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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Wolf Wolves Wolf Wolves...

 
Werewolves in Anime
 
The title of my post comes from the manga Soul Eater which, not is not about werewolves, but has a character who is an immortal werewolf named "Free" and before using his magic he says 'Wolf wolves wolf wolves..'  Other then being one of the bad guys, he's kind of a dope, really careless and because he can't die (or even get horribly hurt for long), he takes unnecessary risks without thinking of the consequences (such as going full force magic at someone...and then forgetting to aim and hitting himself...)

Why yes I do adore him, however did you guess?  Its worth noting that even though he can be brutal, he tends to make mistakes more often and bases a lot of his life around 'comedy movies'.  He really, really likes them.  Plus his memory is really horrible since he's lived so long.  He lost his name somewhere along the way (of trying to dig his way of jail using chopsticks -.-;; ) and named himself 'Free' even though he's anything but.

Free as a human!

Isn't he just so adorable?  He looks mighty arrogant, but he's more oblivious.

Oddly I am a Free/Maka shipper in my spare time (and by spare time I mean when I'm not shipping Soul/Maka or Kidd/Maka).  Maybe because they have such sparks!

Free's werewolf form.  He doesn't bust it out often (I think he's vain...), but he does when he sees how serious Maka is.  Unfortunately it doesn't make him any smarter. -.-;;

Its worth mentioning that he isn't a traditional Werewolf, but Soul Eater's idea of one.  Just like they have their own idea about Shinigami/Grim Reaper.


The other anime I really enjoy, that has werewolves in it, is Wolf's Rain.  Unfortunately, unlike in Soul Eater trying to describe this anime is like trying to pull teeth with a pair of plastic pliers.  It requires multiple viewings, and due to the fact that America doesn't really distinguish between TV series anime and OVA series anime, the DVD's have the episodes in a mixed up order (some of this also had to do with them cutting out the 'recap' episodes scattered throughout the series...)  They kind of just went 'Oh!  Well we have 26 here, 4 here and...we have room to slap them on here and here right? Do that!' -.-;;

Pretty much the basics are at the End of the World, there will be Paradise but only wolves can find it.  Wolves who can suspiciously look like humans and are treated like a disease for the most part.  With rare exceptions. 

Those are your main characters to the left there.  The one in the upper left, Hige, is my favorite.  And we all know what happens to my favorites.  Actually, this is something else that fully depends on how well you 'get' the ending.  Anyhow, if you watch this show in English--its almost incomprehensible what is happening at times.  This series had an awful lot of Japanese ideology happening, which doesn't translate well to American thought processes (at least on a grand scale).  
 
Regardless it was pretty, it had Yoko Kanno doing the score, BONES as the animators and ran on Cartoon Network back when they aired good anime at night.  Plus lots of action and fighting stuff.  Unfortunately whoever did the translating job made it seem like the one in the lower left and the one in the upper middle (Kiba and Tsume respectively) had some sort of...bromance going on, despite pushing the Kiba/Cheza (girl in pink) relationship (which was...kind of romantic.  Sort of.  Its hard to explain properly).

This is a more traditional approach to werewolves as well.  The only exception I can think of is Blue (the upper right corner), who kind of doesn't realize what the heck is happening until meeting Cheza.  I try to ignore the boy in the lower right corner (Toboe), he is the most annoying thing this side of Wesley Crusher.  I would suggest, if you are interested in the series, to see if a friend has it first.  This really isn't a series for everyone and spending money on the boxset only to find out you can't stand the series, will just wreck anyone's happiness.
Posted by Lexie at 9:55 PM
Labels: werewolf weekend
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