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meganbmooreLookit, made my first Wolf's Rain icon just for this post. This is a MUCH smaller post than the other one(as far as pics and such go).
A fair bit of backstory/plot explanation is needed for this one. Wolf's Rain is hard to explain because there's no way to explain it without it sounding kind of odd, but it makes complete sense when you watch it(when I checked out out, all I knew was that it looked pretty and most of the anime fans I knew liked it, so I got the first disc and hoped for the best) The important thing to keep in mind that it's heavily based on asian myths about animals able to pass as humans.
Wolf's Rain is a post-apocalyptic fairy-tale set in a bleak time when the world is set in a perpetual winter. There is a legend that one day, the wolves will follow the scent of the lunar flower and open the doors to paradise. Only problem is, the wolves were supposedly wiped out centuries ago, and the lunar flower doesn't exactly exist. However, they weren't wiped out, but have instead learned to cast the illusion that they are humans. They aren't shapechangers-when they walk by looking like humans, they'll leave pawprints in the dirt or water, and in the first episode one of the wolves, Tsume, tries to catch a falling kid and while we see his hand reaching to catch the kid's shirt, what really happens is that his jaws clamp around his shoulder.
In this futuristic world, however, scientists have managed to create the lunar flower in the form of Cheza, a blind teenaged girl(in appearance) who is actually a living, breathing, talking flower-the Flower Maiden. The wolves begin to follow her scent to the city, and she's awakened from her dormant state when two of the wolves, Kiba and Tsume, fight and Kiba is injured and bleeds.
A fair bit of backstory/plot explanation is needed for this one. Wolf's Rain is hard to explain because there's no way to explain it without it sounding kind of odd, but it makes complete sense when you watch it(when I checked out out, all I knew was that it looked pretty and most of the anime fans I knew liked it, so I got the first disc and hoped for the best) The important thing to keep in mind that it's heavily based on asian myths about animals able to pass as humans.
Wolf's Rain is a post-apocalyptic fairy-tale set in a bleak time when the world is set in a perpetual winter. There is a legend that one day, the wolves will follow the scent of the lunar flower and open the doors to paradise. Only problem is, the wolves were supposedly wiped out centuries ago, and the lunar flower doesn't exactly exist. However, they weren't wiped out, but have instead learned to cast the illusion that they are humans. They aren't shapechangers-when they walk by looking like humans, they'll leave pawprints in the dirt or water, and in the first episode one of the wolves, Tsume, tries to catch a falling kid and while we see his hand reaching to catch the kid's shirt, what really happens is that his jaws clamp around his shoulder.
In this futuristic world, however, scientists have managed to create the lunar flower in the form of Cheza, a blind teenaged girl(in appearance) who is actually a living, breathing, talking flower-the Flower Maiden. The wolves begin to follow her scent to the city, and she's awakened from her dormant state when two of the wolves, Kiba and Tsume, fight and Kiba is injured and bleeds.
Kiba is a white wolf and, like the other main wolves in the series, a stray. He doesn't like humans and views the wolves who live with and mingle among the humans as being little better than neutered pets(as we learn later in the series, this is somewhat hypocritical of him, as his early years were spent being raised by humans.) He's not QUITE as anti-human as he sometimes comes across, though-in his fight with Tsume, he stops and leaves because a human child(a friend of Tsume's who doesn't know Tsume is a wolf) jumps in between them, even though it would have been easy for him to kill the boy. In one way or another, Kiba has been searching for Cheza his entire life. Because it's no accident that it was his blood that woke Cheza up-it's not THE wolves that will open the doors to Paradise, but A wolf-Kiba, and that's why it was his blood that awakened Cheza. They do, literally, exist for each other.
To say that Kiba is something of an antisocial loner is something of an understatement. He's too into the idea of a wolf's pride and independence for his own good, and is obsessed with the search for paradise. While he's not exactly mean or a jerk, he's far enough from nice that I almost spewed my drink on the computer screen when I saw someone say that he and Tsume were really nice guys underneath. At the beginning of the series, Kiba refuses to take human form because of his pride as a wolf, even for his own safety(but, as Hige points out, there's no pride in death, and he eventually takes on a human appearance) While Kiba isn't a loner by choice-he's known few wolves and never truly had his own pack until he meets and joins with the other wolves in the city-it's what he knows and is used to, so his social skills are lacking.
With Cheza-who is blind, naive, and defenseless and totally dependent on the wolves for survival-we see his softer side, and his protective side. Cheza is blind(in the metaphorical sense) at some times to everything but Kiba, because she literally exists to guide him to paradise. Kiba, for his part, completely views her as his destiny, and to say that he's devoted to and obsessed with protecting her is an understatement.
Highlight for an ending spoiler-or rather, my opinion of the final shot of Kiba in the last scene
I fall into the category that thinks that, at the end, Kiba starts running because he smells the lunar flowers-that is, Cheza, and is running to her.
To say that Kiba is something of an antisocial loner is something of an understatement. He's too into the idea of a wolf's pride and independence for his own good, and is obsessed with the search for paradise. While he's not exactly mean or a jerk, he's far enough from nice that I almost spewed my drink on the computer screen when I saw someone say that he and Tsume were really nice guys underneath. At the beginning of the series, Kiba refuses to take human form because of his pride as a wolf, even for his own safety(but, as Hige points out, there's no pride in death, and he eventually takes on a human appearance) While Kiba isn't a loner by choice-he's known few wolves and never truly had his own pack until he meets and joins with the other wolves in the city-it's what he knows and is used to, so his social skills are lacking.
With Cheza-who is blind, naive, and defenseless and totally dependent on the wolves for survival-we see his softer side, and his protective side. Cheza is blind(in the metaphorical sense) at some times to everything but Kiba, because she literally exists to guide him to paradise. Kiba, for his part, completely views her as his destiny, and to say that he's devoted to and obsessed with protecting her is an understatement.
Highlight for an ending spoiler-or rather, my opinion of the final shot of Kiba in the last scene
I fall into the category that thinks that, at the end, Kiba starts running because he smells the lunar flowers-that is, Cheza, and is running to her.
Kiba and Cheza, Darcia and Hamona:
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To the song "A Love Before Time"...I really like it:
To the song "Sanctuary"To the song "A Love Before Time"...I really like it:
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Date: 2007-04-02 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 10:06 pm (UTC)Also...EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Did you see last night Dresden Files? I was wishing you had IMs and were on while I was watching.
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Date: 2007-04-02 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 10:17 pm (UTC)