David Southerland

A co-worker at my first job randomly gave me some anime DVD's when he saw me reading manga during my lunch breaks. One DVD was the last three or four episodes of Wolf's Rain. Time passed; I never watched it because I didn't see the point of watching the last few episodes of a show without the context of the rest of the series. I was wrong. Without the context of the series up to then, it still was a super compelling story that grabs you right in the feels and squeezes until you cry. That was 2009. Back in winter 2017, I watched it from the beginning properly after eight years and fully appreciated the masterpiece of work. The music and sound direction and composition; immaculate. The story; good enough. The characters; I loved them. And I cried over the culmination of their arcs a second time. This is an anime that satisfies feelings I don't entirely know how to convey. There's moments of silence but not silence. Ambiance. No music or dialog, just wind. Crunching of snow. Eerily peaceful and desolate. The story, again, is good enough. It felt like the story just barely needed to exist as little more than framework for the themes. The ideas of the cycles of existence, death and rebirth, finding where you belong and with whom you belong. Ideas of being outsiders looking longingly in, ideas of injustice and greed not just among the antagonists but the flawed protagonists as well. Ideas of paradise and heaven. Accepting mortality. Snarky conclusion: Wolf's Rain is a thinking-person's anime that probably can't be appreciated by brainlets. I'm not saying this to be elitist or gatekeep, either: I know if a lot of people went into Wolf's Rain, they'd probably find it extremely boring because it's meant to be a slow, thoughtful show that doesn't hinge on action or lewd fanservice. If you've ever asked yourself, what is life, existence, and where do I belong... well, this anime CAN'T give you the answer, but it's thought provoking enough to help you come to your own conclusions.