Wolf's Rain - Reviews

What is perhaps most interesting about this one is how close the anime comes to being a classic without ever actually becoming one. While watching Wolf's Rain, there were numerous times in which I could see the anime approaching the kind of exhilarating grandeur found in titles like Cowboy Bebop and Crest of the Stars. However, the show would always back away at the last minute, as if an invisible wall were preventing it from progressing any further.

The anime certainly starts on the right track. I remember fondly of the days in which the average review rating on animenfo for Wolf's Rain was 9.8. If I had reviewed Wolf's Rain at that time, I would have probably given a similar score. The first two episodes are really something else; they introduce striking, memorable characters from the very start, they provide an incredibly promising premise, and they succeed admirably at piqueing your interest. What follows after that, however, is probably the biggest single disappointment for anime in the year 2003.

First, character development becomes a mechanical and uninspiring process. As I learned more about the main characters I actually began to like them less and less. All of the four main characters have exactly one item in their backstory which is used to define their entire character, and all of these backstories feel more like afterthoughts than cohesive elements of the anime. Also, voice acting is definitely somewhat stale at times. Although Quent Yaiden is voiced very well (more on him later), some of the others are just barely passable; many talk in a strangely alienating deadpan that makes them very hard to relate to. Also, Toboe's voice actor is feminine to the point of being obnoxious.

Also, technical flaws in the animation soon become apparent after the first few episodes; noticeable shortcuts are taken in the characters' movements, and as a result many of their actions seem clunky and stiff. Worse than this, however, are the absolutely terrible character designs of the four main characters. Against the bleak and apocalyptic backgrounds, the chic 90s style clothing is so painfully out of place that the characters often feel totally separated from the environment in which they live.

Most importantly of all, the plot begins to become annoyingly tedious and slow. While numerous events occur in each episode, all of them feel strangely irrelevant and uninteresting. Most of these events have little to no relevance with the main storyline and feel almost like sidequests, while the rest seem inconsequential compared to the epic events that were promised in the exposition.

Add in the four recap episodes, and I can easily see how many people gave up on the show midway through. However, while the show is definitely a lot worse than it could have been, this by no means makes the series bad as a whole. On the contrary, Wolf's Rain has plenty of excellent qualities that make it more than watchable.

For one, Yoko Kanno's soundtrack is (of course) amazing. Though I personally don't like the OP, I absolutely love some of the other tracks. "Heaven's Not Enough" and "Gravity" are both absolutely amazing pieces.

Secondly, while most of the characters are mediocre in development and design, Quent Yaiden is an absolutely amazing character. Along with having a remarkably compelling backstory, his character design is fits into his surroundings extremely well. Unlike the main characters, you feel that Quent is very much like the world he inhabits - angry, desperate, and on the verge of death.

Finally, the story does a great job of redeeming itself in the final four episodes. Definitely the best part of the series, these can be compared to Grave of the Fireflies and Now and Then, Here and There for their incredible emotional power. By the end of the last OVA, I felt very satisfied with the story, despite the fact that a good deal of it was boring and unfulfilling.

All in all, this series is definitely worth watching. Although I did not enjoy the anime nearly as much as I had hoped, the excellent soundtrack and the incredibly good final four OVAs still make this anime better than most.

The story follows a group of young wolves looking for "Paradise" a land ruled by wolves from which the human race was banished long ago. To get there, they must seek the flower maiden, Cheza. Each wolf carries has a rather depressing background, and the sub-plots and character interaction are supurb.

Story: The story was creative, if a bit melancholy, and made you feel for every character. Unlike many anime where the lines between who is good and who is evil are clearly drawn, Wolf's Rain allows for a bit of grey area (especially where the wolves are concerned). The story line is beautiful, harrowing, and adventuresome, and takes viewers on a journey to find what everyone searches for: their own paradise.

Animation: The animation was well done.The Bones team did a fantastic job bringing to life such vivid characters.

Sound: What isn't to love about this soundtrack. The opening and ending sequences alone tell of the sadness and determination of the pack. The music throughout adds to the story.

Characters: The wolves act... like wolves. They have their rivalries, their pack order, and their fights. They may have seemed crude, but that's all part of the wolf persona. They all have bakcgrounds that make them who they are now, and each wolf carries his own baggage. I especially liked the tale of Blue. For the humans, I felt they took a backseat to the story of the wolves, but even the human interactions were well done. The only thing that truly puzzled me was the Nobles (beings who apparently didn't descend from wolves), and the wolf-eye of Darcia.

 

All in all, I would suggest this anime if you want a tale of struggle and steadfast search for paradise.

Wolf’s Rain is a movie musical, stretched out to last ten times more than it needed without a proper storyboard to excuse the excess duration. And what a better choice to mess up in that department, than Bones the “pretty colors and no faks given for the plot” studio. It’s one of the hottest names today for all the wrong reasons.

The best way to approach the show is as a dark fairy tale that overstayed its welcome and has to do with freedom, life, happiness and wolf-huggers. It does a great job at building up a melancholic mood with its artwork and soundtrack, making it very easy for a weak-minded viewer to start thinking weirdly.

It is properly dark and depressing, with the snow keeps falling, while songs and dialogues keep mentioning freedom from pain and sadness. It’s about four wolves who disguise as pretty boys being hunted by everybody in a dying world as they follow their instinct to reach paradise where a flower girl will resurrect everything. Did that make any sense? No, but it is a cool concept and it does a great job at presenting an apocalyptic world at the brink of destruction. The problem is, that’s the only thing it does.

The characters for example are nothing more than mouthpieces that seem to be interesting just because they are a patchwork of fetishes. If you try to remember what their personality is like, there is not much there. Pretty boys to attract the fujoshis, can transform into wolves to attract the furries, and are victimized by the world to attract the feelfags. Not that anyone who liked the show cared about good characterization, since apparently that was never the point.

Neither is the pacing, which is EXTREMELY slow. So slow they had to throw in FOUR RECAP EPISODES for a plot that can be summarized in less than one. That’s what happens when you strike a deal for two cours and don’t bother to fill them with something. The story was not complex and the main characters had no depth to excuse the duration. If you are expecting something to happen in every episode, you will be bored to death. But then again, it’s not a show you are watching for its plot or characters. It’s supposed to give you the feels, which in turn will make you feel like reciting emo poetry.

And even for the scraps of plot you can find in it, anything unfolds in any way the scriptwriter feels like it. There is such an overuse of magic, to the point anything is possible. The main villain has such broken powers, he can teleport anywhere he likes, kill anyone he feels like it, and nobody can do the slightest thing to stop him. The story can end whenever he wants it, basically. The sky can turn pink and it will make sense because nothing makes sense. When nothing has limitations, everything is possible, and nothing matters. Bones in a nutshell. But hey, look at the pretty colors and stop thinking about it.

So basically, what you are supposed to do with the show is stare at the gloomy backgrounds, and listen to the teen angst filled soundtrack. It is all about the artistic whatchamacallit side of the show, and the emotions it inflicts to its viewers. You might as well pretend there is no story at all. The ending is just a reality reset, which renders pointless the entire show, since it doesn’t exist anymore.

The whole thing is very one-note, and because of its duration it will become tiresome very fast if you want something other than just mood atmosphere. Wolf’s Rain hardly deserves its fame. It needed less episodes, better characterization, and someone NOT FROM BONES to work the storyboard. The soundtrack is the only thing I appreciate about it.

Story

A little heavy at times, but very very good

 

Animation

Absolutely awesome to look at, fits perfectly

 

Sound

The music is excellent; it fits to every part of the show. The dub for this anime is one of the best around

 

Characters

A little cliché at times, but still good

 

Overall

Excellent, but have something light-hearted lined up afterward to watch

This review covers both Wolf's Rain and the Wolf's Rain ova.

Wow, I really wasn't expecting to like this series as much as I did. Wolf's Rain is a rather cheesy anime with strange pacing changes and a mediocre plot. But what makes a series work as a whole? The answer to that is easy, it was just enjoyable. The characters, the atmosphere, every little detail was somehow able to hold this anime together.

Let's start with the story. Simply put, it's not that great from a technical standpoint. The story begins with a wolf named Kiba's thoughts about paradise. No one knows exactly what paradise is, but obviously all believe it to be the most most wonderful, perfect place in existence. It is said in the mysterious Book of the Moon that wolves will be the ones to reach paradise. That is what the entire story revolves around, wolves (and people) trying to find paradise. Not exactly the most creative plot, and the execution is a problem as well. Two-thirds of the story is slow, it goes very slow and then after 4 recap episodes (really guys?) the pacing picks up speed. I'll go more into the story later.

The animation quality is quite good. It was made in 2003, so its age is noticable, but it's still pretty darn good. Especially the wolves, the wolves look great and move with amazingly well-done animal anatomy and action. The human characters also look pretty good and all have different, defining features. The backgrounds are detailed and there are not a whole lot of still shots used to waste up time.

The music. My god the music is wonderful. From the rather dated, but still catchy opening "Stray" to the beautiful ending theme "Gravity" to all of the great background music, wolf's rain had a superb soundtrack. There are also many subtle but spot on sound effects, usually more noticable during battles, with splashes of blood, the clicking of guns, and sometimes (like near the end) snapping of bone (ugh, I'll never forget that scene...) being prominent.

Now for the really important stuff. The story, as I said earlier, was problematic. The Book of the Moon and the legend of paradise is not exactly explored in full, nor are the wolves. Most of the anime is about the group of four pretty-boy wolves, Kiba, Toboe, Tsume, and Hige running around to many different places, and the side characters Hub, Cher, Quent, and Blue searching for the stolen flower maiden and the wolves. In a way, the side characters seem unimportent to the main story, as they somewhat end up helping the protagonists, but mostly deter them (Mainly Quent doing this by trying to shoot them.) As someone once said (Don't remember who, sorry.) the anime seems to have side characters just to show that it has side characters. This does not mean that those characters were bad at all, though. Cher was a strong scientist searching for the flower maiden with the persistent Hub following her every step of the way. Their relationship was interesting, as they were torn apart by work and called off the marraige they had planned. Quent was even more interesting with his manic desire to murder every wolf left alive because they killed his family (well... ) along with his trusty dog Blue. As for the wolves themselves, their personalities seem to work well together. Tsume is the tough, hard to convince, city wolf who says he despises humans. Hige is laid back, seemingly careless, and just goes with what goes. Toboe is the little one, the runt, who loves humans and is always positive and working to keep the group together. Oddly enough, Kiba, the main wolf, is the hardest to describe. He seems somewhat cliched, though quite likeable as well. Cheza, the flower maiden, is a strange creature. Born from lunar flowers, they say she is the key to opening paradise. She refers to herself in the third person "this one" and has strange healing abilities. All of the wolves are attracted to her (not sexually though, there is no real romance going on. Even Hub and Cher feel like just an old fling, but one that still tries to hold its roots) and are drawn in to the scent of lunar flower. As for the evil characters, they are certainly well-defined as such. The two main nobles, Lord Darcia and Lady Jaguara, are both after the key to paradise, though they are also working to stop each other. SPOILER The reason for this is later explained by Lord Darcia's love, Hamona, who is basically in a coma due to paradise sickness. END SPOILER

The major problem with the story, as mentioned, was how slow it goes. I love slow-paced animes, but there is a time and place for such pacing. In a drama anime about finding the place of eternal happiness, it seems somewhat out of place. There seemed to be some filler (Definitely the four recap episodes, but I ended up skipping those both times I watched it) especially near the middle. SPOILER The deadly forest with the wierd pointless talking owl, the false paradise Kiba sees in his paralyzed state in the desert, just to name some that I remember. END SPOILER Now, these are not that bad, as far as filler goes, but they break the flow of the anime up a bit. They have some important elements, but could have been done better.

Now the ending. My god, the ending. This seems to be a love it or hate it ending and I absolutely loved every minute of it. No spoilers, but it gets pretty damn tragic. It made me emotional in all four of the last episodes, almost as much as AnoHana did, and that is saying something. It is a happy ending, also a sad ending. Optimistic, but pessimistic. Nothing changes, yet everything changes. Words can't accurately describe what happens: it must be seen. To me it was one of the most amazing endings of any anime, and I could not see Wolf's Rain going out on a perfectly happy "all-is-well" ending at all.

In the opening theme, the line is sung "Stray, no regret 'cause I've got nothing to lose." 

That one line sums up the bittersweet journey that is Wolf's Rain.

TL;DR - An interesting but flawed drama anime that holds an atmosphere that seems much more lost and sad, and less filled with fanservice and action than one would expect out of the show. Quite a nice surprise, really.