Wolf’s Rain – 1/2 [City of Howls/Toboe, Who Doesn’t Howl] – Throwback Thursday

Welcome everyone, to the next season of Throwback Thursday! This edition? The 2003 Studio Bones piece, Wolf’s Rain, directed by Tensai Okamura of Memories and Darker than Black fame. Is it any good? Or will it be the anime equivalent of Twilight? Lets dive in and find out!

Starting off, lets talk visuals. I really like how Wolf’s Rain looks! It’s very animated, lots of character movement and effects, snappy designs and cel animation. It’s all very… 90s. Like the last call of a dying breed, Wolf’s Rain feels like a show that doesn’t belong in the modern era. Which makes sense considering how much of its crew is made up of the Cowboy Bebop team, and fits the premise of the show well. Now I do have some concerns, as during my preparation for this season I learned about the 4 recap episodes (Which we will be skipping) as well as the finale being knocked back to the OVA (Which we will be watching). I’m curious just how long Wolf’s Rain can keep this kind of production up, what with SARS and all. Personally though? I really hope it can, because it looks great so far.

Getting into the episodes, first up is episode 1, “City of Howls”. Right off the bat Wolf’s Rain presents us with an interesting mix of cyberpunk and fantasy, not unlike a previous Throwback Thursday show Vision of Escaflowne. Mentions of alchemy and werewolves while giant airships fly through the sky and people live in domes. Wolves with magic spells and security droids. It’s all very 90s, in the best way possible. The kind of techno “Far Future” you don’t get as much anymore. I especially liked the “concealment” thing going on with the wolves. How we see their shadows cast on the walls while they walk around as humans, or how they can see through it themselves but others can’t. I’m a bit curious how it works mechanically with holding shit like knives, since it seems to be purely visual? But hopefully we learn more about it as we go.

For the wolves themselves, Wolf’s Rain introduces us to 3 in this opening episode: Tsume, Hige and Kiba. Tsume is your rather stereotypical “Lone Wolf”. The damaged loner clearly to afraid to form bonds but still desperate for them. You can see it in how he sticks with and interacts with the humans he raids with, despite often saying how he doesn’t care about them. He’s a bit of a Tsundere in that way, with his chest scar, tight leather and refusal to be honest about his feelings. I’m expecting him, between meeting these other wolves and his humans abandoning him, to start to open up and bond like “pack” with our other leads, eventually becoming the most steadfast of them. Hopefully it won’t go full Omegaverse on us, and I expect there to be some bumps on the road. But I’m always down for a Lone Wolf learning friendship.

Next up we have Hige, the one we probably spend the least amount of time with. Where Tsume was the Lone Wolf, Hige seems more like an actual Human. Like he has assimilated himself into normal human society, working a job, making money, and living his life. Of the 3 wolves in the episode, he is certainly the least “wolf-like”, has the least pride about what he is. Tsume at least hunts regularly in a way, going on raids and attacking the society he hates, while Kiba… we will get to Kiba. Hige though, he’s just existing. Purposeless. And that’s kind of what I expect this pack to give him once they fully form up. A purpose. A way to finally interact and embrace the Wolf part of himself that he’s had to let sit dormant while living amongst the humans. Personally though? I kind of expect him to die.

Finally we have Kiba, our clear lead and the most “Wolfish” of the wolves. Kiba has enough pride for all 3 of them, and is clearly very scornful of human society. I dare say this might be the first time he’s ever set foot in one of these domes. He’s clearly very disdainful of taking a human shape, even if just to fool them and get by, questioning if Hige has any pride walking around as he does. Kiba himself is only convinced to done it when hit with the classic “There’s no honor/pride in death”, or “Discretion is the better part of valor”. Of the 3, Kiba is also the only one with any real purpose, that being freeing Cheza the Flower Maiden and finding Paradise. What all that means, or how its all related, we don’t yet know. But at the very least, he’s our driving force.

Its not until episode 2, “Toboe, Who Doesn’t Howl”, that Wolf’s Rain starts to progress its plot. Before we get to that though, we need to talk about our newest member who, as the title suggests, is named Toboe. Toboe is clearly both the youngest, and least experienced, of the wolves. He’s almost like a puppy in a lot of ways. Clearly the most domesticated, Toboe has lived effectively as someone’s dog for many years. And while he was safe and protected there, he has no survival skills of his own. He isn’t even able to keep his human and wolf personas straight when talking to humans, such as the girl who fed him once. I expect Toboe to be this sort of… audience surrogate as Wolf’s Rain moves forward. The excuse for the others to explain things they would all otherwise know. Maybe he will even become Tsume’s softspot!

With Toboe out of the way, what do I mean by Wolf’s Rain progressing its plot? Well simply that it has introduced what looks to be its primary antagonist in Lord Darcia, an almost vampire-like character, and even had him take direct action in the story by “freeing” Cheza. Right away this lets Wolf’s Rain setup how both he and Kiba are at odds over Cheza. What Darcia needs her for exactly we don’t yet know though. If I had to guess, I’d wager it’s something about using her to resurrect that blonde woman we saw in the opening shot of the episode. Maybe she’s some kind of vampire in a deep sleep, or she’s infected by a wolf bite or something, I don’t know. Whatever the case though, it’s clear that he needs her for something and that Kiba probably won’t like it.

That still leaves the question I’ve been avoiding this entire post just so I could give it its own paragraph though: Who, or what, is Cheza? So far Wolf’s Rain has been pretty cagey on that, only really talking about her by her title, the Flower Maiden. We get a little from Darcia and Kiba, comments about the Lunar Flower and how she will guide them to Paradise. But we don’t really know what any of that means. Lunar Flower? Is she an alien and is there life on the moon? Is that where Wolves are from, why they are so different? And what exactly is Paradise, aside from a conceptual thing everyone yearns for in almost every story? Most important of all though: Will Cheza get to awaken as her own character, or will she forever be a McGuffin? Personally, I’m really hoping for the latter.

Aside from Cheza, there’s one more character I think will be important, if only in this local opening arc: Quent, the hunter. This guy hates wolves. Really badly. And he seems to have been hunting Kiba for some time. Did Kiba wonder through his village and kill some people in his pride? Is Quent’s anger justified? Or is he just sort of this physical representation of the societies hatred towards wolves in general? I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of though, and I will eat my hat if this ends up not being the case, is that his dog Blue is 100% a Wolf. Wolf’s Rain has this clear visual distinction between wolves and other dogs, both in their facial structure and their eyes. You can tell by Blue’s design how he fits in more with our leads then a normal dog. So I fully expect him to actually be a wolf. Maybe even Quent’s son, from that photo?

Finally there’s one last thing I want to talk about, and sort of my big concern for Wolf’s Rain as a story, and that’s the Omegaverse shit. I won’t sugar coat it, I hate the Omegaverse. All this Alpha, Beta, Omega gay fanfiction bullshit. I really don’t like it. Not only does it perpetuate all this bullshit masculinity stuff we see going around, its also been disproven by the very guy who initially researched it. Now hopefully Wolf’s Rain will avoid this, it was made in the early 2000’s in Japan after all, it might not have been exposed to all of that Western influence. But if it has been, and if this is prevalent, then I’m sorry to say that I’m going to be riffing on Wolf’s Rain hard every time it comes up. So pray me folks, pray this doesn’t because 26 difficult episodes.

Aside from that though, all in all I quite enjoyed these first 2 episodes. Tsume’s design is a bit off putting for me, I’m not really into the skin-tight leather sexy boy design, but it feels very 90s and fits in well with the show. I won’t begrudge Wolf’s Rain going for one sexy boy-toy character. Meanwhile the rest look and act nice enough and I’m definitely intrigued by what their individual arcs are going to be. Naturally I’m not terribly interested in the overall plot yet, but that’s more because Wolf’s Rain has just started introducing that to us, there’s nothing to be all that engaged with, so it’s no knock against the show. The characters have engaged me and been entertaining enough thus far, and it’s good to spend time setting them up. Lets just hope it doesn’t forget to have an actual plot like our last show.