Animals as the main protagonists in Japanese anime has always been something of an oddity. Anime that do feature beastly buddies in the place of humans have tended to be a bit of a mixed bag, but thankfully, this particularly series is one that pulls it off pretty well.
The plot starts out with the focus being on human characters. As of episode 7 however, the genre suddenly shifts to focusing on the main protagonists, the dogs. The once mute canines, also gain voice actors, and their true personalities start opening up. The very sudden change in pacing may throw off some viewers, but ep. 7 is when this series really takes off the ground, and everything before that was simply a build-up to this point.
Now, the main plot in GNG is a fairly basic one. Silverfang/Gin, the eponymous protagonist of the show, sets out to find fellow dogs in order to defeat Akakabuto, the bear antagonist of the series. Akakabuto is a VERY standard villain, he's seemingly evil just for the sake of being evil, so if you're looking for something with a more "mature" or out-of-the-box plot line, I'm afraid you won't find it here. GNG is, for the most part, standard shounen anime, only with dogs instead of your usual teenage human heroes.
Akakabuto, and the other bears in the series, remain mute, so we never get any kind of insight into their own back stories. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason why the bears enjoy killing off the human and dog cast. Maybe it could be argued that the bears are simply defending their territory, and that the humans/dogs are the real villains.
But we're told early on in the series that Akakabuto goes out of his way to cause trouble for villagers. The only real explanation we get is that he holds a grudge against dogs and humans due to having his right eye shot, blinding him.
Whatever the reasons, I find myself caring very little for the dogs' end goal of slaying Akakabuto and his army of henchmen bears.
But despite the main premise being insanely bare-boned, the series more than makes up for it with its very semi-episodic format of Gin and the gang finding, and convincing other dogs to join his pack. It's simple enough, but it's genuinely engaging to watch what plays out in these situations. There are some very interesting canines to be met along the way, which brings me to the pooches themselves.
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This is arguably the show's strongest point. While the villains are about as interesting as porridge, the same can't be said about the dogs. There is some good character development throughout the series, especially with Gin, who grows from being a pup trained via animal abuse, to becoming a respectable leader.
The dogs' personalities, while not amazing, are interesting, and there are some very likeable tykes throughout the cast. Some of the dogs may seem like antagonists at first, but later turn into allies, making them much more interesting (pseudo) "villains" than the bears.
Although I didn't develop any kind of real, emotional attachment to any of the characters, I did find myself genuinely caring about them whenever one was mortally wounded or killed. And death comes often in GNG, don't think for a second that any dog is safe, main characters are killed off fairly frequently.
There's plenty of action and (bloody) fights throughout the series, which is to be expected of something in the shounen genre. While somewhat repetitive, they're a lot more enjoyable to watch than you might think, with some unexpected moves/scenes thrown in from time to time.
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The artwork is pretty much what you'd expect out of an 80s show. It ain't great, but it isn't completely terrible. Perhaps my biggest issue is how the dogs' mouths seem to be almost constantly open. It often makes them look dumb, especially when talking. There's also quite a lot of reused footage in some scenes (e.g. "background" characters getting killed twice in the exact same footage during bear fight scenes).
There isn't a great deal to be said about the sound either. The opening theme, while cheesy, is very catchy and enjoyable. The voice cast do a decent to good job, nothing spectacular, but nothing overly terrible either.
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In conclusion, GNG is a good shounen series with the main set of characters unusually being of the furry variety. It doesn't do too much that we haven't already seen before, but that doesn't prevent it from being a fun watch. And, despite its fairly unoriginal basic premise, it still remains a very unique series in its own right. I've truly never seen an anime quite like GNG before, even when the general formula feels very familiar.
The series has many flaws, but these are easy to overlook just by how sheer enjoyable it is to watch. It may not be for everyone, but the series is worth a shot if you're interested in any of the following: Dogs, slightly darker "children's" shows, shounen/adventure anime or Western animated shows/movies such as the Lion King.
