Anime Review: Wolf's Rain
Stumble It!
Wolf's Rain
Publisher: Bones
Type of Anime: TV
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Watched Subbed/Dubbed: Subbed
Overall Rating: 
Story:
My Rating:
Legends also talk of how wolves know where Paradise lies at the end of the world. However, wolves are mythical creatures thought to have become extinct 200 years ago. Well, that's not exactly true. Wolves have learned to adapt themselves when around humans by taking human form. Through this method, they have been living in cities and towns along humans for the last two centuries.
Wolf's Rain follows four such wolves that have decided they've had enough of city life and that it's time to seek Paradise for themselves. They follow the scent of the Flower Daughter, a girl held captive in a human lab until she is kidnapped by a mysterious figure. Lost without her scent, they decide to rescue her. The Flower Daughter was made through alchemy by one of the noble families. She is the key that reveals the path to Paradise, a place where wolves rule. Wolves are drawn to her and she to them, but she is also sought by several nobles, who wish to unravel her secrets.
The setting seems to be post-apocalyptic. There was a time when mankind prospered, but something happened to cause civilization to decline. No one is quite sure what happened, but now each city is ruled by a noble tyrant and most of the people are poverty stricken. The nobles are a mysterious bunch that wage war on each other for reasons not yet revealed.
Wolf's Rain is very good, although very melodramatic. It's not going to win any awards for the feel good anime of the year and there tends to be a lot of blood and fighting amongst the wolves themselves and between the human/wolf community. Many wolves have lost the will to live and/or seek Paradise for themselves, and thereby settle for remaining mere street dogs. Others are rebels or in street gangs working desperately to maintain their status quo.
The story is engaging, though at points slow, and the characters have this alienating quality to them that makes them feel less human than your typical characters. That's good, I suppose, for showing the distinction between the wolf community and human emotion, but sometimes you wish for something a bit more. I'm still not sure where I stand on the anime. It was interesting up until the 4 (yes 4 - one for Tsume, Hige, Toboe & Hubb) recap episodes 15-18 that you can definitely skip... or if you want to watch one, Hubb's story (18) was the best IMHO. None of which tell you anything you haven't seen up to now. Come ep 19, the story begins to take off again.
I can't say I was a big fan of the ending, particularly eps 27-30. I hoped it would go some place else, but alas. Great series. Bad ending.
Animation:
My Rating: 
Very nice. Some scenes have that more washed out watercolor feel to it, while others are vibrant.
Music:
My Rating:
The theme song has that hairband 80s feel to it. It's called Stray: vocals by Steve Conte and music by Yoko Kanno. It's not really my taste. The ending song is a lovely, slow song by Maya Sakamoto, who did much of the Escaflowne soundtrack.
Character Design:
My Rating:
Apparently all the main wolf characters take their name from a characteristic of a wolf. Kiba = Fang, Tsume = Claw, Hige = Whiskers, Toboe = Howling.
Kiba has your typical background for those searching for meaning in life - his pack was killed in their quest to find Paradise and he's the only survivor - and so he spends a good deal of his time pining over his fate. When he finds Cheza, he seeks her out even to the point of making risky decisions for his pack to be with her. It's not love, but more of an addition. He craves the way he feels around her. Tsume has always been a loner and joins the pack reluctantly. He and Kiba often disagree, and once Kiba becomes obsessed with Cheza, he starts chiming in with a voice of reason instead of insults and nuances. Hige is a happy go lucky type more interested in a good meal, and later, the female that joins up with them, while Toboe has a childlike, innocence to him that tends to get him in trouble with the human world. And then there's Cheza, a manmade flower created from Flowers of the Moon with the ability to lead wolves to Paradise. She's desperately wanted by the human world because she is such a mystery, but she's quite content hanging with the wolves, petting and singing to them.
No, they're not your typical bunch of characters, but then they always feel less than human, which they are. You never get a sense that they have anything close to a full range of emotions and there is relatively little character development throughout the series.
BlogCatalog
Digg
FanPop
Flickr
MyBlogLog
MySpace
Technorati
Twitter
StumbleUpon