Spice and Wolf - Episode 5

After several episodes of relationship building between Lawrence and Horo, last week's instalment of Spice and Wolf finally saw fit to shake things up a bit, courtesy of the capture of everyone's favourite wolf girl and giving viewers at least something in the way of action. Naturally, episode five seeks to quickly reunite the duo whose partnership is what makes this show what it is, with Lawrence soon playing his part in conceiving a plan to rescue Horo amidst the increasingly confusing 'silver coin' back story. I guess that's what I get for not taking Business Studies at school.

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that Lawrence's plan succeeds, which leaves the second half of episode five free to re-examine the bonds between himself and Horo, with the latter acting in that typically hard to read fashion which, in the long run, doesn't seem to do all that much to cloud her obvious affection for Lawrence.

Once again, that's really is all there is to say about Spice and Wolf - Never mind the rest of the plot (although to be fair that is deepening at its own pace), it's all about the increasing dependence of the two main characters upon one another. This is really no bad thing when those characters are as likeable and well-realised as they are here, although the lack of something with a little more meat to get my teeth into is beginning to leave me a little frustrated in places - even the big revelation that was hinted towards in episode four turned out to be... well, not hugely exciting really. Don't get me wrong, Spice and Wolf is proving to hold its place as a nice and relaxing series to watch, but I don't see it taking any risks and leaving its relatively gentle pace any time soon beyond the odd minor shake-up here and there. I could be wrong of course, so we shall have to see what transpires as we move towards the second half of the series.