Ookami Kakushi - Episode 2

Ookami Kakushi's second episode opens with Hiro's father relating an old legend about the "Jouga wolves" which are said to reside on Jouga mountain - It's clearly a story which Hiro and his sister have heard many a time before so they pay it little heed, but it's a tale which is clearly going to be of increasing importance as the series continues.


Away from all that, Hiro find himself to be as ridiculously popular at school as ever, with everybody crowding around him and Isuzu continuing to cling to him like some kind of limpet. As ever, it's only the quietly threatening Nemuru who pays him no heed, although she does seem to have some important things to say to Isuzu, leading to an argument which we see but don't hear which ends with the latter vowing to protect Hiro. But protect him from what?

Meanwhile, Hiro finally finds someone else who is apparently concerned by Ogasawara's sudden disappearance last episode in Isuzu's friend Kana, although to be honest she seems more interested in talking to Hiro's father on account of her burgeoning interest in the occult. It's while Hiro is set to take Kana to see his father that they, along with Isuzu, bump into Isuzu's brother Issei, whoe tags along with the visit and eventually proves to be quite knowledgeable about the Jouga wolves himself. While all of this seems sedate and ordinary enough, we're reminded that there's more than meets the eye to this town as we see what appears to be a flashback another woman mercilessly killed after being accused that she is a "fallen wolf".

Seeing as I'm currently playing through the first chapters of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (if you can call it "playing"), the Ryukishi07 (who also created the game around which this series is based) is becoming increasingly obvious, bringing us what appear to be pretty mundane activities but somehow leaving it with enough of a feeling of threat and danger beneath the surface to make even the most innocent statements and gestures questionable. In all fairness, that atmosphere actually works reasonably well here when it comes to fostering a constant feeling of suspicion... or maybe I'm just the paranoid sort who trusts no-one anyway, who knows? While I'm still not convinced that this aura alone is enough to carry the series when it doesn't appear to have anything else outstanding to offer, it does at least continue to hold my interest as I wait to see what developments it has in store as the story is slowly unravelled piece by piece.