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Wolf's Rain (ウルフズ・レイン, Urufuzu Rein) is a Japanese anime series created by writer and story editor Keiko Nobumoto and produced by BONES. The series was directed by Tensai Okamura and featured character designs by Toshiro Kawamoto with a soundtrack produced and arranged by Yoko Kanno. It focuses on the lives of four lone wolves who meet while following the scent of the Lunar Flowers. They form a pack and decide to seek out the Flower Maiden in order to open the way to paradise. Along the way they must avoid a fanatical wolf hunter and the nobles who wish to use the Flower Maiden to create their own paradise.
The series spans twenty-six television episodes and four original video animation (OVA) episodes, with each episode running approximately twenty-four minutes. The series was originally broadcast in Japan simultaneously on Fuji TV and on the anime CS television network, Animax. The entire thirty episode series is licensed for Region 1 release by Bandai Entertainment, in Region 2 (Europe) by Beez Entertainment and in Region 4 by Madman Entertainment.
The series was adapted into a short two volume manga series written by Nobumoto and illustrated by Toshitsugu Iida. The manga, which was released while the series was airing, is a retelling of the story rather than a straight adaptation. It was originally serialized in Magazine Z and has been released in North America by Viz Media.
Wolf's Rain begins in Freeze City, a northern city in a world where the majority of people live in poverty and hardship. According to a nearly forgotten legend, when the end of the world comes, Paradise (楽園, Rakuen?) will appear but only wolves will know how to find it. Wolves are believed to have been hunted to extinction nearly two hundred years ago, but they still live, surviving by using illusions to give themselves human appearances.[1]
Kiba, an injured lone white wolf goes to Freeze City following the scent of the Lunar Flower, which is the key to opening Paradise. There he encounters Tsume, Hige, and Toboe, three other wolves living in the city who were drawn there by the scent of the Lunar Flowers. The wolves also have their first encounter with Quent Yaiden, a former Sheriff obsessed with searching for and killing wolves, and his dog Blue. Cheza, the Flower Maiden who will lead the wolves to Paradise, is being studied at a laboratory under the care of Cher Degré. She is awakened by the smell of wolf's blood. As Kiba and Hige approach the lab to find her, she is stolen away by Lord Darcia the Third, whose people created Cheza.
With Cheza gone, none of the wolves have any reason to stay in the city. Despite some initial misgivings and suspicions they decide to stick together and follow Kiba in his search for the Flower Maiden and Paradise. As they pursue Cheza, the wolves travel through various cities and the empty shells of former habitations. Cher joins the city's army to try to recover Cheza, while Cher's ex-husband Hubb searches desperately for Cher, and Quent continues his relentless pursuit of the wolves. When Blue eventually encounters Cheza, it awakens her sleeping wolf blood and causes her to leave Quent and taken on her own human illusion. She joins Kiba's pack and travels with them for awhile, developing a relationship with Hige. After she gets separated from the pack, she travels with Cher, while Hubb finds himself traveling with Quent, who is now searching for Blue as well as the wolves.
The wolves and the humans come together in Jaguara's city, where the captured Cheza is being held. In attempting to rescue Cheza, Kiba, Tsume, and Toboe are captured. Tsume and Toboe are thrown into a dungeon with Hubb while Jaguara attempts to use Kiba's blood to force open Paradise. Blue and Cher also make their way into the Keep as does Quent. Darcia interrupts the ceremony as Kiba and the other wolves break free and rush to free Cheza. Darcia kills Jaguara and battles Kiba as Jaguara's keep collapses around them. The wolves and the humans barely escape with their lives, though Quent is badly wounded saving Blue from falling debris.
The wolves, now accompanied by Cheza, Cher, Hubb, and Quent, continue trying to make their way to Paradise, pursued by the now insane Darcia. A combination of environmental factors and Darcia's hostility causes most of the characters to die in tragic circumstances, until only Kiba, Cheza, and Darcia are left at the place where Paradise can be opened. Darcia is destroyed when he attempts to enter Paradise. Cheza's body disintegrates into seeds. Fatally wounded, Kiba believes his quest has failed, but as he lays dying, rain begins to fall and he sees Cheza's seeds grow into thousands of lunar flowers.
At the series' close, Toboe, Tsume, Hige, and Kiba are in their human forms in a modern city. Kiba, walking down a busy sidewalk, begins running towards a lunar flower lying in a puddle in an alley.
