Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” features a rather uncommon storyline for this anime. That would be an episode where Kraft gets a day off mostly to himself, with Holo left to her own devices for the most part. They still spend some time with each other in this episode, but this time, it’s basically a Kraft Lawrence day out.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore”: Details

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF NA key visual.
Alas, in this episode, Holo has to look off into the sunset without Kraft by her side.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” is the 15th episode (you can check out my reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, Ep. 7, Ep. 8, Ep. 9, Ep. 10, Ep. 11, Ep. 12, Ep. 13, and Ep. 14 here) of season 1 (which hopefully won’t be the only one) of this economic fantasy reboot anime series by studio Passione (Citrus, Mieruko-chan, Yuri Is My Job!). Said anime series is the reboot of the 2008 anime Spice and Wolf by studios Imagin (season 1) and the duo of Brain’s Base and Marvy Jack (season 2). Said original anime series (along with this reboot) are the anime adaptations of the light novel series of the same name by Isuna Hasekura (World End Economica, Magdala de Nemure). Crunchyroll is the company licensing this anime for its NA release.

Production Credits

Yuta Kida is the director behind Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore”, with Yukito Kizawa as the writer, and Takeshi Mori doing the storyboard. As for the Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF anime as a whole, we do still know that Hijiri Sanpei is the director. Takeo Takahashi is actually returning from the original 2008 anime series as the chief director. Tatsuhiko Urahata is the overall writer, with Kevin Penkin (Made in Abyss, Tower of God, Bye Bye, Earth) as the composer for the music you hear in this reboot anime.

Speaking of music: we have some new pieces of theme music for this new cours. The new opening theme music is “Sign” by Aimer. Meanwhile, “Ringo to Kimi” (りんごと君, lit. The Apple and You) by NeRiAme is the new ending theme music.

Voice Cast

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” features the voices of Jun Fukuyama (J. Michael Tatum in English dub) as Kraft Lawrence and Ami Koshimizu (Brina Palencia in English dub) as Holo the Wise Wolf. Other notable voices in this episode include Saeko Chiba (Ryan Reynolds in English dub) as Fermi Amarti, Rikiya Koyama (Ian Sinclair in English dub) as Marc Cole, and Akeno Watanabe (Colleen Clinkenbeard in English dub) as Dian “Diana” Rubens.

When and Where to Watch

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on July 8, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this reboot anime as a whole only on Crunchyroll for now. If you want to watch the original 2008 Spice and Wolf anime for comparison, then you can do that on Crunchyroll as well.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore”: Synopsis

Don’t worry. Those ears are just as expressive in this episode.

Alas, Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF is still an ongoing anime series. In fact, Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” only just made its debut two days ago as of this writing. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis from Crunchyroll instead of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can read that synopsis below:

With no real information on how to get to Yoitsu, Lawrence uses all his resources to find more information. Will pagan stories of the North yield any clues?

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore”: The Good

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 "Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore" episode visual by Jū Ayakura.
Clearly, Jū Ayakura is showing you who’s the true star of this episode.

The story of Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” is definitely the star of this episode, as was the case with the previous episodes. We have Isuna Hasekura to thank for that, since he originally penned the story for the light novels. Thus, we have him to thank for this nice and relaxing episode that you can just chill to. There’s still quite a bit of mystery though as Kraft tries to puzzle out exactly where Holo’s hometown is. Fortunately, Diana in the episode visual above is perfectly capable of that, and provides quite an interesting new character as a result. The plot twist at the end is only the icing on this story-rich cake.

Complementing that relaxing story is the animation. Passione continues to demonstrate a very strong commitment to maintaining a pretty high level of animation quality in this episode. It’s not quite feature-length anime film levels of quality, but it’s pretty close. Of note is when Kraft is entering the alchemists’ district with his guide. The scenery is quite detailed to the point of lavishness, especially with the feathers lying around.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore”: The Bad

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 "Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore" screenshot showing Diana smiling mysteriously.
Hard to say anything bad about this episode in the face of that smile.

Alas, as good as Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 15 “Bird Feather and Mysterious Ore” is, this is not an episode for action junkies. There is not a hint of any action in this entire episode, save for a tense moment right at the end in a cliffhanger-like way. If you want action, then you might want to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, and/or Kaiju No. 8. Those have more than enough action to satisfy any action junkie.