Economics Have Never Been This Cute!

 Last semester, I had to take a course in Micro Economics as a pre-requisite for the Intro to Marketing course I needed for my Public Relations minor. To be honest, I was completely dreading this class. I am OK at math as long as I can write the problems down, but I have a problem retaining numbers in my head. If you asked me right now to add 167 and 56 without pencil and paper, I wouldn't be able to. It's over two-hundred, but that's about all I can tell you.

I ended up pulling an A- in economics, but it was a challenging battle. There were just too many charts and kinds of markets and types of competition to consider for my liking, but I did learn a few valuable lessons from the class. One: Everything has a cost. If not a monetary cost, than at least a cost in missed opportunity. For example, me typing this blog is taking away time I could be using watching even more anime, which is a cost I can live with, but a cost all the same. Two: My brain is not wired to understand graphs as more than squiggly lines with random letters and numbers sprinkled within.

Believe it or not, this actually means something.  The only part I still comprehend is zero.

In any case, you would think I had enough of economics when the semester ended, but I needed a new anime to watch, and fate led me to find Spice & Wolf. Of course, I didn't really know what it was about at this point. I simply looked at the cover featuring adorable, wolf eared secondary protagonist Holo, and decided that it looked too cute to pass up. I'm such a sucker, I know. If I had known ahead of time that it had a lot to do with economics and business sense rather than just wolf-human hybrids, I may have hesitated a bit, considering that the wounds of Micro Economics 101 were still fresh on my mind. However, I am very, very glad I didn't. The things I learned in class helped me appreciate and understand Spice & Wolf all the more, even when the schemes of traveling merchant Lawrence and his companion/pagan wolf god Holo got layers deep in technical trickiness.

The cover is more cute than smart, but the story has a good balance of both.

Spice & Wolf is set in a fantasy world that greatly resembles historical Europe during the heyday of the Church and mercantilism, although the clothing style used is not particularly unique to European culture or even that old-fashioned in appearance. The hero, 25-year-old Kraft Lawrence, is a traveling merchant looking to earn enough money to start up his own brick-and-mortar shop, and makes his living trading, buying, and selling between towns and cities until the day his dream comes true. At the onset of the story, he arrives in the small village of Pasloe in the midst of their annual ritual to pray to the harvest god Holo for bountiful crops, an act that would be considered pagan by the increasingly powerful Church, which unsurprisingly mirrors many aspects of the Christian faith. The citizens of Pasloe have not embraced the new faith, but all the same they are losing interest in worshiping Holo and relying on her for assistance with their planting and gathering.

Kraft Lawrence. He's actually quite younger than he looks, but  didn't have access to Just for Men.

On his first night in Pasloe, Lawrence is resting in his cart and notices something is amiss with his goods in the back. When he takes a peek, he sees a naked girl (yup, nudity, but with Barbie doll anatomy) with wolf ears and a tail napping among the wheat. He reasonably freaks out, especially when the girl claims she is Holo herself, the 600 year-old deity who has been guarding the harvest of Pasloe over the years. When he asks for proof, she reveals that she can shift into her wolf form with the sacrifice of wheat, and does so when Lawrence insists he won't be convinced otherwise. Of course, seeing the huge, snarling wolf she turns into scares him even more. Silly Lawrence.

Holo as a wolf. Only time will tell if she will start riding motorcycles and imprinting on children.

However, Holo is nothing if not charming. She once made a promise to a townsman to watch over their crops, but she realizes she is not needed by the people anymore, and that she has already fulfilled the promise to the best of her abilities. Her wish is to return to her mysterious homeland in the north to see what has become of it, and she bargains with Lawrence in order to get him to take her along on his travels. Lawrence has several reservations about this, especially since having a pagan god in tow might spark the interest of the Church, but already a part of him is intrigued by the sharp and intelligent Holo. He agrees to take her along, while of course covering her ears and tail from the casual observer.

A moment of freedom on the road.

From here on out, economics and business strategy becomes a major factor in the story. Lawrence isn't just a traveling merchant to provide Holo a convenient way to get to where she's going; it's his way of life and mode of being, and his mind is always whirring away with thoughts of risks, opportunities, and profits. As the two make their way across the lovely countryside, he begins to educate Holo on the basics of business-- when to buy, when to sell, what to purchase and sell in which places, and how to bargain and haggle. Holo is a fast learner and has plenty of acumen and natural powers of persuasion, and begins to assist him in the market in order to help him maximize his profits. Together, they form a strong merchant team and work together to bring Lawrence closer to his goal of having a shop.

However, the world of business is capricious, even to those who know it best. Holo and Lawrence (but mostly Lawrence) take a few risks they probably shouldn't and often find themselves on the verge of an economic crisis. Of course, there is usually a complicated and mind-boggling way out that they need to put their heads together to find, but these challenges teach Holo and Lawrence how to be true partners and trust each other, even in seemingly hopeless situations. Unfortunately, on top of all the money matters, minions of the Church often become aware that the cute young woman at Lawrence's side is not what she seems, and Lawrence often has to save Holo and his wallet from corrupt influences. Holo is fairly adept at handling herself-- she's survived on her own for several centuries, for goodness sake!- but sometimes there's only so much a girl trying to hide the fact that she's a wolf deity can do. She makes up for it later in the season, when she frequently needs to use her wolf form to save Lawrence's hide when he's backed into a corner by baddies.

Lawrence telling it like it is.

Luckily, Spice & Wolf isn't all about making and losing money. At the center of the story is the relationship between Lawrence and Holo, which has as many twists and turns as the economic market. Holo has feminine wiles out the wazoo, and she certainly knows how to use them. She tends to be a bit hot and cold with Lawrence, alternating between playing mind games with his affections, showing him genuine love and respect, acting frosty, and getting jealous over interloping women. Lawrence is at first baffled at being bombarded by all of this at once, but as the series goes on, he begins to realize that while she is a deity, Holo is like a human woman underneath it at. She wants to be loved and taken seriously, but doesn't want to be treated like a fragile creature or have anyone else surpass her in his heart. First and foremost, she is well aware that his lifespan is a mere second compared to hers, and that whatever relationship they have will be fundamentally different on her side as well as his. As he gains a bit of wisdom and experience, Lawrence figures out how to navigate her different moods and give right back to her what she gives him in teasing.

A tender moment for our pair.

Do I smell a LOVE TRIANGLE?

One of my favorite and most agonizing arcs, which I'll be spoilering in this paragraph, was when Amarti enters the scene and misinterprets the Holo/Lawrence relationship (with a little help from Holo and Lawrence themselves). Although Holo is in debt to Lawrence, he takes this to mean that Lawrence is holding her against her will, and decides to become a knight-in-shining armor to set her free. He declares his intention to propose to Holo and repay her debts to Lawrence, and Lawrence, instead of just going like 'yeah, whatever man,' decides to engage in a little competition with him. If Amarti raises enough money in a certain time frame, Lawrence will surrender Holo to him. Bad idea, Lawrence, bad idea. Amarti is a little twit for one, and secondly the town where they are resting just underwent a huge boom in pyrite trading. Amarti is earning money left and right, and Lawrence is struggling to make ends meet after losing all of his money in a bad deal involving armor. To make matters worse, Holo pretends to side with Amarti, an act which Lawrence falls for since Holo is in a desperate mood after finding out from Lawrence and a local chronicler that her hometown may not even exist anymore. Of course, Holo's defection ends up being a huge scheme between Holo and the chronicler in order to build trust between Holo and Lawrence, but Lawrence doesn't know this, and almost goes half-crazy trying to keep Holo at his side. It's difficult to watch, but it was wonderfully suspenseful and ended giving Lawrence a lot more character, especially in regards to his feelings for Holo. Arc spoiler over! 

Now time for a warning. As much as I enjoyed the relationship dynamics of this show, the technical theory regarding business and economics is really difficult to understand, even if you have prior knowledge in the field. Trying to watch the show in Japanese made it even harder. By time I had read the subtitles, I didn't have time to think the situation through properly before the next set of subs popped up. I would recommend switching to the English dub when things get complicated, unless you are an economics expert, a quick learner, or are close to fluent in Japanese. The English dub isn't bad at all, so it really isn't that much of a sacrifice, and it certainly gives an advantage when it comes down to figuring out what the hell Holo and Lawrence are talking about when they put their business hats on.

So would I recommend Spice & Wolf? Yup, but only for people who actually enjoy the brain power it takes to maneuver the story. It may be a drama and a romance, but it is foremost an intellectual series that requires an understanding of the explanations of business strategy and basic economics to fully appreciate. If you enjoy these things already or think you're up to learning a little while enjoying the excellent setting and characters, go full steam ahead. But if it's one of those days when you want to curl up in front of the TV without having to think or do anything but watch, save Spice & Wolf for another occasion. It's an adorable and moving series, but you'll have to invest some effort to reap the profits, so put that thinking cap over your wolf ears before settling down to enjoy the show.

Next up will be buddy cop and shounen-ai classic manga/OVA FAKE.