OOKAMI TO KOUSHINRYOU II
STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
September 24, 2009
LENGTH
24 min
DESCRIPTION
Kraft Lawrence, an experienced traveling merchant, and his sharp tongued wolf goddess companion, Holo, continue on their journey to return to Holo's home in the north called Yoitsu. A tender relationship blossoms between the two as they make deals and travel between cities.
CAST
Holo
Ami Koshimizu
Kraft Lawrence
Jun Fukuyama
Dian Rubens
Akeno Watanabe
Mark
Rikiya Koyama
Fleur Boland
Romi Park
Helena
Sara Nakayama
Fermi Amarty
Saeko Chiba
Merta
Aki Toyosaki
Rigoro Deidre
Yuuya Uchida
EPISODES
Dubbed
RELATED TO OOKAMI TO KOUSHINRYOU II
REVIEWS
iDreamwalker
Spice and Wolf, A Great Romance Book In Form Of An Anime.Continue on AniListwell First thing If you are a person that enjoy reading books specially romance novels you going to love this anime. spice and wolf is a book more than an anime. story is the characters , their relationship , their every small reaction to every event and etc. If you are a person who loves books, really enjoy reading novels, love cute girls ( :D ) Spice and wolf going to please you well.
story is Exactly as is should be, one soothing romance story that slowly hunt your soul.Story of a wolf goddess named Holo The wise wolf and simple merchant named craft lawrence traveling together through a fantasy world which looks like old Europe in 13th century where churches have lot of power and control most cities. though it looks like one "SIMPLE" story but it isn't actually. there are lot of point in story when you feel extremely excited. but after all we can summary the story of anime in two words " Holo and lawrence" The "Spice and Wolf".
The main character of anime "Holo" is the far the best character of all animes, games and etc. she has the best personality, best habits , best detail and everything else she needs to be THE BEST. There is no way that you watch this anime entirely and don't fall in love with holo. other than that the chemistry and romance between holo and lawrence is the best one in all animes. they are indeed the best anime couple. they have a unique relationship. I can spend all day to tell you how lovely holo is or how good are they two together but you will find out your self soon enough after first episodes.
anime music is unbelievably match and good for it. it can change your emotions with ease during the important parts of story on top of that holo's and lawrence voice acters did a wonderful job. I can't imagine a better and sweeter voice for Holo.
long Story Short , Spice and Wolf is a one of a kind anime, no anime before and no anime after it was even close to it and unfortunately I don't think there would be one in the future neither. it will make your soul travel to an unkonwn magical world where you find your self in a place just like heaven. I would like to call it an illustrated book instead of an anime. if you are kind of person who enjoys old novels and beautiful love stories you will find nothing better than SAW to suits your needs.
Ampere
A romance that finds beauty in simplicity.Continue on AniListIntroduction
The more seasonal anime that release, the more a certain pattern becomes obvious in the industry. As anime fans consume more content and grow in their knowledge of the medium, certain tropes and common ideas become uninteresting and familiar.
It feels like newer anime suffer from the need to each have more creative, original, and unique content than the last. I am not implying that this content is a bad thing, because it does keep new series fresh and interesting. But a good show can easily be caught up in its gimmicks, falling short of its potential and losing sight of its vision.
Romance is a genre that I feel suffers from this more than any others. Despite having the simple premise of two characters falling in love, romance anime has a reliance on tropes comparable only to shounen. Love triangles, childhood friends, imouto, the entire family of -dere's, the list goes on.
In a genre so diluted with boxes checked to get the maximum number of tags on the seasonals page, it can be easy to sometimes forget the point of romance anime. As much as they might enhance the story, none of these tropes are required. The only thing that is required is a relationship between two characters that grows, changes, or is affected by the story in some way.
In this way, "Spice and Wolf" is exactly the series I was looking for. It does not promise to do anything new, original, or unique. It does not feature any love interests other than the main couple. It does not have any hidden plots involving war, conspiracy, or outer space. It has a single, simple mission: to tell a love story. And in this it is wildly successful.
Synopsis
"Spice and Wolf" consists of two seasons, but since the second directly continues the first, I will be treating the series as a cohesive whole. We open on a festival, some time in the Middle Ages. A small village located in a vast field of wheat is celebrating another successful harvest. The villagers have the wolf deity Holo to thank for their bounty of wheat, or so it seems.
Our protagonist is a peddler by the name of Craft Lawrence, a man driven solely by profit. The merchant's life is a hard one, and living on the road by himself makes every day a challenge. He arrives in this village to trade goods for wheat and meet with his childhood friend Chloe, a fellow merchant who offers him a position alongside her in an incredibly lucrative yet mysterious business deal.
Lawrence declines, out of concern that risky business could cost him more in the long run than careful investment. Although disappointed, Chloe offers him one piece of information: the village no longer sees Holo as the reason for their success. The church has increased its influence over all the land, introducing new technologies and bringing in large sums of money to the village. In exchange, the villagers must subscribe to the church's doctrine and forget their ancient deity.
Even though the much-celebrated harvest festival is tomorrow, Lawrence decides to leave during the night in order to maximize profit for the next day. To his surprise, upon reaching his wagon, a girl with the ears and tail of a wolf climbs out of it and howls at the moon! She introduces herself as the wolf deity Holo, able to appear before him because of the large amount of wheat he had amassed in his cart.
Mind already racing about how he could turn this into a business opportunity, Lawrence agrees to let Holo accompany him on his journey across the continent to become fabulously wealthy and one day open his own merchant shop. He soon proclaims that the price of the clothes and food that he provided Holo was not a gift but a loan, and he expected her to travel with him until it is paid off in full.
The series then sets off on an adventure following the duo to various cities, working together to come out financially successful from whatever adventures befall them in each new location. As I've made clear already, the focal point of the series is romance, so the two gradually bond over the many misfortunes that befall them and develop a close relationship that, seemingly, no money can buy.
Strengths
Lawrence and Holo are by no means flawless characters, and they often struggle with coming to terms with the other's view of the world. Lawrence is a shrewd businessman, seeing every person and opportunity in his life as a potential source of income. Holo is an immortal deity, and her many long years in the wheat field have given her a brutal cynicism towards humanity and its greedy tendencies.
A great strength of the series is seeing how the two reconcile their situations in different ways, and realizing that oftentimes neither of their approaches will result in happiness for either of them. The dynamic between the duo is consistently fantastic, and seeing their relationship develop around their influences on and responses to each other is a treat to witness.
"Spice and Wolf" also surprised me with the fervent heights that its emotional moments could reach. I am going to summarize a particular event from the second season and how it shaped my opinion of the series in this way. Consider skipping the following spoiler if you are interested in watching the series for yourself. Conversely, if you do not care for spoilers or have seen the show already, please open the tab.
Towards the start of the second season, Lawrence and Holo have their most lasting and serious fight in the entire story. An enterprising young man named Amarty develops a crush on Holo and proclaims that he will pay off her debt in its entirety, freeing her to travel the world with him instead of Lawrence. Sensing an easy way to make money, Lawrence agrees, assuming that Holo will simply return to him willingly once Amarty has paid off the debt.
However, the night before the transaction is scheduled to take place, Holo discovers that Lawrence has been keeping an important secret from her since the very beginning. Feeling intense betrayal and anger, Holo storms out of the room, proclaiming that once Amarty has paid off her debt, she will indeed accompany him on his travels and never see Lawrence again.
This action drives Lawrence to the depths of despair and causes him to carefully examine himself and his priorities, and is what could be called the turning point for his character, in which he realizes that Holo is more important to him than even making money. This was an exceedingly well executed fakeout by the series authors and despite being a mostly slow-paced and predictable plot, had me entirely convinced that Holo was seriously ready to leave Lawrence behind.
The final success of "Spice and Wolf," and the reason that encouraged me to write this review, is in its masterful understanding of the romance genre and what exactly its fans are looking for. Every episode is packed with these cute, wholesome moments that reinforce over and over again just why the main characters are falling for each other. There are no moments that feel undeserved, and the progression of their relationship feels completely natural and dynamic.
Weaknesses
The most glaring problem I had with this series is in its artistic presentation. Even excepting that this is now over a dozen years old, the art and music were nothing adventurous even during its time. The soundtrack, especially, consists of instrumentation intended to reflect the Middle Ages time period that the series is set in. Certain tracks were often distracting and even grating with shrill notes contrasting the peaceful conversations unfolding on screen.
The lackluster music and art in the series work together in an unfortunate combination that makes it at best, nothing special and at worst, painful to watch. There are never any especially vibrant colors, elaborate canvasses, or moving symphonies to be found in all twenty-six episodes. The focus of the series is obviously on its characters and plot, which is fine, but a little more attention could have been afforded to the presentation.
Conclusion
This series does a fantastic job of achieving wide appeal through its simplicity. Anyone looking for a romance story with some light action pieces will find it enjoyable. However, that same simplicity works against the series by limiting what exactly it can experiment with. The presence of even a few moments of high-stakes drama or action like the spoiler mentioned above give me hope that a series could, in the future, attempt the same formula to reach even greater heights.
"Spice and Wolf" as a series ends up with exactly the same conclusion that its protagonist does. Although sometimes risks can pay off to create success, the best way to achieve something is always to take the most safe and calculated route. It is a fascinating thought to me that the lack of experimentation could be what caused me to enjoy this series so much.
While more and more seasonal anime release each year with wild, sometimes unbelievable gimmicks, it is surprisingly incredibly refreshing to return to a place that tries absolutely nothing new. "Spice and Wolf" does an excellent job of providing a foundation for a more daring experiment to come along and build off its success. Until that show comes along, however, I am going to enjoy the satisfaction that "Spice and Wolf" offered me during the short time I spent with it.
It helps that Holo is incredibly cute as well.
YuiHirasawa39
Not as good as S1, but still a solid sequel with great characterization and writingContinue on AniListThis one will be short – can’t promise but I’ll do my best.
It’s been about a week since I finished Spice and Wolf Season 2, and this is a review that I’ve come to after a good deal of retroflection on the show. I first saw S1 as part of my then-college’s anime club about a year ago, and really loved the unique themes and characterizations that the show dealt with. Most of all, however, I fell deeper in love with the outstanding opening, a song that I’ve been listening to for many years now.
Now I return to S2 with fairly high expectations and a better understanding of what makes this show unique. I’ll spoil the end of this review by saying this, but I can pretty confidently say that while I enjoyed S2, it didn’t hit quite as well as S1 did, and I feel that there were some distinct areas that the first season did better. That being said, I can preemptively recommend both seasons to most readers of this review, and this is probably the first show I’ve ever seen where I’d love to have a third season rather than being completely satisfied with only two or completely happy that it’s over.
I alluded to it earlier, so I’ll look first at the music of Spice and Wolf S2. Unfortunately, the OP is good but really isn’t anywhere near the level of S1. The first OP evoked a sense of longing and journey, both of which were themes that the show focused on heavily. The second OP sounds merely like existence in a world, which is appropriate for some shows but I feel kind of misses the point of this one. The ending, however, I feel is far superior to the S1 ED, which I felt clashed with the show’s ambience throughout. Moving beyond OP and ED, I actually feel that the rest of the BGM was slightly better in S2 than in S1. I’ve said it before but I feel that an overwhelming BGM isn’t necessarily the best for dialog-based shows, which Spice and Wolf absolutely is, and S2’s backing track manages to add to the feel and focus of the show without distracting. Hard to describe, but good.
Next onto the art. It’s definetely good as well. I love this show’s color pallet – the greys, browns and greens really help to illustrate the agrarian society that our protagonists find themselves in. I’d say the art is superior to that of S1, as is the animation in general, and manages to be quite consistent, which I normally count as a win by default. I also appreciated how the artists leant heavily on shadow and darkness to illustrate critical moments without using words. Sure, light and dark is a pretty self-explanatory and overused theme in anime in general and media as a whole, but it’s suitably subtle in Spice and Wolf, and it wasn’t jarring enough for me to be distracted by it.
On next to my favorite part of any review – the characters. Unlike in my S1 review, I’d actually like to give a better look at some of the side characters here. Spice and Wolf is perhaps the first and only show I’ve seen that routinely cuts out characters and actually does it in a meaningful way. I’ve seen too many shows where side-characters are an infuriating tease. The writers will dangle a thread of character development in front of your face, perhaps for only one episode or maybe a few, suggesting that they can or will have a meaningful impact on the future of the plot as a whole. Next thing you know, they’re gone as soon as their usefulness to the leads has been exhausted. They disappear seemingly into the blue. Side characters in Spice and Wolf, however, disappear simply because the narrative focus moves elsewhere. Lawrence and Holo mount the cart and travel to a new town. Their disappearance helps to draw onward the show’s key thematic journey, in which separation is literally part of life.
I’ll use two characters as examples here – Mark and Eau. The are actually a fairly major part of the plot in the first arc, and I’d argue that Lawrence spends almost as much time talking to them as he does to Holo. But unlike minor characters in other shows, their existence isn’t contingent upon Lawrence’s. Mark’s shop lives on whether or not Lawrence comes to sell or buy, a theme that is explicitly referenced in their discussion regarding traveling merchants. In the end, they disappear for the second arc not because they’ve expended their use, but merely because our protagonists decided to move to a new place. The writers don’t tease us with their development because the focus is, rightly, elsewhere. I found this amazingly refreshing.
I’m worried I’m going to break my own promise and run overboard on length here, so let’s cut to who I’ve been looking forward to talking about ever sense. Reiterating what I said in my S1 review, I don’t dislike Holo but I feel that Lawrence himself is an incredibly underrated character. I suggested maturity in a previous review and I feel that this is even more prevent in the second season. Lawrence is a medieval man dealing with medieval problems, and maybe I watch too many slice-of-life shows but this is a welcome break from learning about teenage daily lives and relationships. Unlike so many other male protagonists, Lawrence starts S2 (and S1, let’s be honest) with a pre-existing modicum of maturity that simply makes him do reasonable things, regardless of how much he gets berated. Lawrence develops significantly as a character but these changes follow a shift in outlook rather than in person. He actually learns from his mistakes – my absolute favorite example of this is him admitting to Mark that as a traveling merchant, he doesn’t understand what it means to have duty to a town. I won’t spoil the ending, for sure, but I also feel that his goals follow this shift in outlook while still retaining his identity.
To avoid going off about Lawrence for too long, I will look briefly at Holo, and I’m somewhat frustrated to say that I feel that she regresses a bit this season as compared with the first. I appreciate that she acts considerably less vain than before, but she also seems to have lost some of the sharp wit that honestly left me scratching my head in the first season. She communicates better with Lawrence than before, I’d say, but still misses considerably in other aspects. I honestly feel that the romantic tension in this season benefits Lawrence more than Holo and leaves her more of a confused onlooker rather than a wise sage. Sure, not going berserk at every turn is nice, and I’ll give her credit for opening up a bit more to her traveling companion.
What’s left is the plot, and in the interest of remaining spoiler-free, I’d say that the first arc of this season is comparable to both of the first season in terms of quality, despite being a bit different in terms of writing. In my opinion, however, the second arc and ending of S2 is significantly weaker than that of S1. This may largely be due to how predictable I found the ending, and while predictability isn’t something S1 eschews, it at least manages to involve some truly confounding turns by the end of the season. Consequently, I’d say that S2 actually declines in the plot department as it wears on, leaving me a bit disappointed by the end. Was I completely engaged, the whole way through? Absolutely. This show does that for me. But was I satisfied (not happy…two different things) with how it drew to a close? No.
I’m calling this review here. I’ll reiterate that I can pretty easily recommend both seasons, and while I did find the first slightly better than the second, I think that fans of the former will still enjoy the latter. Again, this is probably the first show I’ve seen where I honestly want a third season, because I’m not satisfied with where it left us. Unfortunately, the curse of 2 seems to have hit Spice and Wolf as hard as any other series, and I’m not holding my breath.
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SCORE
- (4.05/5)
TRAILER
MORE INFO
Ended inSeptember 24, 2009
Main Studio Brain's Base
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