Korosu!

Poor Lawrence Craft may be a genius at business, but he sure is dense when it comes to other matters.

I haven’t kept up with the Spice and Wolf manga or light novels much since the first season of the anime aired. Fortunately, the first anime season was brilliant and captured most of what I liked about the series, and the second is now following in its footsteps. I had hoped to blog this second season from the beginning, but due to lack of time I’m only just now starting to post about it.

This second season, now animated by Brain’s Base (although still with a lot of the original staff)  and with a more generous budget, has noticeably better quality. The character animation especially is more frequently on model than in the last season, and the animation seems a bit more fluid.

For reference, Brain’s Base also has to its credit several other visually excellent projects, including Kamichu, Baccano, and Kurenai. It should come as no surprise that their work here is just as excellent.

Horo’s description of her relatively plain life acting as the guardian deity of the harvest in Pasroe starkly constrasted with her tales of journeying with Lawrence. It kind of makes one wonder why Horo even stayed for so long among the wheat fields of Pasroe. Perhaps it was just out of a sense of obligation that she stayed, or maybe she just needed the impetus of an event like her encounter with Lawrence to help make up her mind.

Whatever the reason, she certainly seems to be enjoying herself with Lawrence, and their travels together are simultaneously humorous and heartwarming.

Apparently they had nude beaches back in medieval… wherever this is.

Horo’s inner conflict makes me laugh almost as much as her outer conflicts with Lawrence. Half of the time when she argues with him it’s because she’s reacting more to her inner emotions than to him specifically, I imagine.

Kind of hard to for her really conceal her true emotions, though, when she has ears and a tail that completely telegraph what she’s thinking. Horo would be a terrible poker player. Hmm… then again, she does pretty well at putting on a good act when it’s required, too. Come to think of it, really it just seems like she’s more expressive when she’s talking to Lawrence.

And as touching as Lawrence’s concern about Horo’s health is, I have to think that she wouldn’t have survived in the forest on her own for hundreds of years if she didn’t know a thing or two about how to take care of herself.

After Lawrence leaves to procure some food, Horo goes back to sleep and has a nightmare. She stands alone in the snow. On one side are her wolf brethren, and on the other side is Lawrence. She calls out his name and runs to him, but as she reaches him he becomes nothing but dead bones littering the ground. She turns back around to face the wolves, but a red barrier snakes across the landscape, separating them.

This key scene really strikes right at the heart of Horo’s inner conflict. Caught between her desire to return home and her blossoming feelings for Lawrence, she struggles to balance her wolf nature with her human side.

I think the scene also hints at another fear she holds. Horo has already lived hundreds of years. She’s stated many times that the lifespan of a human is a mere flicker of time to her. Perhaps she fears that falling for Lawrence will only lead to tragedy in the end, as he will eventually pass away, leaving her even more lonely and isolated than she was in the beginning. Consorting with humans excessively might even lead to her being ostracized from others of her kind.

Horo is a lot stronger than she’s often made out to be, but the many tumultuous thoughts and emotions she keeps locked up really weigh on her. This is especially telling over the course of the next few episodes this season, as we really see both sides of her character exhibited strongly.

And of course, leave it Lawrence to spoil the mood by bringing home (another) girl. And her little dog, too.

You know, I had a farmer friend who once claimed that sheep’s milk was far superior to cow’s milk, and that after you became accustomed to it drinking cow’s milk was no better than water. Myself I could never quite get used to the flavor, but I can certainly appreciate Horo’s desire to have some.

And as for the “secret women’s conversation” she had with Nora about the most important quality for a shepherd… it really must have been a woman thing, because I sure as hell don’t have a clue what they were talking about. Apparently Kurogane wasn’t entirely sure either, so at least I know it’s not just me. o_0;

Horo is not amused by any of your bullshit.

Basically this episode was the dynamic of Spice and Wolf’s central theme at it’s best – Horo and Lawrence’s hilarious yet heartwarming hot-and-cold relationship, and how their interactions together show us deeper facets of their inner character. And provide lots of humor and witty one-liners. That too.