Ookami to Koushinryou: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf

With a cartload of fur pelts in tow, traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence stops by the village of Pasloe. According to local folklore, centuries ago, one of the villagers made a promise with the wolf deity Holo, who swore to bless Pasloe with bountiful harvests of wheat. Yet, as time passed, such stories became little more than relics of the past.

After quickly finishing his business in the village, Lawrence sets out to his next destination. His journey, however, takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a nude, animal-eared girl sleeping among his pelts. Even more surprisingly, the youthful-looking woman claims to be Holo—the wolf of legend.

Holo wishes to return to her hometown in the north, and though their first encounter is rocky, she convinces Lawrence to accompany her on her travels. In return, she vows to earn her keep, using her quick wits and lifetime of experience to help her newfound companion in his dealings. As they continue their journey, Lawrence and Holo take advantage of whatever economic opportunities they come across, often landing in situations that put both their business skills and their relationship to the test.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Holo Main

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Lawrence, Kraft Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Arendt, Norah Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Myuuri Supporting

Tanaka, Aimi Japanese

Rubens, Dian Supporting

Watanabe, Akeno Japanese

Liechten, Marhait Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Amati, Fermi Supporting

Chiba, Saeko Japanese

Cole, Marc Supporting

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Remerio, Hans Supporting

Gouda, Hozumi Japanese

Tarantino, Jacob Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi Japanese

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Hosoi, Shunsuke Producer

Fujita, Mikito Producer

Kondou, Tomohisa Producer

Reviews

Jul 15, 2024

Rickcir

Recommended

Preliminary (13/25 eps)

This is not your run of the mill action-packed anime. It's an anime your Otaku economics teacher would drool over. People call it boring - it's not nearly as bad as this seasons spat of episode after episode of slime meetings. And meetings about scheduling meetings. Craft and Holo are usually on the road, where the goal of our crafty merchant is to turn a profit, and Holo is mostly interested on munching on sweets. Or the people that assault Craft. It's the ups and down of his business, cutting deals, betrayals, politics, and their unusual relationship - a wise harvest god and a not-so-wise ... merchant.

This is an anime where you have to watch and listen - actually pay attention. It's not endless battles and massive pew-pew fights. Some episodes are 100% chill. Others are filled with action, albeit a lot of it running away. If you were a fan of the original series, you'll like this one - it's different, but still great.

It reminds me of "Maouyuu Mao Yuusha", where the hero falls for the female demon lord and basically uses economics to save the kingdom.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jul 10, 2024

nirererin

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (15/25 eps)

Spice and the Wolf vs. Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf

It’s kind of a remake of an old anime that was first aired in 2008. Then, the technology and animation style were different. So, when it was announced, I was kind of looking forward to what kind of changes they would make. And after watching almost half of the season, I felt some dissatisfaction. I am pointing this out here.

The view of merchants
Compared to the old version, surprisingly, they are quite young—funny, right!? I don’t know why they changed that; from my point of view, it was unnecessary. ... Overall, previous characters design was better in every way.

Dialogues
In my opinion, dialogues seem a little less serious or sarcastic. In the previous adaptation, when Holo and Lawrence had any conversation, those conversations sounded so entertaining.

Sequence and BGM
For example, in the in the previous adaptation’s OVA, the starting sequence was epic, like something interesting was going to happen. What do I miss in the new one? BGMs are good in the new one—not equally, but good enough.

Anyway, if anyone didn’t watch the previous adaptation, it’s also a good adaptation. I mean, Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf is good enough—new visual, etc.—but didn’t reach the Spice and Wolf.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 12, 2024

CodeCypheur

Not Recommended

Preliminary (9/25 eps)

Forced myself through 9 episodes of this poorly written drivel before realising it was currently airing and would have a total of 25 episodes, not the 11 I assumed - so yes this goes onto my *extremely* short dropped list. Coming from a person who despises dropping watching anything...I think it goes to show just how bad this show is.

I have two main gripes; 1 being that it is just plain boring - which I know is entirely subjective but may make sense throughout this review, 2 being the absolutely horrible writing.

To avoid spoilers I won't go into the plot but I found it an ... absolute snoozefest, this show seems to be driving off of two main things to keep people interested: Holo and the economic plot. They both suck.

Holo is just made to cater towards boys. Which was extremely disappointing to me as going in blind, I expected Holo to take the more passive viewer insert role and the merchant main character guy (Lawrence?) to be this nurturing character for the viewer to then pine for. Yeah this was not made for the girlies. It was made for the boys. You're meant to believe that Holo is this super old and cunning deity, but this is only played for the sake of sexual appeal - which is disturbing considering she's described *multiple times* as looking like a teenager, and she does genuinely look like a child. Her maturity is dropped when convenient to instead pander to the male gaze by making her your typical innocent damsel in distress who needs to be saved, the creator clearly wanted to fit all of his fantasies into Holo regardless of how contrasting they are. You can't have your cake and eat it, as a result Holo's character just feels...hollow. She only exists for men to project what they want to see in her.

Main character merchant guy Lawrence is just the viewer insert, he has the personality of a wet paper towel. Other than his questionable tastes for...children and child-like looking women there is nothing to say about him because he is just an insert.

This obviously creates a problem where your two main characters in a show that's primary theme seems to be about these two characters growing together, just don't have any agency nor interesting traits? It just feels like Holo is dragging Lawrence along for the ride and he's too enamored with her to give a damn and think for himself. Then the plot is just contrived drama to force them into situations that call for some drama. It's just not entertaining or believable.

Overall this is an objectively poorly written and animated show - but it has half fox waifu whos both seductive and innocent so of course the typical boys are going to be eating it tf up. If you don't care for fox-waifus then I see absolutely no reason to waste your time watching this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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