After months of being told to watch the anime Wolf’s Rain by my friends I figured I’d finally review it and I have to say from what I’ve seen the series could go anywhere. A quick background story is that according to old legend, when the world is coming to an end the doors to “Paradise” will open and wolves will be the only ones able to find it. Most humans think this is an old fairy tale because wolves were driven to the point of extinction around 200 years ago, or so they thought? The anime revolves around four main characters who are all wolves, Kiba (Fang), Tsume (Claw), Hige (Whisker) and Tōboe (Howling). They disguise themselves as humans so they aren’t hunted and can persuade people into doing what they want. This disguise seems to only trick the eyes and ears though. For instance when a human was falling off a cliff Tsume grabbed a hold of him with his hand but instead it left teeth marks and caused the human to plummet to his death…
I knew the show was about wolves and from what I’ve heard it sounded rather spiritual, but when I started the series I was completely shocked to see people jumping onto a fast moving train with mechs, people shooting guns and blowing stuff up. Since there’s a lot of characters with different parts to the story I’ll put them all in a nutshell. There’s an old man with a dog named Blue who’s on some vengeance goal to kill all wolves and knows they can disguise themselves as humans. A police detective who’s slowly putting the dots together that wolves are behind most of this stuff. The detectives x-wife is a head scientist at a government facility that’s studying a girl who’s the “Flower Maiden.” The flower Maidens then kidnapped by a some stranger who has the status of a “Noble” with a mask, cape and a glowing eye that puts people to sleep. The wolves seem to originally have been in town because they could smell what they refer to as the “Lunar Flower” but after the Flower Maiden is taken away they grouped together as a pack and are now on a hunt to find Paradise.
Overall I thought the series was pretty good. It seems pretty serious too, they don’t seem to get big heads or yell at each other with funny phrases. The stories written by Keiko Nobumoto who also wrote Cowboy Bebop and Tokyo Godfathers. I’m interested to see where the story will go because there’s a lot of conspiracy that isn’t really touched upon. Such as a small scene where one Noble says that was two hundred years ago you were a little girl then. There’s a lot of questions I have for the series and not enough time to talk about em. I’m curious to see what your thoughts are as well, go watch Wolf’s Rain or if you already have leave a comment below on what your thoughts are. ~Spartan B66
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March 13, 2012 at 7:59 am
shinigamilist
Really pleasant review, I would’ve enjoyed it more if you’ve discussed the effects and affects of the show instead of rephrasing the plot as much, but I understand that this is probably your style. You should write more about this show some day, honestly. I would love to read more people’s opinions, because it seems like it doesn’t get a smuch viewes as it should, judging from the lack of descriptions in smaller sites (not MyAnimeList and ANN, AniDB).
If you want to view my review, it is available here : http://shinigamilist.com/2012/03/12/wolfs-rain-review-italian-songs-and-siberian-wolves/
March 20, 2012 at 4:43 am
Aliyah
That series was so sad I actually cried when all the wolves died all cause of tht dumb half wolve thing. And blue and hige make a rlly great couple, and I hated when they died.but I mostly cried at the part when toboe died cause he was only a boy and it was all just so sad. If I was able to, I would make a happier ending where all the wolves made it to paradise and the evil half wolf guy died. Tht wld b awesome. But the very end of the movie didn’t make any sense. It was dumb when they showed them all alive again and then kiba steps in a puddle and the movies over! Tht was disappointing