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ANN Book Club -- Wolf's Rain.

It is stated in the special features that this show is a little unusual in that it was produced and written without knowing the ending. As in, the creators of the show did not plot this puppy from beginning to end, but got their feet wet on the first half or so and then figured out what they wanted to say later in the process.

So, how are the wolves doing that human-hologram thing, anyway? Any ideas?

It is stated in the special features that this show is a little unusual in that it was produced and written without knowing the ending. As in, the creators of the show did not plot this puppy from beginning to end, but got their feet wet on the first half or so and then figured out what they wanted to say later in the process.

Makes for more organic plotting, which can be just as satisfy as meticulously-plotted stories.

I remember switching on back and fourth thinking it was shape shifting one moment and thinking it was just some kind of illusion the next. Of course there were all the obvious symbols like the aforementioned scene with Tsume trying to save the boy and Hige's collar that I picked up on, but I swear half the time there were plenty of things being said that suggested they were shape shifters as well!

I wonder how many people though have not actually seen the "real" final episodes, and think that it ends up with all those recaps?

If you're referring to the carrying of boxes and opening of doors that we see occasionally in the story, those threw me too the first time I saw it. I was positive that it was a plothole! However, all boxes have elastic straps (useful for teeth) on them, and EVERY doorknob was a push-down kind rather than a turning knob. They seriously thought this through...

There is exactly ONE physically impossible act that a wolf performs in the show, and if you bend your brain a little, it could still be feasible. But it's about the last thing Kiba does in the last episode, so it won't be coming up for a while.

Tsume wants to be around a pack, he may not admit it, but he hates being alone. Though he wants them to think that...you'll have to wait until disc 2.

That might have had something to do with it, but I can't remember. I was mostly just talking about how it always seemed to me that whenever it was from the human perspective it pretty much suggested they were shape-shifters. But I wonder if that actually has some meaning to it, like that just comes to show you how ignorant and gullible humans are or something.

referring to the carrying of boxes and opening of doors that we see occasionally in the story, those threw me too the first time I saw it. I was positive that it was a plothole! However, all boxes have elastic straps (useful for teeth) on them, and EVERY doorknob was a push-down kind rather than a turning knob. They seriously thought this through...

There is exactly ONE physically impossible act that a wolf performs in the show, and if you bend your brain a little, it could still be feasible. But it's about the last thing Kiba does in the last episode, so it won't be coming up for a while.

I always found the hierarchy of the Wolf's Rain world to be kind of interesting. It's a technically a tyrannical society, but it's more of an anarchy for the citizens involved.

In most tyrannies, you have rulers that watch over the economics, justice system, and populace with an iron fist. But what if you had a tyrant (to be strictly accurate, several tyrants, only three of whom we meet) who didn't care? The Nobles hold absolute power, aside from a council of some sort that is referenced every once in a while and is more concerned with civic affairs. Still, the Nobles themselves don't run a very tight ship. I can't even call it an oligarchy because they isolate themselves from the other Nobles, kind of like the Mesopotamians and their individualist city-states.

But that's just me being picky. A bigger problem, I thought, in terms of suspension of disbelief, was that the wolves often didn't seem to think, act or move (even when being depicted in their natural form) like wolves. They jump about in a distinctly non-lupine fashion - though that's maybe dismissable as action anime exaggeration - and there's a distinct lack of wolf-like pack dynamics once the four of them get together.

Also, what did the key or lockpick that Hige produced during the cell break scene represent? Did he pick the lock with his claw?

Aside from the nobles' isolationism, this seems to me to somewhat echo the pre-revolutionary Russian aristocracy - making it fitting for a story with a decidedly Russian setting - in that such people wouldn't see it as befitting their status to get their hands dirty flexing their iron grip in person or even necessary to do so. They had managers and agents to run their estates and appointed officials to run their cities.
Historically, there were vast estates with large populations owned by nobles who never once visited them because they were inconveniently and unfashionably distant from Moscow and St. Petersburg but which managed to operate for generation after generation in any case.