Episode Guide

Episode #5: Degenerate Wolves (Dachita Ookami)

On a train many passengers sit bundled up in winter clothes, carrying many possessions.  Running alongside the train at some distance are the four wolves.  They stop to rest temporarily in the snow, while Toboe prattles on about his dream of paradise.  Their rest doesn't last for long, and they continue on.  They reach the end of their travels through the snow on a ledge, and look out across the ocean.  Projecting from the shore is a long train bridge.  They decide to cross the bridge, which reaches for miles and miles over open ocean, in the snowfall.  Somewhere along the bridge, in the middle of nowhere, is a tiny island, with a small city at its center. 

** Opening Sequence **

Inside town, they search for food.  This town is even more dilapidated than the one they just left; here all the people stay inside out of fear.  While walking through the city, they come across a sizeable pack of wolves.  So they learn they aren't the only wolves left in the world.  These wolves are very hostile towards them.  They are not happy to see outsiders in their town.  They ridicule the four when they hear they are seeking paradise.  They say they had been there, and that it was no paradise.  The four move on.  Three of them want to leave the place, but Kiba insists that they key to finding paradise lies in that dirty little town.  The clue was that there were so many wolves in the town; so many wolves had come there also searching for paradise.

In the alleyways, Zari, the scar-faced leader of the wolves who live on the island, strikes a business deal with someone.  As he leaves, he runs into Cole, the female of his pack, who reminds him about the four wolves they encountered earlier.  She also implies her discontent about their way of life, which we know very little about at this point.

The four wolves sit at the edge of town, hungry as always.  They get up and walk off, looking for a place to sleep, and come across a cemetery.  While walking within the cemetery, a scroungy old wolf pops his head up from the ground, scaring the living hell out of Hige and Toboe.  He was digging a grave for himself, because he knew he would be going soon.  When Kiba asks him about the Lunar Flower, he gets excited and says the entire island used to be covered in them.  He says that all wolves at once point sought paradise, and led them to what he thought was the entrance to it.  Only the scent of death came out of the hole.  He informed them that many wolves started their journey following the scent of the flower through that tunnel, but never made it, and many turned back to live on the island.  Zari comes to take the old wolf home, and warns the four to leave the island by morning, because he will not tolerate them being around.

The four wolves sit around arguing about paradise once more.  Or rather, Tsume tries to argue with Kiba.  Hige scents food, and sits up to see Cole coming to them with food.  Hige gives in and eats the food, while the other three, disgusted that he would give in so easily, walk off.  Hige doesn't care, and continues eating.  He asks where she got the food, so she tells him to come by the train station in the morning.

Tsume and Toboe decide to sleep on the bench in the train station.  Meanwhile, Kiba, in his lone wandering, came across the pack they met earlier.  They taunt him, making him to actually acknowledge them.  He calls them dogs, which provokes them to attack him.  Kiba manages to come away from the fight alive, and stumbles about in the alleys, loosing consciousness eventually.

In the morning, Hige came to the train station, awakening Toboe and Tsume.  Zari handed the man he spoke to the previous night a whip.  In their utter shock and horror, the three wolves look on over the railing as they watch the happenings below.  The wolves who live on that island were all in wolf form and tied into harnesses, which were in turn tied to a large sledge filled with boxes.  The man with the whip used it to lash out at the wolves, encouraging them to move.  They struggle to pull the massive load up the incline.  Among them was the old wolf.  To their disgust, Zari was watching this all from a distance.  He watched in comfort while his pack struggled.  After the load was successfully carried up the slope, the wolves stopped, panting very hard and looking dispirited and exhausted.  The humans threw buckets of meat at the wolves, who fought for scraps of food.  Zari explains the train only stops here, and this is the only way he could see that they could make a livelihood.  While they talked, the old wolf died.  Kiba, who saw the entire thing from a distance, in his fury charged at the wolves.  He was intercepted by Zari, who grabbed him and told the humans he was a stray dog.

The old wolf was buried in the hole he had been digging.  The four and the other wolves stand by his grave.  Zari warns them not to get involved, to which Kiba replied that he was dispicable.

** Ending Sequence **