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Spice and Wolf Scene Analysis: Fur Sale

Spice and Wolf, the highly acclaimed light novel series made it’s anime debut back in 2008. It’s one of my favorite romance series to be released, and I’d put it on the same level, albeit in a different boat than Toradora.

The scene in question can be found here from the times 6:30-10:49. For reference, Holo had recently convinced Lawrence to fill his cart full of apples.

As this is one of the earlier scenes, it’s clear that Lawrence isn’t used to conducting business with Holo around, seemingly brushing her off after she questioned the Milone merchant’s offer.

After Holo interjects, the focus changes from Lawrence to Holo. This is important because it’s at this moment that Lawrence begins to act as a frame of reference for how the audience should react to the way Holo haggles, taking full advantage of animation as a medium, and contrasting the anime from the light novels.

On top of the fantastic use of Lawrence’s expressions, Holo’s wordplay and the way she is able to overplay both merchants’s knowledge on the furs to slowly take control of the sale is nothing short of fantastic writing.

Tying the furs to the apples that Holo had Lawrence buy gives the audience the impression that Holo is much more in tune with the human world than we’re led to believe. This is solidified with the expressions of exasperation that we see on Lawrence.

The scene composition when Holo proposes the offer of 1 fur : 3 silver compliments how much control Holo has over the trade, where the camera zooms in on her face, a shot that isn’t seen anywhere else in the scene.

The fur sale not only tells the audience a lot about Holo’s character, but it does numbers in developing how Lawrence sees Holo as a business partner. Overall, it’s an exciting scene and it got me hooked on the business aspect of Spice and Wolf.