Wolf's Rain

The world is dying after the apocalypse and wolves are believed to have gone extinct over 200 years earlier. This belief is incorrect though and the few remaining wolves have the ability to appear as humans so they are not discovered. The focus of the story is on a white wolf named Kiba. Kiba believes in an old legend that states that the lunar flower will lead the wolves to paradise. On his quest to find the lunar flower and paradise he meets three other wolves who are hiding among humans, Tsume, Hige and Toboe. The four wolves band together and search for the lunar flower and paradise.  

The animation style fits the feel of the story, its dull and dreary colored. The landscapes are void of life, complete wastelands. There is no beauty left in the world and the lack of bright colors drives the point home. The music also is very fitting, nothing extravagant and a little sad. The character design is wonderful and each character has their own look to match their very different personalities. The personalities though are very much the go to personalities in most series; the tough guy, the funny kid, the independent one and the street smart guy.  The animation style is like Cowboy Bebop because many of the same people worked on both series.

I found this series to be a little odd and slow paced. The character development throughout the series is well done and I enjoyed watching Tsume become almost fatherly when he started off as harsh. I found it hard to finish the series though. I enjoyed the action scenes and loved the ending but felt there was a lot of strange characters throughout. There are some strange plot points as well that I just felt were odd. The slow pace at times didn’t help either. The writers did a nice job of getting across some ideals such as environmentalism and animal activism. 

Overall I’m not sure I would watch this series again let alone recommend it. I liked the animation and the ending of the series but found it not to my tastes. I don’t like series such as Cowboy Bebop and found this series to be on par with it. So if you enjoyed Cowboy Bebop, you would very much enjoy this series.  This series was little too depressing for me and don’t think I’ll bother with the OVA.