Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” is a study of contrasts. On one hand, it’s one of the most fun episodes of the anime thus far, all thanks to an ongoing festival. On the other hand, it’s also one of the most emotionally painful episodes in the anime as well. All thanks to some well-intentioned lies of omission on Kraft’s part. Truly, this is a case where both pleasure and pain are abundantly flowing.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear”: Details

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF NA key visual.
Alas, Holo isn’t showing her face here because she’s crying.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” is the 16th 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, Ep. 14, and Ep. 15 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

Moritomo Hiroki is the director behind Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear”, with Masae Nakayama as the writer, and Yukito Kizawa 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.

Voice Cast

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” 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 and Rikiya Koyama (Ian Sinclair in English dub) as Marc Cole,

Where and When to Watch

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on July 15, 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. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear”: Synopsis

Holo is no longer feeling as fun as in this thumb.

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. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” only just made its debut a day 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:

Amati learns about Holo’s debt to Lawrence and announces that he will take on the debt and ask Holo to marry him.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear”: The Good

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 "Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear" episode visual by Jū Ayakura.
Oh god, Jū Ayakura knows how to draw such pain.

There’s no question about it despite the pain. Or rather, it’s because of the pain that the story of Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” is the best part of it. It’s in such sharp contrast to the pleasure of the episode earlier too. The fun wordplay between Kraft and Holo, as well as Holo’s silliness towards the other side characters? All of that made me laugh, which only made the pain at the end of the episode all the sharper for it. Isuna Hasekura has done it again, although Masae Nakayama also deserves quite a bit of credit for the story’s pacing here.

Complementing both the pleasure and the pain is the animation. Passione continue to do a pretty good job with that animation in this episode. It’s not quite feature-length anime film levels of quality the way Black Butler -Public School Arc- was, but it’s close. Plus, the moments where the animation breaks out into medieval illuminated manuscript style are just pure eye candy.

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear”: The Bad

Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 "Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear" screenshot showing Holo in tears.
Holo is feeling so much pain. More pain than a minor goddess should’ve ever expected to feel.

Alas, Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF Ep. 16 “Night of the Festival and Misaligned Gear” is not an action-packed episode in the slightest. It’s basically a medieval slice of life mixed with a lot of angst at the end. If you want an anime with more blood and violence, then you might want to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Solo Leveling, and Kaiju No. 8. Those anime should have more than enough action to satisfy any action junkie.