Type: Television Show
Episodes: 25, 1 OVA
Rating: Intellectual
Runtime Per Episode: 24 min
Director: Takahashi Takeo
Produced By the Spice and Wolf Production Committee
Year Produced: 2008
One of... the best animes... EVER!!
The End.
... Okay, I'll write more, I mean, it's not totally fair to let you off so light, no rant even, granted, I have been kind of tired lately.
Craft Lawrence... or Lawrence Craft, I'm actually not totally sure how it's supposed to go, check this out. This guy lives in a medieval time period, consisting of traveling merchants, and the Church on it's rise to power, and thus the abolishment of the old "Pagan" ways.
That being said, is his name Lawrence (First Name, in theory) Craft (Last Name, in theory) because he's not technically living in Japan... actually, decidedly not, unless everyone there went suddenly English.
Or is it Craft Lawrence, since this is a story written by a Japanese guy (in theory)?
Real mind bender, yeah?
He's made the tour several times, and established a trade route and good relations with the townspeople all over, and has even got an apprentice or two.
That's Chloe... from the village of Pasroe, Lawrence's next stop.
Pasroe is considered to be a pagan village, but nobody actually cares enough to go and burn it down, so they just let it be, I guess.
The reason that they are considered pagan is that they worship their God of Harvest; Horo... the Wise.
A wolf god, Horo is responsible for good harvests and such. There's a bunch of sayings in the village, all of them involving Horo (usually referred to as "The Wolf") and wheat, the village's main source of income.
When Lawrence gets there, the whole village is having their annual harvest festival, full of more obscure games and rituals that probably never had any foundation in reality, but I'll try to break it down for you.
The people cut all the wheat, and the person to cut the last batch of wheat raises it over their head, howling like they also sliced off one of their own fingers.
This year's unlucky citizen is Chloe. Tough luck, honey.
The person then has to flee in terror from their own neighbors, all of whom are armed with sickles and other sharp and curved implements.
Get back here, BITCH!
The townspeople band together, driving the poor soul into a large barn, then lock them inside, despite pitiful and desperate pleas for help, and the frail, weeping resistance put up by the victim.
With nothing to eat except the raw wheat, the accused will be doomed to live out the rest of their unhappy lives locked in that God-forsaken barn.
When they have reached the deepest abyss of Hell (the ring saved specially for pagans), they will sell their soul to the Devil and be returned to the land of the living to exact revenge on all the mortal beings that condemned it to the barn.
Lawrence came back at the wrong time of the year.
The End.
... Actually, it's just a game which is based in the idea that Horo is in that stalk of wheat, and thus must be imprisoned to keep it from escaping. So they lock it, along with the unlucky soul in a barn for a week. Not much better, yeah?
Lawrence finishes up his trading with the town elder or whatever (Chloe's balding father), then heads out again.
He stops by a river for the night, and as he comes back from the riverside, he notices something stirring under the tarp. Now remember that this is the age of devils and possessions. PAGANS, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE (literally).
So Lawrence reaches around and closes his hand around the cool handle of his... what is that, a butter knife?
Why yes it is! Big, bad Lawrence is traveling through a land crawling with the previously stated devils and possessed, God-less souls, not to mention bandits, mercenaries, wild dogs and wolves, and the worst; other merchants, and he's got a 3-inch dagger riding on his ass.
That dude should be packing no less than an 18-inch machete with a serrated edge for close-combat purposes! If I was him, I'd also mount one of those miniguns on the back of my cart. Maybe just upgrade to the Humvee.
When he throws back the tarp, he finds the furs that he had originally, and a little something extra; a woman.
HOLY SHIT!!
"Obviously a ridiculously cute girl with a cosplay fetish", thinks Lawrence.
When the mysterious wolf-girl sits up and lets loose a howl that would kill anyone of uncertain heart condition, Lawrence starts to get a little bit suspicious.
The girl then says this.
... Horo.
... cute name.
... GAYAHHHH!
She tells him that she's the wolf god... dess that is responsible for the harvest in the village of Pasroe. Hot Damn!! That's quite a stroke of luck! Then she says this.
How could you say no?
So Lawrence goes and acts like an asshole, waving his excuse for a knife around and demanding a show like she's some kind of carnival side-show. So she kills him. Well, with his intelligence and sensitivity quotient, she'd probably been better off with someone else.
Turns out she's not lying, and nearly tears his head off when she eats some wheat and her arm practically explodes into a wolf paw. Lawrence totally overreacts to the situation and falls off his cart, and lies in the grass cringing.
When he stands up again, Horo is gone.
Too scared to stay out in the wild any more, Lawrence goes running back to Pasroe's mayor's house... thing, and spends about ten minutes actually there.
During the rest of the night, he is hijacked by Chloe, who's managed to escape from her would-be prison to pick him up for a date, and he is visited by Horo again (still naked, woot!).
Horo presses her original question, and tells Lawrence her final destination; The North. Damn, that's helpful. Actually, she's going to Yoitsu in the North. Practically no better because nobody's ever heard of it.
Thinking, thinking, thinking...
Reject Horo and you...
1. Piss off a God...
2. ... and a cute one at that.
3. Loose any and all benefit her godly powers would bring.
4. Not have the excuse to travel with a cute girl for an unspecified and possibly indefinite period of time.
Accept Horo and you...
1. Get the opposite of everything up there.
2. And a brand new toaster-oven.
... YES, OF COURSE!
What are you, BRAIN DAMAGED?! Say YES!
So Lawrence finally makes the right decision and agrees.
So Lawrence and Horo set off on their difficult and difficult to understand journey. Good luck to them!
Oh, and all the action that Lawrence was probably ever going to get was in the first episode. Naked Horo and inciting Chloe. And this question...
HOLY SHIT, YES!
Once again, both you and I are either reading too much into this question or are just misunderstanding it, but damn!
The plot line was awesome! With one slight problem. It's really fucking difficult to understand. You'll undoubtedly have to pause/rewind several dozen times just get the general idea on a couple of episodes. So the real reason that I'm not going into depth on the plot is because I don't have the energy. I don't think I ever will.
The character development was well rounded, and I didn't feel that I had any question by the time the series was over. As you could probably, I'm a big Horo fan. She's one of my all-time favorite characters.
Horo's got serious insecurity and unloved feelings.
UNTRUE!!
She's all alone since the village has converted to Christianity in return for better harvesting methods. Ha! They can get all the threshers they want, but when nothing grows, you'll just have to shove those new tools, won't ya?!
Lawrence is... pretty much a vaguely good-willed, slightly business-smart... incompetent fool as represented by his only facial expressions.
Slight Worry
Downright Fear
He hardly ever actually looks like he has any kind of plan or direction, let alone a cool side. He needs like... an eyepatch or something to at least give him the "Fuck Off" vibe that he so desperately needs because he's just this side of gutless. But to be fair, he's got strength when he needs it. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the brains to use that strength to save someone else like, I dunno... Horo, when she actually needs it (that's twice that I can recall right now).
The drawing and animation style were seriously different from the manga. I don't quite now how to explain it... the manga was a lot more like... soft and chibi-ish. Since there was no action for a good part of it, the animation frame-rate around the action sequences were good.
Again, stick with the Japanese version. In this case, it's a little less realistic, but hell, have you ever heard of a place called Pasroe, let alone Yaitsu?
The music was better than half of the stuff that I've seen so far. Good intro number, but the outro was sung in English for... bad reasons. I don't know the real reason, but whatever it was, it was a bad reason.
Personally, I think it's a bad idea for anyone whose not a native English speaker to sing a song in English, but it's a strange... I guess obsession with the Japanese. Using English words in situations where a Japanese word would just sound so much better.
Coming up next!
Gankutsuo: The Count of Monte Cristo
Alert!
If you don't like spoilers, or still want to watch the show now, you'd better stop reading!
I'll give you the general lay-out of things because, like previously stated, I don't have the wherewithal to do an in-depth review of the plot.
It basically consists of two arc; the Church arc, and the Armor arc.
Now in the Church arc, Lawrence and Horo team up for their first business interaction with the Milone Company, and sell off all the furs that they brought for what I gather is an obscene amount.
Later on, they figure out that some kind of scam is going on in which the kingdom is ultimately dropping the gold content in their coins. One of the big companies in the city that their staying at is starting to gather gold coins to have the higher content ones before the price drops, in hopes of selling them off at a higher price to the kingdom once the process is complete (I think, remember, I'm still not totally sure what happened.).
Lawrence takes this information to the Milone Company and form a partnership to rake in a profit themselves. Then all hell breaks loose.
The rival company sends agents after Lawrence and Horo, forcing them to flee from their inn room out into the streets. Horo and Lawrence decide to split up because Lawrence needs to get to the Milone Company so he can negotiate, and Horo can escape on her on.
(This is one of the times Lawrence should have been a bit more smart and figured out a way to save them both)
As you probably have already figured out, Horo gets captured... by people who already know that she's a god (a Pagan god). They thus threaten to turn her over to the Church, and thus (by default) tie the Milone Company to the pagans if they don't stay out of the coin deal.
Lawrence manages to figure out a plan and allies the Milone Company with the cash-poor Kingdom, thus pitting the Church against the King (in the manga, it was described with a chess board. Kind of cool), putting the Church in an immobile position, cause you don't fuck with the King if you want any more donations.
The Milone Company then organizes a raid on the company that's holding Horo captive... and are successful! Horo is extracted by large, executioner-cap-wearing... Milone thugs, but she's still pissed because Lawrence didn't come and save her personally.
I get it, but at the same time, she should be glad that he didn't because he probably would have impaled her in a panic attack or something.
... Okay, Lawrence is better than that. He would have stabbed himself.
Lawrence and Horo strike out in the sewer systems to get away and hide until the transaction is over, but they find that they've been found out, and the sewers are rapidly filling with gangstas'.
As they attempt to find a way out, Lawrence actually shows his manly side when they get caught. He punches one guy and even delivers the always-fatal Nutcracker to another.
Lawrence unleashes "Nutcracker"! Critical Hit! Thug Pokemon was Downed.
He even gets stabbed! Hero quota reached, dude!
On the verge of blacking out... again, Lawrence and Horo are chased into a corner, and Lawrence winds up for his last stand. He draws his... knife.
It works! His pursuers fall over dead from the hilarity of his weapon.
Actually, the person who's been working everything from behind the scenes makes an appearance. And damn, it's Chloe! Shit, she was cute too! Not quite as good as Horo but... wait a minute... is that the real reason?
Chloe sold Horo out for some stuff that I can't recall at this moment. Either way, Chloe turns out to be a total bitch (or maybe just a good businessman... woman, sorry ma'am), but Horo can be just a little bit bitchier, plus she's a god.
Can Chloe do this?
Horo slaughters (as in ricocheting them off of walls) every person in that tunnel, then tries to run away from the pitifully crawling Lawrence, even though she doesn't want to for reasons beyond me, even now.
In the end, Lawrence and Horo make off with a slight to non-existent profit because the deal with the Milone Company went down with only a couple of hitches or unforeseen expenses or whatever, but at least they got off with their lives. Oh, and Chloe's fine, she went back to Pasroe.
Long, yeah? But that's only the Church arc.
Augh, Jeez.
The Armor arc is about when Lawrence and Horo uncover a small-time scam that a merchant is running using a tilted table (to screw up scales) and alcohol.
In return for their silence, Lawrence takes like twenty suits of armor for a really cheap price.
Quite happy with himself, Lawrence and Horo strike out for the next town. Along the way, they meet up with a shepherd Nora, and her trusty dog Enik. Lawrence contracts Nora to guide them along the roads and protect them from wild dogs and wolves. The two interact, and thus piss Horo off.
Upon arriving there, everybody laughs at them when they say that their selling armor.
Turns out that the Northern Campaign has ended (this is most likely a real campaign, as in military with battles and everything, though it is never explained), and with it, the desire and need for armor. Thus, what Lawrence is in possession of is nothing more than a massive debt (you see, he still paid more than what he had, and figured that the resale of the armor (since he got it so cheap) would be a huge profit for himself).
And like that, Lawrence went bankrupt, with only those suits of armor to his name.
Nobody could or wanted to help him (mostly they didn't want to, bastards), and thus Lawrence is forced to come up with another plan. But before that, he and Horo have a fight because one of the merchants turned him down because Horo was following him while he was making requests for money, and Horo felt terrible because Lawrence wouldn't blame her. This is one of the few things that me and Lawrence would have done the same without thinking.
Lawrence decides to take the risky way out of his debt; smuggling gold. This is more dangerous because the only people who import gold is the Church, so you're in a lot of trouble if you cross with them, but Lawrence doesn't have any other chance.
Lawrence takes this idea to another company that is having some financial difficulty, and they agree on a deal.
The scam is that they'll go to this other town and pick up the gold. Then they'll just... either strap it to the stomach of sheep like in The Odyssey, or make the sheep swallow it (Ew). But where are we going to get the sheep? Hrmm... well, there's always Nora... and Enik (who are currently having a minor dispute with the Church because they quietly think she's a witch, but apparently plan to employ her until her use runs out).
Nora agrees to the deal since she has a business hope of her own.
So they strike out with a worm of a go-between for company.
Along the way, they are almost assaulted by wolves, but they back off at the last second.
They get the gold and start to make their way back. Along the way, the wolves make another appearance, and this time their not screwing around. Horo detaches from the main group so she can negotiate with the other wolves.
In the end, the group got split into three; Nora and the company-man way ahead of Lawrence, who's believed to be way ahead of Horo, but has stopped to await her return.
While he's waiting, three men come out of the rain, saying that they were deployed to back them up against the wolves.
But, holy shit, they're actually there to double-cross him, what a huge, friggin' surprise. Jeez, Lawrence has (for the most part) a terrible sense of business partners (Horo's the only one saving him from being a complete failure).
They tie him up and leave him for the wolves, but Lawrence heroically escapes, clutching Horo's cloak and staggers into the rain to find her... which he does!
The two of them have a brief conversation where Horo's on the border of tsundere, but not quite over it yet. They have another conversation about what to do about Nora... and Enik. Lawrence actually manages to convince Horo to go after them.
Horo goes wolf and then... yep, you guessed it...
"Rawr."
Kills everyone. And actually kill, I think. I mean, there were guys that got squashed, full-on stepped-on, and even swatted... with claws. No blood though.
Horo brings back the cowardly company-man alive, then steps on his leg out of angst, and he totally spills all the beans, even about where the company's hidden safe is.
Lawrence, Horo, and Nora... and Enik, have a discussion about what to do with the gold that they have (which isn't enough to make a profit off of).
They (and by that, I mean Lawrence talks until Horo gets so pissed off she can't think straight and has to lie down) decide to go through with the deal that they originally made, but instead of a mass sum payment (which is what I think the original agreement was), the company will pay in larger installments, leading to an ultimately larger profit.
In the end, Horo gets pissed off at Lawrence for being Lawrence, and everyone is happy... until the next season. Oh yeah, did I mention there was another season? Well there is! It was even more infuriating than this one, and also more confusing, if that's possible.
Again, it's been split up into two parts that you'll have trouble understanding unless you're actually watching it.
There is this rich boy named Amati who wants go marry Horo, and to do so, he pressures Lawrence into a deal where he will pay Horo's debt to Lawrence, and after that, Horo will probably leave Lawrence and become Amati's wife.
They proceed to play a game of jealousy and deceit, and in the end, Horo cons them both (to Lawrence's benefit, though), and Amati is shamed. Owned. Over the course of this arc, I got frequently pissed off with Lawrence, but what's new there?
In the next arc, Horo and Lawrence meet a mysterious... bitch who eventually proposes a plan to sell off Horo, then use the money that they make to buy all the fur and crap in the town, then cancel the deal. A very risky strategy that ends up backfiring when the entire town, angered with a trade embargo that the church (again) has maintained over them, revolts, throwing everything into chaos.
Lawrence goes to their partner to get the money back and pull out of the deal, but ultimately fails, but the woman leaves the deed to Horo with him, and he uses it to buy her back.
Horo had only agreed with the deal because the profit from it would have allowed Lawrence to pursue his dream of establishing a store. When Lawrence came back, Horo gets very mad with him for abandoning his dream, but Lawrence says that he hasn't, not yet. He came back to get Horo, and he tells her that he loves her. His "only wish" of their parting is that they're both happy about it. Wrong, you son of a bitch. You don't say that, you don't even think it. You stay with Horo and maybe you'll obtain enough skill to deserve her.
Probably not though.
Again, it's been split up into two parts that you'll have trouble understanding unless you're actually watching it.
There is this rich boy named Amati who wants go marry Horo, and to do so, he pressures Lawrence into a deal where he will pay Horo's debt to Lawrence, and after that, Horo will probably leave Lawrence and become Amati's wife.
They proceed to play a game of jealousy and deceit, and in the end, Horo cons them both (to Lawrence's benefit, though), and Amati is shamed. Owned. Over the course of this arc, I got frequently pissed off with Lawrence, but what's new there?
In the next arc, Horo and Lawrence meet a mysterious... bitch who eventually proposes a plan to sell off Horo, then use the money that they make to buy all the fur and crap in the town, then cancel the deal. A very risky strategy that ends up backfiring when the entire town, angered with a trade embargo that the church (again) has maintained over them, revolts, throwing everything into chaos.
Lawrence goes to their partner to get the money back and pull out of the deal, but ultimately fails, but the woman leaves the deed to Horo with him, and he uses it to buy her back.
Horo had only agreed with the deal because the profit from it would have allowed Lawrence to pursue his dream of establishing a store. When Lawrence came back, Horo gets very mad with him for abandoning his dream, but Lawrence says that he hasn't, not yet. He came back to get Horo, and he tells her that he loves her. His "only wish" of their parting is that they're both happy about it. Wrong, you son of a bitch. You don't say that, you don't even think it. You stay with Horo and maybe you'll obtain enough skill to deserve her.
Probably not though.
No comments:
Post a Comment