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A boring, slow, surface-level show.

When you ask someone why they like Spice and Wolf you usually get a mix of these three: romance, banter, economics.

The economics is the most basic simplistic surface-level macroeconomics. Feeling impressed or greatly educated afterwards is similar to a student feeling mastery after econ 101.

Lawrence sells something, gets some other good, trades it for another good etc., etc., etc. Wow such economics. And yet somehow a seasoned merchant does not keep up with the news on his travels? After time on the road the first thing he does isn't to approach a nearby merchant company/guild to get the latest news? He ... initiates a trade in a new town while unaware that the local currency gold coin has a going rate of 32 and 5/6 coins of Trenni silver, and just takes the word of the merchant who is then caught trying to scam him? Is he an amateur merchant of 7+ years experience, or is it bad writing?

The world building of the medieval fantasy setting is extremely basic and generic. The various towns, cities, inns, taverns, blend into each other. The generic corrupt 'Church'. The side characters are one-dimensional and exist only to be used and thrown away.

The banter is usually fun enough, a light in the darkness of this bland show, but also bounces all over the place emotionally and often with unnatural dialogue. Wolf spirit or bad writing?

The romance exists, I guess. If you're into tsundere characters. It's a bit weak and generic with the petty jealousy Holo gets at the slightest interaction Lawrence has with another woman.

Holo is a pretty generic tsundere anime girl. A large part of her personality is food (classic). Possessive and jealous, but also aloof and rude.

For many of these issues, you can use the cop-out excuse that she's not human and is old, therefore her actions and personality do not have to make complete sense to us, there is past trauma that we aren't aware of yet, blah blah blah. But that's weak and an example of poor writing when the viewer is multiple hours in.

When doing a deep dive into years old discussions, preceding this reboot, the general sense of reasoning for liking Spice and Wolf ultimately falls down to waifu and horny.

Anime is more accessible than ever, there are so many more shows being made each year. The breadth of quality has widened and the standard to define a good show has been pushed further in the last 2 decades.

While it may have been seen as a more 'mature' show contemporaneously when anime was often more cartoonish and slapstick, in the modern day the writing falls short in its failure to develop its world or characters in any meaningful way.

Not terrible, just extremely bland.