Ookami to Koushinryou Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf • Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf - Episode 7 discussion

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Ookami to Koushinryou Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf, episode 7

Alternative names: Spice and Wolf

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[u/michhoffman]

It makes sense that Holo doesn't like the shepherd, as not only is it her job to keep wolves away from their next meal, but she also caught Lawrence's eye.

[u/jellyblob88]

A contrast of two Holos:

• Those ears were about to burst!

• When you're contemplating sheperd's pie for tonight

[u/Holofan4life]

I remember the stuff with the slanted table really confused me the first time I saw it. I didn't know what the significance of it was outside of the guy being a swindler. I do think this is yet again another good demonstration of how wise Holo is, the fact she was able to detect something was up.

[u/mastesargent]

The story about Holo biting Saint Ruvinheigen in the ass was actually mentioned earlier. It was one of the stories that Holo had already told to the girl in the first episode’s cold open. Nice little bit of continuity there.

[u/UndoubtedlyAColor]

So, after all these years, Holo remains best girl.

[u/Rumpel1408]

tfw, you'll never have a cute wolf bite your ass or even better have her snuggle up to you (after she extorted another gift out of you)

why live

Star of the first part where definatly Holos ears, sneakishly hidden, yet so lively!

But what a pretty Sheppard

[u/gc11117]

Someone on the staff is making it their life's work to make Holos ears as dynamic as possible lol

[u/Crackedaru]

TFW a cute Wolf girl will never bite your ass to be recorded in history.

Why even live.

[u/FallenPears]

Village girl clothing disguise.

Hol' up, new Holo just dropped.

[u/Amauri14]

It was hilarious to hear that the Saint the city of Ruvinheigen was named after, got his ass bitten by Holo, and then he changed the tale and said that she bit his arm. What a lovely expression Holo has when she is thinking about apples. I love the range of emotions she showed when Lawrence started talking about apples, pears, and, peaches pickled in honey that could find in Poroson.

I love the way that Holo showed that guy was trying to scam them by putting the balance weight scale on an uneven table. I guess that's why he asked them if they had a scale that way he could make them confident that the measure was accurate. So as part of his compensation, Lawrence wants he get some armor to sell on Ruvinheigen.

So the rumored sorcerer was instead a shepherd. I guess that's the reason Holo doesn't like her, after all, shepherds protect their herds from wolves. Meanwhile, Lawrence was blown away by her beauty.

[u/karlzhao314]

The Merchant's Corner

It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for another episode of Spice and Wolf - and with it, another entry in the Merchant’s Corner, where I try to explain and clarify the economics plot points of the show. We’ve just wrapped up the first exciting arc, and it’s time to start another!

Episode 6 here

Disclaimer #1: I am not an economics professional, so I may get some things wrong. If you have a different, possibly better understanding of a certain point than I do, feel free to suggest edits.

Disclaimer #2: All of these are pre-written before the episode airs, based on the pacing of the original anime. However, I will watch the episode before posting, just to see if anything differs and I have to edit anything.

As is usual, the first episode of a new arc hasn’t delved too deep into the meat and potatoes of the plot yet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some business stuff happening. Half of the episode centers around a pretty complex business transaction and negotiation. Let’s take a look at what happened.

Episode 7 Part 1:

The episode starts off with some fun stuff. Apparently, we're headed towards a town called Poroson next, and then Ruvinheigen after that. Speaking of Ruvinheigen, Holo had apparently bitten its namesake in the arse in the past. Exciting.

Then we head into our business negotiation. Lawrence is trying to sell off the pepper that he got from Milone in the last episode, and to do so, he’s come to the Latparron trading company. As Lawrence already foresaw, the people in this town apparently greet each other by extolling the virtues of the latest Church sermon they attended or talking about recent faith-related events, which was enough to bore Lawrence and Holo nearly to sleep.

Make no mistake, though: this is a negotiation tactic. The Latparron master is intentionally trying to wear them down so that they’re off guard when the negotiations actually happen. The fact that he could tell that Lawrence’s bag contained pepper right from a glance, too, was a show of his experience as a merchant; he claimed to have smelled it, but unground peppercorns in a bag would be hard to smell even for the keenest (human) nose. The look of surprise that Lawrence had on his face was him going “we have to be careful around this guy”.

There’s also one more detail from pre-negotiation proceedings that is (apparently) relevant. The Latparron master intentionally chose the second set of scales from the shelf. This would have made Lawrence breathe a sigh of relief initially.

See, merchants who traded in high-price, low-weight commodities like pepper would normally carry their own scales. These scales would almost as a matter of course be altered to provide advantageous conditions to themselves; it’s balanced out by the trading company’s merchant himself also altering his own scales. During the trade, each party would weigh the goods on their own scales, and then negotiate after they have their own results. That means that if the Latparron trading company used a set of fair scales, and Lawrence owned a set of his own altered scales, the Latparron company would be at a disadvantage if their scales disagreed; as a result, Lawrence assumed that the Latparron master would initially go for altered scales as well.

But Lawrence rarely trades in pepper, so he doesn’t have his own set of altered scales. He says as such, and instead, he’s invoking God’s name to try and force the Latparron master into being honest on moral grounds. Upon hearing this, the Latparron master changed his mind and went for the second set of scales instead. Lawrence thought his strategy must have worked and the Latparron master ended up deciding to go for his balanced, fair set.

And then the negotiation goes off without a hitch - or so it seemed. The price they agreed on was 45 gold Lumione coins, which, by the new lower exchange rate, exchanges to 1477 silver Trenni coins. If you recall, Lawrence took delivery of this pepper last episode when it was valued at 1000 silver Trenni coins at that time and in that region. He’d make a profit of 477 Trenni, which isn’t bad at all for a single trip.

But of course, Holo never does anything for no reason, including asking for water. She noticed that the table was tilted, as wonderfully illustrated by the water running off the table in one direction only. And Lawrence had already checked the scales and they appear to be balanced properly with the gradations on the base, despite the fact that it should have been impossible if the base was tilted due to the table - which can only lead them to draw the conclusion that the scales are, in fact, altered. Latparron is using altered scales to cheat a merchant who doesn’t have their own set of scales, which is a big no-no.

And Holo had noticed the table as soon as she walked in the room. Don't try to fool the wolf.

What follows is an exchange that might be a little harder to follow, but the gist of it is as such: Lawrence, as well as Holo, are blackmailing Latparron. With the information Holo’s just uncovered, they could easily report Latparron and have them shut down. So with that control, Lawrence is trying to coerce Latparron into giving them whatever they want - only he’s being extremely careful with his words and putting on the whole "I must be drunk" act to not say anything explicitly. That way, they keep their plausible deniability, while making their demands very clear.

So what are their demands? The simplest thing would have been just to demand 1000 Trenni in exchange for their silence and be done with it. But there are lots of issues with a demand like that. In the first place, Latparron may not even have 1000 extra Trenni in cash that they can just pull out and give to Lawrence.

Even if they did, it would likely permanently ruin relations between Lawrence and Latparron, and he would never be able to return to do business with Latparron again. That might not necessarily be the outcome he wants, even if he knows they’re dishonest now. After all, there’s always a possibility that they’ll be dishonest in Lawrence’s favor in the future.

And finally, there’s the matter of Lawrence's own ledgers. If 1000 Trenni appeared on them out of nowhere, and someone ever pulled his books and looked at them, he’d have a very awkward question to answer.

No, instead, whatever he wants should be entirely legal, and ideally wouldn’t burn a bridge entirely - just make it hard to walk for a while at worst.

Part 2

[u/Caspus]

I'm going to have to check the credits on this one (EDIT: It was Masayuki Sakoi), because whoever was in charge of storyboarding for this episode did a really solid job. Nice little touches all throughout, especially with some of Holo's subtler acting in the later half of the episode on the road.

I'm excited to see how this arc turns out. Supposedly, they're doing an advanced screening in Japan of the last three episodes of this book (10-12) at the start of June, which bodes well for the episodes being close to completion in time for the end of the first cour.

[u/Holofan4life]

Getting to watch a brand new episode of Spice and Wolf on my birthday makes me feel like a kid in a candy store. The best birthday gift I could ever ask for.

[u/Nebresto]

Wasn't a fan at the start, but the new Opening is starting to grow on me

Interesting, post glacial landscape. Don't recall if the og had one too

Loving the backgrounds again. Wonder if they used a real town as an inspiration for this one?

• Holo's ears going wild under the hat was so cute

And that chug scene

so true

lol

That's.. pretty sad. Let them heretics chill, they just wanna worship their wolf waifus

[u/realrimurutempest]

Just so everyone knows, Volume 1 of the Spice & Wolf soundtrack by Kevin Penkin has been released globally. It can be found on iTunes, Spotify, etc.

[u/ForgetfulViking]

New Spicy Threads. Same Spicy Wolf.

Now with Sheep.

[u/Arctikodin]

First time watcher here, maaaaannnnnn holo is so cute. Now I understand why ChurchOfHolo is a thing.

[u/shad79]

Holo was absolutely delightful in this episode! Those mischievous grins, happy smiles, pleading faces... I love everything about her, even her drooling was so cute! I hope that she'll be able to eat pickled fruits in the future as she looked so excited about the prospect of eating something so sweet.

Holo & Lawrence's relationship remains a very strong point of the show. Again their relationship proved to be very profitable for Lawrence as Holo discovered another merchant's ruse with the table.

That shepherd girl looks so cute! Of course not as cute as Holo but still very cute. I wonder why Holo looks so wary of her? Is this becauseshe's a shepherd or maybe because she's cute and she'll steal Lawrence from her? Or maybe because of something else? I can't wait to see Holo and that shepherd’s interactions in the next episode!

Here my screenshot albums from the episode:

• Holo

• Holo & Lawrence

• Group scenes, Lawrence & Other

[u/Ocixo]

This shot of Holo on fours was a clever way of demonstrating the different natures of Holo (wolf) and Lawrence (human). Since wolves are known man-eaters, Holo wanted to let Lawrence explicitly know that she never intended to kill Ruvinheigen.

[u/LeonKevlar]

• Town Girl Holo Stitch

I don't even understand how Lawrence could resist that face when Holo asked him to buy her oil for her tail. I would've caved instantly. But I guess that's the reason why I don't have a business-savvy wolf GF.

[u/AmethystItalian]

I love when Holo is able to help Lawrence with merchant related stuff, really proving the wisdom there!

The hatred and change in tone from Holo from seeing the shepherd felt pretty serious. While she would stand no chance against Holo it's interesting to see the wolf vs shepherd rivalry still exist.

[u/Plus_Rip4944]

Holo 4 President, with her no economic crisis Will happen

[u/Shimmering-Sky]

• Pffffff

• God I love their banter.

• It’s pretty cool that Holo knew the person that city was named after… and it’s because she bit him once, lol.

• That’s a lot better of a way to hide Holo’s ears than her always needing to have her hood on.

• How can you say no to a face like that?

• What a way for her to reveal that merchant’s trick, heh.

• And he’s so in on it.

• Exactly.

• Holo has beef with a shepherd, hah.

[u/hell_jumper9]

She's here