Spice and Wolf II – 7

So, I guess this episode is mainly about Lawrence’s boyfriend fail, and how ONE KISS CAN TURN IT AROUND.

It is pretty funny, though. Horo is like the cool, high maintenance college girl who’s been places and knows things, and Lawrence is the high school guy who’s way out of his league and fails pretty hard at impressing her, but she keeps him around because he surprises her every once in a while. Look at all the evidence: He avoids the hug she clearly wants (strike one), he comes up with an insulting metaphor to placate Horo after some dude insults the quality of her tail (strike two), he falls asleep after he promised to dry Horo’s clothes and then get some stew (strike three) and he tries to be all coy when Horo clearly wants some (tentative strike four — Lawrence is making one of his patented gambles by holding off on this, but it could pay off later!).

But then he suddenly gets all suave, and after flirting with Horo a bit, he puts some magic back into their relationship by kissing Horo’s hand. Lawrence’s moe short circuits her brain for a moment, and she is like putty in his hands. Boyfriend fail averted! You are a credit to your gender, good sir. But, like many men, Lawrence quickly loses the advantage when Horo SUPER SAIYANS her moe by snuggling up to Lawrence and being all, “Awwwww, you’re so cute when you want me to care~~~” You had her for a moment, Lawrence. We all understand.

Not too much else to this episode aside from Lawrence and Horo flirting, and Lawrence getting moe whipped. Mostly just set-up and mystery. Lawrence and Horo roll into town and try to find more clues about Horo’s hometown, but there is strange stuff afoot in this place. For one, Lawrence needs some merchant ID to conduct business in this town. I guess there is some heavy merchanting going on here. Horo knows Lawrence is going to stumble headlong into some crazy plan like a dumbass, and he knows it, too, but we all know he can’t help himself. Horo should just be glad there seems to be no major drug trade around right now. Lawrence would be all over that shit. “HUGE PROFITS, HEAVY RISK OF DEATH AND THE CARGO IS ABSURDLY DANGEROUS???? SIGN ME UP!!!!!!!!!!”

Then there’s that woman randomly wandering around and eyeing up Lawrence and Horo. Gotta say I totally thought she was a dude at first, too, but I trust Horo’s knowledge in these matters. Is she involved with all these merchants who are in town, or is she some random person who has a beef with Lawrence? Don’t know, but her entrances always seem to be dramatic. The old dude at the inn didn’t seem to care for Lawrence and Horo nosing in on the stories of yore, either. He wouldn’t even look at them when he told them to look in books for the legends, and that the chronicler is a pretty busy guy. Hmm.

I enjoyed this episode overall. Lawrence and Horo flirting is 90 percent of the fun of Spice and Wolf, so good show there. I’m more interested in knowing who that woman is than I am in what the merchants are all doing there, so I hope the show addresses that first!