Anime Lectio: Spice and Wolf (2024) Season 1

                                                          1. Why do Anime Lectio? 

Anime Lectio is a time for us to stop and take a breath. Between work, activities, family life, and social media, our minds are always moving. We rarely take time to contemplate and ask, why am I watching this anime? What’s the point of all this? And, how is this making me feel? 

2. Put away all distractions 

(phones, work, etc.)

We are so enslaved to things that stimulate our minds. Let this be a moment for us to free our minds, look inside of ourselves, and be at peace.

3. Deep Breathing

Take several deep breaths. Let your mind relax. If you’ve had any questions, desires, or struggles that you’ve been hiding or stuffing away, let them rise up to the surface. 

4. Open yourself to God’s Presence

Remember God places all our thoughts and desires inside of us, and He uses them to draw us closer to Himself. God gives us a community to help us understand who we are and what He is calling us to do. The faces of other people you know and don't know are like signs of God’s presence.  

5. Think About What’s on Your Mind in Relation to the Anime

Think about what’s been on your mind in relation to the anime.  The following is an example of such thoughts written by me. 

Telling people stories about your past is the best way for them to learn about you.  When telling other people about yourself, you can also learn more about yourself, like why you did what you did, what happened as a result of that, and how you changed because of it, as well as how you could've changed if something else happened.  An example of this can be seen in the 2024 remake of the anime series Spice and Wolf.

6. Brief and written explanation of the anime

Pay attention to how the brief and written explanation of the anime seen on this blog, or seeing the anime for yourself since that's better than any explanation, might “speak” to you or shed light on the things that have been on your minds.

A mother starts telling her child a story about how two people met - a traveling merchant and a mysterious wolf girl - and their adventures together.  When the traveling merchant finds the wolf girl in his cart of goods one day, she asks him if he can take her back to her home.  He agrees to this, but only if they can do his usual traveling first.  This usual traveling involves buying and/or selling what he has or wants in order to make a living, which the wolf girl helps him with.  This usual traveling also involves unusual things now, like the wolf girl transforming into a giant wolf sometimes, but over time, continuing with a second season (and more?), the two become closer.

7.  Reflect on the anime

Has this brief and written explanation of the anime shed any light on what's been on your minds?  The following is an example of a reflection on the anime from me.

I've never seen the original Spice and Wolf anime, but the new version of it did look interesting to me, so I checked it out.  It's amazing to me that a series that doesn't have much action in terms of the usual fighting could be so entertaining and interesting, especially since it involves a lot of talking about how the economy in that universe works.  I guess having interesting storytelling helps with this, as well as interesting characters that are part of this story, particularly a wolf girl who can transform into a giant wolf, and a character who tells this story (most likely the wolf girl - it's not much of a spoiler, to me anyway, that the wolf girl and the traveling merchant end up as a married couple).

8. Final Prayer

Please voice any prayer intentions for friends, family, or people around the world that relate to this anime.  The following is an example written by me.

Let us pray that we can tell our own stories both truthfully and in an interesting way.