History Manga / GingaNagareboshiGin

** Another part that appears to come out of nowhere in the anime is a dachshund named Oliver arriving to help Cross, Gin and Benizakura, with Cross explaining he had saved her before. In the manga, Cross had run into two dogs who wanted to rape her, leading to Oliver saving her. This was also likely cut for time and the fact the two dogs were very vocal about what they wanted to do with Cross might have been deemed too inappropriate.

* AdultFear: In Episode 3, Daisuke falls down a deep crevice and faints, with his father desperately calling for him.

Now has a [[Characters/GingaNagareboshiGin character sheet]] that could use love and WikiMagic.

Eventually, the manga was adapted into an anime by Creator/ToeiAnimation. This was subsequently dubbed into a number of Scandinavian languages, and it became popular enough in those countries to get uncut rereleases. Why "uncut"? Well, most notably, both the manga and the anime are ''extremely'' violent and gory - enough for one site to describe it as "said to be one of the most violent anime ever". Don't count on it being dubbed into English anytime soon, though a decent fan-made sub was put out a few years ago.

* ''Ginga Densetsu Riki'' (2000) -- A single-volume manga prequel that follows a young Riki.

!!Examples in the anime adaptation

* AbortedArc: [[spoiler:The entire wolf arc after Akakabuto's defeat, along with Gin's last reunion with Daisuke and Gohei before the latter dies from old age.]]

** The bears as well are often shown tearing open either a person or dog with a single strike of their claws.

* AlreadyUndoneForYou: In [[spoiler:episode 16, we see Moss and the pack of dogs he had been leading in the absence of Ben being trapped in a giant hole in the ground, with no explanation as to how they ended up there, or even what that hole is doing there.]]

* AnimalJingoism: Dogs and bears are mortal enemies. The whole plot revolves around the dogs gathering enough "soldiers" to battle the bears, and the actual battle itself. Though the protagonist is able to overcome this, as shown when he got upset after seeing another dog kill two innocent bear cubs.

* AnnoyingArrows:
** Averted with the hunting bow, which is considered more powerful than some of the rifles.

* AnyoneCanDie: Don't take this franchise lightly, it's one of the most serious anime out there. It's bloody and deadly, and any character is lucky to make it out of an arc alive.

* ATeamFiring: Large groups of mooks firing rifles can't hit anything even at what appears to be close range.
* AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: Giant killer bears terrorizing humans.

** Averted when [[spoiler: Ben goes blind and has to pick a new leader for the pack. According to both him and Akame, anyone in the pack have the strength to be a leader, but Ben wants someone who also have "determination and a strong sense of justice". The choice goes to Gin, despite him probably being (at least one of) the youngest of them. Of course he still turns out to be [[KidHero among the strongest]] on many occasions.]]
* BadassBaritone: Riki.
* BaitAndSwitch: When Gohei and Riki are trapped in a crevice in the first episode, Gohei eventually takes out his machete and decides that "no matter what, I'll survive this", making it look like he intends to kill Riki to feed off his meat. Turns out he meant to chop off his own leg so Riki could instead feed off ''his'' meat, only Riki refuses out of loyalty.

* BigGuy: Moss, for the most part. And Benizakura, for the rest of the part.

%%* ABoyAndHisX: Gin and Daisuke in the first third of the story. %% Add more context to describe their relationship and what effect it has on them.
%%* BrattyHalfPint: Daisuke, to a degree.

* BrokenAesop: The BigLippedAlligatorMoment mentioned above. To recap, at the very end of the episode, baby-killer came out of nowhere, threw a puppy off a cliff, put a member of the pack in lethal danger, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking reflected badly on Lassie]], and in the next episode, nobody cared. The scene was most likely an Aesop about how harming innocents to get back at someone is a bad thing, so... yeah. In all fairness, none of the already recruited characters [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail got much love at this point]], but it still came off as rather odd.
** This was probably more due to adaptation editing. In the manga, Wilson (the collie) explains how Kurojaki [[spoiler:killed and ate his family before, hence, he wanted revenge.]]

* ButNowIMustGo: [[spoiler:Gin leaves Daisuke and his family in episode 8 to join Ben's pack and travel across Japan.]]

* CarFu: Pulled off in the first episode with a snowmobile.

* DecoyProtagonist: Daisuke starts out as the main character in your typical [[ABoyAndHisX A Boy And His Dog]] story, [[spoiler:then the GenreShift comes along after 8 episodes and the attention switches to Gin, to which Daisuke doesn't show up again until the last episode (not counting a brief two minute appearance he has a few episodes prior).]]

* DevilInPlainSight: Sniper is a textbook example of this trope.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Kurojaki and the Koga dogs.]]
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In the manga, the wolf arc that continues after Akakabuto's defeat begins with depicting the sudden deaths of [[spoiler:Bill and Bemu]] by a "mysterious force" that turns out to be wolves.
%%* DubInducedPlothole
* EarAche: A flashback at the start of the story shows that Gohei gained his signature scars and missing ear when Akakabuto swiped the left side of his face with its claws. The manga even devotes a panel to show the torn ear.

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Spinning attacks are the key to victory.

* EyeAwaken: Hidetoshi shoots a bear, thinks he's killed it and slowly approaches, the bear slightly opens it's eyes in what can only be described as playing dead to lure the hunter close and SMILES, before hurling itself towards Hidetoshi.

* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: No lack of decapitations or animal violence here.
* AFatherToHisMen: When Gin calls [[spoiler:Riki out for being his father, an amnesiac Riki responds by accepting his "loyalty", and further proceeds to proclaim all the dogs to be his children as well as his soldiers.]]
* FieryRedhead: Akatora. Heck, his entire body is covered in red fur.
* FinalBattle: Akakabuto plays the role as the FinalBoss.

* GeckoEnding: The anime ends with [[spoiler:Akakabuto's defeat]]. The manga however, continues for a while more, [[spoiler:revolving around a wolf arc (the dogs joining forces with good wolves to fight against evil ones), and afterwards Gin having a reunion with Daisuke before seeing Takeda Gohei one last time before he dies.]]
* GenderEqualsBreed: Zig-zagged with [[spoiler:Ben and Cross' pups. They have three where two look like Ben while the third look like Cross, however the Cross-alike is male, while one of the Ben-alikes is female. (This isn't revealed until ''Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed'' however.)]]

%%* GrandFinale

* HeroicWillpower: When Daisuke falls deep into a crevice and faints, Gin is sent down to rescue him and does so by circling his body, wrapping him with his rope leash to pull him back up. In doing so however, he has to hold on to the rope himself, carrying all of Daisuke's weight on his small puppy body. It gets to the point his collar tears into his throat and the manga describes that he eventually couldn't breathe. Despite that he keeps holding onto the rope, even ''after'' having pulled him to safety.
--> '''Hidetoshi:''' John, this time I think you've met your match.
%%* TheHerosJourney

%%* HotBlooded: John.
* HowlOfSorrow: [[spoiler:Riki]]'s last words implore his subjects to celebrate victory and howl for the fallen.

* InASingleBound: How Gin convinces the Ohu army to recruit him, by jumping an 80 feet gorge.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler:Riki lost his memories when he was thrown into a ravine by Akakabuto. Only thing what he remembers is his hatred for the bear]].
* LifeOrLimbDecision: Gohei has to choose between sacrificing a limb as a last resort or die.
* LukeYouAreMyFather: Gin pulls this on [[spoiler:Riki]], who is suffering from amnesia and doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
* KidHero: Gin. Well, Pup Hero, but there you go.
* LastOfHisKind: Kurojaki's son Chibi is the last dog left alive from the Koga clan after Kurojaki and his followers are all DrivenToSuicide. [[spoiler:The clan bounces back by the [[Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed sequel series]], however.]]

* MeaningfulName

* NotQuiteDead: Akakabuto, [[spoiler:who took an onslaught of attacking dogs, bullet wounds, and THREE [[SpinAttack Zetsu Tenrou Battougas]]]] to finally die.
* NowThatsUsingYourTeeth: The [[spoiler:''[[SpinAttack Zetsu Tenrou Battouga]]'' is an attack revolved on this. [[RuleOfCool By spinning, it creates a massive force in the attacker's bite, enough to rip a bear's head clean off.]]]]

* OneManArmy: Riki. He might have been the only dog in Ohu at the time, but he was still fighting bears ''all by himself'' as if it's easy hunting.

* ParentalAbandonment: Riki "dies", inspiring Gin to become an avenger, only to have him dicking around with LaserGuidedAmnesia to kill the BigBad later in the series.
* PeacefulInDeath: Again, [[spoiler:Akatora]] and [[spoiler:Riki.]]
%%* PintSizedPowerhouse: Gin.
%%* PluckyComicRelief: Smith.

%%* PreviouslyOn

* TheQuest: Find the strongest dogs in Japan to take down the BigBad.

%%* RuleOfCool

** In the last episode, [[spoiler:Daisuke tries to approach Gin only to be stopped by the other dogs (even ''John'') snarling at him, resulting in a bittersweet scene of Daisuke having to say goodbye to Gin from a distance, refused the right to touch him. This would make sense with the dogs not allowing an unknown human approaching their leader, even though Takeda Gohei was allowed to pet and hug ''both'' Gin and Riki just moments before...]]
*** [[spoiler:In the manga, they explain how it's the first days of his reign that determine what direction his leadership will take, and because of this, they can't let him get close to his old owner within that time frame, at the risk that he'll be swayed to going back. Upon the completion of the wolf arc however, Gin realizes he can finally see Daisuke and eventually reunites with him, arriving just in time to also see Gohei on his death bed.]]

* ScareChord: Akakabuto is dead, all is well, Gohei hugs Riki and Gin, cue sentimental music... PSYCH!
* SceneryPorn: There are lots of gorgeously animated shots of snowy mountains, nature during summer and later autumn, and many stunning locations where Gin and his pack pass or arrive at during their journey. Especially during the first 2 minutes in episode 8 after the credits, there are many lovely shots of mountains or roads and lakes as we see them running from many different angles.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Cross is the only female in the huge pack and her biggest accomplishment is giving birth to Ben's puppies. Still, the show is less sexist than its sequels Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed, where there are ''no'' lead female dogs, or ''Ginga Densetsu Weed: Orion'', where the only female character is portrayed as whiny and submissive.

%%* SplitScreenReaction

%%* StormingTheCastle

* TalkingAnimal: All the dogs qualify.

* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Gin jumps down from a tree to attack Sniper. During the jump, there's enough time for Smith to yell at Gin ''and'' for Sniper to give a little [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYy_Ox8D9oY&t=598 speech]] on the reasoning behind his name
* TearsOfBlood: Great (a DemotedToExtra character) cries blood at one point.

* WhamLine: ''"Young male, do you plan on sending a '''pregnant''' bitch onto the battleground?"''

** [[spoiler:In the manga, after Hyena proclaims his HeelFaceTurn and falls down the gorge, he ends up in a river along with Ben and Sniper, and proceeds to save Ben from drowning. Not surprisingly, Sniper kills him shortly after for this.]]

Months later, Gin, after having been trained by Gohei and returned to his original owner, Daisuke, leaves his friend to join a pack of wild dogs. It turns out that Riki survived, but with amnesia, and had formed a pack to fight and finish off Akakabuto and his fellow bears. So begins an adventure involving many battles, travelling across Japan to find allies, and learning battle techniques.

There's a sequel series, ''Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed'', which follows Gin's son Weed. There's also a manga-only prequel named ''Ginga Densetsu Riki'', which follows a young Riki.

Now has a [[Characters/GingaNagareboshiGin character sheet.]]

* TheMusical: A bunch of fans got together and actually made a musical about a series centered around a bunch of dogs killing bears. [[http://hopeanuolimusikaali.com/info_eng.html Here's a link to their English homepage.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Gaia is defeated, but most of the wolf tribe is wiped out in the conflict. Hyouma, Retsuga, and two unnamed wolves are the LastOfTheirKind, but they're allowed to join the dogs of Ohu at the very least.]]

* LastOfHisKind: [[spoiiler:Hyouma, Retsuga, and two other nameless wolves are the only wolve still alive by the end of the arc.]]

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Hyena, having been inspired to finally try to prove his worth as a soldier of Ohu, jumps into a ravine to save Ben after Ben attempts to sacrifice himself to kill Sniper. In the anime it unfortunately turns into a NegatedMomentOfAwesome as Hyena trips while charging down the cliff, screaming as he falls to his death and is never seen again. In the manga however, Hyena succeeds in saving Ben from drowning but is seemingly killed by Sniper. It wasn't until years later when the spinoff story ''Ginga Densetsu Noah'' would reveal the [[RedemptionEqualsLife Hyena actually survived]].

%%* TheAlcoholic: Gohei.
* AllDogsArePurebred: Actually justified here, as the dogs are mostly hunting dogs than either ran away or were abandoned.

** There's a bear with three harpoons stuck in its back. I repeat, ''there's a bear with three harpoons stuck in its back''.

* AntiClimax: In the Scandinavian and Finnish edit of the anime, after all the trouble the protagonists went through to gather a massive dog army to take Akakabuto down, the bear is ultimately killed by... [[spoiler:Gohei suddenly arriving and shooting him. Whut? What actually happened that the Nordic viewers didn't get to see was Gin using the Battouga to ''decapitate'' Akakabuto.]]

** Averted when [[spoiler: Ben goes blind and has to pick a new leader for the pack. According to both him and Akame, anyone in the pack have the strength to be a leader, but Ben wants someone who also have "determination and a strong sense of justice". The choice goes to Gin, despite him probably being (at least one of) the youngest of them.]] Of course he still turns out to be [[KidHero among the strongest]] on many occasions.

* BearsAreBadNews: This series is a ''textbook'' case of this.

* BigSleep: How both [[spoiler:Akatora]] and [[spoiler:Riki]] dies.
* BittersweetEnding: The victory during the final battle came with a high price. Totally worth it, though...

%%* CharlesAtlasSuperpower

* CombatByChampion: Gin vs. Sniper

%%* DefeatMeansFriendship

* LastOfHisKind: Chibi/Tesshin (a ''RetCon'' in ''Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed'').
%%* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

** Ben survives quite a lot as well, most prominently being ''crushed by a boulder'' and somehow walking away from it with only some bleeding and a brief bout of unconsciousness. It's practically weaponized in the wolf arc when he uses his physical toughness to tank Mugoga's attacks over and over again, which very likely should have turned his insides into jelly but he once again comes away hardly injured from it.

* PutOnABus: Justified, in that the focus shifts to Gin as soon as [[spoiler:he leaves with the pack in episode 8, not leaving much room for showing the humans anymore, causing Daisuke and Takeda Gohei to not appear again until near the end]].

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Hyena]], does one final act of trying to prove his worth as a soldier of Ohu, jumping off a cliff with the intent of saving Ben after giving a little speech about how he used to be evil but wants to redeem himself, only to trip while charging down the cliff, screaming as he falls to his death. He is never seen again.
** In the anime, no. In the manga, [[spoiler:we see Ben, Sniper and Hyena as they all fell into a river. Hyena saves Ben from drowning, but is then [[YouHaveFailedMe killed by Sniper]]]].
* RetiredBadass: Gohei becomes this early on, his old age along with [[TheAlcoholic drinking problems]] making him too ill to keep training Gin, and bear hounds in general.

* BlowYouAway: Retsuga can create a hurricane at will.

* VillainExitStageLeft: Mugen's reaction to his fighters being defeated. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse He is never seen nor heard from again.]]

* BrotherChuck: Gin's brothers are only present on-screen for about five minutes altogether in the first eight episodes, and are never seen or mentioned again afterwards. The same goes for his mother, [[spoiler:although he at least shares a tearful goodbye with her and subsequently thinks of her along with Daisuke and Gohei when he leaves to join the dog pack]], while his brothers remains completely ignored.

* Bowdlerization: Though the anime is still pretty violent and doesn't shy away from mature themes, there were still some things from the manga that were left out likely for this purpose, such as:

** Akakabuto's killing of various human characters is largely off-screen, whereas in the manga it was usually shown in [[((Gorn)) gruesome detail]].

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Bears are depicted as a universal force of evil. Not just that they're all just bad people, but actively malicious.

%% * ABoyAndHisX: Gin and Daisuke in the first third of the story. %% Add more context to describe their relationship and what effect it has on them. %%

** Another frequently used shot is an animation of Gin landing after striking an attack on an enemy, which shows up several times over the show. It gets especially noticable towards the end when it's even used in the final episode, despite that Gin has grown a lot by that point, said animation momentarily reverts him back to his mid-series age again.

* RuleOfDrama: It'd be a pretty short and boring serie if every dog they wanted to recruit complied right away.

*** BigGood: [[spoiler:Riki.]]

* AntiClimax: In the Scandinavian and Finnish edit of the anime, after all the trouble the protagonists went through to gather a massive dog army to take Akakabuto down, the bear is ultimately killed by... [[spoiler:Gohei arriving at the last minute and shooting him. Whut? What actually happened that the Nordic viewers didn't get to see was Gin using the Battouga to ''decapitate'' Akakabuto.]]

** The subtitles from anime_fin are generally higher in quality, but even they have their problems. Young dogs are [[YouKeepUsingThatWord consistently]] referred to as "cubs", capitalization is all over the place, and words are sometimes compounded when they shouldn't be (eg. "Monsterbear"). The word choices are also occasionally rather unusual, such as when Jaguar exclaims [[DidNotDoTheBloodyResearch "Bloody hell!"]] when confronted by Sniper. The subs are also very similar to the official Finnish ones, to the point where it's possible that the Finnish script was run through a translation program and added to the episodes unedited.

* BrattyHalfPint: Daisuke, to a degree.

* CannibalismSuperpower: According to legend, the wolves gained special powers after eating the flesh of the [[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons demon dragon Jaryuki]]. However, even the [[AllThereInTheManual series manual]] doubts the veracity of the story.

* BerserkButton: [[spoiler:Gin goes apeshit on Moss when believing he killed Ben, to the point he ''picks him up and slams him to the ground'' (the deal being that Moss is a ''mastiff''.)]]
** [[spoiler:Kurojaki upon thinking his son is killed turns all [[OneManArmy One Dog Army]] on Gin's pack, throwing off even Ben and Moss, scaring off everyone until Gin jumps in to defeat him.]]
** Chutora gets his moment when he finds out he was fighting a female (Cross). He then proceeds to kick a lot of butt around him.

** Cross' fur is white in the manga, but grey-blueish in the anime.

* AdaptationDistillation: Not counting the AbortedArc mentioned above, the anime naturally leaves out many things from the manga, though one of the most prominent moments is probably the sequence about Daisuke's [[spoiler:despair over Gin's disappearance, along with John's disbelief towards the Ohu army and his fight with Riki that ultimately convinces him, which is only briefly mentioned in the anime. To recap, Daisuke is frequently looking for Gin, one day being witnessed by John as he ventures out into the woods. John, remembering the promise he gave Gin about looking after Daisuke, follows him and, not surprisingly, a bear appears. While Daisuke is knocked unconscious, John does his best to fight the bear but finds himself having trouble, when Riki suddenly appears which causes the bear to flee ''by the mere sight of him.'' John proceeds to challenge Riki to a fight, but to his shock is easily defeated by him. Riki then gives John a RousingSpeech which finally convinces him of joining the Ohu army.]]

* The80s: The story is set in 1986, the same time period of its creation.

** In the last episode, [[spoiler:Daisuke tries to approach Gin only to be stopped by the other dogs (even ''John'') snarling at him, resulting in a bittersweet scene of Daisuke having to say goodbye to Gin from a distance, refused the right to touch him. This would make sense in that the dogs won't allow an unknown human approaching their leader, even though Takeda Gohei was allowed to pet and hug ''both'' Gin and Riki just moments before...]]

* TimeSkip: Between episode 3 and 4, Gin has suddenly gone from being a few months old to about a year old, meaning there was a timeskip of at least 6 months. Oddly, Daisuke is still wearing a bandage on his head from his incident in episode 3.
** And yet, few episodes later, we have Riki thinking about how [[LaserGuidedAmnesia he can't remember anything]] from six months ago and earlier. Assuming that falling down the cliff in episode 1 was what caused his amnesia, and that Gin was ''two weeks old'' when it happened, it [[WritersCannotDoMath doesn't make much sense]].

** Benizakura has an X-shaped scar over left eye.

* TheAlcoholic: Gohei.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Bears.

* BigGood: [[spoiler:Riki.]]

* BadassGrandpa: Gohei, who is for some reason even called grandpa by people who are in no way related to him.
** In Japan (and some other countries, like Korea) it's not uncommon to refer to elderly men as grandpa even if they aren't related to you. Same with grandma, as well as aunt and uncle. Kids refer to people outside the family who are older than them as aunt or uncle as a form of respect.

* HongKongDub: The Finnish dub struggles with lip-synching, with characters sometimes still briefly talking after their mouths no longer move or, conversely, their mouths moving after the line is over or even before the line even begins. Still the dialogue mostly manages to start and end exactly where it should. The dialogue issues are due two things: One, being translated through the Swedish script to Finnish either makes some of the dialogue too short or too long to match the lip synching due to Swedish not being easily turned into Finnish and grammatical cords that don't exist in Finnish Grammar.
Two, the dub was rushed, with 4 actors (2 male 2 female) having to do every scene in 1 single take, which slightly hampers their vocal performances. This is due to the company named Golden Voice Oy being a minor dubbing company that had recently started it's business, and therefore not did not have enough resources to do retakes. The dub managed to become popular after over the years, and some fans are attached to it.