I expected it to be a lot better than it actually was. Set in a kind of post-apocalyptic world, you have "wolves" who can take on human form, "nobles" who are these people with strange super-technology, and lots of power, (but as amazing as their technology is, it's all antique, and left over from a more a glorious past, and is falling apart often), and people who are ordinary humans. There is also a special girl named Cheza who is a main focus of the story.
The story is kind of vague. The setting, characters, and world give you this huge sense of backstory: you get to see ruins of decrepit cities, are shown left over deactivated war technology, and are shown visually that it once was an environmentally beautiful planet, with major cities, and a large population, but "something" happened, and there was later war, and now it's a post apocalyptic wasteland with most people living in poor, dirty small city-states, isolated by lots of wasteland.
Where Wolfs Rain fails, is that you never really get told the story of just what is happening to this world, which is a major plot point of the story.
The story starts out, and the wolves are searching for "paradise" but you're never shown or told quite what "paradise" actually is. You're given hints of mysticism and alchemy and technology and told a few things early on about the wolves being essential to get there but then the rest of the story is essentially about the wolves traveling from city to city, town to town, on their way to search for "paradise" (whatever that is, you're not really told.)
You are never told why the "nobles" have all this power and technology.
You are never told what happened to the world to make it such a wasteland.
You are never really told what the wolves actually are, or their history.
You are never really told much at all. So for a story that pretty much hinges on these wolf-people trying to find this "paradise" and competing to get there with the "nobles", you're never really told anything at all about any of them or what the "paradise" is at all, or any kind of backstory that tells you about the history of the world.
And it's a real shame, because there's so much story hinted there, and you never get to told it. It's mostly just these wolf people running around from place to place, and their adventures on the way protecting a girl.
On top of that, after the first main story arc, there are literally 4 (4!!!) recap episodes in a row, (yes, four recap episodes! In a row!) that just play back footage from the first episodes, each narrated from four different main characters, who adds one or two lines of thought narration in each episodes. You can go ahead and skip these, they add nothing to the story. They are just recaps.
The characters are actually very good. The wolf characters are very interesting, and in fact lots of the characters are very interesting, which is where the show really has it's strong suit.
It's just a shame you have such great characters, with such a poor overall plot.
The music is also really great. The soundtrack is done by Yoko Kanno and is quite good. A lot of people will talk about the sound track and it really is great.
It's a show that is very worth watching, especially if you like wolf things, and great characters, but definitely was lopsided with great character development but such a weak plot and so many things never explained that it leaves you feeling odd at the end.
I will say though, if you like wolves, the wolf-ey side of the character development was superb!
I really liked this show, in spite of it's flaws. Don't look for answers to why it's world is the way it is, they will never tell you. However, do expect great characters, great bonding, and very interesting character development that is really unique.
