Ookami to Koushinryou

I saw this anime because of a few recommendations online and several glowing reviews, however upon watching Spice and Wolf I have to wonder how old the writers of these reviews are that they can find this enjoyable. If you've read any other review on this show, you'll know it is praised for its "character depth" and its use of economics. Let me warn you ahead of time, I have seen puddles with more depth than these characters. They are extremely 2 dimensional, the dialogue might as well have been written by a junior high student, and the monotonous tone of the voice acting is ... appalling. As to the economics so heavily praised by viewers, it is hardly a fair trade for a good story. When the subject is brought up, it sounds more like the characters are reading from a textbook rather than furthering the story. It basically consists of an economic buzzword being said, followed by the definition, in other words the show is extremely full of parrot expositions.

The sound of the show also leaves something to be desired, as there is little to no music, almost exclusively dialogue and ambient noise, which I understand was the intent, and could be quite powerful if done correctly. Unfortunately, it was not. Instead of using this tactic to emphasize important and deep scenes, the entirety of the show is treated the same and the viewer is quickly desensitized to the effect and no emphasis is ever placed on anything. When music is actually used, it tends to be poor quality and rather obnoxious, typically played over conversation which was clearly intended to make the conversation seem fun and uplifting but ends up causing the opposite.

The art style of the show is average quality and I really have no comment on it.

Right off the bat, we are greeted by both Lawrence's friend provocatively discussing a business transaction and Holo explaining nonverabally how comfortable she is nude, and how frequently you can expect to see her that way. At this point you would expect that fanservicing will be the downfall of this show but overall what ruined the show for me was the abysmal dialogue and utter lack of real character depth. As I continued to watch I noticed that the closest thing I could compare this show to, both in character and in dialogue would be Twilight. The obnoxious amount of exposition tropes is also reminiscent of your typical shonen.

I expect the crowd who actually do care for this show are coming from a background in Naruto or One Piece, which were also not my cup of tea.

TL;DR: If you are below the age of 16 and have never seen anything with a more dynamic story than Naruto, you may enjoy Spice and Wolf, you may even praise it for the greatest characters ever written. But for the adults reading this article who are looking for a show with legitimate character development and an enthralling story, look elsewhere.

It's probably because it's older, but I don't consider this show to be "good":

- The pacing is slow

- There is a lot of dialogue, but very little worldbuilding in it

- By episode 5 nothing has happened

- Holo always has to remind everyone that she's "Holo the wise wolf" even if it is not important at all

...
No seriously. There are 10 minutes of Dialogue in every episode that have no real substance. If you want to show that Holo is attractive and how to change coins you could do that in 2 sentences and draw holo more attractive, and not have 12 Min of one episode invested in those two infos. There are some things, that I think are supposed to be jokes, but it doesn't really deliver.

I've seen filler in anime that had more substance than this. No idea why it's rated 8.3 - Y'all furries?

It is by all means the worst anime i have ever watched.There were many moments in anime in which our 2 main characters just don't wanna do what they can to save themselves its like they just forget about it until they reach a dead end or an emergency.For eg. or Female main character says in a scene that she had forgot something important and that she wanted to tell it to the main character and later when that thing actually starts happening that is some men were standing at their damn door. Now our main characters have to jump out of the window and ... run for their lives.Female main get caught and the other one saves her.later they ran into underground and run until the very end of it, mind me our Female main can turn herself into a giant wolf and take every one down but she do not do it for some reason and when our main characters have no where to go she turns into a wolf and massacre all of the men she could have done that way before but she did not for some reason only god knows or ever he may not.
Story-the story don't actually progress much

Characters- Worst part of the anime, they are not characters they are idiots

Sound effect- Trust me most of the anime is basically talking, talking and talking and guess what the sound effect makes them more boring which were supposed to make it interesting

Art- The main character seem like a 50 year old man while our female main seems to be 16 year old. The visuals are well boring you only see a farm growing wheat and thats all like literaly

Overall- Please do not see this anime you will regret it, I know that there are tons of reviews which says that this anime is a masterpiece but it is actually a piece of garbage

PROVE ME WRONG IF YOU DISAGREE

This series had been on my radar for a while, and I was curious about it from the description of "Romance + Economics!" Seems different and interesting enough.

Holo and Lawrence are one dimensional and almost comically immature. The dialogue is stilted and the economics piece is often unnecessarily confusing or convoluted. I'm baffled as to why this series is considered "beloved" or is worthy of an 8.3 average rating.

for 2008, the animation feels like it's straight out of 1995. It feels outdated.

I'm relatively certain it's just being propped up by the furry community as one of the few actual semi-legitimate pieces of art out ... there for them.

I was told to watch this anime from a friend, because they told me it was "so good" and one one of their favourites.

After watching the first season, I've personally dubbed this "Generic: The Anime". The characters have about as much life in them as cardboard cutouts. The dialogue, of which there is a LOT (it makes sense being that it's about merchant trading and finances) is clunky and feels forced a good chunk of the time. There have only been about three moments where I've actively KIND OF wanted to know what was going to happen, and likewise those are about the only three ... moments I even remember.

I want to focus more on the characters. Lawrence has zero personality beyond "that merchant guy who gets in trouble". He's not funny, he's not really likeable, actually he's the worst sort of anime idiot, in my perspective. Holo, the "great female lead" people have told me about, is downright insufferable. She comes across as snotty and superior, but talks way more about how amazing and so wise she is than she ever actually demonstrates her defining character trait. She's arrogant, demanding, and...She just gets on my nerves. None of the other characters are worth mentioning, they're as uninteresting as the leads.

Everyone speaks very monotone in the dub, which makes boring financial dialogue even more boring. Is there background music? If there is I don't even remember. The opening is pretty bland and the ending is something I skip everytime, so nothing in the sound department stands out or impresses me at all.

Art wise, everything but the backgrounds look very generic, including Holo and especially Lawrence. The backgrounds, at least, look like there was real effort to make them look nice and soft. But medieval trading isn't going to give you any really visually stunning backgrounds...Again, they DO look really nice for what they are.

Overall, do I think this anime is particularly bad? Despite my abysmal scores of it, not really. I just find it so, so tedious, with a lead I personally can't stand, and nothing of interest really happening. I do, however, hope others can enjoy it as much as others I've talked to seem to, and as much as the other reviews here do too. This one's just not for me, and if financial dialogue doesn't do much for you, I most certainly cannot recommend this anime.

To be honest? Medieval product exchange, and stocks is about as interesting and fun as reading a gym sock. The art and sound is nothing astounding, and just because you give a leading female main character ears and a tail doesn't mean they suddenly have character depth. And the male main character is so stale, I got bored at the idea of him. I get people like what they like, but after watching season 1 and 2, I'd say it'd be better to find almost any other anime to watch. I even went in with a clean slate, and had read the positive reviews to ... look for what people saw in it, and I honestly feel like it was a waste of time.