.

Spice and Wolf Season 2 - Episode 2

Amati participating in a medieval auction for his girl.

Ah, a late post is late. But here it is anyway...

Quite a lot of progress in terms of character development and plot development but it didn't quite feel like it. In fact, it didn't feel like anything significant happened at all. The way they presented it made it seem as if these were trivial matters but these "trivial matters" have potential to grow into something big pretty soon.

For the character development side, further misunderstandings about Horo and Amati (the boy merchant) and Lawrence. This false love triangle promises to stir up quite a mess in later episodes. Whereas in terms of plot development, Lawrence has found out more about Yoitsu and has confirmed it's destruction. Horo has yet to find out...

No actual trading this episode... More like the "trading of information" (i.e. folk tales). Lawrence gained a valuable piece of information from the witch lady. According to her, Yoitsu was destroyed by a moon-bear. It was all pretty convincing as she managed to recall reading about Horo the Wise seekng for assistance. In return, Lawrence told her about the tales and traditions down south concerning Horo and her influence on the harvests.

Spice and Wolf Season 2 - Episode 1

Spice and Wolf - Brief Summary to get you interested!

"Spice and Wolf" as some of you may or may not know is a show which deals with medieval economics. Boring? Not quite, as the first season proves. At the very beginning, we were introduced to two characters Lawrence, the trader, and Horo, the Wolf Deity who wishes to return back to her hometown, Yoitsu, up north. Currently, Horo is hitch-hiking with Lawrence who is always journeying from town to town for trades. On their journey together, Horo picks up trading skills and learns about currencies from Lawrence while Lawrence benefits from Horo’s charm on other merchants, easing his trades.

Reading over it, it really does sound like a bore. But wait. The entire story is neatly threaded with the ever-growing affection Lawrence and Horo have for each other. Though not exactly a typical tsundere, Horo does have her whacky character traits which is guaranteed to hook you to the show even if you absolutely bitch-hate the whole idea of economics and trading.

It’s not just romance and economics by the way, the show succeeded in keeping me on my toes several times as they introduce in the Church! Dum-dum, Dum-dum, dumdum, dumdum! *Plays the Jaws theme tune* You see, Horo is pagan deity and as soon as the Church finds out about her being on the loose slowly starts to drive away from money shabam and starts to have a little more action. Overall, I’m not sure if I made it seem as great as it actually is but if you’re even vaguely interested you should check out the first season as the second season pretty much directly continues from the first season without any recaps.

How am I planning to blog about this then? Well, for starters, I’m not writing out a summary for each episode again because I’m just too lazy for that plus people check AFTER they watch to confirm some facts, don’t they? So I just plan to write about the general vibe of the episode and write about Lawrence and his trades, should there be any, because I know from experience, it’s tough to get your head around it sometimes since it’s not exactly as straight forward as it seems.

So this is what happened in the first episode:

Don't lie to yourself... This reason we all watch anime. No other form of entertainment is going to give you a naked wolf deity!

Just to explain this bit, Lawrence basically asks Horo to put her tail in the blanket on his lap... Yes, I "Um..."-ed too. Haha, Tail-Job? Anyone?

This adds to my point in the first screencap!

Horo with her full charm on...

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... This new guy falls straight for it. Actually, I'm quite glad this happened as in season one the romance seemed to be focused around Lawrence...

The Trading Part as I understood it to be - Simplified:

1. Lawrence tries to sell nails to his friend (guy on the left)

2. The guy is interested despite the fact that his store is a wheat store and offers 10.5 rumiones for the lot.

3. Lawrence thinks it's too cheap. Nails are required goods for the approaching winter.

4. The guy says that the crash in battle equipement due to the cancellation of the Northern military expedition has caused the market for nails to fall as well.

5. Lawrence says that only affects the southern regions. He says that melting metal to create nails during winter would cause the price of firewood to rise. No industry would be willing to do that since it would anger the townspeople. Thus the price of nails shouldn't be affected. He resets the price to 16 rumiones.

6. They bargain for a bit and settle with 14 and 2/3 rumiones.

It felt like a direct continuation of season one which is awesome. The whole feel of the show feels that same and Horo is as cute as ever. Now, with a person interested in Horo things are promising to get exciting. Perhaps, the boy will find out she's not human and the Church will be on their backs again. Anything can happen right now...