Wolf's Rain Anime Review--at last!

[Heart of Sword]

Ashley-dono wouldn't let me write an official one as I've only seen the Adult Swim version. But since the Adult Swim version isn't edited, it's still accurate. Here it is.


Age Suitability: 15+ (original rating is 13+, but I disagree on that)
Overall Rating: 10/10
Violence: 9/10
Language: 4/10
Sexual Content: 2/10
Nudity: 3/10
Bad Religion: 5/10
Dub Quality: 10/10

Main Review:
The story centers around four wolves and their search for a fabled paradise. As told in "The Book of the Moon", when the world comes to an end, paradise will appear on the earth, but only wolves will be able to find it. At the center is Kiba, a white wolf with a mysterious past, who is determined to find paradise. Along the way, he finds a pack of wolves drawn to follow him in his quest...Tsume, a punk who uses humans to revolt against the nobels, Hige, the careless one who's in it for the adventure, and Toboe, the once domesticated pup searching for companionship.

Wolves were supposed to have gone extinct 200 years ago. But wolves have survived...they have learned to appear as humans (one of the only regrets is that they never explain how they do this in the series). Entangled in this adventure is the relentless wolf hunter, Quent. Wolves, as he thinks he saw, were responsible for killing his family and burning his village. Now Quent is out to erradicate every last wolf from the face of the earth. The wolves have found some allies as well. While sniffing out the scent of lunar flowers, Kiba is captured, during which we meet Cher, the scientist, and her ex-husband, detective Hubb. Hubb has become entangled in the mystery of the wolves, as his ex-wife, Cher, is trying to untangle the mystery of Cheza, the maiden created by Nobles from lunar flowers...the maiden that is said will lead the wolves to paradise. All this, and a dark Noble named Darcia who intends to find paradise on his own.

Name Meanings: Kiba (fang), Toboe (howling), Hige (whisker), Tsume (claw), Darcia (dark--Italian)
NOTE: Kiba is played by Johnny Yong Bosh. Thanks, Mitsuki Lover!


Violence: Wolf's Rain is at times an extremely violent series. In the first few minutes of the show, a wolf rips into someone's throat and tears apart another's hand to defend himself, a foreshadowing of violent events to come. Although there is a lot of blood (somewhat like Rurouni Kenshin and even Samurai X at times), there is never anything exceptionally gory. In one of the more disturbing cases, a crazy man sticks his gun in another man's mouth and pulls the trigger, but we don't see anything until afterwards; there's blood all over the wall and floor. Once again, it can be an extremely violent series and is not recommended to anyone with a weak stomach.


Language: A few *sses, d*mns, h*lls, mostly from Tsume and Hige. Also a few b*st*rds. Most of the swearing is the phrase "what the h*ll...?" Which is kind of weird since those words are from the human language. Why wolves would borrow words that are strictly human puzzles me...


Sexual Content: Flashback of Hubb and Cher on their wedding night in bed, there's clothes on the floor but nothing is shown. A few mild, usually humorous innuendoes here and there. A lot of "wolf innuendoes" such as talk about peeing on trees, smelling dog feces from far away, and other things you'd expect a wolf to say.


Nudity: Cheza's outfit is very form-fitting, but it's a laboratory suit. She is however a very innocent, sweet character and doesn't behave sexually at all. Darcia's half-dead girlfriend/wife is naked, but her very long, thick hair wraps around her like clothes. Anything that a bikini would cover is covered. Jagara shows quite a bit of cleavage, too. At the beginning of the series there is a naked woman (might be a statue) with a snake slithering around her, hiding all private parts.


Bad Religion: A lot, and I mean a lot of mythical elements. A few things about the "great spirit" and man being formed from the wolf--very like a native american myth. There is a native-american-like "old guy" that "brings a wolf back from the dead" with a chant, but he wasn't even dead in the first place (though they certainly thought he was). So technically he wasn't resurrected at all. If you disagree on this, you might be reminded that when another wolf died, it was seen in "paradise" while this wolf was in a place that wasn't "paradise" at all.


Genre: Hard to put it in a specific genre....
Gothic, suspence, action, adventure, sci-fi, drama, fantasy...

[mitsuki lover]

Kiba is one of the most Christlike figures in anime.
Two of the reasons for this:
*He is referred to as the Unique Wolf
*Paradise is only opened with his blood
It should be added that in the dub Kiba is played by Johnny Yong Bosh.

[Kisa]

Nice job, this is such a unique anime, i love it ^^

[faithfighter]

wow thank you for this Heart of Sword. I have had a lot of questions about this anime but never got a full review, thank you. I needed that a lot.

[AnubisWerewolf]

Thanks for the review. Never watched this anime because I never knew what it was about.