Wolf’s Rain – 3/4 [Bad Fellow/Scars in the Wasteland] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to week 2 of Wolf’s Rain! This week sees our intrepid heroes band together and set out on their epic quest. No doubt there will be many trials and tribulations along the way, disputes over territory, Tsume being a tsundere and Toboe having no idea how to do literally anything, but I’m sure it’ll be a good time. Now without further ado, let’s dive into the episodes!

Starting off, this week I wanted to talk a bit about the backgrounds. Don’t worry music fans, I plan to talk about that next week. I just want to give it a bit more time to settle and hear a few more tracks before I start talking out of my ass about it. Atsushi Morikawa is the Art Director for Wolf’s Rain, with Tomoaki Okada and Shingo Takeba doing Art Design. And while I don’t know the specifics of what goes into these jobs, what I can say is that the backgrounds that are coming out of their pipeline are stunning. In particular the natural expanses and variety of locations once our group leaves the city in episode 4 are just beautiful, as well as the war-torn city they pass through. I’m curious about how diverse the world seems to be for only 3 days travel, but hey its pretty.

Moving on to the actual episodes, first up is episode 3 “Bad Fellow”. This is our classic “The gang gets together” episode. Chased together, and eventually out of town, by various forces across the city, the pack forms. Two of them, Kiba and Hige, just want to leave and chase down the creepy vampire man, Darcia. While prepping to do just that though, they run into Toboe, who in turn leads them to Tsume, who is in turn being chased by the police as all of his former men rat him out. It’s a rather nice sequence a think. Wolf’s Rain further reinforces Tsume’s trust issues and Toboe’s dependence on others while creating just enough tension within the pack that you aren’t sure just how long they will last. After all, they are forced together by circumstances not by mutual respect or anything.

While that main plot is going on though, Wolf’s Rain sprinkles a lot of what I think to be rather important tidbits of information. For example it’s mentioned that Darcia must be a “Noble”, those people that live atop the city and whom Tsume hates with a passion. Pretty clear hook for Tsume to get invested in all of this right? But that begs the question, what exactly are the Nobles? Aside from rich hedonists living atop the cities with apparently neigh unlimited power, including mind affecting ones, that is. My first thought, what with Darcia, were vampires. A classic Van Helsing “The vampires rule the world and the normal humans don’t know it” sort of thing. But as it went on, I started to feel like that may have been a bit… to fantasy, if you know what I mean. Still, there’s a lot of unanswered questions here.

For instance, what about the birds? There is a small scene this episode about how a bunch of birds were found dead on the ground. This alone should be concerning, large swathes of animals don’t die for no reason. But then Hubb, AKA the research ladies ex-husband, mentions that the only people high enough to actually do anything are the Nobles. You know, the thing Darcia is? Combine that with what we know of the outside, both from prior episodes and upcoming in 4, and it makes me think that they are the ones responsible for things being this way. That they, either accidentally or on purpose, caused some massive conflict. And now that it’s over, they are continuing to destroy the pollute the world for their own entertainment, uncaring for those around them. Makes it seem like the humans and wolves are sorta on the same side, huh?

Lastly I want to talk about Cheza, as well as Tsume and his crew. We didn’t get much new about Cheza this episode sadly. Mostly just mentions about their quest for paradise, and how Darcia seems to be searching for the same thing. Assuming my guess about the Nobles from before is correct, maybe he’s looking for a new land to basically suck dry? Can’t be to sure what his motivations are yet, but it feels like Wolf’s Rain is leaning towards that sort of “Nature is dying” theme. As for Tsume, I mentioned it before but this is just another example of his trust getting betrayed. Though as he says later in episode 4, its not like he had much of that to begin with. It’s just kind of sad to see him constantly get pushed out like this. Hopefully his time with the pack will be better.

Next up is episode 4, “Scars in the Wasteland”. For all that this is supposed to be a travel episode, watching as our pack chases after Darcia, it’s really more of a Tsume episode in my mind. Which is funny, because out of all of our leads so far he has gotten the most focus by far. I’m not complaining of course, Tsume has the most going on and is certainly the most interesting. He’s also the most selfish, loner oriented member of the group, so it makes sense that their status as a “Pack” hinges on him connecting with the rest of them. Giving him an entire episode to explore that dynamic is good for selling us on their friendship, a good way to spend travel time. I just hope the other wolves get the same treatment in the future.

Going into the actual details of it, I like what Wolf’s Rain has going on here. As Kiba says, its easier to blame other people then it is to blame yourself, and that’s exactly what Tsume is doing here. It’s not his fault he’s a loner and has no friends, its that everyone else sucks. They are the ones betraying him. Tsume clearly desires companionship, why else would he form what is effectively a wolf pack of raiders with humans and start attacking trains and shit? He enjoys the hunt, the friendship, but hates the humans and is unwilling to put himself out there. Tsume himself says as much to Toboe, that he trusts no one and so no one trusts him in turn. There’s a thematic reason Kiba didn’t show up to save them until after Tsume was honest with himself. It’s a first step, learning to trust them.

Of course it helps that Kiba is showing himself worth of such trust to begin with. The guy is quiet, stoic, doesn’t do much to endear himself to the others. But by god can he fight. This guy took down a giant killer robot armed with missiles, guns and tank treads all on his own. Is that doable by all wolves? Or is Kiba some kind of Special Forces dude. I’m really curious about his history now, because those kinds of skills don’t came out of nowhere. I suspect he’s been living out here for a while and that this isn’t the first “Old World” technology that he’s had to fight. Regardless of if that’s the case or not though, Kiba has quickly established himself as the “Protector” of the group. I doubt Hige and Toboe have done much fighting, so it will fall to him to protect them.

Speaking of the “Old World”, Wolf’s Rain showed us a lot of what life, or death in this case, outside the domes is like Filled with crumbling cities, bones, and evidence of war such as minefields and automated combat droids, it’s only further evidence to me of how the Noble’s have destroyed this world. Long stretches of desert and rock, little vegetation or prey. It’s deathly silent with only their own breathing to mark their travel. It’s pretty in a lot of ways, but also tells of a great conflict in the past. There is one question I have though: The droid, did it target them simply because they were alive or because they were wolves? Basically, was it made to hunt them specifically? It would be really cool if that was the case, but I’d be left wondering exactly how many wolves there used to be.

Lastly I want to note this side-plot going on between Hubb and Cher. It seems to me like these two are on the verge of discovering something they shouldn’t, and that the powers that be (Nobles) are taking notice. Why else would Cher have a banned book, the Book of the Moon, hidden away in her desk? A book that is supposedly about the origin of Wolves, and how Man was created from them, marking Wolves as the original people. This absolutely screams to me that the Nobles are vampires and trying to actively wipe out the wolves and their culture. Maybe that’s just me projecting my love of fantasy onto Wolf’s Rain, but with the secrecy and almost rejection that wolves exist at all, it really files like a coordinated effort to destroy what might be the only real threat to the Noble’s power… Ala Helsing. I love Helsing.

So yeah, all in all these were another 2 good episodes of Wolf’s Rain. We are starting to transition into the main plot, we have narratively relevant characters among both the wolves and the humans, everyone is starting to bond and we’ve clearly established how incredibly hostile this world is to everyone living in it. Everyone except the Noble’s at least (Helsiiiiiiiing). The only thing left to do is… watch, and see where it goes. As for my impression of it so far, I think a lot of care is being taken to setup this world and not rush forwards into pointless conflict. Wolf’s Rain is finding ways to engage the me beyond just pointless conflict. That’s really nice, as I sometimes find myself disconnected and uninterested if something isn’t happening, as I’m sure you’ve read before. That doesn’t mean what’s happening has to be action, as seen with here.

One last thing before we go though. I wanted to assure anyone who might not have read the comments on last weeks post, I have been informed that there really is no Omegaverse crap in Wolf’s Rain. The reason I brought it up before was because on every Anime Database site I checked (MAL, Anilist, etc), Wolf’s Rain was always given the “Omegaverse” tag. Not knowing anything about the show beyond this sort of meta-data, that left me concerned! But from what you readers are saying, that’s just people seeing wolves and getting horny. There is no Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamic, no scenting or any of that other weird shit. It’s just wolves being cool, and maybe fighting space vampires (Helsiiiiiiiiiiiing). I swear to god if these end up not being vampire I’m going to jump into a lake. I’ll have spent weeks making a fool out of myself.

Anyways, see you next week!

P.S. Noticed this while going back through for pictures, in episode 3 I liked the callback to Gel falling after being bit by Tsume. The wolves are people who can actually keep up with Tsume, his equals. He doesn’t have to worry about hurting them or them freaking out. A nice small moment that calls back to a previous failure of his and further demonstrates why he has the trust issues he does.