Characters / Ringing Bell

Chirin

Chirin (チリン )

^{Click here to see him as a ram} 

^{His original book design} 

Voiced by: Minori Matsushima (Lamb, Japanese), Akira Kamiya (Ram, Japanese), Barbara Goodson (Lamb, English Dub), Gregg Berger (Ram, English Dub), Helena Rojo (Lamb, Spanish Dub)

The titular protagonist (in the original Japanese version) of the story, who started out as a cute little lamb, until he suddenly witnessed the murder of his mother.

---

---

• 0% Approval Rating: A consequence for his path to becoming a hunter. Even his own family in the anime version wants nothing to do with him.
• Abusive Parents: He was raised by Woe, and his childhood consisted almost entirely of wolf training. This is pretty much a given.
• The Ace: Chirin is a virtually unstoppable engine of death and beats nearly anyone he ends up against. He ends up becoming a Broken Ace by the end.
• Action Hero: Deconstructed. True heroes are supposed to search for peace in all things, but Chirin takes action to become the one who will avenge his mother. It gets even worse as this passion for combat is just one more thing that leaves him vulnerable to Woe's corruption.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The Sanrio adaptation gives Chirin a lot of grief, such as the snake and the bird incident and being shoved around by a bunch of buffalos. Not to mention his family disowning him for going down the dark path instead of figuring out for himself that he cannot go back to being a sheep (in the book) or being rejected from other flocks (in the prototype version).
• Adaptational Dumbass: Due to Adaptation Expansion, Chirin in the Sanrio adaptation is far more reckless and impulsive than his literary counterpart as he tries to attack Woe immediately after eating his mother instead of asking Woe to make him his pupil. Chirin does ask this after Woe swipes him off a cliff, but it takes a while for Woe to train him as the wolf is very reluctant to at first. Then after the snake and the bird incident, Woe manipulates Chirin onto his side, adding some gullibility to his anime counterpart.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the original book, Chirin had orange skin instead of pink, along with brown-orange spots around the tops of his ears. The same goes for Chirin's mother who only appeared alive in two pages of the book.
  • In the original book and the Lyrica comic, his adult self's wool is white. In the anime, as shown in a brief daylight scene, it's been turned to black. The Storygate adaptation has it be gray instead.
• Adaptation Personality Change / Adaptational Villainy: A noteworthy change that sets the anime apart from the other versions of the story. In the climax of the book and its variations, Chirin ambushes Woe, confessing that he had been training to kill him, implying that he had not been completely turned. After doing the deed, he realizes that revenge did not bring him any happiness. In the anime, Chirin has been fully corrupted by Woe and has apparently given up his revenge for a life of hunting with the Wolf King. He is willing to murder his own kind, but thanks to a mother sheep defending her baby from him, he redeems himself, somewhat. It is this change that muddies the moral of the story.
• All for Nothing: After losing his mother (along with his father and family in other versions of the story), Chirin succumbs to the cruelty of nature as a result of believing that his own kind is weak against the powerful wolf king. After killing Woe and avenging his mother, he ended up becoming not only Woe's apprentice, but also his successor, which eventually led to his presumed death of hypothermia.
• All of the Other Reindeer: As a result of being Spared by the Adaptation in the anime, the other sheep view Chirin as a pariah after witnessing him killing not only Woe, but also their guard dogs prior. Other flocks that Chirin visits in the Twelve Pearls version and the Lyrica adaptation fear him as well.
• And This Is for...: "This is for my mother!" he shouts to Woe in the anime.
• Animal Species Accent: In the English Dub, Chirin would frequently talk in a bleating pattern but losses it as the film goes on (which isn't present in the Japanese version). However, the other sheep in the English dub alongside his mother in both versions don't talk like this.
• Art Evolution: In the prototype version of the story that was published in 1971 as part of Yanase's Twelve Pearls anthology book. Yanase's original design of Chirin was notably different and had a more realistic appearance.◊ During the film's production between 1976 till 1978, Yanase redesigned the character by making Chirin much cuter and resembled his film design, which stuck with future adaptions and re-tellings.
• Ascended to Carnivorism: He might have ended up becoming a carnivore as part of his upbringing.
• Badass Adorable: Chirin was a very adorable, determined lamb during the first half of the story. He loses the adorable part after he becomes a ram.
• Barred from the Afterlife: A possible interpretation of the ending and his ultimate fate. Chirin probably never got to reunite with Woe or his parents, and now as punishment for his revenge, his spirit forever roams the mountains, the sound of his bell ringing being the only clue. The narrator in the English dub lampshades that the other sheep remember him as a "spirit of the mountain".
• Became Their Own Antithesis: To paraphrase a certain Jedi master, Chirin allowed Woe to twist his mind until he became the very thing he swore to destroy.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: As a lamb, Chirin dreamed of becoming a wolf so that his family could truly rest in peace. He does (kinda). But over time, he becomes disillusioned with the other sheep for many reasons. In addition, being a wolf has it's disadvantages; After Chirin kills Woe, he goes off to find other sheep flocks, but he can't get into any of them because, judging from his appearance, he is not one of them.
• Being Evil Sucks: Chirin learns just a little too late the ultimate consequence of revenge, after having betrayed everything he's ever worked for, killing his friend and mentor in the name of avenging his mother/parents. Now, because of his tragic actions, he's going to be alone, freezing in his own self-loathing. Forever.
• Berserk Button: Considering Chirin lost his mother a couple of nights ago, witnessing a snake killing a mother bird as she's protecting her eggs makes him quickly lose his temper and starts attacking it trying his hardest to kill it.
• Best Served Cold: Unlike the anime version, where he killed Woe to save the other sheep from ending up as his supper, Chirin in all other versions of the story waits until the time is right to conclude his revenge.
• Black Bead Eyes: In the 1977 comic adaptation published by Sanrio's defunct magazine Lyrica. Chirin and the other sheep are depicted with black dots for eyes. Earlier merchandise and promotional material between 1976 and 1977 also depicted Chirin with simple black dots for eyes instead of pupils as his original book design. He's also depicted with beady eyes in a 2019 Japanese marionette version of the story.
• Big "WHY?!": "Why are we being killed? We didn't do anything wrong!" screams Chirin in other versions of the story.
• Blush Stickers: Takashi Yanase's original illustrations of Chirin depicted him with orange rosy cheeks and dimples. Some cover art of the film adaptation also depicted him with pink rosy cheeks.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: In the prototype version of the story that served as the basis for the Lyrica, kamishibai and flash animation adaptations, Chirin is covered in his own mother's blood after she is killed. Although the description is surprisingly graphic, the visuals suggest otherwise.
• Break the Badass: His transformation into a lupine-like ram, as the narrator puts it. In addition to losing Woe, not getting his mother back and no other sheep accepting him, he's emotionally crippled.
• Break the Cutie: Occurs twice for the poor lamb:
  • Started out as a carefree and sweet baby lamb, witnessing the death of his mother completely changed his life for the worst.
  • Happens a second time in the 1978 film adaptation, in which after Chirin accidentally causes eggs from a mother bird's nest to fall and break while fighting the snake. He instantly starts crying in utter shock and guilt.
• Byronic Hero: He is a brooding anti-hero with enough emotional issues (losing his mother, losing Woe, being turned into a beast and being shunned by his own kind to name a few) to overfill the Wolf King's mountain.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: He really hates Woe for killing his mother (along with his father and flock), enough to kill him. Although to be fair, Woe was very hungry and Chirin does warm up to him.
• Cassandra Truth: In the English dub of the anime, Chirin tries to tell the sheep that he once lived with them. Yeah, not possible. The Chirin they knew would never turn into the monster they see now, would he?
• Character Development: Chirin undergoes quite a bit of this over the course of the story. He goes from a naive young lamb who loves his mother into a version that's suitably darker and wicked. He becomes increasingly mean, ruthless, and willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve his goals to avenge his family before finally becoming...well, somewhere in between a sheep and a wolf.
• Chasing a Butterfly: This is his Establishing Character Moment in the Sanrio adaptation. He even watches a butterfly flying in the Storygate Picturebooks version.
• Child of Two Worlds: A unique variation. His parents are sheep, but he is adopted by a wolf into becoming his apprentice. Also, Woe's training (and Chirin's possible carnivorism) implied that this had some effect on Chirin, giving him lupine-like attributes.
• Child Prodigy: In the book. As a young lamb, he was able to manipulate Woe into training him so that he could kill him later. And without revealing his true intentions either.
• Coming of Age Story: Chirin's journey in the story is leaving his home in order to begin his training as a karate kicking ram who will avenge his family.
• Conflicting Loyalty: In the climax of the anime, Chirin is faced with remaining loyal to the sheep or letting Woe eat them. He chooses the sheep, but they are not grateful for it and shun him out.
• Condemned by History / Legend Fades to Myth: In-universe, Chirin is now remembered as a boogeyman figure that mother sheep tell to their offspring. If they cry, Chirin will take them away in a month...and probably kill them.
• The Corruptible: Woe managed to exploit this aspect of Chirin's personality to further seduce him to the ways of the hunter.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Chirin starts off in the first half of the story as a young lamb with no problems and no worries save for a certain wolf who ruined his life. As he grows older, however, he becomes more and more ambitious in his desires for power and for revenge, partially egged on by Woe, who plays him against his sheep brethren.
• Covered in Scars: The narrator of the anime adaptation mentions that Chirin was scarred during his training with Woe, despite the visuals suggesting otherwise. In the Storygate Picturebooks adaptation, his adult self has at least one scar across his nose.
• Cradle To Grave Character: The Lyrica comic begins just moments before Chirin's birth and ends just after his implied death from snow and cold in the end.
• The Cutie: Chirin is almost constantly kind, optimistic and idealistic to a fault, as well as a loving son to his parents. Unfortunately, Cuties don't tend to fare well in Crapsack Worlds.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He may have black fur as a ram, but underneath his fearsome exterior, there is still good within him.
• Deal with the Devil: He does this in the film adaptation with Woe as the devil. Chirin turns to the Dark Side when the Wolf King offers knowledge of how to survive the mountains. The scene where he submits to Woe is staged like a classical samurai drama.
• Death by Despair: If the snow and cold didn't kill him, then it's very likely that killing Woe and being shunned from other sheep farms was apparently too much for Chirin.
• Death Glare:
  • When Woe first rejects his request on becoming his apprentice. Chirin gives him an enraged glare◊ to him which the camera quickly zooms into. Chirin may be cute, but his glare is genuinely ominous and looks less cute.
  • He later makes a much creepier death glare when he's training with Woe. What makes this glare worse is that his fur is very messy, his menacing facial expression, and now growing horns as a lamb.
• Death of Personality: The discovery of his family's corpses breaks whatever was left of Chirin's spirit and leads to his transformation into the evil ram that we see in the second half of the story. Subverted in the anime, in that the old Chirin did survive; it just took a mother protecting her baby to see him prevail. Even so, he is not rewarded for it.
• Despair Event Horizon: Woe's death, particularly as Chirin himself killed him, and Chirin mourns by stating that he had come to love Woe as a father. After that, the mountains and his prey are all he has left.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Hey, a wolf ate his mom and flock. That shit don't fly when you're a Sole Survivor.
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • In the original book, Chirin is smiling when he first meets Woe◊, despite his mother and the entire flock getting killed and eaten by him. This extends to the kamishibai and Storygate Picturebooks version of the story from 2003.
  • In the film, Chirin is seen smiling at Woe after returning from almost drowning. However, this could be out of exhaustion. Later when Woe finally accepts Chirin to become his student/apprentice, he reacts by instantly smiling for a brief moment.
• Doom Magnet: A lot of people close to Chirin end up meeting grim fates. First his parents and family end up becoming Woe's late night snacks and Chirin himself stabs the wolf with his horns. The anime takes this up a notch with the snake and the bird incident.
• The Dreaded: Understandable, given his upbringing on the mountain. Everyone fears the beastly Chirin, and brick it when he's around.
• Due to the Dead: He buries Woe in the Lyrica and Storygate Picturebooks adaptations.
• Enfant Terrible: He swiftly becomes this not long after the murder of his mother. Granted, he initially doesn't get very far as he tries acting tough and intimidating with wild animals only to get laughed at or picked on, but it's still a sharp contrast to the innocently energetic lamb willing to play with a bunny. It gets worse once he agrees to train with The Wolf where he eventually grows horns and looks genuinely creepy even before becoming borderline demonic-looking as he grows older. The English dub takes this even further where Chirin is heard threatening and calling names to some of the animals.
• Establishing Character Moment: Chirin is first introduced curiously walking inside a white background filled with fog. He is then seen chasing a yellow butterfly, which causes the background to transition to the meadow that Chirin and the flock of sheep live in. The entire time, he's seen chasing after the butterfly while jumping over a grown sheep and a lamb who's eating grass. The humorous chase then ends with him trying to fly like a bird but falling flat on his face. That entire sequence perfectly establishes Chirin's carefree and innocently naive nature due to being the youngest of the entire flock.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In the pre-Sanrio versions of the story, Chirin, after contemplating what to do next after killing Woe, decides to go back to living with the sheep. But his physical appearance seals his doom as freak of nature too terrifying for any sheep flock to adopt. Also doubles as a Hope Spot.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: His mother ended up on Woe's menu and he misses her terribly, as shown in the anime where he passes a mother rabbit with her babies.
• Evil Make Over: Once Woe finally agrees to make Chirin his student/apprentice, his physical appearance is given a very threatening, ominous, and less cute design. His wool no longer looks fluffy like the other lambs, but now his wool is very shabby and messy with the wool around his face falling between his eyes resembling an angry eyebrow. Not to mention, his horns (which are dark black) are beginning to grow on his head only increasing his creepiness factor.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: Chirin was cute as a lamb, but he loses his adorability after he goes down the path of evil. This could be because of him adopting Woe's lifestyle, such as eating meat, having a wolf's fighting skills as well as a canine's hunting abilities. Given the fantastical nature of the story, it's most likely meant to be a metaphor for revenge turning you into something ugly.
• Eye Color Change: Happens in the Sanrio adaptation. Chirin's eye color changes from black to a very pale yellow once he turns to the Dark Side and becomes a wolf-ram.
• Face–Heel Turn: Subverted in the book but played straight in the anime. After failing to protect a mother bird's eggs and the Wolf finally agreeing to train him, Chirin instantly becomes a sinister and threatening lamb. After an intense training session, he grows up not looking like an actual ram, but something among the lines of a horrifying wolf-ram hybrid. The subversion is that Chirin tricked Woe into training him just so he could get his revenge.
• Fallen Hero: While he begins as a sweet, selfless lamb and goes on a heroic quest to avenge his mother, Chirin inevitably becomes one of the most famous villains/anti-heroes in Japanese children's literature.
• Fate Worse than Death: After killing Woe, following every sheep farm barring him from sanctuary, he is condemned to a life of constant emotional isolation until he presumably dies. After death, he is remembered as an evil creature who takes little lambs away if they cry.
• Fish out of Water: On the Wolf King's mountain, which is pretty much the antithesis of his ranch.
• Fluffy the Terrible: His name is a Japanese onomatopoeia for a bell's ringing. When he grows up, it's like naming a demonic wolfsheep "Jingle".
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Chirin believes he has to become a wolf or else he will become Woe's next meal. Also, Chirin's choice between staying with the surviving sheep in the anime or going to seek Woe. He chooses the latter.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He started out as a cute, lovable, and ordinary lamb without a care in the world, which is not very interesting to some. Now? A fearsome beast most mother sheep tell scary stories about to their children.
• Generation Xerox: Chirin in the Lyrica adaptation grows up looking like his father, except his father's horns are curled like a normal ram and his horns are straight and pointed.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Chirin's wool goes from white to black in the anime after being struck by fire during the transformation sequence, which is a not-so-subtle indicator of Chirin's gradual openness to predatory brutality.
• Gruesome Goat: He grows up to be a variation of this, becoming a ram with notable lupine qualities.
• Hated by All: Was outcasted by his own family in the anime adaptation because of his demonic demeanor and utterly loathed by all the animals in the land due to his reputation as Woe's partner.
• Hated Hometown: He despises the farm after Woe's attack. It's not surprising, seeing as he lived in happiness there and it's also where his mother and father were killed; he doesn't much care for the terrain either. He only returns to the farm when Woe decides to attack the sheep. In the anime, Chirin is extremely unlikely to ever want to set foot on the farm again due to his own family virtually disowning him.
• Heartbroken Badass: His mother's death turns him into one, and later on when the mother bird dies and her eggs break, Chirin's heart is broken so badly that his allegiance to the Wolf King becomes almost absolute.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Chirin tries to redeem himself for nearly killing his own flock by defending them from Wolf and ultimately killing him. Sadly, the other sheep are far too terrified of what he's become to accept him, leaving him with nobody else to turn to and nowhere to go.
• Heel Realization: Realizing he was about to murder the other sheep just like Woe before him causes Chirin to comprehend the monster he became in pursuit of revenge, driving him to kill Wolf in rejection of his descent into evil. Unfortunately for him, Woe pulled a trump card that ensured he would never be with his own kind again.
• The Hero Dies: Well, the Anti-Hero turned Villain Protagonist dies anyway. Chirin is the main protagonist of the story and it can be assumed that he died of hypothermia sometime before the book's final ending. But in every version, despite the text directly stating that no one ever saw him again, Takashi Yanase leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not he is truly alive or dead.
• A Hero Is Born: A heartbreaking example with the Lyrica comic adaptation, which begins minutes after his mother gives birth to him inside a sheep stable. Considering the events of the story, this trope is quickly subverted.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Chirin has a huge one after his mother dies and he goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against her killer....which only lasts for one day.
  • He becomes an emotional wreck after failing to save the mother bird's eggs due to unintentionally breaking them when fighting off a snake.
  • In the end, he goes into one after killing Woe and regretting it.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Woe. After a somewhat difficult enemies-turned-master-and-apprentice relationship, they became as close as father and son during the three years. Once Chirin ambushes him to complete his revenge, however…
• He Who Fights Monsters: This is the reason why he becomes a wolf-ram, something close to the thing he swore revenge on.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Although some of his suffering is through no fault of his own, Chirin does have a tendency to bring misfortune upon himself, especially in the Sanrio adaptation where he gets kicked around by Woe and the other animals of the mountain and smashes a mother bird's eggs. His insecurities, species, short temper, attachment issues, and fear of loss directly leads to him becoming the evil wolf-ram, getting horribly transformed into an unknown creature, and losing everything he cares about.
• Hope Springs Eternal: Downplayed. Despite crossing the Despair Event Horizon and apparently losing his life in the cold, Chirin's last act of heroism has apparently ensured that no other lamb will ever have to follow his path to vengeance ever again.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Especially by the time of the climax. To be fair to him, some of this is a result of manipulation on Woe's part and the other sheep inadvertently alienating him in the anime, leaving him uncertain of who he can trust:
  • He trusts Woe above everyone else, outright praising him as a "strong wolf" while badmouthing his own species as weaklings.
  • From his point of view, the other sheep are total cowards. While his family in the anime adaptation mourned the loss of his mother, they were too late to comfort Chirin because he ran off before they could do so. The sheep as a whole stand for peace, quiet and harmony, running for their own lives when they know a predator is just around the corner
• Hot-Blooded: Chirin is overly emotional, passionate, brash, impulsive, and hotheaded, which are traits that are attributed heavily to an impulsive hunter.
• I Got Bigger: Chirin started off as a small, wide-eyed lamb before becoming a tall, complex-filled ram.
• I Just Want to Be Special: As a lamb with survivor's guilt, Chirin suffers from this, feeling he's not strong enough or that he could be so much more. It doesn't help that he believes becoming more stronger would enable him to better than the other sheep (something which stems from his mother's tragic death). Woe exploits this by offering him a strength and power greater than any sheep.
• I Lied: He lied over him and Woe promising to be together in death in the book. This is eventually downplayed as Chirin is presumed to have died only a few days after his and Woe's final battle.
• I Miss Mom: And Dad if you’re familiar with the other versions of the story. Underneath his wolfish exterior, it is painfully obvious that by the very end, he still misses his mother.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Chirin apparently never misses his target…except for when Woe sidesteps him during their final battle in the anime.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Whenever something very unfortunate happens to the poor lamb. Even though no tears are drawn, Chirin cries in a realistic manner (empathized by his entire body trembling and his lips quivering) in both Japanese and English versions. Especially in the English dub where Barbara Goodson manages to make his cries sound genuinely crushed.
  • While tears, saliva and snot aren't visible, Chirin is seeing wailing and bawling his poor heart out after realizing his mother is dead after his failed attempts to wake her up. Not to mention the visible wrinkles around his face.
  • He's also seen weeping after discovering that he accidentally destroyed a mother's birds eggs. His entire body is also trembling as he's crying. Again, no tears are depicted.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: It's implied he gained one after losing his family. He is very dissatisfied over being a sheep and constantly thinks he can do better as a wolf. This, along with his twisted display of puberty ends up leaving him a Child of Two Worlds.
• I Resemble That Remark!: Chirin feels that Woe underestimates him because he's a kid, which he is.
• Irony: He tells his mother (his father in the Twelve Pearls and Lyrica versions) that sheep have really fluffy wool which makes them hard for a wolf to eat. Not only is this notion tragically proven wrong at the end of the sixth page, when his mother is eaten alive by Woe, but Chirin would rack up quite the kill count himself later in life. This is averted as he had been intending to ambush Woe since the beginning, but he almost does so in the film adaptation.
• It's All About Me: He puts the land under the Wolf King's lash, largely out of a desire to be stronger than an average, run-of-the-mill ram. He also puts his own ambitions around ruling the mountains with Woe above avenging his mother and flock, almost ignoring why he came to live with Woe in the first place. However, he still avenges his family by stabbing Woe and he realizes just what his selfishness cost him when other sheep flocks ban him from their fields.
• Japanese Pronouns: As a cute little lamb he uses the fittingly childish & boyish boku, then switches to the manly and assertive ore after maturing into a beast and undergoing his Face–Heel Turn. He goes back to using boku right as he has his Heel Realization.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although he's impulsive, arrogant, and quick to being curb stomped by other animals, Chirin is at heart a loving lamb who will do anything for those he cares about. Then, after getting his revenge, he regrets killing Woe.
• Kill the Cutie: Although left ambiguous, Chirin presumably dies during the winter after going through one last Trauma Conga Line.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Defied. In the anime, he refuses to help Woe kill the other sheep after realizing he might end up having one little lamb suffer the same way he suffered.
• Light Is Not Good: In the anime adaptation, he's still a cute-looking character, even as he's following Woe and later trains with him.
• Lightning Bruiser: As a ram, he has a strong, fast-paced fighting style.
• Living Legend: An ending exclusive to the kamishibai and Storygate Picturebooks adaptations features a mother sheep painting Chirin as a boogeyman-like figure, telling her children that if they cry, Chirin will take them away in a month.
• Living with the Villain: Chirin spends the next three years living with Woe. It is also implied that he developed Stockholm Syndrome as he is now seeing life from Woe's eyes.
• Loners Will Stay Alone: With no flock to take him in, Chirin is doomed to be taking Woe's place as a lone wolf.
• Love Makes You Evil: As seen during the first 12 minutes of the movie, Chirin deeply loves and cares for his mother. While he disobeys her warnings due to being distracted by a rabbit and getting lost in the process, he remains affectionate with his mother as seen during the seasonal montage. Sadly his life changed for the worst after her death when he not only seeks revenge, but eventually forgets his motives on why he wanted to kill Woe. It wasn't until suddenly spotting a baby lamb and its mother approaching that he suddenly remembers his mother.
• Love Redeems: A variation of this is done in the anime, in which a mother ewe putting her young son under her stomach prevents Chirin from crossing the Moral Event Horizon. Chirin is then able to pull a Heel–Face Turn and reawaken the good sheep he once was to finally end Woe's reign of terror.
• Manly Tears: If Chirin is crying, it generally means shit's going down. He completely breaks down after his mother dies and he is still crying while climbing up the mountains where Woe lives. In the Sanrio adaptation, despite no tears being drawn, he is seen weeping as he mourns the stillborn baby birds that he himself smashed, briefly sheds tears after killing Woe and he is definitely in tears while mourning for his dead master.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: By the end of every version of the story, he's succeeded in killing Woe and avenging his mother, father and flock, but he's stuck in a beastly body for the rest of his life, he's lost his father figure, and he is seen by the other sheep as a freak of nature and a perfect method to punish their lambs for crying.
• Momma's Boy: Applies to his official book and anime counterparts. Since he grew up as a Sweet Sheep without a father, he and his mother relied on each other quite a bit and he loved her very much, even being obedient enough to not go past the fence. His first big step towards the road to beasthood (training with Woe after said wolf massacred his entire flock) is rooted in his attachment to her.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Chirin is clearly genuinely shaken up by his accidental smashing of the mother bird's eggs in the anime.
  • After killing Woe, Chirin instantly regets killing him as he had looked up to him as a mentor and a father.
• Mythical Motifs:
  • Some commentators have compared Chirin to the legendary beast Kirin, a mythological beast said to live in the mountains, especially the horned beast variation.
  • There's another one, regarding the fact that after a wolf attack, he developed a plan and desire to become a wolf, and ends up becoming, in a sense, a hybrid lost between worlds, elements reminiscent of lycanthropy.
  • If lambs cry, according to their mothers, Chirin will come, take them away and kill them, similar to Krampus who takes children to the underworld if they do not behave.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: He was never able to say goodbye to his mentor and Parental Substitute Woe before killing him.
• No Place for Me There: Regardless of any version of the story, Chirin realizes that he has no place amongst normal sheep.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In the process of going through Wolf's Training from Hell, Chirin becomes incredibly tough before he's even grown into an adult. By the time his horns just barely start to grow in, he's able to smash trees in half with his skull and win fights against predators several times his size.
• Platonic Life-Partners: A master/student variant with Woe.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: When he finds his mother dead, he cries "DON'T LEAVE ME!" (this line is exclusive to the English dub of the Sanrio adaptation).
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Chirin grows progressively darker over the course of the aftermath of Woe's massacre, culminating in his story arc in becoming a wicked kung-fu fighting ram.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Sure, Chirin avenged his mother and family by killing Woe, but he ends up losing everything and everyone he cares about thanks to Woe's training, which has drastically altered his physical appearance. Now he feels empty because he has nothing else to live for and he can never go back with his own kind.
• Rage Against the Mentor: He engages in a brief fight with Woe over the fate of his family in anime adaptation. In other versions, he simply ambushes Woe.
• Redemption Equals Death: A possible interpretation. After saving his family from Woe, he redeems himself, but with no home to go back to, he presumably dies as a consequence for this trope.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is the Red to both his father and mother's Blue. Woe is already the red.
• Reforged into a Minion: Woe's conversion of Chirin into the wolf-ram hybrid certainly counts.
• Relationship Upgrade: He and Woe. They start off as enemies but grow into a master and apprentice relationship and Chirin even lampshades in the end that he had grown to love him as a second father.
• Revenge: The main theme of the story. Chirin is consumed by his desire for revenge against Woe for eating his entire family (in the book and anime, it's streamlined down to his mother). That being said, in his pursuit of justice (or at least his own interpretation of it) Chirin got turned into something ugly. He also learns the hard way that revenge never solves anything, although the Sanrio adaptation alter this to him killing Woe just to protect his flock and ends up on the receiving end of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished when he is locked out of the sheepfold. Either way, Chirin spends the rest of his life cooped up in the mountains in self-regret, self-loathing and bitter loneliness.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Chirin performs one of these in the anime after Woe kills his mother. Woe just flicks him away with his tail and Chirin now has to resort to Plan B: Become his apprentice.
• Rogue Protagonist: Chirin is the protagonist of the story and eventually becomes one of the antagonists before redeeming himself by saving his family from Woe.
• Sanity Slippage: By the anime adaptation's mid-section, Chirin's Trauma Conga Line finally catches up to him and begins taking a toll on his mental wellbeing. He renounces his old home, abdicates his revenge forms a strong allegiance with Woe on a mutual level and has forgotten what kind of animal he is, which adds to the implication of him eating his prey. By the end he seems to have regained his sanity, at least enough to realize the extent of what he's done.
• Single Tear: Illustrated in the Kamishibai and Storygate Picturebooks versions. After Woe murders and eats his entire family including his beloved mother, Chirin looks out into the unseen carnage of corpses that were once his peaceful, happy family and sheds a tear of remorse as he screams "Why are we being killed? We didn't do anything wrong!".◊ He sheds one again as he stands on the mountain peak, mourning Woe.
• Skyward Scream: He screams for Woe in the anime.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The training montage subsequently presents his slowly increasing aggression, self-righteousness, and tendency towards violence.
• So Happy Together: He and his mother have quite a few of these moments in the anime adaptation. When we first meet her, he butts his body against hers, apologizes to her for staying out late and they sleep together under the tree during a summer's day.
• Sole Survivor: In the original story and other adaptations, he's the only surviving member of his own flock.
• The Starscream: While he appears to be a willing servant to Woe, Chirin has been constantly plotting to overthrow his master for three years in order to avenge his parents. Unlike most examples, however, Chirin comes to regret this. After being ejected from a ton of sheep farms, he still holds a lot of affection for Woe simply because he was the only person left in the world who accepted him.
• Start of Darkness: The story was created to show his progression from a sweet little lamb to the ultimate face of evil in all of Takashi Yanase's works.
• Student–Master Team: With Woe.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: In the anime adaptation, Chirin's irises turn pale yellow after he turns into a wolf-ram, they even have a slight glow.
• Survivor's Guilt: Is implied to have this in the original story as a result of seeing his entire family dead.
• Survival Mantra: "I won't lose. I will become stronger than the wolves."
• Sweet Sheep: Chirin starts out as a cute, carefree lamb. Then, thanks to the tragedies in his life, he becomes the exact opposite...
• Symbolic Mutilation: In the transformation sequence of the anime, Chirin losing his pulchritude and his body being burned symbolizes how he has outwardly become as ugly, twisted, and inhuman as he is within. And there's the whole symbolism around a once proud and mighty Fallen Hero being cast into a pit of fire.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Despite his hatred for Woe, he comes to accept him as a good mentor and a suitable replacement for his father.
• Talking to the Dead: He gives a speech of forgiveness to Woe in the penultimate page of the book and the anime.
• Tears of Remorse: When Chirin realizes that he inadvertently broke all of the mother bird's eggs during an attempt to rescue her eggs from getting eaten by a snake. He's horrified and breaks down after failing to save the bird's potential children.
• The Dragon: Chirin grows up to become this to the Wolf.
• The Ingenue: Due to being the youngest lamb of the flock who was born spring of that year ^note  The story's time period is unknown, but implied to take place somewhere in the America Midwest (possibly somewhere in Minnesota, Tennessee, or Maine) during the early 20th century. . This sweet lamb is innocently naive and mostly ignores his mother's warnings about not heading towards The Wolf's mountain. Instead he focuses more on eating clover, chasing butterflies, very curious, and playful as seen with him chasing after a rabbit. However, Chirin ends up lost after how far he was chasing the rabbit until his mother reunited with him around bedtime.
• The Mole: If only Woe realized that the only reason Chirin asked to train him was so that he could kill him in revenge…
• The Mourning After: He never got over his parents' deaths and it's implied he mourned Woe for the rest of his life.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After trying unsuccessfully to find a sheep flock who will accept him in the prototype and Lyrica versions of the story, Chirin gives one that’s straight and to the point to an old ram who tells him to go away:
  "くそ、なにが平和なだ、なにがヤクザだ、自分でたたかうこともしないで、人間や犬にまもってもらっているく卑怯者せに" ^note "What is peace, what is war... you're cowards who can't bother to fight your own battles, but rely on the humans and dogs!"
• Then Let Me Be Evil: His turn to the wolven life is at least partially due to this. While the main reason he turned was because he wanted to avenge his mother (and his father and flock in the non-cinematic adaptations), it had been made clear to him since Woe's death that no one in the other sheep flocks (his own family in the anime) wanted Chirin into their family and that he has the potential to become very powerful and evil. Chirin actually defies this trope since he genuinely wants to be with the other sheep, but they all fear him. There is some implication of this trope in the anime while the narrator explains the other sheep recognizing Chirin by his bell, as he glares at them for being ungrateful, then, hours after he is back in the mountains, he is left questioning what to do next. Revenge, arrogance, and lust for power aside, Chirin's transformation into the wolf-ram in the Sanrio adaptation's version of events might not have happened had the surviving sheep snapped out of mourning and took action by adopting him.
• This Cannot Be!: He has a non-verbal reaction when his flock shuts the door on him in the anime.
• To Know Him, I Must Become Him: In all versions of the story, this is Chirin's plan to avenge the murder his family. He does so…the hard way.
• Together in Death: In the original story, he and Woe promise to die together. If Chirin died in the end, he and Woe are finally reconciled. The same applies to his parents and family if that's how you see it.
• Took a Level in Badass: Boy does he ever. Over the course of the story Chirin's desire for power and revenge transforms him from a harmless little lamb, into a nigh-unstoppable beast who can rival Woe.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Even before he grows up to become a ram, he quickly becomes very antagonistic and mean with the animals by not only roaring to a pack of buffaloes (which sounds like cute bleating to them), but tries to pick a fight with a group of weasels and a skunk. In the English version, he flat out insults and threatens every animal he encounters. He also angrily denounces himself as a sheep to Woe by telling him that "All they do is stand in corners and shake!" and even speaks negative about the other sheep from his flock as he's crying over accidentally smashing eggs from a mother bird's nest.
• Took a Level in Kindness: This essentially happens when he chooses to kill Woe, save the sheep and avenge his family. But regardless, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
• Tragic Mistake: Chirin betrays his own kind via manipulating Woe into becoming his apprentice and later partner-in-crime. What's even more tragic is that because of his physical changes, he can no longer live amongst any other flock of sheep.
• Tragic Villain: What he ultimately is. Even after he's grown up to be a beast, you can't help but feel sorrow considering what exactly led him to become that.
• Trauma Conga Line: In the anime adaptation, in a rather short space of time, his mother becomes Woe's consolation meal, he gets thrown down the mountainside by Woe, who later refuses his request, gets kicked around by some animals, sees Woe killing a deer to be his snack, gets sucked into a whirlpool and ends up smashing the eggs of unborn baby birds…by accident. At the end, he kills Woe to complete his revenge, is betrayed by the other sheep who fear him and he is left alone with nothing else to do and feels guilty that Woe died because of his actions. And to add to that, the extended versions of the story have him remembered as a nightmarish legend who punishes baby lambs if they cry. After all of this, it's really no surprise that Chirin crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
• Troubled, but Cute: Chirin is quite a cute fellow, but he is riddled with emotional issues.
• Two Roads Before You: Chirin struggles with being a sheep and a wolf, eventually choosing the latter.
• Tyrannicide: In the anime, upon having a Heel Realization, Chirin decides to end Woe's reign of terror once and for all. Unfortunately for Chirin, this is subverted, as he has now taken the place of the one who ruined his life forever.
• Uncertain Doom: The story ends with Chirin heading off deep into the mountains by himself and never being heard from again. Whether or not he died in the snowstorm that ensued is left unsaid.
• Unexplained Recovery: How he comes back after being sucked into a whirlpool in the anime has not yet been explained. See also No One Should Survive That! above.
• The Unfettered: Chirin, already less fettered than your average talking animal protagonist, edges closer and closer to this trope until he becomes a ram.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Chirin himself starts to show signs of this in the English dub when he puts the blame on the sheep for not protesting or fighting back against Woe after he killed and ate his mother. It is very likely that in said version, they did try to prevent him from going past the fence, but it was too late for them to take action.
• Unstoppable Rage: Chirin has serious issues with anger, rage, and controlling his temper, which grew inside of him after his family's murder. This costs him Woe's life.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Chirin is the instigator of his own doom. If he hadn't left the farm, he could have tried to cope with the death of his family and moved on. This would have been more possible in the anime version if he had been adopted by another sheep. He plays this straight by asking Woe to make him his apprentice. In the original story, Woe was tricked by Chirin and his years of training finally pay off when Chirin also becomes the instigator of Woe's doom, the wolf being unaware of the ram's actual intentions.
• Unwitting Pawn: For Woe, who manipulates him into becoming a monster.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: Played With. Although he had a loving mother and was happy and raised on a ranch, his beginnings troubled him well into adulthood. Woe, unknowing of Chirin's ulterior motives allowed Chirin to come under his toxic influence, muddying the waters further.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He develops from an innocent, bright-eyed mother's boy who eats clover into, well, the ram from Hell who eats meat.
• We Can Rule Together: He and Woe essentially become the de facto rulers of the mountains after his training is complete.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: A variation. His relationship with Woe in the anime adaptation is shaped by his desire to earn his master's approval and granting his request to become his apprentice, and he is rewarded with this when he becomes a son to Woe.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the Sanrio adaptation, Chirin comes to believe that the world is a Hell ruled by the strong.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Woe for a very short period of time after Chirin ambushes him in the book. It is taken further by Woe's feelings of betrayal since he considered Chirin as a son instead of simply a student.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: As a little happy lamb in the first part of the story, he kept an upbeat disposition of life with no idea of the world outside his meadow, save for his parents warning him of Woe. Once his eyes were opened to the dangerous world of the mountains outside the farm, however, and Woe makes him his student it all starts to go to his head.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The more powerful Chirin becomes as a ram, the more corrupt he becomes and the more he is pushed to turn to seeing the world through Woe's eyes. This only applies to the Sanrio adaptation as Chirin in the book and other versions had been keeping his intentions hidden from Woe for three whole years.
• Wonder Child: Due to his father and the other rams of the flock being Adapted Out from the official book and Sanrio short, Chirin is this to his mother. She clearly loves her son and regards him as a bright spot in her life.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In every version of the story, Chirin's final act of completing his revenge is shown to be caused by losing everything and everyone he cares for due to his own actions.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Chirin lampshades in the penultimate page of the book that his heart does not feel any lighter.
• Villain Protagonist: He becomes this in the second half of the book, which documents his ultimate turn to becoming a predator as he looks for a way to avenge his murdered family.
• Vocal Dissonance: He still has his young voice as a ram in the Storygate Picturebooks adaptation.
• Vocal Evolution: In the English Dub, Barbara Goodson's performance as Chirin slowly grows deeper and gruffer as the film progresses. Mosty notably during the scene when Chirin witnesses a snake killing a mother bird and crying over the broken egg shells. Contrast to earlier in the film, where Chirin's voice was notably sweet and energetic with an occasional bleating pattern. It's a very effective way to make the once cute lamb actually sinister before he grows up.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Chirin has a very happy and peaceful life, he has his mother, his father, lots of food, sunshine and plenty of lambs to play with. Then, when Woe snacks on his family, everything comes collapsing down. His chain gets yanked again when other sheep flocks turn him away.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Varies from version to version. In the Twelve Pearls, Whose Song is This? and Lyrica versions, Chirin decides to go back to being a sheep, but the other sheep flocks are terrified of him and old sheep tells to go away as they don't wand "his kind" here, preferring to live in peace. In the book, Storygate and kamishibai versions, he realizes on his own that he can never go back to being a sheep. In the Sanrio adaptation, his own family disowns him. Regardless, Chirin accepts this and leaves without much fuss.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Played with. Chirin does use his new abilities for good by killing Woe and ending his tyranny, but he laments this due to him loving Woe as a replacement for his own father.
• You Killed My Parents: This applies to the original extended version of the story and every adaptation based off of it. Woe killed and ate both of Chirin's parents, so Chirin has to avenge them by killing Woe. It's deconstructed. Not only does the oath of vengeance pretty much ruin Chirin's life, but he comes to love Woe as a replacement for his father. When Woe is mortally wounded he tells Chirin that this is the fate of every lone wolf, and Chirin is left without any friends or family in the world because he took this path, instead getting a Heroic BSoD and being shunned from every sheep farm he comes across.

Chirin's Parents

Chirin's Mother (チリンのお母さん)

"It's okay Chirin. My precious little boy."

^{Her original book design} 

Voiced by: Taeko Nakanishi (Japanese), Alexandra Kenworthy (English Dub)

A female sheep (ewe) and a very kind-hearted and caring parent to Chirin.

---

---

• Adaptational Dye-Job: The brown spots around the edges of her ears are gone from the Sanrio adaptation and the Lyrica graphic novel.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Originally, as seen in the prototype version of the story, which later served as the basis for the Lyrica comic, Chirin's father was the one who warned his son about Woe. In the official book and the anime, it his mother who warns him about Woe....which makes the similarities to Bambi a little more obvious.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Played straight due to the story being written for children. Despite some versions of the story describing her blood soaking Chirin entirely (which indicates that Woe tore open her stomach and ate her liver), her corpse, as it is illustrated, never displays any evidence that she was attacked by Woe. In reality, she would have teeth marks, a hole in her throat…and probably an open rib cage with bones jutting out of it.
• Blush Stickers: In the original book, she's depicted with orange rosy cheeks alongside her son.
• Big "NO!": In the English Dub, she yells "No" seconds before she gets killed by Woe.
• Death by Origin Story: Avenging her death is Chirin's first major step towards becoming a Villain Protagonist.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: She was a compassionate ewe who loved her son and wanted what was best for him right to the end.
• Good Parents: Despite getting killed off 12 minutes into the movie (or the first six pages in the book). She and Chirin really love each other, she's the only sheep in the flock that is desperately searching for her child until midnight. She even sacrifices her life to prevent Woe from killing Chirin. Unfortunately, Chirin's love for his mother results in major consequences.
• Happily Married: It seems she was this to her husband, who only appears in other versions of the story.
• Heroic Sacrifice / Taking the Bullet: Her final act of kindness in every version of the story is saving her son from getting eaten by Woe, and she ends up becoming a much bigger meal for the wolf.
• House Wife: She's very much a stay-at-home mother like all the other ewes, with her husband to help her around the farm.
• Living Emotional Crutch: For Chirin. Her death is what drove him to turn to villainy because he felt his own kind was weak against Woe. Seeing her corpse causes whatever was left of Chirin's innocence to be almost completely consumed by darkness.
• Mama Bear: When she notices Woe is seconds away from eating Chirin. She swiftly runs up to her son by using her body as a shield. Then Woe chokes her to death and the audience is faced with the heartwrenching reaction by her son two minutes later.
• Missing Mom: Downplayed. Mama was a devoted mother to Chirin until she was eaten alive by Woe along with her husband and family. Her son spent the next three years training to be a wolf to avenge her.
• No Name Given: She is never given a name in the original story and other adaptations of the story.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We never see Woe kill her in any version for obvious reasons.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Her death due to the strangling she received by Woe was the first step that put Chirin on the path to beasthood.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: To her son Chirin in all versions of the story. She kindly warns him about not going over the fence to prevent him from getting eaten by Woe and briefly scolds him for disobeying her warnings.
• Say My Name: In both English and Japanese versions of the movie. When she quickly notices Woe about to kill and eat her son, she yells out her son's name before she ends up killed. The Japanese version is especially heartbreaking since she sounds on the verge of tears.
• Single Tear: She sheds a single tear after Chirin apologizes for wandering off for the evening and out of relief. Considering she spent almost the entire night hopelessly looking for her baby, asking questions to local wild animals with all sadly answering "No", and strongly hopes he didn't wander near the mountain. It's understandably why she started crying for a short period.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She's only alive for the first six pages in the original book and doesn't have that much dialogue. However, her death kicks off the plot and the main reason why Chirin wants to kill Woe. The anime adaptation does briefly expand on Chirin and his mother's interactions and relationship (one scene exclusive to the anime has Chirin going missing and she scolds him for staying out late).
• Sacrificial Lamb: A literal example (except she's a grown sheep), while not the first of her flock to get killed. Her death by Woe/The Wolf King marks the point where the story quickly drops the lighthearted and upbeat tone.
• Sweet Sheep: Chirin's mother is very sweet-natured and doesn't get mad. The closest she gets to being angry is scolding Chirin for wandering off during the evening.
• That Cloud Looks Like...: In the Lyrica comic, Chirin sees his mother as a cloud, twice.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: She is among the most kindhearted souls in the story, yet meets her end at the teeth of Woe.

Chirin’s Father

as he appears in the Lyrica comic

Voiced by: NA

Chirin’s mother’s husband and the father of Chirin himself, who physically appears in the 1977 Lyrica comic and is mentioned in other versions of the story, including the earliest known draft that was published in the anthology book Twelve Pearls.

---

---

• Adapted Out: He originated in the very first version of the story in Yanase's Twelve Pearls, but is omitted from the official book and the anime adaptation. His only physical appearance is the Lyrica comic and he is mentioned in the expanded versions of the story. Additionally, the absence of Chirin's father creates an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole as the sheep flock appears to be missing some grown rams.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Like his wife, his corpse is unrealistically clean for obvious reasons.
• Black Bead Eyes: In the Lyrica comic
• Death by Origin Story: Avenging his death is Chirin's first major step towards becoming a Villain Protagonist.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: He was a compassionate ram who loved his son and wanted what was best for him right to the end.
• Disappeared Dad: He is not physically seen in the original book or the anime and in the versions he does appear in, he and his wife are Woe's victims.
• The Ghost: He plays this straight in all versions of the story he is not illustrated in.
• Good Parents: Given what we see of him in the Lyrica comic, he, his wife and their son are altogether a very loving family. It is also he who warns Chirin of Woe in the Lyrica comic.
• Foil: To Woe, who corrupted his son into becoming a beast while he himself was a very loving father who warned his son of the very wolf who later ate him alive. Downplayed as Woe did care for Chirin just as much as his own victim did.
• Living Emotional Crutch: For Chirin. His death is what drove him to turn to beasthood because he felt his own kind was weak against Woe. Seeing his corpse causes whatever was left of Chirin's innocence to be almost completely consumed by darkness.
• Happily Married: Implied to be the case with his wife.
• No Name Given: Like his wife, he is not given a proper name.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's only alive for the first two pages in the Lyrica comic and doesn't have that much dialogue. However, his death in any version of the story where he is included kicks off the plot and the main reason why Chirin wants to kill Woe.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Chirin's adult form is practically a Nightmare Fuel induced version of his father, who looks cuter compared to what his son will become.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Given what we know about him, he is among the most kindhearted souls in the story, yet meets his end at the fangs of Woe.

Sheep Flock

The Sheep Flock

The grown sheep and lambs relaxing and grazing ^note  Chirin is seen in the background chasing after a butterfly.

The Lambs

Voiced by: Uncredited Voice Actors (English dub only)

A group of unnamed sheep who are implied to be Chirin's family members.

---

---

• Adults Are Useless: Applies to their anime counterparts. They are too busy mourning over Chirin's mother's death to take any time to adopt her son. Justified as they were giving Chirin some time to himself and he went off to kill Woe before they had the chance to do so. On the hand, this is sadly Truth in Television because other ewes do not adopt orphaned lambs.
• Bystander Syndrome: To prevent Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, all they can do is mourn the loss of Chirin's mother, making no effort to comfort her orphaned son or even stop him from going beyond the fence. It's more understandable for the young lambs since they’re too young and depend more on the adults. Considering they almost got killed minutes ago, they were probably still shaken up by Woe suddenly barging into their home and wanted to give Chirin time to mourn.
  • In Real Life, this is actually Truth in Television; ewes do not like adopting lambs who are not their own, even if they are orphaned.
• Children Are Innocent: While the adult sheep all reject adult Chirin from the flock by the very end of the film. The lambs, while intimidated, are still showing signs of wanting him back into their flock, one in particular approaching him (heavily implied to be the lamb that reminded Chirin of his mother's death) before being pulled back by their mother. In fact, all the lambs from Chirin's flock are notably friendly and playful compared to the adult members.
• Composite Character: Chirin's family in the anime is composited with the other sheep flocks who shun Chirin out in the original versions of the story.
• Death by Origin Story: Woe's attack on Chirin's family played a huge part in the original story, in which Chirin is not only wanting to avenge his mother, but his father and flock as well. After all, the other sheep were his family too.
• Dub Personality Change: In the original, when adult Chirin tries to tell the sheep that he grew up on the farm, they recognize him by the bell around his neck, but cannot accept that he grew up to become such a monstrous creature. In the English dub, they seem to have forgotten who he was altogether, saying that such a terrifying animal never could have been one of them. Still, the outcome is the same, and Chirin is left alone in the world, neither a wolf nor a sheep.
• Disappeared Dad: While we only see Chirin's Mother in the original story and other adaptations (including this movie), Chirin's Father is never seen or ever mentioned with his only physical appearance being the 1977 Lyrica comic adaptation released during the film's production. He is also mentioned in the kamishibai and flash animation adaptations and appeared in the earliest known version of the story that Yanase wrote for PHP magazine.
• Eaten Alive: With the exception of the Sanrio adaptation, this is their ultimate fate in every version of the story.
• Excessive Mourning: Their Fatal Flaw in the Sanrio adaptation. Had they spent more time consoling Chirin and less time showing their respects for his deceased mother, things would have been different…possibly.
• Eyes Out of Sight: While they don't have humanoid hair, one of the unnamed lambs in the movie has wool covering their eyes.
• Faint in Shock: When Woe bursts open the door to the sheep stable. One of the adult sheep is so frightened that they start foaming from the mouth and fainting while the others quickly run from him. The fate of that poor sheep remains unknown, or at least in the anime adaptation, since she was most likely killed by Woe, who later feasted on her corpse.
• I Have No Relative!: In the Sanrio adaptation, the horrified sheep shun Chirin by shutting the door on him as a consequence for going down a path that they would never follow.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Applies to their Sanrio counterparts. No matter how much death, destruction, or cruelty Woe throws at them, they will never be tempted to do the morally wrong thing. Chirin on the other hand…
• Innocent Inaccurate: In the English dub of the anime, the lamb Chirin spared asks said creature if he is a wolf, unaware that Chirin used to live with his parents.
• Kill the Cutie: Like Chirin and his parents, they are very adorable to look at…then Woe eats them alive.
• Narrator All Along: The extended versions of the story (the prototype version, the kamishibai, Lyrica comic and Storygate Picturebooks adaptations) reveal that the entire story was told from a mother sheep to her young lambs.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero / Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Applies to their anime counterparts. Their lack of consoling skills secures Chirin's Start of Darkness.
• No Sympathy: In some versions, while they recognize Chirin, they disregard the tragedy that led him to become a beast and paint him as a monster that punishes lambs for crying.
• Poor Communication Kills: Had Chirin been adopted by one of the adults, they could have prevented him from going down the path to wickedness...but instead, they do nothing but mourn and worry.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Chirin's mother and an unnamed sheep are the only sheep that are killed in the movie. In the original story, the entire flock including the lambs are killed and eaten by Woe off-screen.
• Sweet Sheep: The baby lambs in the flock are adorable and just as curious as Chirin. This even extends to the kamishibai and Storygate Picturebooks versions which feature one or two lambs during the story's extended endings.
• Reused Character Design: With the exception of a lamb with wool covering its face. The majority of the baby lambs from Chirin's flock are actually reused designs of Chirin, with some having different wool and facial structures (notably some either have pupils or dots for eyes). The ending to the kamishibai and Storygate Picturebooks versions also reuses Chirin's design which features one or two young lambs lessening to their mother's story about Chirin.
• The Ghost: They are featured prominently in the Sanrio adaptation, but not so much in other versions in terms of visibility. In the original story, they are only mentioned in the book's text, with Chirin and his mother being the only sheep seen in the original illustrations by Takashi Yanase. However the Lyrica comic adaptations does show the entire flock and Chirin's Father on two separate panels. They even seen in the background of the second slide of the kamishibai version.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: The sheep in the anime briefly develop this from shock when they see what Chirin has become.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Or meadow. Chirin's family in the book and other expanded versions were tragic victims of Woe.
• Trying Not to Cry: In the anime adaptation, one of the ewes has her eyes filling with tears as she mourns the death of Chirin's mom.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Played with. Them shutting Chirin out can be seen as a dick move considering he basically saved them by killing Woe, but then again they primarily saw his brutality and demeanor, and hunting them was the original plan, Heel Realization or not.
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • In the English dub, the adult sheep that Chirin jumps on as he's chasing after a butterfly is clearly voiced by an unidentified male voice actor. Despite all of the grown sheep being female with no rams in sight.
  • While most of the lambs are voiced by women in the English dub, some of them are voiced by grown men.
• Wonder Child: Due to the rams being adapted out from the Sanrio film, most, if not some of the lambs are this to their mothers. Then again, it is possible that the farm was segregated by gender to keep the adults from getting any ideas.

Woe

Woe/Wor (ウォー) (The Wolf King)

"Cry, cry as much as you wish. Someday that resentment will become your fangs."

^{His original book design} 

Voiced by: Seizō Katō (Japanese), Bill Capizzi (English dub)

The main antagonist of the story, responsible for the murder of Chirin's mother (and the entire flock in the original story).

---

---

• Abusive Dad: As the closest thing Chirin has to a father figure in both a literal and figurative sense (especially since his biological one ended up becoming Woe's main course), Woe was absolutely horrendous towards his apprentice. This of course, was all part of Woe's training and upbringing of Chirin, which involved him learning some dangerous and harsh stunts and when the lamb grows up, he softens his attitude, proud to have Chirin as a son.
• The Ace: A villainous example. Woe is a master at virtually everything he puts his mind to, including strength, strategy and the laws of nature. Unfortunately, his old age slows him down.
• Adaptational Badass: Woe in the original book was far from being a weakling, but in the anime his skills reach unrealistic levels.
• Adaptational Jerkass: While Woe was still painted as an antagonist of sorts in the book, he was instantly touched by Chirin's request to train him and agrees immediately. In the anime, Woe is unwilling and initially just wants Chirin to return to the meadow if he doesn't already die one way or another. He finally agrees when Chirin breaks down over accidentally breaking some eggs trying to protect them.
• Adaptational Intelligence / Adaptational Villainy: In the book and other versions of the story, Woe was easily manipulated by Chirin into becoming his master. In the Sanrio adaptation, the tables are turned. In that version, it is Woe who manipulates Chirin and corrupting him into making him his son-figure. In addition, Woe has a deeper understanding of how the world works, something Yanase did not write for his literary counterpart.
• Affably Evil: Woe is seen by the other animals as a monster and a killer, but in reality he isn't shown killing just because he feels like it, he does it for food like all wolves do. Another example of him not being completely evil is that after he beats a bear in a fight and the bear (rather cartoonishly) runs away scared, Woe lets it go instead of chasing after and killing it.
• All of the Other Reindeer: According to the prototype version of the story and it's own adaptations, even the other wolves are not his friends and Chirin and he pay them back by hunting other wild wolves as well as coyotes, which are also members of the canine family.
• The Bad Guy Wins: A posthumous example. Chirin ultimately avenged his mother by killing Woe, but it is Woe who gets the last laugh in the end by ensuring that the training, transformation and reputation of his apprentice has made him a pariah, just like he was.
• Big Bad: He's the story's main villain responsible for the murder of Chirin's mother and the rest of his family.
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: He was a living embodiment of this trope to Chirin. First he throttled the little lamb's family to death and feasted on their corpses and turned Chirin into a bloodthirsty mutation of his former species.
• Blood Knight: Woe utterly relishes a good fight when he allows himself to cut loose. Even so, he fights his victims for the sake of food and he even fights off a bear instead of eating it.
• The Corrupter: He serves as this to Chirin in the Sanrio adaptation, earning his trust and leading him astray in order to turn him into a Tatarigami-like ram. Ironically, in the book and other adaptations, Chirin asks him to make him his apprentice.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Played With. He makes no pretensions about himself or his motives and openly champions and respects the laws of nature, but it can be assumed that in his opinion Good and Evil are just points of view and seems to regard himself as Above Good and Evil and likely feels that neither of them actually exist, just that animals have to eat other animals just so they can survive.
• The Chessmaster: The way he corrupted Chirin. In the book, Chirin offers to become his apprentice and this in some way melts his heart. Woe wastes no time into making Chirin his apprentice by teaching him everything he knows and promising him that they will die together. Chirin betraying him, along with the ram's physical changes also paved the way for his own kind to cast him out and leave him taking Woe's place. The anime goes deeper into this by having him teach Chirin about what it means to be a wolf.
• Child Eater: He ate all of the lambs in Chirin's family.
• Classic Villain: Woe represents Ambition, Wrath and Pride. Even so, he's a lot deeper than that and he does have a lot of likeable qualities.
• Combat Pragmatist: Despite being one of the best predators and the most powerful wolf in the mountains, Woe only fights if he is hungry or does so in self-defense. This is best exemplified he fights a bear in the anime. Given his nature, he doesn't eat bears or dogs, just the usual targets like sheep and antelopes.
• Con Man: Woe, in some ways, can be interpreted as one. He cons Chirin in order to get what he wants: a personal companion and a son figure to look up to him. When Chirin stabs him with his horns, it all falls apart.
• Cool Old Guy: He's an old veteran of the hell he lives in and he served as something to a father figure to Chirin.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In the anime.
  • He delivers a serious one to a huge bear. Subverted as the bear runs off like a Dirty Coward.
  • He delivers a comic one to Chirin when he tries to kill him as a lamb....by just swatting him off his tail.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Although his life prior to the events of the story have yet to be given too much detail, what we do know from the extended versions is that he was on his own since he was born, implying that his own mother died giving birth to him.
• Dark Is Evil: The black fur, gravelly voice, scar down the left eye, and sharp fangs is enough to tip anyone off that Woe is not a good guy. Subverted as he does care for Chirin, especially when he explains to him how the world works.
• Deal with the Devil: Never make deals with Woe no matter how much of a wise old wolf he may be. Chirin ended up losing everyone he cares about and became a hated replica of the one who trained him.
• Death Seeker: Specifically, he wants to meet his end fighting a creature he can acknowledge as being stronger than him. He gets his wish when Chirin finally kills him.
• The Dreaded: As feared as he is, it's nothing compared to the fear Chirin inspires. Chirin's parents talk of him in a cautionary measure to their son and all the other animals in the land are terrified of him because he eats other animals…some even on his hit list.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He never expected Chirin to betray him.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In the English dub, he's curiously never referred to by a proper name, just as "The Wolf King".
• Evil Counterpart: To Chirin’s biological father, but this is downplayed due to Woe legitimately caring about him.
• Evil Mentor: As a Savage Wolf who enjoys slaughter, the wolf becomes this to Chirin near the end. It's a very interesting and unique example because it's Chirin who initiates the relationship in a rather insane plan to surpass and kill him and by the end of it he grows to see Wor as a father-figure.
  "It won't be easy, pipsqueak. The world I live in is a hell where death is always close by. You'll need stamina, determination, and the will to survive."
• Evil Old Folks: He is an old wolf according to Chirin's mother.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has a pretty deep voice in both languages.
• Evil Wears Black: Woe's fur is all black, indicating his evil nature. Truth in Television is that there are at least a few wolves with black fur in the United States.
• Family Extermination: He eats Chirin's entire family in the book.
• Fisher King: In the anime and Storygate Picturebooks adaptations, it's no coincidence that Chirin's ranch becomes peaceful almost immediately after his death.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His ultimate fate in all versions of the story.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The only person Woe comes across as being sympathetic or caring towards is Chirin, whom he takes on as his apprentice. It was Chirin who melted his heart when he told the old wolf he wanted to be his apprentice and immediately agrees to train him (though in the anime, it's done more realistically by having Woe trying to convince Chirin to go back home). Near the end of the story, Woe sees a surrogate son in Chirin and they both agree to die together. Sadly, Chirin betrays him and his wish is half-fulfilled.
• Knight of Cerebus: The story's cutesy and lighthearted tone is quickly thrown out the window once he's first shown racing down the mountain into the sheep stable.
• Knight Templar: The only motivation Woe has besides being an archetypical wolf who only follows his nature (as well as surviving) is that he genuinely believes that being a predator is in the world's best interest.
• Lack of Empathy: Being the most monstrous predator who killed Chirin's family, that's a big given. This ends up costing him in the longer run, since him being devoid of remorse or pity causes him to underestimate Chirin's love for his kind. Fortunately for him, the other sheep shun Chirin out after he dies. He was also unempathetic towards Chirin until he managed to come back to him alive.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He ate Chirin's entire family alive and manipulated Chirin for three years while mentoring him, using his weaknesses to turn the little lamb into a wolf-like ram. He ends up losing when Chirin betrays him to conclude his revenge.
• Last of His Kind: He is implied to be one of the last wolves in the setting. This is actually Truth in Television as Japanese wolves were persecuted and eventually hunted to extinction by the early 20th century.
• Lonely at the Top: Woe doesn't really have anyone he can relate to as an equal since it is mentioned in the prototype version of the story that he had been alone since birth. Chirin was the closest he got, and the vengeful sheep had to kill him.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Woe is actually very fitting for the sort of animal who causes so much "woe" for one little lamb who wanted justice for his parents. In addition to scarfing down Chirin's family (or just his mother and another ewe in the Sanrio adaptation), he is also responsible for training Chirin into the ram from Hell and in some ways the reason why Chirin can never return to being a sheep.
  • Wor is derived from "war", specifically World War II, in which Takashi Yanase participated in while stationed in China. The same war that took his younger brother away from him.
  • Uo is an onomatopoeia of a wolf's howling.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Invoked — we know from the beginning that Chirin wants Wolf's mentorship so he can become strong enough to kill Woe and get revenge, something Woe himself is fully aware of in the film adaptation. While it seems like Chirin won't actually do it by the time he's reached adulthood due to becoming The Dragon to Woe and coming to see him as a father figure, not only does he wind up going through with it after his Heel Realization, Woe reveals in his final moments that he wanted Chirin to kill him.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His English name is the Wolf King and if you're a sheep, a deer, and antelope or another prey on his menu, chances are you will not be bowing before royalty, but will be served as his breakfast, lunch or dinner. Wor, one of his Japanese names, brings to mind "war" and you don't want to be a casualty. Woe is also fitting for the kind of animal who brings nothing but sorrow and distress onto others. After he gobbled up Chirin's family, Chirin knew nothing but complete and utter "woe."
• No Name Given: A dub-induced variant. Woe is just referred to in the English dub as "The Wolf King" and is simply just called "Wolf".
• Non-Malicious Monster: Sure, he ate Chirin's entire flock and possibly hundreds of other animals that wolves eat like deer and antelopes, but how else was he going to survive in his environment? As for the malicious part, the jury's still out on whether he's this or just an Affably Evil wolf. Given how Chirin knows more about him and how the world works, it's most likely the latter.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Whether it be the anime or the book's version of events, Chirin apparently learns more about Woe and comes to terms that the reason he killed and consumed his parents wasn't because he was doing it For the Evulz, but because it was in his nature. This is apparently zig-zagged due to Chirin's true feelings of him.
• Nothing Is Scarier / Offstage Villainy: Not once in any version of the story do we ever see him consuming his victims. It is a children’s book after all…
• Parental Abandonment: Woe himself states in the Storygate Picturebooks version that he had been on his own since he was born.
• Parental Substitute: He becomes a father-figure to Chirin as he trains him to be strong.
• Pet the Dog: A ruthless predator he may be, the fact that Woe agrees to train Chirin in the first place and even takes steps to ensure he doesn't die while training (let alone not killing and eating Chirin whenever the lamb is too exhausted to fight back) shows that he is capable of kindness.
• Predation Is Natural: Woe, or at least his Sanrio counterpart, strongly believes that he is not the monster Chirin and his family believe him to be, he just eats other animals for the sake of his survival and being at the peak of the food chain.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: He has black fur, a red scar, and is the most evil being in the story.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Chirin's blue.
• Rugged Scar: Sometime before the events of the story, he received a noticeable scar down his right eye, symbolizing how much more experienced and badass he's become as a result of fighting in the mountains.
• Sadist: Woe takes at least some pleasure in the suffering and pain of others, watching Chirin kill off the guard dogs and boasting to Chirin that "killing sheep is something even a weakling can do."
• Savage Wolf: To say Woe is unfriendly is putting it lightly. He not only murders Chirin's mother and flock, but is seen threatening the titular character and attempts to kill him a few times in the film adaptation. He actually scares off a large brown bear after he defeats it.
• Secret Test of Character: Woe's method of training Chirin involves testing the limits of his emotional instability and rage by having him attack his own flock. It doesn't end well for Woe due to Chirin betraying him in the climax.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Quite literal. While Chirin is following him he slips and falls into a stream, and is dragged into a whirlpool. Woe's thoughts on the matter? "So much for dinner." But when Chirin comes back, soaked and dead tired after having somehow survived, he re-evaluates him as actually having potential.
• So Proud of You: His final words after Chirin impales him are to congratulate Chirin for becoming strong enough to kill him.
• Spell My Name With An S: His Japanese name, ウォー, can be interpreted in several ways when romanized — Uō, Wō, Wor, War, Woe, Howl, or just the word "Wolf".
• Thanatos Gambit: Woe knew he'd eventually wither away and die a pitiful death so long as he was the strongest creature around, so part of his motivation for training Chirin was actually to mold the lamb into a being strong enough to kill him in battle. By the film's climax, his plan succeeds.
• The Quiet One: He isn't much of a chatterbox except when he needs to, which only increases his creepiness factor.
• The Social Darwinist: His Sanrio counterpart prioritizes himself at the top of the food chain as well as the belief that herbivores have to die so that the carnivores can eat them.
• The Unapologetic: Not once in any version of the story does he apologize to Chirin for killing his flock, let alone his own mother.
• The Unfettered: As we can see in all versions of the story, nothing can stop him in being at the top of the food chain. No matter how despicable or cruel his actions might be, that's just fine with him as long as his stomach is satisfied with a big meal.
• Unwitting Pawn: Woe was this in every version of the story except the anime. He fell for Chirin's pleas into making him his master and was caught off guard when Chirin betrays him to finish his revenge. But Woe isn't too upset, as he is glad that Chirin killed him in the end.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • In the film version, he manages to kill two adult sheep (one of them being Chirin's mother) and was seconds away from killing Chirin if it wasn't for his mother's sacrifice. Bitter over failing to kill Chirin, Woe is clearly annoyed as he's watching Chirin trying to attack and kill him that same night. He manages to hurt Chirin by throwing him off his tail and near sharp rocks.
  • In the original story, he manages to kill all the sheep from Chirin's flock including baby lambs.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: While the first half of Chirin no Suzu is pretty family friendly in general and has a happy and idyllic tone most of the time, Woe is one of the most complex villains in all of Takashi Yanase's books, often equated with a very complex idea of "evil".
• Villain Has a Point: While being an utter Savage Wolf all the way and definitely having a hand in accelerating it, he's not wrong in the idea of sacrificing one's life so that another can live. He has a very refined repertoire of the food chain, the laws of nature and how unfair the world really is.
• Villain Takes an Interest: When Chirin asks Woe to make him his pupil in the book, Woe is suddenly interested at the prospect of a sheep being at his side. At first, he thinks a sheep can't be a wolf, but Chirin proves him wrong.
• Villainous Friendship: Woe has shown to be capable of forming friendships, as seen in his interactions with Chirin.
• Voice of the Legion: In the English dub, Woe's voice is given a much deeper voice that always echoes whenever he speaks.