Wolf’s Rain – 7/8 [The Flower Maiden/Song of Sleep] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! This week is a bit of a lore dump, but it’s an interesting lore dump, which is how it should be. We learn more about Darcia and Cheza while Cheza finally meets up with the wolves, all things I wasn’t expecting to happen for a while yet. So without further ado, lets dive into the episodes!

So starting off, the visuals. This is the first week that I really felt some cracks in Wolf’s Rain‘s production. Not due to any scheduling issues yet, more just the limitations of the time in which it was made. I’m of course talking about the CGI airship fight at the start of episode 7. It felt… off to me. The ship moved weirdly, the lasers didn’t look very good, and the whole sequence moved in a confusing manner. Once we got past that Wolf’s Rain was back to its old self for the most part, but this sequence definitely took me out of it after an otherwise stellar start. Beyond that, I also found the way Cheza fell through the air to be kinda silly. I get it, she’s spinning like a flower in the wind, it’s funny and fits how she’s styled. But it was also a little silly.

P.S. Apologies for the delay by the way, I had some trouble getting images this week.

Getting into the episodes, first up is episode 7, “The Flower Maiden”. When I mentioned lore dumps before, this episode was primarily what I had in mind. Large swathes of it is just… lore. Good lore though! Like I said above, I think if you’re going to do a lore dump you want to do it like this. Everything Wolf’s Rain introduces here is immediately relevant to the next two episodes. For instance, a large portion of the lore either took place, or was about, the current location. We learn where we are, how important it was to Darcia and Cheza, what was done here, and even get further evidence as to the slow decay of the world. So please, don’t take me calling this a lore dump negatively. It was a very graceful dumping, more of a lore lecture if you will.

As for the details, lets start with Darcia. I wasn’t expecting to see him again! Not this early at least. I thought he wouldn’t show up again until like… the mid-show finale around episode 12, where Kiba and the rest inevitably rescue Cheza. Instead not only does he appear here, we get a chunky backstory for him to. One that begins his slow transformation into a, dare I say it, sympathetic character? Seriously though, we get Hamona’s, get further context as to their deep love (Vampires… Helsiiiiiiiing), see what the villa was like and even learn that he and the wolves really want the same thing: Paradise. Him to cure Hamona, and them a place to live ostensibly. It makes me wonder if they might actually end up as allies by the end. Or at least reluctant enemies. I could see a lot of promise there, considering other Nobles exist.

Speaking of Paradise, we also finally get to meet legitimately meet Cheza this episode, and learn a lot of her history to boot! Stuff like how she is a Lunar Flower turned human, the only one of her kind, and how she was seemingly created here by Darcia himself. That last one has me scratching my head a bit, admittedly. How did he lose her if he had a hand in making her, only to end up needing to kidnap her back himself. Hopefully Wolf’s Rain will have a bit of explanation for that, or I’m misunderstanding the history of the villa. Either way, it appears as if Cheza was the only truly successful creation, and that she can feels the loss of plants/Lunar Flowers deeply. In a way, she’s just as much a rare/dying breed as the Wolves I suppose.

Meanwhile the reaction of the Wolves’ themselves was about as expected. Hige was down bad, Toboe just wants more friends, Kiba finally found his purpose, and Tsume… Tsume doesn’t trust anyone until at least a week after meeting them. Overall though, it felt like a distinct step forward for a group. Confirmation that Kiba was actually leading them somewhere, that they weren’t just wandering in the wilderness for a pipe dream. It does raise the question though of what exactly this “instinct” of Kiba’s is. Is it as Wolf’s Rain says on the tin, and just a Wolf’s instinct? Or is there some other connection? Because Cheza seems to feel it too, meaning it can’t just be on Kiba’s side. And with what we learn in episode 8, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some kind of… supernatural Moon-power shit going on. Suppose we will find out later.

This brings us to episode 8, “Song of Sleep”, which has a bit more lore but is mostly spent establishing Cheza’s place within the cast. To get it out of the way early so I can spend the rest of the post being positive and happy, I find Cheza’s “Non-emotive female lead” shtick to be a bit concerning. Now to be clear, not only does it make sense in that she isn’t human, by the end of the episode (and a bit in episode 7) she’s shown to be capable of smiling and even crying. So far everything in Wolf’s Rain has pointed towards this not really being an issue. I only bring it up because of my desire to see her become her own fully fleshed out character, rather then a female McGuffin. So really this is less of an issue and more of a request for Wolf’s Rain.

Getting into the actual episode, easily my favorite part was the small dream sequence where each of the wolves just… takes a nice nap, and imagines their own version of Paradise. Toboe simply wants a quiet life with his lost Grandma/owner. Hige wants a family to call his own, a clear desire for love. Tsume? Tsume, funnily enough, just wants to be left alone in the wildness to hunt and live his life how he chooses. It’s a little funny actually, how the guy clearly the most in need of real human (Wolf?) connection is dreaming of a Paradise without anyone in it. I wonder if we will see that change as Wolf’s Rain progresses, because as Cheza points out, he seemingly needed that rest the most. And as for Kiba? Well his Paradise seems to be wherever Cheza is. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me.

Beyond that, this episode also gave us more backstory for Cheza through a new character, who I will call Hanabito. Yes, that name probably applies to all of Cheza’s kind, but Cheza is the only one with a name for now, so deal with it. Anyways, Hanabito appears to be a “failed” Cheza. The implication being that there were a lot of attempts to create her, but she was the only “true” Flower Maiden. The rest either dying (?) or simply being discarded, like Hanabito. Through her we learn a fair bit about what a Flower Maiden is actually. More interesting then that though, we get this weird… prophecy sort of thing, about how going with the wolves will “Lead to destruction”. Who’s? How so? I almost don’t want to believe it, because she just wants Cheza to stay to heal her. But Wolf’s Rain wouldn’t drop that for no reason.

Moving on, Doctor Cher is back! That’s pretty cool. I was expecting her to stay confined to Hubb’s narrative going on back in the city. Some kind of “Figure out the Nobles are bad” plot. To see her show up here, in direct pursuit of Cheza, in direct conflict with both Darcia and the Wolves? It’s nice. A good way to not only keep her involved in the story, but Hubb and the Hunter as well through association. She also gets to act as the audience surrogate in a few ways as we learn more and more information about what exactly is going on while also being this sort of representative for “Decent” humanity, learning and possibly coming to understand the Wolves. It really depends on what Wolf’s Rain does with her, but I see a lot of potential with how differently she is treated from the soldiers.

Finally lets talk Darcia. Is he still the villain after episode 7? I really don’t know! Wolf’s Rain presented him as this sort of… small time Noble in 7. Both his ship and resources seem much smaller then those he is competing with, making him almost an underdog in that conflict. Not as much as the Wolves, since he’s still part of the ruling class. But enough to put him in a sort of… Zuko, from Avatar the Last Airbender position. Rebelling against his own people because it’s just not right/conflicts with his desires. If that ends up being the case, the question then becomes: Who is the villain? Some Noble we have yet to meet? Society itself? Still Darcia? I don’t know! But I’m eager to find out. Because even if Darcia is still the villain, he’s a sympathetic one, and I like that.

So yeah, all in all this was another good week for Wolf’s Rain. The worst I had to say about it was that Cheza seemed a bit emotionally flat, but I expect that to be something that evolves with time and resolves itself. As for the rest of the episodes, they were solid lore dumps. We learned a lot about Darcia, Cheza, the location, our leads, it was all around very informative. Info dumps are alright when done like this. Though hopefully now that we have Cheza in the party, they will be able to find a bit more direction and move proactively towards Paradise. Again, that isn’t a complaint about what’s already happened, that was all good. Just a request for where the series starts to go next. I’ve been enjoying Wolf’s Rain so far. I hope it keeps it up.