Okamikakushi: Masque of the Wolf

Alt title: Okamikakushi

TV (12 eps)
AIC
3.157 out of 5 from 4,397 votes
Rank #13,306

Kuzumi Hiroshi moves with his crippled sister and his father to the remote city of Jouga, which is famous for its hassaku citrus and the rumors that a species of enormous wolves once lived in the area. While some of the residents are more than friendly, when people begin to vanish suddenly, it becomes apparent that something sinister is afoot...

Source: Sentai Filmworks

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Reviews

LindLTailor
2

Ookami Kakushi was written by Ryukishi07, best known for Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. That should pretty much tell you what to expect, since Ookami Kakushi is an obvious, shameless clone of its considerably superior ancestor. The premise goes as follows. Hiroshi Kuzumi, an unlikeable shota with no personality or spine, moves to a town known as Jouga with his occult fanatic father and annoying Tsundere sister, who is in a wheelchair for reasons that are never given passing explanation in the series. As they are moving in, Hiroshi meets the love interest, Isuzu Tsumuhana, who is supposed to be this series' Rena Ryuuguu despite having none of the likeability or humour that the Higurashi character possesses. For some bizarre reason, Isuzu is obsessed with Hiro, and the rest of Hiroshi's new class follows suit. However, one of them seems a little too attached, and begins to act strangely... then, we see a scene with him being killed by a girl with a scythe. The next morning, a girl who looks an awful lot like the girl with the scythe tells the class that he has "Transferred". Could it be that this town has a dark secret? If any of this is sounding familiar to you, then you've probably watched Higurashi, because this show is an absolute cut 'n' paste of it, only without any of the charm that made Higurashi great. It lacks the audience mindfuck that Higurashi gave us, completely misunderstands Higurashi's visual style, using all the creepy effects in all the wrong environments, and what seemed loveable there just feels stupid here. It doesn't help that almost every character here is completely unlikeable, being given little to no personality, backstory, or charisma, with only the villain having the latter trait making him somewhat likeable. And even that is hindered by the fact that his motivation is quite generic, and his plan makes no sense. On top of that, while Higurashi did a good job of tying up the loose ends (with only a couple of details left out, both of which were in the manga/VNs and relatively unimportant to the overall plot), Ookami Kakushi leaves several loose ends, for example, the aforementioned one with the wheelchair, and a character who is hinted to have some kind of disease that is never explained. The only thing that really redeem this show are the aforementioned antagonist, a relatively decent soundtrack, and the 12th episode, which is a random self-parody special taking place after all the plot is said and done. While it does come off as an enourmous BLAM Episode, it's still considerably more enjoyable than the remainder of this highly sub-par series. Final Words: A shameless ripoff of Higurashi, with none of what made Higurashi good. Animation/Graphics: 4/10 Story/Plot: 1/10 Music/Background: 7/10 Overall: 2/10 For Fans Of: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, Shiki

Epimondas
2

Here is another anime that while has an exciting foundation and is quite similar to both the Howling and Werewolf of London, is filled with illogical story elements that make it hard to obtain the 'suspension of disbelief".  The "Suspension of disbelief" is a state required for most of your more imaginative stories.  You usually acheive this through: a good solid setting; or a story that is only slightly unreal; or a story based on some reality that is more legend or myth but connects to history or reality; or by a gradual but skilled development of a setting that slowly pulls you away from reality.  I do not know how large of a town this is supposed to be set in but I never get the feeling it is exceptionally large plus it is strongly implied that it only recently grew to a fairly large size.  The lack of reality or solid setting comes from in part, how many people it depicts goes missing or are flat out killed and the high frequency this seems to happen.  If that many 'mysteriously' disappear' even in a large urban environment, it would be noticed,  It is even more likely the closer to one other they occur in.  I can not tell if it is daily or weekly yet either is a bit too often to go unnoticed.  The explanation the perpetrators usuallly give "they moved out of town" can only work if it isn't every freaking day or week like it appears to be.   There is quite a strong pull to the story where the viewer is urged to learn more.  Issei is a bit of a creep and earns that quality quite early on and yet for some reason is never reported to police or even Hiroshi's own sister.  You are lead to believe like any good story would, that it would at least bother him or change his behavior enough that others would notice his discomfort around Issei and inquire, yet the story fails to capitalize on a good forshadowing opportunity.  There is a great build up which may make you expect a awesome conclusion with some surprise or "ah ha" moment but that never happens.  The best thing about the story part, the budding romance is totally sidetracked because Izusu vanishes for some episodes so the story can artificially create a new romance/harem feel with the cold blooded killer.  This seriously weakens the story as much as the morally screwed up ending between two dark sides and Hiroshi sides with the darker side, go figure.  Part of the build up suggests there is more to the "true forms" but once again this is a foreshadowed element of which never bears fruit.  The other major romance like factor is the relationship between Kaori and Sakaki which suggests a connection but there is never any substance to it other than the coincidence she looks like Mieko.  Much more could have been done with this part of the story but it is not.  It is a lost opportunity yet the ending seems to carry on as if more was done.  The ending suggests there was more to their relationship but the story before that never actually fulfills that requirement beforehand so the last scene with Kaori and Sakaki in epsiode 11 just comes out smelling odd and misplaced and makes the act by Kaori seem all the more criminal. Their so called laws are riddiculous and they do not actually enforce them truthfully.  If it was only to protect people and as Kaname said, only if one of them attacked non members, then how do they explain, Ogasawara or Mieko?  Sadly the only character with a conscious is Sakaki.  Albeit he might have been a bit mad with vengence and was willing go to far, but at the same time I can not wholly be convinced he is totally wrong either.  The town at large must share a great deal of the blame for the problems by so blindly accepting such obvious lies as to what happened to the victims.  The town did nothing to stop it but in fact did more to help it continue.  They are essentialy as guilty as the criminals.  A heavy crime was committed by them against Sakaki yet he is for some reason depicted as evil and an antagonist despite the fact he was the only one so willing to risk so much to put an end to the pointless violence.  This show says one of two things, either it is law to commit violent criminal acts against others for little no reason or that such crimes are ok and easily forgiveable just by pretending even for a moment you have a soul as in the case with Kaname.  Whatever their local laws are do not mesh with national laws against violent crime I am sure.  So to enforce such ridiculous laws and customs against even those who should not be held under such laws is absurd.  Sakaki was right about one thing at least, they can not be forgiven.  Just apologzing for such a serious and violent streak of crimes can never be enough.  The perpatrators have to be punished by law or more like Sakaki will see to it vigilante justice is enforced as some is better than none.  In that regard, neither Sakaki or the old town are right however, given the situation, I have to admit Sakaki is actually the lesser of two evils. The attack by one infected at the festival is nonsensical.  She rampages, grabs a man, and kisses him and for her heinous act of aggressive romance she is murdered.  LOL is this show a joke? Artistic wise it is less than perfect because it is filled with the frog faced anime style.  Many of the faces looks squished which kind of hinders the emotional reactions that is attempted.  Scenery and backgrounds look great but the characters not so great.  Older characters look pretty good but anyone in high school or below got stuck with frog faces which not only clash wth the more realistic adult faces but kind of sabotages how their emotional expressions work.  Kaname and Isuzu look a bit too much alike when standing side by side in episode 11.  The story suffers a great deal being so immoral on both sides of an immoral situation.  It has no real heroes in the story but only villains harming one another.  Even the protagonist, Hiroshi, makes a fatally evil choice by defending a violent criminal and implying she should be forgiven or let go despite how extreme, brutal, and violent her crimes were like                                   **Spoiler Alert **Severing young women in half  ** Spoiler alert ** If he wanted to look like he had the moral high ground then he should have called cops or told Sakaki, "it is not for us to met out justice" or something and let her go on trial for all her crimes as well as the rest of the                                   **Spoiler Alert ** Murder gang ** Spoiler Alert ** Alas he does not and instead watches another crime being committed before his very eyes.  This show is filled with violent sociopaths who never show any remorse.  Ya sure, Kaname puts on an act like she does but it never stops her from repeating her crime even to the very end after she supposedly claims she has a heart.  Sorry but what a laugh.  She says that but returns to her bloodthirsty lifestyle?  Sure she has a heart, but maybe it is one she snacked on.   Stories like this I suppose are meant to be disturbing.  It is where evil wins by pretending it is good or feigning having a soul or just acting as if being such a wave of terror against the world can be ignored if you act sincere.  These ideas are all fantasy.  You can bet if heaven and hell are real, Kaname no doubt will end up in hell along with most of the old town and a good deal of the new town.  Stories with twisted morals tend to bother me not because I can not accept or understand them but because I would be concerned that impressionable younger minds may for some reason think the evil side of this story is somehow right.   Other problems with stories like this and why they do not work well for me or I hope anyone with even a modicum of morality is because when a story so far exceeds reality, in this case principles, then it must be established in the setting somewhere to differentiate from the default thinking, aka reality.  Without such a thing, far fetched morally twisted stories like this won't work well. 

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