The endgame of Wolf's Rain is near, as all the principle characters converge in the city of the evil Lady Jaguara. Friends are being held captive by this strange noble, and it may take some sacrifices to set them free.

Wolf's Rain follows the future of a warring mankind, where wolves are a mystical creature believed extinct by most humans. A pack of the last remaining wolves – which can look like humans in order to blend into society – has undertaken a journey to find a mythical paradise, said only to be accessible by wolves. While a war between human nobles and commoners has engulfed the land, one noble, Jaguara, is capturing wolves to control paradise. Another human, the tired and angry Quent, has made it his life's mission to destroy all the wolves.

The first three episodes of this sixth volume show our different groups running here and there in the city, getting split up, getting attacked by Jaguara's soldiers, and generally being counterproductive. The wolves are now in three groups and they and the man hunting them look for a way into the keep of Jaguara. After all the obstacles the wolves have overcome to finally get to this point, most find themselves easily captured. Kiba, our white wolf main character, who started his kin on this journey, is taken during his attempt to save Cheza, the otherworldly girl (made of flowers?) that's hooked up with our group, along with a couple of the other wolves. Jaguara becomes convinced Kiba will be the wolf that will open paradise for her, and she begins the ritual to do just that. Hige, one of the more brash members of the pack, avoids capture several times, yet suddenly becomes confused and paranoid, with a feeling that he's being watched by someone or something else. All the while, the residents of Jaguara's land wander around in a trance, seemingly oblivious to the inner workings of their own city, or the outside world for that matter.

While the first three episodes are a tad slow and frustrating in that our characters seem to lose any sense of direction, the fourth episode, No. 26, is fast-paced and excellent. During her ritual to use Kiba to open paradise, a man from her past interrupts the ceremony. Wherever he walks, the nobles around him drop dead. With his arrival, we discover the impetus for Jaguara's desire to capture wolves and open paradise, and her character is really laid out, to us and the wolves. What was a masked, mysterious villain to this point now has a very open, human face. The action is cranked up after a minor hiatus, as the wolves make one last play for freedom from Jaguara. This episode is treated differently than the others, with no opening animation and a closing animation spot that actually serves as the ending to the episode, and could be confused as the end of the series. But we've still got one DVD volume left.

There are more good things than bad to say about this show. I love the animation of Wolf's Rain, to start with. Character design and movement, backgrounds, the color palate, the direction. This show looks solid through and through. The story, while hard to pin down at times and full of unproductive side steps when our group is split up, is still enjoyable. But while the animation is fantastic, and the story manages to keep me interested, the dialogue is easily the weakest part of Wolf's Rain. Seriously, count the number of times in this series you know what someone's going to say before they say it. Reactions, questions, exclamations, pretty much everything coming out of the characters' mouths is predictable. You could play a drinking game: every time someone yells out someone else's name, sounding hopelessly distressed, take a shot.

The sixth volume of Wolf's Rain isn't as good as the one that came before it, with the war among men completely missing in these four episodes, and a lot of characters moving here and there without accomplishing much. Still, I'm looking forward to the final volume, and filling in the blanks with the earlier volumes I've missed.

This show looks great, with the solid detail of a newer anime series coming through great on DVD (fullscreen presentation). I encountered absolutely no problems in this DVD volume. What else is there to say?

The English 5.1 sounds fine, if a bit underwhelming. A tiny bit of fuzz is present in the rear channels, but the bass is used loud and deep at the right times. But there's surprisingly little directionality with the ambient noises, with songs getting the most attention in the rear channels. I don't think I heard a single background noise or piece of dialogue moved out of the front for a couple of these episodes. There are 2.0 Japanese and English options as well.

Special features include the textless ending animation and music of episodes 22-25, which progressively shows Kiba, in wolf form, running through the day and night. Teasers for three Bandai anime series are included, and DVD credits are here as well. I'm a whiner, I know, but where's the fun stuff on this DVD? The insert character foldout is nice, but that's the only interesting thing in this volume.

These later volumes of Wolf's Rain are intriguing enough to make me buy the volumes I've missed, though volume six only manages rental consideration for those just looking to check the series out. Seen all the way through, the story may have been more intriguing at this point, but on their own, the episodes here aren't outstanding by any means. They'd be the type you may pass on if you just caught them on Cartoon Network while flipping through the channels. Decent story, excellent visuals, and poor dialogue make Wolf's Rain an all-around average show.