
a review by anjouuuue

a review by anjouuuue
It's a great show. I grew up watching it and it was actually my very first real anime before Fullmetal Alchemist (which started my whole anime life), so I guess that bias is to blame, but if I had to explain why for those who haven't seen it, then it's pretty simple.
You don't see stories like this these days anymore. Lots of shows out there are pretty bright and have definite endings or linear storylines. There's nothing wrong with that, but because there's an abundance of preferences for decent and acceptable good endings that make sense, or just linear and slightly predictable stories, stories like this aren't given much attention, so I personally like how Wolf's Rain is different in that it's completely not like any of those. For short, I guess it's a story that just doesn't outright say what it wants to say, and doesn't show it in self-explanatory ways.
Wolf's Rain follows the journey of four wolves in a dying world who are in search of paradise which is believed to be open only to wolves (who are known to have long been extinct), but the problem is they aren't the only ones searching for it. There are others who are desperate to get it as much as they, and yet these people fight against the grain, aware that they can't attain it. One thing I'm sure about when it comes to this story is that it will leave you thinking a lot, and that can outweigh a lot of the story's flaws if you let it.
The show isn't perfect for sure, there definitely are times you'd wish they developed a character more, or lengthened arcs or added more scenes to fully flesh out and realize the story to help build it up some more and make a greater impact, but the whole thing including the lore and the world is interesting in and of itself. Aside from this, the characters grow on you as time passes (some you'll like instantly, some you'll need more time to understand).
I like to believe each story has something it wants to say, and even with the flaws, you can see that Wolf's Rain does have a message it wants to share. There are so many anime out there that give you a linear type of story, ones that are predictable or maybe share the same ending but done differently. Someone said it in writing once before, I don't remember who, but they said: endings are the same however you slice it. They are either fake/deliberately fake and either attempt to deceive others or motivate them with excessive optimism. They go on to say how the only genuine ending is how all the characters only die in the story. In some ways, I do see where this person is coming from, and it's one explanation for why I like Wolf's Rain. I guarantee your curiosity will be piqued, because it also was not what I was expecting.
I say Wolf's Rain is interesting because it's as I said earlier in this review, you just don't see stories like this these days. It's got something different in store, so if you're up for that and don't mind being made to mull over it for a long time, and if you don't mind looking past its flaws for a bit, you might want to give it a shot!
(I give it an 80 cause though I like it a lot, it definitely still could have been made even better! But it's nice to add it to your list, different can be good and there's always something to take even from a story that's not all perfect.)
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