This opening comes from a show near and dear to many hearts in the Glorio Crew. If you haven’t gotten a hold of Spice and Wolf yet it should be a top-priority recommendation, it’s really that good. While fantastic on many other grounds it’s also known for its fantastic OP/ED, ending with the sweet but hilariously engrish-ridden Ringo Hiyori and starts off with this number, Tabi no Tochuu. Its melancholy feel sets a perfect tone for this story of two travelers adrift in their lives.

Spice and Wolf is definitely not your typical anime. The hero is not incredibly strong or hopelessly naive. In fact, he’s really more wily than anything and always tries. The heroine is also a bit atypical. Hardly the damsel in distress, Holo is often the one to save Lawrence herself, and has a wit to match. Instead of great battles against irredemable foes, they are simply a pair traveling together. Lawrence took the solitary life of a traveling merchant, hoping to one day make enough money and settle down in a shop of his own. Holo is Lawrence’s unintended baggage, a stowaway wolf god of wheat fields disguised as a charming girl.

Together they endeavor on clever schemes, using town information and their own smarts to figure out economic tricks going on and try to come out with a profit. As the two grow closer together, they start to even become smitten with each other, and get into their own problems because of it. Some of the best parts of the show is watching Lawrence and Holo go back and forth in a war of words, teasing, kidding, and outsmarting each other constantly. Interestingly, while this opening definitely fits the tone of some of Spice and Wolfs more overarching themes, that of lonliness and the fear of loss, as being a god Holo will not age as Lawrence does, implying a love that too would fade with cruel time.

Unfortunately it’s a beautiful story that has yet to be finished in animated form, however the first and second seasons still stand alone very well and are instant classics. Seven of the light novels the series is based on are also available, slowly being released at 3 volumes a year.