Wolf’s Rain Anime Review – 89/100 – Throwback Thursday

The early 2000’s were a rough time for anime. It produced some incredible works, from Welcome to the NHK to Tokyo Godfathers, my favorite animated movie ever. However it was also smack-dab in the middle of the industries transition from cel animation to digital. Entire pipelines changed, the animation process became completely different, leading to a glut of poorly produced, visually abysmal series. It was in this time that Studio Bones was born. One of the more prolific studios still working today, Bones had to get it’s start somewhere. And it’s one of their earliest works that I am here to talk to you about today. I present to you, originally written by Keiko Nobumoto, directed by Tensai Okamura, with music written and performed by Youko Kanno, the early 2000’s Sci-Fi adventure: Wolf’s Rain. Let’s dive into it!

Oh and really quick before we get to deep, just ignore the Omegaverse tags if those are still there. Those are stupid and have nothing to do with the series. There is no Alpha/Beta/Omega crap. Just enjoy the cool Wolves dangit. Onwards we go!

Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Wolf’s Rain. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Additionally this review also covers the 4 episode OVA containing the true ending to the series.. Continue reading “Wolf’s Rain Anime Review – 89/100 – Throwback Thursday”

Wolf’s Rain – 29/30 [High Tide, High Time/Wolf’s Rain] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to the grand finale of Wolf’s Rain! This is a contentious ending from what I’ve heard, and I can see why. We have a lot to talk about this week so lets just dive right in!

Before we get to deep into it though I want to talk about whether or not this ending works for me. And overall? I think it was… effective. There are bits and pieces I’m not 100% sure I either understand or entirely like, but the more I think about the finale the more I feel like it works. Everyone got some kind of closure to their arc, no one was ignored, it answered a lot of questions regarding the setting and why all of this was happening. I’m satisfied. The only places I’m not totally sure on is the core idea of “repeats”. I’m typically not a big fan of these kinds of endings, for reasons I will talk about later. But Wolf’s Rain managed to frame it in a way that I think works well. Is that vague? Yes. Follow me after the break if you want spoilers.

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Wolf’s Rain – 27/28 [Where the Soul Goes/Gunshot of Remorse] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to the penultimate week of Wolf’s Rain! This week we get into the OVA, the true ending of the series. Does it live up to the hype? Is it good? Or should it have maybe stayed incomplete? Well I won’t keep you waiting, I’ll just come out and say it’s pretty damn good. So without further ado lets dive into the episodes!

First up though, some praise for the production. Wolf’s Rain was generally pretty solid on this front. But after the opening few episodes it rarely “wow’ed” me. Well this OVA is making up for that in spades, because it was stunning. From beautiful effects work such as explosions and snow to incredibly detailed facial expressions such as Hubb and Quent, or the fur and muscles of the wolves as they ran. This is easily the best Wolf’s Rain has ever looked, and it’s sending quite the statement as far as finales go. Hopefully it can keep this up for the last 2 episodes. And of course the music has also been great, but I don’t want to look up specific tracks at the moment, so I’m just going to leave that with “Music sound good :D”. You’ll get more in the final review, I promise. For now, episodes!

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Wolf’s Rain – 25/26 [False Memories/Moonlight Crucible] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to the grand finale of the original season of Wolf’s Rain! Don’t worry, this isn’t the end. We have 2 more weeks of Throwback Thursday as we cover the OVA as well. As I understand it that’s the intended ending. For now though we have a lot to talk about, so lets dive into the unofficial finale.

Starting off, lets talk setting. In broad strokes? It works. Wolf’s Rain has a great world with great characters. The overall aesthetic and feeling of the world fits well into this Vampire vs Werewolves (Vanhelsiiiiiiing) sort of classical conflict. My only gripe with it is that I feel like Wolf’s Rain is a tad to vague at times. I don’t need, nor even want, Wolf’s Rain to outright call Nobles vampires or anything. It doesn’t need to force itself to fit into preexisting ideas and words. But I would like it if things like the magic circles, the cults, or the prophecy, were better connected with the wider technological sci-fi setting. At times it feels like 2 separate systems, magic and technology, that don’t interact very well. Like how does the giant robot from episode 4 fit with the magic circle from episode 26. Personally? I don’t think it does.

To be clear, this isn’t a big deal. I have really enjoyed Wolf’s Rain, I have a lot of positive things to say about this weeks episodes and the series as a whole. The only reason I bring it up now is because as the conflict comes to a head, there are bits and pieces that feel… under utilized or poorly explained. And they only stand out because the actual experience of living in this world was communicated so well up until this point. I’ve bought into the day to day life these people have, and how the whole world is dying. Maybe some of this confusion is due to Wolf’s Rain having to rush this ending a bit, not yet knowing they were getting an OVA where it will all be more properly explored. I don’t know yet! If so I’ll find out next week.

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Wolf’s Rain – 23/24 [Heartbeat of the Black City/Scent of a Trap] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to what may be the best week of Wolf’s Rain… well ever. We have a lot to talk about this week, and basically all of it is fantastic. So without further ado, lets dive into it!

Right away I need to talk about this, I absolutely love the Lost City. There’s just so much character, so much atmosphere, to what it really should be the blandest location yet. Something about how the blank-faced people go around and interact with the seemingly flat and repeating environment. Their blandly colored outfits making our leads stand out all the more. The repeated “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” style refusal that there’s any problem or that there’s something weird going on with the town. It comes together to really sell Jagara’s omnipresent, omnipotent nature within this city. The closer you get to her keep, the higher the tier you went up, the “better” it becomes. All in all just a really nice presentation for what I initially thought would be a really dull location.

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Wolf’s Rain – 21/22 [Battle’s Red Glare/Pieces of a Shooting Star] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! We’re in the final stretch, with only 4 more weeks to go, so it’s time for Wolf’s Rain to start wrapping things up. Is that what it does? Well lets dive in and find out.

Starting off, I want to praise Wolf’s Rain’s production this week. Music, animation, backgrounds, there was a lot to love in these two episodes. Between the soldiers combat sequence and the giant walrus, the action especially stood out to me. While the Darcia keep standoff had some nice stuff in the Kiba vs Darcia fight, this is the first time I’ve been legitimately impressed by Wolf’s Rain’s animation for a while. That isn’t meant as a knock against the series of course, you can’t keep that up forever and it hasn’t looked bad in any way. Just that this weeks production got me excited for whatever finale Wolf’s Rain is cooking up, hope that it will look gorgeous.

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Wolf’s Rain – 15-20 [Recap x4/A Dream of an Oasis/Consciously] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone to another (probably late) week of Wolf’s Rain! This week sees us through the aftermath of the castle explosion, a little vision quest to remind us of our goal, and a whoooooole lot of recap. Let’s dive into it!

First up, lets start with the recaps. I promise I won’t spend long here. These were, by and large, disappointing. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise, no one really likes recaps. But what bothers me is how easily these could have been much more interesting. Wolf’s Rain could have given us new perspectives on past events, recontextualized scenes by putting us in the heads of characters we normally don’t get into. We saw a bit of this in episode 18, where it let us watch from Hubb and Quent’s perspectives. We even got a few small new scenes to spice it up, such as getting confirmation Quent is the one who shot Kiba! Do this a bit with Tsume, Hige and Toboe’s episodes and maybe they could have been less of a waste of our time. As is though, I can’t recommend anyone ever bother with these.

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Wolf’s Rain – 13/14 [Men’s Lament/The Fallen Keep] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the mid-way climax for Wolf’s Rain! This week sees all of our characters in one place first time since the show began. A lot happens, we have so much to talk about, so lets dive right into it!

Starting off, I want to take a moment to appreciate Wolf’s Rain’s music again. Episode 13, which we will get to in a moment, saw one of my favorite tracks so far, “Coração Selvagem” I believe, appear. This thing is a certifiable bob. The discordant rhythms, plucking guitar strings, beautiful vocals. Fantastic. And it works even better when played over the scene in question, as Hubb and Quinn are driving through the countryside. Great stuff and I’m quickly falling in love with this OST. On top of that, it also feels like Wolf’s Rain’s production is starting to kick back into gear. Everything just looked… better this week. Not just the action scenes, though we got those as well in episode 14, but the day to day stuff to. Hubb and Quinn in the car, Hubb’s backstory, etc. Maybe that’s just the mid-season climax effect, but it was nice!

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Wolf’s Rain – 11/12 [Vanishing Point/Don’t Make Me Blue] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! Apologies for the delay, I had a tattoo appointment today and that took up most of my time. This is a big week for our villains, with lots of important drops, so lets dive right into it!

First up we have episode 11, “Vanishing Point”. This episode felt like it was all about the Nobles. Orkham, Darcia, and this new one named Jagara. Starting with Orkham, this really surprised me and I’m honestly not sure if I like it or not. The dude makes his first on-screen appearance and then just immediately dies. Does this demonstrate Jagara’s power, that she can so easily waltz into another Noble’s city and just end it? Yeah. But so would have simply letting Jagara replace Orkham in full. The Nobles are already terrifying. All this does is show us something we already knew, that they weren’t all necessarily friendly with each other. It just feels unnecessary to me to spend all that time setting Orkham up just to use him to prop up someone new that we are just now meeting. Even if they are our new primary antagonist.

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Wolf’s Rain – 9/10 [Misgivings/Moon’s Doom] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome back everyone, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! This week see’s return of Blue and the Hunter, Darcia makes a new friend, and the gang has a pest problem. Lots to talk about, so lets jump right in!

Before we get to deep into that though, I wanted to address some concerns regarding last weeks post. Namely, I think my concerns regarding Cheza were misunderstood. My fear was that Wolf’s Rain would treat her as a sort of McGuffin. That, based on her initial first impression, she would never become more. I wasn’t criticizing Wolf’s Rain, we had just met her after all, it would be ridiculous to do so. I even pointed out ways in which Wolf’s Rain had already started to avoid that. Rather I wanted to talk about what could happen in a lesser series. Something that I’ve seen anime screw up before, on this very website. So far though? Cheza isn’t bad. We haven’t seen enough to really judge her at all, I feel. At least until this week that is.

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