This is the weekly review of Spice and Wolf (2024)! This week, we’ll discuss episode 17, wherein Lawrence is at the risk of losing Holo. In an all-or-nothing gamble, Lawrence challenges Amati with a contract of his own. Whether or not he can prevent Holo’s marriage to Amati all depends on if he can manipulate the price of pyrite. Let’s see what this week has in store!
"Traveling Merchant’s Shallow Thinking and Town Merchant’s Signboard"
After his fight with Holo, Lawrence wanders the streets and arrives at Marc’s stall. Marc tells him that pyrite buyers currently outnumber sellers, which is artificially driving up the price. Lawrence returns to the inn, but sees Holo bidding farewell to Amati. Alarmed, Lawrence tries to go up to the room, but the innkeeper gives him two messages from Holo. The first is a list of Amati’s financial assets. The other is a marriage certificate signed by Amati and Holo. Lawrence realizes that the only way to reconcile with Holo is to beat Amati at his own game.
After scouring local taverns, he finds Amati and offers to sell him 500 trenni’s worth of pyrite on margin. After much discussion and provocation, Amati agrees, and Lawrence will deliver the pyrite the next day at sundown. Lawrence then tries to convince Marc to purchase additional pyrite on his behalf, but Marc refuses. His standing as a town merchant comes with certain expectations, and he can’t afford to blindly invest in every money-making scheme that comes his way. He does, however, tip Lawrence off that pyrite is regularly used by alchemists. Invigorated by the news, Lawrence races to the walled district in search of Diana.
The biggest hurdle Lawrence faces in this episode is the rising price of pyrite. The festival atmosphere has created a high demand for the mineral. People buy it in bulk when the price is low, but as the supply and sellers dwindle, the selling price goes up. Merchants are waiting to see how high the going price will be before selling their stock to make the highest profit. This is how Amati plans to amass 1,000 trenni silver. Lawrence’s only option at this point is to somehow crash the market. To that end, he lays the groundwork for Amati’s downfall by offering to sell on margin.
In modern terms, the broker (Lawrence) sells an asset (pyrite) by borrowing the balance (500 trenni) from the investor (Amati) in order to gather said asset to be delivered at a later date. Amati is clever enough to realize that Lawrence proposed this deal because he entered the game late. With little funds and few sellers, the only way for Lawrence to make a profit by selling pyrite on margin is if the price were to suddenly drop. Amati is convinced it won’t, but even if it does, he can just sell the margin certificate to recuperate his losses.
From his perspective, the deal sways too far in his favor, so he refuses at first. What Amati doesn’t realize is that Lawrence plans to crash the market within the next 24 hours. Armed with that knowledge, and with a little prodding at Amati’s self-righteous nature, Lawrence convinces Amati to agree to his terms.
Review of "Spice and Wolf" Episode 17
One of the advantages the light novel has over the anime is the ability to fully explore a character’s psyche through written word. Lawrence’s mental state after Holo’s outburst is much more palpable in the light novel because there is time to describe and absorb his feelings.
Episode 17, still recreating the layout of its 2008 counterpart, could have benefited greatly from more evocative art direction or more expressive facial details. However, it appears shortcuts were taken in the animation to avoid that very thing. Characters would talk offscreen or the camera would be positioned at angles where the faces were hidden. Given how heavy and involved the dialogue in this episode was, it’s understandable they’d want to alleviate animating lip flaps where they could. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the episode that really made up for the lack of depth or insight into Lawrence’s thoughts.
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