Title: Wolf Girl & Black Prince
Directed By: Kenichi Kasai
Created By: Ayuko Hatta
U. S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks
U. S. Release Date: March 8, 2016
Format Blu-ray /12 episodes / 300 minutes
Genre: comedic romance
Age Rating: 14
Overall Personal Rating: B+
Synopsis:
Erika is just starting high school and is determined to have friends. In order to achieve this, when the girls she sits next to her do almost nothing but talk about their boyfriends, she invents one for herself. Once they start to doubt, she needs proof. Snapping a picture on the street of a cute guy should do the trick…unfortunately he turns out to be, Kyoya, a student at her school. She then begs him to play along with her story, and he agrees with one condition, she has to be his “dog” and do whatever he says.
Kyoya is considered really cute by the school’s female population. He has plenty of girls interested in him, but he doesn’t seem interested in any of them. In fact, he doesn’t seem to care about much. He comes across rather arrogant and hateful. Now Erika is stuck with walking home with him. Ever the optimistic, she tries to be cheerful in this odd situation. No matter what, the charade must go on… really?
Commentary:
Wolf Girl & Black Prince is a high school comedic romance. So, even though the plot and even the Blu-ray cover jacket hint at things going to far, they don’t. True, they talk about some sexual relationships, it is not part of the anime. There is nothing worse than one would see on some evening TV teen show.
The thing that bothered me about this show was the story premise that he is going to treat her like a dog. When he treats her badly, she still wants to be around him and take it. Sure, there is a background story that explains his attitude, but I really hate the idea that books and shows set an example of staying relationships with a guy that is abusive. I don’t mean Kyoya physically hurts her, but he is very mean in the beginning, even making Erika cry. On purpose. She had the chance to date a nice guy and didn’t take it, hoping that Kyoya will change. I do understand why she took it, I just wish it wasn’t so in the cultures of the world.
Okay, so if I ignore the fact that Erika should have gotten away from him and stop trying to hide the fact that she lied, it was an enjoyable show. It was the characters taking us along with the events that made it all work so well. Erika is such a sweet and eager character that it is easy to cheer for her. She has the soul of a dreamer and wants the best years out of high school. She just makes some bad choices when she lies to fit in. Kyoya, well, in the beginning, he’s enough to make a viewer hate him, but there is something about him. More than his looks, and it might be as stupid as the bad boy attitude, but there is this hint of deeper understanding and being beyond the high school social games. The skill of portraying him is one of the elements I appreciated.
I enjoyed the animation style. It has the exaggerated realism current of today. A good employment of the anime tools worked well to express the situation or what was on people’s minds.
I was trying to think for whom I’d recommend this anime . So if you like Ouran High School or Fruits Basket, I think you could also enjoy Wolf Girl & Black Prince.
Overall Grade: B+
