Spice and Wolf

Review Time! A traveling merchant named Kraft Lawrence has never put much stock into wild tales of gods, until one night when he finds one in his wagon: a mysterious young woman, with a wolf’s tail and ears, who calls herself Holo. She claims to be the one responsible for providing harvests to a village, who over the hundreds of years she has lived there, have seemed to outgrown her, finding other ways to gain rich harvests without the possibility of getting smaller harvests due to her wanting to preserve the soil. She decides she wants to return to her home in the north, near a town called Yoitz, and enlists Lawrence to take her there. But as the two begin traveling, often cooking up new schemes to make some good money, they also become closer, and find something that no amount of money can buy or replace. Spice and Wolf is an interesting series, one that combines a fantasy setting, business deals and a budding romance between the two travelers. Holo is a lot of fun in her own right, as she can be very haughty and has a sharp wit that she uses to spar with Lawrence frequently, but is also very cute, as when she gets excited about something, we see her tail start wagging. But it is the moments where she shows off her vulnerable side, mostly when talking about how alone she feels in the world, that endear her to the audience. A lot of the plot points involve business concepts that often fly right over my head, as I know next to nothing about business, but I was at least able to keep up with the characters for the most part. As for their romance, it is a slow burn affair, as just when you think progress is getting made, either they are beating around the bush or are too prideful to admit how they feel (Holo is far more the later, especially at the end). However, I would like to see more, if they do ever continue, as the light novels have made a lot of progress in the mean time. For now, though, we will content ourselves with knowing this unusual pair will keep on peddling, quarrelling and caring for each, and just wonder where the future will take them.