Spice and Wolf

Spice and Wolf (狼と香辛料) is a Japanese light novel series written by Isuna Hasekura and illustrated by Jū Ayakura. ASCII Media Works has published 24 volumes since February 2006 under their Dengeki Bunko imprint. ASCII Media Works has also published thirteen volumes of a spin-off light novel series titled Wolf and Parchment since September 2016. The story follows Kraft Lawrence, a traveling merchant, and Holo, a wolf deity who decides to accompany him north to her hometown as Lawrence seeks his fortune.

A manga adaptation illustrated by Keito Koume began serialization in the November 2007 issue of ASCII Media Works' manga magazine Dengeki Maoh. The manga is licensed by Yen Press, which has begun releasing the volumes in English. A 12-episode anime adaptation aired between January and March 2008, and an original video animation (OVA) episode released in May 2008. A second OVA was released in April 2009 as a prequel to the second anime season Spice and Wolf II, which had 12 episodes air between July and September 2009. Both anime seasons were released in English by Kadokawa Pictures USA and Funimation Entertainment. Two visual novels based on the series for the Nintendo DS were released by ASCII Media Works in June 2008 and September 2009. A second anime television series adaptation premiered in April to September 2024, with a second season having been announced.

By October 2020, the light novel had sold over 5 million copies. The series was described as a "unique fantasy" by Mainichi Shimbun due to the plot focusing on economics and trade rather than typical fantasy staples such as swords and magic.[2]

Plot

Spice and Wolf's story revolves around Kraft Lawrence, a 25-year-old traveling merchant who peddles various goods from town to town to make a living in a fictional world similar to Medieval Europe.[3] His main goal in life is to gather enough money to start his own shop, and he already has been traveling for seven years while gaining experience in the trade. One night, while at the town of Pasloe, he finds in his wagon a beautiful wolf-deity named Holo who is over 600 years old. She takes the form of a 15 to 17-year-old girl, except for a wolf's tail and ears. She introduces herself as the town's goddess of harvest, who has kept it blessed with good harvests of wheat for many years. Holo has experienced increasing isolation and disillusionment at the townpeople's move away from her blessings towards their own methods of increasing the harvest. She is especially hurt at their forgetting of the promise made between her and a farmer when she arrived in the village and their criticism of her as a "fickle god" because she needs to replenish the soil with smaller harvests.

Because of these changes, she wants to go back to her homeland in the north called Yoitsu, especially because she believes the townspeople have already forsaken her and that she has kept her promise to maintain the good harvests. Holo also wants to travel to see how the world has changed while she has remained in Pasloe. She manages to bargain her way out of the village by making a deal with Lawrence to take her with him. As they travel, her wisdom helps increase his profits, but at the same time, her true nature draws unwanted attention from the Church. Meanwhile, the two find themselves slowly developing feelings for each other.

Characters

• Kraft Lawrence (クラフト・ロレンス)
• A 25-year-old traveling merchant who goes from town to town buying and selling goods to make a living. When he was twelve, he became an apprentice to a merchant relative, and set out on his own at eighteen. His goal in life is to gather enough money to start his own shop, and he has already been traveling for seven years while gaining experience in the trade. He meets Holo one night and eventually agrees to her traveling with him. She helps him by providing her wisdom which helps to increase his profits and get him out of difficult situations. As the series progresses, both Lawrence and Holo demonstrate a growing affection toward each other. Although Lawrence rarely shows different facial expressions, he falls in love with Holo as they travel and spend time together. He shows his affection through his actions, such as when Holo gets captured by the Church and Lawrence completely panics. He also gets jealous whenever other men flirt or show affection for Holo, especially Amarti. He typically goes by "Lawrence".
• Holo[6][7] (ホロ)
• A beautiful female wolf harvest deity originally from a place in the north known as Yoitsu, which draws parallels to the legendary land of Hyperborea. She made a promise with inhabitants from a town called Pasloe that she would ensure the town would have good wheat harvests year after year. However, as time went on, the townspeople slowly started to forsake Holo, regarding her as unnecessary, and resented the occasional bad harvests that Holo told Lawrence were necessary to rest the land. As such, Holo escapes from town in Lawrence's wagon and started traveling with him to see how much the world has changed since she has been in Pasloe. Holo has chosen the form of a 15-year old girl,[10] though she still retains her large white-tipped wolf tail, ears, and two sharp fangs. At times she can produce an ear-shattering howl. Her true form is that of a large and fearsome wolf. In human form, she has a peculiar way of speaking, modeled after that of oiran high-class courtesans.[11] She is able to speak to humans as a wolf. Holo is fond of delicious food and alcohol, but she always loves something new in each novel, ranging from apples to eels. She takes pride in her tail and takes special care of it, constantly combing and maintaining it.
• Holo refers to herself as "Holo the Wise Wolf" (ヨイツの賢狼). She is typically very haughty and self-sufficient, but due to her isolation for hundreds of years in Pasloe, she is often lonely and sometimes shows a more fragile side of herself. She relies on Lawrence for company to fend off her loneliness; Lawrence knows this and comforts her in his own way. She is also acutely aware of the different time spans that she and Lawrence have, as a human lifespan is like a blink of an eye for her kind. Holo is scared of that fact, but hides it with jokes. Although she jokes about her affections for Lawrence at first, she slowly but surely falls in love with him. At the end of the series, Holo settles down with Lawrence and they have a daughter, Myuri, who inherits her mother's traits and is the main character of the sequel light novel series Wolf and Parchment.[12]
• Yarei (ヤレイ)
• A farmer of Pasloe who has a long history of facilitating deals with Lawrence, whom he was childhood friends with. On the day Lawrence passes through Pasloe, Yarei "catches the wolf" in the town's yearly harvest festival. Instead, Holo escapes to a larger sheaf of wheat in Lawrence's wagon. When they meet again in Pazzio, Yarei knows of the existence of Holo, but pretends not to know. He subsequently avows his faith in modern methods and seeks to turn her over to the Church for burning, shattering his friendship with Lawrence. He eventually leads an attack on Lawrence and Holo in the sewer system, becoming the sole survivor when those with him are killed by Holo in her wolf form for badly injuring Lawrence Holo considers killing Yarei, but ultimately deems him so pathetic that he is not worth the effort.
• Chloe (クロエ)
• A villager of Pasloe who has known Lawrence for a long time. She is an original character in the 2008 anime series, serving as a major antagonist and replacing Yarei. In fact, Lawrence taught her how to be a merchant. She had a slight interest in Lawrence, but tries to push the feelings away. Despite still not knowing how she should feel about him, she respects him as her teacher and a good friend. Their friendship is later broken when Chloe allies with the Church to capture Holo and Lawrence, an obsession that slowly takes a toll on her sanity. She substitutes for Yarei in the first anime to deepen the drama when Chloe turned on Lawrence, her former teacher and old friend. When Chloe leads the sewer attack on Lawrence and Holo, Holo has a chance to kill Chloe, but refrains from doing so, allowing Chloe to flee.
• Norah Arendt (ノーラ・アレント)
• A skilled and beautiful young shepherd from a church-town named Ruvinheigen. She makes her first appearance in volume two of the novels. Her companion in this profession is a well-trained sheep dog named Enek (Enekk in the anime). Lawrence entrusts her with a difficult task of gold smuggling after they meet. It's implied that Lawrence might have secret feelings for Norah, but is never made clear. However, Holo tends to get slightly jealous whenever Lawrence and Norah interact with each other, even though the girls reconcile and become good friends later on.
• After the mission is accomplished, Norah gains enough funds to emancipate herself from the Church.
• Fermi Amati (フェルミ・アマーティ)
• A young man who works as a fish broker. Like Lawrence, he mainly goes by his surname for business, and he makes his first appearance in volume three of the novels. He falls in love with Holo, and proposes to her. Due to Holo's good acting, he believes her to be gentle, kind and a soft spoken, polite girl.
• After listening to Holo's fake story of being Lawrence's traveling companion due to her owing him a (non-existent) huge debt, Amati attempts to buy her liberty and win Holo over by publicly declaring a contractual deal with Lawrence in the merchant's guild. However, he loses almost everything emotionally and financially after the pyrite's price crash and Holo's dedication to stand by Lawrence. According to Mark, due to the methods in which he built his fortune, Amati looks down on the connections and acquaintances forged by other merchants, and believes it shameful to make use of such connections to secure a deal.
• Dian "Diana" Rubens (ディアン・ルーベンス)
• A chronicler living in Kumersun's walled ghetto with other "suspect" persons such as alchemists. She first appears in volume three of the novels. She loves to collect Pagan tales and beliefs and has written them into a set of books. Lawrence had come to her to ask for information about Holo's birthplace, Yoitsu. Since Dian sounds like a masculine name, Lawrence at first doesn't recognize her as the chronicler he seeks. Thus, she asks Lawrence to call her Dianna. According to Holo, Dian is not human, but a bird even bigger than Lawrence. She fell in love with a traveling priest and spent a few years helping him build a church, but left because he noticed that she never seemed to grow old and became suspicious. Her influence is vast, and, she protects the alchemists living in the ghetto. Her true appearance and the extent of her animal features is unknown.
• Mark Cole (マルク・コール)
• A town merchant and a wheat seller in Kumersun. He and his apprentice, Eu Landt, assist Lawrence in his contest with Amati, and talk with Lawrence and Holo. Mark is roughly eight to ten years older than Lawrence and very proud of his little shop and his family. He strives to hold onto his good name for their sake, though he clearly goes to great lengths to help Lawrence in any way he can. He is also the first merchant in a long while that Lawrence comes to accept as a true friend and not just a business associate.
• Elsa Schtingheim (エルサ・シュティングハイム)
• A young girl who serves as the priest at the church of Tereo. She was picked up by Father Franz at a young age and raised in the church, so she has a strong faith. After the death of Father Franz, who was the villagers' spiritual support, she has been working hard to succeed him as priest for the sake of the village. At first, she is wary of Lawrence, an outsider, and has a surly attitude, but seems to open up to Evan.
• Gyoam Evan (ギヨーム・エヴァン)
• A boy who grinds wheat in a watermill near the village of Tereo. He is tired of being constantly suspected of stealing wheat and wants to leave the village. He admires Lawrence's life as a merchant who travels around the outside world, and chooses to leave with him and Holo. He has a friendly personality and seems to have a good relationship with Elsa.
• Eve Bolan (エーブ・ボラン)
• A mysterious merchant from the port town of Lenos. She is a fallen noble who was once sold as a bride to another merchant after her family's fall. She slowly laundered money from him and when he died, she started her own business.
• She is naturally wary and goes about her trade dressed as a man. Although hard to approach, Eve is talkative under the right circumstances and has a keen eye for people and business alike. She organized a secret smuggling operation with the church, and after leaving it, made a contract with Lawrence. Her real name is Fleur von Eiterzental Mariel Bolan.

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External links