Anime / Ginga Densetsu Weed

Balto? Lassie? Pfft. These guys would embarrass them all.

A manga/anime action/adventure series by Yoshihiro Takahashi about dogs who follow a rather bushido-esque code of fighting and loyalty. The series has drama, swearing, and gore.

Ginga Densetsu Weed (Silver Fang Legend: Weed) is a sequel series to Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, serialized in Weekly Manga Goraku from 1999 to 2009. Taking place 10 years after the events of Nagareboshi Gin (some translations give it as fourteen years, but if you use dog years, then everyone's happy), Weed, the son of Gin, must fight to save the father he's never met from Hougen, a Great Dane that threatens his father's paradise. This series was adapted into an anime in the early 00s, starting to air on Animax in 2005. The manga ended at the total of 60 volumes in 2009.

Popular enough in Scandinavia and Finland to produce a complete series DVD box release. Considering the amount of cursing and blood coming from dogs, America is not likely to see a dub anytime soon. You can dig the fansubs up from somewhere, though.

No, Weed isn't what he's smoking. Also not to be confused for Legend of the Galactic Heroes AKA Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu.

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Tropes used in the animated adaptation:

• Abusive Parents: Kyōshirō's main motivation for learning how to fight.
• Action Mom: Cross, Lenny ( in the manga ), and Dog Mother: Sacrificed her life to fight the monkeys (in the manga).
• Adaptational Villainy: Subverted with Hougen's generals Bat, Kite and Buruge. Though, they are villains in both manga and anime, you don't see much action from them in the manga. When the anime came out, the three generals had been upgraded into badasses by giving mind's eye for Bat while Buruge and Kite become generic villains who fight against the heroes. Kite is also given metal hind legs in the anime.
• Adaptational Wimp: Gin, to a degree. In the manga, he eventually makes an effort to escape his confinement despite his wounds (when being encouraged by the ghosts of Smith and John), to which he succeeds as well after a hazardous escape. In the anime, he never makes an effort of getting out, but remains a grunting and passive lifeless body for a good 80% of his screentime until he's eventually saved, and even then doesn't make a single effort of walking or even standing on his own, but has to be carried around constantly.
• Adapted Out: This happened to the poor fairly important manga characters from the Kaibutsu arc and the Hougen arc such as Lenny, Daisuke, Hidetoshi, George, Murder S, Kisaragi, Mole, Ron, Jaguar and Shouji Sudou.
• Adaptation Distillation: And how. The anime removed so many characters and plot points of the manga's Kaibutsu and Hougen arc that it's almost only half of its length. See Adapted Out above for just how many characters were removed, each with their own detailed character and arc. Notable examples include:
  • Shouji Sudou, the retired policeman whose brother and friends Hougen and Genba had brutally murdered before becoming wild dogs. They eventually become a pivotal part of the story, and it's Shouji who originally kills Hougen at the end.
  • Not to mention an adult Daisuke and older Hidetoshi is present throughout the entire Kaibutsu arc, where Daisuke helps taking care of Weed after he's been shot, and both of them witness the dogs' fight against Kaibutsu. In the anime, all of their appearances are replaced by random humans, and Weed is never shot. Daisuke keeps having recurring appearances throughout the Hougen arc as well.
  • The crisis with the humans wiping out nearly all dogs in Ohu is presented as much bigger, and Tokimune himself is killed by Hidetoshi right in front of Weed who thinks he's his father at that point. Weed is shot soon after.
  • Sniper is back as a crippled dog with the new name "Murder S", who joins Hougen's forces and eventually reveals his damaged hind legs has been replaced by deadly metal substitutes, making him an even more terrifying foe than before.
  • In the manga, Gin manages to escape before Hougen's army moves to Ohu. Not wanting to admit this to Hougen, Murder S kills a similar-looking dog to Gin and has Hougen's pack drag said dog with them to trick him. In the anime, Gin escaping on his own doesn't happen, and it really is his body that Hougen's dogs drags with them.
  • Sasuke has a touching subplot where he finds and reunites with his owners after two years apart, though he still returns to join Weed' pack later on.
  • When Weed and his pack finds Tesshin, the latter was told that Gin killed his father and is extremely hostile towards Weed, threatening to kill him and refusing to listen to anything he has to say. It takes a good while before he learns the truth, sees Weed for who he is and ultimately decides to follow him after all.
• Affectionate Parody: The series itself has one in the form of comic pages done by Deviant artist IsisMasshiro, parodying episodes 4, 5 and 6.
• Age Lift: Reika, arguably, as she appears to be around the same age as Weed in the anime (1 year old by the time they meet), while she is an adult in the manga.
• All Dogs Are Purebred: Technically averted, since a lot of the dogs (including Weed himself) are second-generation feral dogs and are confirmed to be mixed-breeds. However, their appearance doesn't indicate this. Weed's appearance is plausible, being the son of two Japanese dogs with the spitz body-type, but Ken looks exactly like his father despite being half-Saluki (then again, the art style doesn't help - said Saluki has the same build as the Akitas, for example).
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Most dogs are normal colors, but Weed, Gin and Tokimune are blue despite labelling them as silver-grey.
• Angry Guard Dog: Weed encounters one of these in the first episode of his series. And kicks its ass.
• Animals Are Easier To Draw: Inverted in the anime that while the dogs were often drawn badly, the humans were drawn well.
• Animal Testing: Kaibutsu's backstory and how he became what he is (just what were they testing on him?)
• Animals Lack Attributes:
  • Every dog is drawn this way, despite the fact one character is known for biting the testicles off of his enemies.
  • This is sometimes averted in the manga though, as some panels clearly show genitals and anuses.
• Animation Bump: The very first and very last episodes are suddenly much more streamlined and detailed. (And almost cute, if there weren't so much blood.)
  • Even then, those episodes didn't emulate Takahashi's style. The episodes coming closest to his style are 6, 10, and the selection of generals for Hougen's army in episode 17, and 21.
  • The animation for episode 5 looked incredibly good, so much so it was the only episode to be animated in that style, giving the impression the animation team behind it was too expensive for the Densetsu Weed team to bring back for another episode.

• Artistic License – Biology:
  • Large dog breeds like Akita Inu (Gin), Tosa Inu (Musashi) and Great Danes (Ben) have an average lifespan of maximum 10-12 years (6 to 8 years in Ben's case). In the manga, the Time Skip since Nagareboshi Gin is 10 years, making it plausible for them all to still be alive (save Ben). The anime however, changes the time skip to 14 years instead, certainly pushing the boundaries, especially when wild dogs in general have a shorter lifespan than pet dogs do.
  • This is especially noticeable with Ken who were born in Nagareboshi Gin and is still portrayed as roughly a young dog.
• Asshole Victim: Jerome mercilessly killing Thunder and Lector was low, but given that both dogs tried to kill Weed twice (and even planned on attempting to kill him again), you can't blame Jerome for what he did. Unless you're Weed, of course.

• Awesome Moment of Crowning: When Gin passes his leadership to Weed, the other dogs respond to this by mass-bowing to him.

• Battle Aura:
  • Smith gets this before taking on Kaibutsu.
  • Similarly, this happens many times to the dogs before the fight begins.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Poor Gin, John and later, Hiro were captured by Hougen after they were outnumbered by Hougen's soldier and were forced to surrender when Reika was taken hostage.
  • In Hokkaidō arc from the manga, almost all of the Ōu Soldiers (led by Gin) were trapped in the gorge at both sides by Victor and the militant German Shepherds.

• Berserk Button:
  • Do not call Kaibutsu by his lab name, "P4". Jerome takes advantage of this to intentionally make Kaibutsu chase after him and his comrades.
  • Someone being needlessly killed is this for Weed, regardless of how much of a bad guy the victim should be. This is driven home when he banishes Jerome after he kills Thunder and Lector (or the fox hound spies in the manga) while they were pleading for their lives.

• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: The number of times attacking dogs change direction in midair and dodge foes...
  • Justified. Flash Step was common in the original series.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The subtitles can read like this sometimes.
  • —->"You son of a bitches!"
  • "I will revenge!"

• Bowdlerise: The anime is a lot less violent than the manga. One prime example would be the torture of John by Hougen and his followers. In the manga, John's stomach has been ripped so that part of his intestines are hanging out, resulting in Hougen grabbing and pulling them out, only to have John bite them clean off causing them to be flunged at Hougen's face. In the anime, this is toned down to Hougen impaling John on a branch, a branch that John then removes to throw at Hougen's face.
  • Another example is Nero's death. In the manga, he tells Hougen that he fled from the Ohu army because they threatened to tear his paws off and urinate on his head. What does Hougen do? He orders his followers to tear his paws off and then urinates on his head. In the anime, he slits Nero's neck off-screen, then tosses his body into a crowd of his horrified subordinates.
• Broken Aesop: While Weed's sympathy and "if you kill them you're just like them" philosophy is arguably the biggest Aesop in the anime. Even after Hougen proves himself irredeemable time and time again, Weed refuses to kill him or allow any of his followers to kill. He even tackles Gin to rescue Hougen from execution. This is the reason Jerome goes off on his own and Kyoushiro almost follows him. However, after Hougen declares himself king of Gajō because Gin refuses to kill him, he gets struck by lightning and the narrator explains that the gods have passed judgment, implying the even gods themselves recognize that Hougen just needs to die. What.
  • Weed's moral isn't "Never kill, ever" but "Only kill as a last resort". What sets him off is when he sees someone, even a villain, about to be killed when he's already been defeated or has no means of defending himself. The anime makes this confusing however with Hougen's lightning death, when he's originally killed by a vengeful hunter in the manga.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Hiro confronts Kamakiri about killing his father, Kamakiri mockingly says he doesn't remember it.

• Call-Back: The part where Weed gets pissed off at Jerome for killing Thunder and Lector while they were defenseless is reminiscent of the Nagareboshi Gin episode where John killed two defenseless bear cubs right in front of Gin, which pissed him off. What brings it more home is that even the same dog breeds are used (Gin and Weed = Akita, John and Jerome = German Shepherd).
• Calling Your Attacks:
  • "Zetsu! TENRŌ! BATTŌGA!!"
  • In the manga, Weed’s brothers Joe and Yukimura do this as well with their attack Neck The Killing.
• The Cameo: Riki and Benizakura can be seen among the ghosts at the final battle.
• Canis Major: Kaibutsu. According to the guidebook, he weighs at around 1200 pounds.
• Canon Foreigner: Jerome's helpers Ryu, Ryo, Heita and Hanji.
• Cavalry of the Dead: While they're not doing any actual fighting, the spirits of all the past Ohu soldiers (including the recently deceased such as Smith and John) appears at Weed's battle against Hougen, giving Weed the strength to stand up again after he's nearly been defeated, and simultaneously gives Hougen a bad scare by directly speaking to him, apparently only being visible to him and Weed. And when Weed's next Battouga misses, a sudden powerful wind is created to send him spinning straight back towards Hougen. (The manga version is especially intense.) In the anime only, they're also implied to have created the lightning that ultimately kills Hougen.
• Changing of the Guard: Most of the characters from Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin get sons or otherwise similar characters to take over their roles.
• Character Development: Special mention goes to Smith who went from being the Plucky Comic Relief to The Mentor in ten years.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The anime never mentions where Ken's two siblings from GNG are at. In the manga, the Cross-looking male named George eventually makes an appearance however, and through a flashback we learn that his and Ken's sister (the Ben and Ken-looking female) drowned in a river.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Hougen tortures poor Gin and John during their captivity.

• Cursed with Awesome: Though the Zetsu tenrō battōga is a lethal attack if delivered successfully, it requires such a huge amount of energy that the user will have a hard time gathering up strength to even stand again afterwards.

• Damsel in Distress:
  • There is a female warrior, one out of only two female warriors in a cast full of dozens of males, that is there for no other purpose then to become a hostage. She literally becomes this minutes after she is introduced, being defeated and captured with no effort, and is not heard from again after being rescued.

• David Versus Goliath: Regular-sized dogs vs an oversized mutant dog Kaibutsu.

• Death by Falling Over: Kaibutsu was finally defeated by Weed, Ken, Kagetora and Jerome who pushed off the cliff and got himself impaled by a sharp branch from the log in the middle of the waterfall.
• Death Equals Redemption: Blue upon dying confesses how he would have been a good guy, had he only met the right "people" sooner.
• Defiant to the End: John, to the point that in the manga, while he is being tortured by having his intestines pulled out, he bites them off. They attempted to "soften" this for the anime, with him pulling out a large tree branch that is stabbing his body and hitting Hōgen with it, but the scene is still very graphic.
• Dies Wide Open: Most dogs die like this in violent deaths especially for the C-List Fodder.
• Disney Death: Because of Anyone Can Die being in effect, this is a rare example were this trope is pulled off believably for much of the audience. During the final battle with Hougen, after being repeatedly slammed into the ground like a rag doll, Weed looks very dead laying in the snow, covered in blood and with his eyes wide open. His father and the other characters think he's dead, but he is just stunned, and somehow gets up.

• Dying Moment of Awesome: John, who'd been badly wounded and starved for what was perhaps several weeks, still holds his ground for a good while against Hougen's mooks, killing and injuring several of them, and eventually faces Hougen himself, pissing off the latter even as he's defeated, by giving a determined speech about how his spirit will live on with his friends, and no Ohu soldier would ever succumb to Hougen. As a result, Hougen makes one last attack on John who is then left bleeding to death in the snow, and, while Hougen walks away, (the manga especially) narrates how despite having killed him, he wonders why he's shivering, being the first time in his life anyone had ever frightened him.

• Even Evil Has Standards: To a degree, some of Hougen's followers are appalled by his frantic beating of John even after he's long defeated, and attempts to tell him to stop it.
• Evil Old Folks: Kamakiri the old Irish Wolfhound, and Murder S (Sniper) in the manga who also counts as the Evil Cripple.
• The Fagin: Blue. At first, he seems a nice dog who acts as a father figure when he adopts the abandoned puppies (Hook and his deceased brother Kuro, and later Mel) but later, it turns out that he only uses the puppies to steal food from humans, and will beat or even kill them if they oppose him.
• Fake Defector: Kyōshirō pretended to betray the Ōu Soldiers so that he could inflitrate Gajō to find out about Hougen's plans but it didn't go as planned...
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Being a Shonen, there's lots of it.

• Forgotten Fallen Friend: While the dogs are mourning Smith in episode 5, no one is mourning Jerome's comrade North who died just a few moments before Smith.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Hougen and Genba were just a pair of poor Great Danes which were locked up and abandoned in the run-down kennel. With months of starvation, fighting and cannibalizing other dogs, they later killed their owner and broke free which then later they became the most feared rogue dogs.
• Gecko Ending: While the manga series is long with 60 volumes, the anime ended at 26 episodes.
• Generation Xerox:
  • Weed looks identical to his dad at that age. The same goes for Weed's oldest son Sirius, who also looks exactly like his father. Not to mention Gin, Weed, and Sirius all have the same type of personality.
  • Also, when Weed in the last episode poses on top of Gajou with his closest comrades; Kyoushiro = John. Tesshin = Akame.

• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  • Most evil characters have this to make them look badass.
  • And also Weed when he unleashes his battōga
• Gory Discretion Shot: Though the anime is as bloody and gory as the manga, some death scenes had discretion shots. For example, when Hougen mercy-killed the paralyzed and insane Genba, the next scene only showed Gajou with Genba's scream echoing the background before switching to the scene with Genba's carcass.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: As seen in fighting scenes, the stronger dog would pick up another dog and always use it as a weapon or a shield.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars:
  • Happens to wild dogs and pet hunting dogs, though some of the villains are more deformed.
  • Subverted by Aram/Alam in the manga, who is missing the skin of his muzzle. Although introduced as a villain, he later makes a heel-face turn.
• Gratuitous Ninja: Akame and Tesshin both count, like whoa. Tesshin is even referred to as the 'ninja dog of Kōga'.
• Groin Attack: Hiro's specialty. Taken one step further with castration.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Both Weed and Gin have blue fur in the anime, but it's really meant to be silvery.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • Smith, who was left with three legs after an accident, can still fight. He fights Kaibutsu, but gets a cave-in dropped on him. And then it turns out that Kaibutsu is Not Quite Dead...
  • The villainous blind Labrador, Bat, (not so much in the manga) also counts.
  • As well as the three-legged Husky Hakurō and the deformed Murder S (Sniper), both in the manga.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Zig-zagged. Riki's bloodline has natural strength and intelligence in it, causing Weed to be a capable fighter already as a puppy, much like his father before him. Although, while Gin still had to train, Weed hardly ever does, and is still capable of becoming the leader and defeating the Big Bad. Then again, it's possibly referenced with how Gin's first ever Battouga tore the head of a giant bear, while Weed struck a regular dog with several Battougas, none of which killed him (seriously injured in the end, but still, didn't kill).

• Heroic Lineage: Weed inherits natural strength from his father the way Gin did from Riki.

• Heroic Second Wind: Weed is badly beaten by Hougen at their fight and nearly dies, yet manages to stand up again after being encouraged by the spirits of past Ohu soldiers.

• Hong Kong Dub: The dog's mouths don't always move in synch with what they're saying, if at all, and even when someone has a mouthful of enemy throat, they can still speak clearly. This gets especially frustrating if they're supposed to be thinking. This may be done on purpose, as they aren't actually speaking Japanese, they're barking. But, every animator does this differently: one doesn't animate the mouths, the second draws the dogs barking, and the third animates the dogs like they were talking.

• Humans Are Bastards:
  • A main motivation for Hougen, Genba, and Kaibutsu. Plus, you do actually see people doing things like shooting dogs and running them over.
  • The manga subverts this. Some humans are bastards, some are not. The anime doesn't really focus on humans very often, but at least in the case of Jerome and his original allies, it seems they were well cared for - however this was by the same people who made Kaibutsu what he is, so it's really a mixed bag.
  • The story actually handles this well. From the perspective of the dogs the humans are attacking them without a reason, but the humans have a good reason to think that the dog pack has gone feral and has started to kill humans. Even Hidetoshi hunted his former friend John because he felt that the least he could do was to be the one to kill him. Also the scientists who created Kaibutsu were not simply being evil, but were experimenting on genetic transplant treatment. Only human we see being evil without any redeeming qualities is the owner of Hougen and Genba.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Jerome is one of most competent dogs of Weed's pack until he was banished by his leader after killing Lecter and Thunder. Though in the manga, he came back from his banishment after Murder S' defeat and remains as Weed's hypercompetent sidekick.

• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Hougen takes Reika hostage in order to blackmail Gin and John into letting themselves get caught (and beaten half to death). Later he tells Reika he intends to keep her captured because he wants her as his mate and she's gonna give birth to his puppies. Poor Reika is terrified.

• Intellectual Animal: All the dogs qualify, plus some boars. (Interestingly enough, none of the bears ever speak the same language the dogs and boars do, but they are shown talking to one another in a untranslated language, leaving us to forever wonder what the hell they said.)
• Intimate Healing: When Weed's group finds him nearly having frozen to death in a river they help him get warm again by making a huddle around him.
• Irony: Kaibutsu, a giant, insane mutant dog is defeated after roughly three episodes. Hougen, a regular Great Dane serves as the Big Bad for the rest of the serie.
• Japanese Politeness: Played with. It's considered rude to mock an opponent, but if they mock you, it's seriously on. If a dog jeers unprovoked, he's probably a bad guy, and expect Gin and Weed to epitomize this trope.
• Jerkass: Kamakiri, Genba, Hougen. Also GB and Kyōshirō, but the good kind.

• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Towards the ending there's a scene where Hougen, Jerome and Reika are being swept through a river. To Jerome's surprise he sees Hougen grab Reika and pull her towards the shore as if he intends to save her, however it turns out he was only going to use her as a stepping object to help himself get out of the water.
• Karmic Death: Hougen's death by lightning (or in the manga's case, shot by a vengeful human)

• Large and in Charge: The Great Dane brothers, Hougen and Genba. Kamakiri used to be this as he is one of the largest dog breed (he is an Irish Wolfhound) of the anime/manga until his ass was handed in a huimilating way by Hougen.
• Large Ham: Moss, Kurotora, Hougen, Kamakiri and to the certain extent, Hiro as they have no indoor voices whenever they speak.

• Leitmotif: Anytime the mood shifts, expect the music to let you know it's coming. Weed's acoustic theme during lectures is about the only subtle one.
• Let Them Die Happy: While the scene plays similarily in the anime, the manga version is easily sadder when Weed, Hook and Sasuke finds the dying John. Upon seeing Weed, John cries tears of relief and asks for Akame, to which they make him believe he's there, listening to his requests while telling him they've gathered an army of 1,000 soldiers that have succeeded in rescuing Gin and capturing Hougen, and that if he just waits for five more minutes, Hougen will be lied down in front of him. In reply, John calls "Akame" an idiot, saying he's hardly got five minutes, and "I'm sorry... I've always hated waiting...", before thinking to himself that he must go to hell to defeat Akakabuto once more, and ultimately dies.
• Living Prop: The background characters, Harutora and Nobutora. Basically they are Kagetora's brothers who are introduced in both the manga and anime with no lines and role other than as soldiers.

• Luke, You Are My Father: Weed pulls this on Gin in Kaibutsu Arc, who is actually a substitute called Tokimune and he doesn't have a clue what the puppy is talking about before he dies.

• Mercy Kill: When Genba was heavily-wounded, paralyzed and gone insane from the damage by Tesshin (and in the anime's case, Shigure), poor Hougen had to mercy-kill his own brother by snapping his neck (in the manga, Hougen bit his brother's head and tore his whole brain out).
• Missing Mom: Lots of dogs have this, though no one knows what happened to the mother dogs... with one exception: Weed's mother.

• Mood Whiplash:
  • Weed gets over the death of his mother extremely fast.
  • Also, Kaibutsu's flashback which moved him to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in a single chapter.
• My Master, Right or Wrong:
  • Jerome. In episode 5 he informs Kaibutsu how wrong the latter was to attack and flee from the humans that had been torturing him for 5 years because "it's a dog's duty to obey his master and endure any pain he should put you through." Oddly enough he then averts this at the beginning of episode 6 where he "tells" the humans about to land with a helicopter that he won't obey to their cruel ways anymore and that they should stay away, or he'll attack them the minute they set foot on the ground.
  • He epitomizes this trope after he accepts Weed as his leader. Even when he kills Thunder and Lector in the anime, he tells Weed that he did it for him, agrees that he did something wrong even though he thought it was right only a few seconds ago, is willfully exiled, and even tells Kyoushiro to go back to Weed when he follows him.

• Nobody Poops: Averted. When Hougen first meets Gin, he kindly introduces himself before abruptly defecating right in front of him. And then he dares Gin to eat his shit.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • When Weed, who nearly died from Hougen's beatings, is magically resurrected with the help of ghosts during the final battle.
  • Hougen does this many times. It is rather pitiful that while a gigantic monstrous demon bear is taken down after one hit with a battōga, Hougen doesn't bite it until roughly THREE battōgas and a direct lightning strike.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: During the final battle, Weed was beaten to the point of death by Hougen that Gin could not help his son but to shed tears in defeat. Just when Weed's friends rush to fight Hougen, Weed suddenly rises up from the dead with the help of the ghosts of Ōu soldiers. This scared Hougen so much that Weed took his advantage to defeat him with his final battōga.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: The Zetsou Tenrou Battouga, allowing the user's bite to gain a massive force by spinning. Gin used it to decapitate Akakabuto, and Weed uses it to defeat Hougen, cracking his skull by delivering a straight blow of his fangs to his head.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Just like its prequel series, this happens quite frequently. The Angry Guard Dog panicking when he sees Smith is just one of the first.
  • The look on Hougen's face when he sees Weed performing the battōga attack for the first time.
• One-Man Army: Weed is seen as a one puppy army in the anime opening.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Ben's son is called Ken.
• Only Known by Initials: GB. His full name is Great Britain. Of course, nobody ever calls him like that.

• Parental Abandonment: Sakura, Weed's mom, dies in the first episode, leaving Weed in the care of some of his father's old friends.
• Passing the Torch: Gin makes Weed the new leader after he's defeated Hougen and given a Rousing Speech about the power of kindness.

• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Weed is this to a ridiculous level, besting dogs many times his size. It helps that he has a basically magical attack (although it's technically never actually called magical) inherited from his father that is said to originate from wolves.
• Plot Hole: At one point it's revealed that some dogs are not the dogs they claim they are, they just look identical to them. The plot hole in this is, why didn't the other dogs smell the difference in their sents or notice their different voices? There is no way they could mimic the sents and sounds of the dogs they were pretending to be.
  • When it comes to the dogs acting as substitutes for Gin, John and Akame, it's implied that they never actually had physical contact with any other dogs, but watched over the Twin mountains in the background. This is supported when we see Ken trying to reach "Gin", who's really Tokimune, and the latter tells him to stay away, because if he had gotten too close he'd indeed might be able to tell from the scent that it wasn't Gin.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The violence and gore had to be toned down for the anime adaptation, but it still has far more blood than you would see in a Talking Animal work in the west.

• Put on a Bus: Teru and the younger members in Kyōshirō's pack were left behind in the care of the Koga elder at the Kōga territory while the Ōu soldiers move on to their destination.
  • In the manga, Teru and the younger members return as Badass Adorable adolescent ninja dogs in Hokkaidō arc when Kyōshirō went to the territory to look for recruits.
• The Quiet One: Rocket
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Batto, Kite, Buruge and Toube
• Rasputinian Death: Hougen, to a degree. In both anime and manga, he takes several hits of Weed's Battouga, though thanks to them not being delivered with full force he recovers each time. Even when Weed finally manages a full forced blow to his head which causes his skull to crack, he still manages to stand up after a few moments and climbs all the way to the top of Gajou. It finally takes a well placed lightning bolt (presumably created by the past Ohu soldiers' ghosts) to end him. In the manga, he stands up after the same grievous injury as well, though he's more clearly shown to have completely lost his sanity and is simply having a "death walk" with his last bit of strength, until Shouji appears and blows his brains out.

• Rewrite: The first episode offers a flashback to the ending of Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, changing some facts around such as decreasing the number of dogs present, narrating the attack was lead by Gohei when originally he only appeared at the last minute, and most prominently showing Gin defeating Akakabuto by tearing through his stomach with his Battouga as opposed to originally decapitating him.
• Rule of Cool: Don't ask how a dog spinning in midair suddenly becomes the equivalent of a mechanical saw, just watch how awesome it is.
• Save the Villain: In the second episode, Weed tries to save Blue from getting hit by a truck. In episode 16, he tries to stop Jerome from killing both of the doberman brothers.
• Secret Test of Character: Gin performed one on Weed by pretending to try to kill Hougen. When Weed stops him, Gin reveals that it was a test and that Weed passed. This is clearer in the manga than it is in the anime.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Smith sacrifices himself in an attempt to kill Kaibutsu in a cave-in. But Kaibutsu survives and only receives a few cuts and bruises.
  Kagetora: "Old man Smith died for nothing?!"
• Shaped Like Itself: The monster dog is called "Kaibutsu" which means "monster".
• Shoot the Dog: Literally. Hunters are rallied together to shoot the dogs living in Ohu, believing them to be responsible for the dead people discovered in the area. In the manga, one of these hunters is an aged Hidetoshi, who winds up shooting the dogs he believes to be Gin and John with a sad expression (turns out they were actually Gin and John's substitutes however.)
• Shown Their Work: Most of the dogs' character designs are based on real dog breeds. Yes, even Genba and Hougen - they're Harlequin Great Danes◊. (However, some of them don't look like the breeds they're supposed to be. Cross is a saluki?◊)

• The Smurfette Principle: This happens a lot in both 'Ginga Nagareboshi Gin' and Weed.' In Weed.'' there are only two female dogs in the cast. Only one has any combat ability, whereas all the males are badasses. One is Damsel in Distress and the other is there to be a mother of a male character's pups.
• Snow Means Death: Just like in Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, the battle against the Big Bad takes place in a snowstorm.
  • It's likewise snow-covered surroundings during John's last moments.
  • Toube freezes to death after fighting Kamikiri and his pack. The next day, the Ohu soldiers find him...literally frozen to death.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Weed, GB, Jerome and Kyōshirō
  • Other than the four dogs above, Sasuke also fills this role in the manga.
• The Starscream: Kamakiri always wished to take over Hougen's position, but of course, he fails at this.
• Stout Strength: Moss. He is not only a fat mastiff, he is also strong enough to toss several dogs around and his fat took many dogs to bite him until he bled to death in Hokkaido arc in the manga.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Played straight between Gin and Weed. In the manga, Daisuke immediately wonders if the wounded puppy he's helping is Gin's son, because of said resemblance.
• Struck a Lightning Bolt On Him: Hougen
• Suicide Attack: Jerome and his comrades, whose tactic consists of charging Kaibutsu one by one and bite into his chest area, where his heart is located. Doing so, Kaibutsu will pull them off, killing them in the process, but not without them using his own force to rip parts of his chest out, leaving more and more access to his heart for the next attacker. By the time it's Jerome's turn, he reaches all the way in to his heart, however, ends up letting go as his injuries are too great. Although the attack does give Weed's group the opportunity to kill Kaibutsu themselves, having progressively slowed him down and weakened him.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Chūtora is described as being dead by most of the characters, but there is no actual explanation for his death.

• Talking Is a Free Action: Episode 3 has an especially ridiculous example. Weed and the other dogs blabber on and on, and Kaibutsu even has time to turn around and prepare to attack, while Weed is in mid air. He was not near far enough away before he jumped for them to have time to say and do all that; he would have to just float there in the air for this scene to work as presented, despite the action lines that seem to indicate he's blowing at a fast speed through the air.
• Taking the Bullet: Jerome does this to protect his pack from the dog hunters though he is still alive. He refuses treatment from Tesshin as he prefers to keep the bullet in his leg as sort of a punishment for himself.
• Tears of Blood: The mortally-wounded John has bloody tears in his last moments.
• Two Girls to a Team: The only female dogs in Weed's army are Reika and Cross. Cross can still fight despite her old age (as seen in the manga), but Reika has no combat ability.
  • Also, the female dogs Lydia and Koyuki joined in the later volumes of the manga; Lydia has combat ability and Koyuki doesn't.
• Theme Naming: The borzoi brothers Rocket, Jet, and Missile are named after speeding machines.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Somewhat zig-zagged with Weed as he is willing to kill an enemy in self-defense or otherwise when it's the last way out, but killing someone who's defenseless and/or are pleading for their lives is a major Berserk Button for him, to the point he even refuses to kill the Big Bad when the latter's been wounded so badly he can hardly stand, and lectures his father (who to be fair was actually just giving him a Secret Test of Character anyway) and everyone present for wanting to do so.
• Toilet Humour: During the hot spring scene, when the characters go offscreen a dog suddenly asks "Hey, who the hell farted?", and another exclaims "Argh, my nose is bending!". They all burst out laughing.
• Took a Level in Badass:

• In the manga, the mortally-wounded GB took a huge level of badass when he rips off Hybrid Bear's claw before dying completely.
• Mel who attempts to take on a bunch of Hougen's mooks wanting to take over Gajou. While he ultimately proves too weak to handle them, he still stands his ground for a good while and manages to get in a few hits against them, this when he's an adolescent and they're adults.
• Reika has a moment when she realizes Hougen is about to kill Hiro and Mel in front of her, something she distracts him from doing by telling him she's fallen for him. What follows is Hougen dropping his guard which gives her the opportunity to push him into the raging river nearby, though not without falling in herself. Her screaming "YOU DEVIL!" in the middle of pushing him adds to it.

• Villain's Dying Grace: The minor villain Blue's last act is to save Weed's life from another oncoming truck, when the puppy risked it trying to save him.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Rocket kind of gets this after he joins Weed's group.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kyoushiro when he first shows up, does a living by beating and sometimes killing parents he finds abusing their children, as a payback for having had an abusive father himself.
• What the Hell Are You?: Kamikiri and his dogs had nearly beaten Toube to death and leave his body there. But when Toube gets up, Kamikiri has a look of shock on his face, and he says this almost every word-for-word:
  Kamikiri: What the hell is he?!
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Weed, who's barely a year old (the equivalent to an 11-15 year old), somehow develops an immense understanding of life and death, justice and evil, which is particularily noticable in his speech to the puppies in episode 16 (who are what, a few months younger than him?) Fans' opinion differ on whether it's impressive or an Ass Pull.

• The Worf Effect: When Gin, John and Akame first encounters Hougen, John attacks him only to find Hougen dodging and slamming him back into a wall. Gin and Akame are shocked, and it's what prompts them to realize Hougen poses a serious threat.
• Would Hurt a Child: Thunder and Lector, the Doberman Pinscher assassins for Hougen, threaten to kill Teru if his father didn't kill Kyoshiro. It was also personal, since Kyoshiro was the one who tore off Teru's father's ear.
• You Have Failed Me: Hougen and his allies are not merciful when someone screws up (screwing up here having the meaning of being in any way connected to a bad incident).
• You Killed My Father: Happens to poor Hiro when Kamakiri killed his father as a puppy. Later on, he fights Kamakiri singlehandly in a showdown, and guess what... he castrates Kamakiri, leaving him bleeding to death.
  • The trope is also subverted twice (not a double subversion) with Weed. Shortly after he arrives at Ōu, he finally sees his father, Gin... and then sees his father die. The first subversion is only in the manga: humans are responsible, but Weed blames Kaibutsu instead. (In the anime, Kaibutsu kills 'Gin' directly.) The second subversion: it turns out that it wasn't Gin, but instead a look-a-like. Weed's father is alive, but doesn't show up until later.

Tropes used in the manga:

• 10-Minute Retirement: When Jerome was banished by Weed after he killed the Foxhound Spies, several dogs such as Kyoushiro, George and Ron called it quits and decided to join Jerome. However, they later went back to Weed after Jerome told them off that it wasn't necessary.
• A Friend in Need: In one manga arc, Daisuke (Gin's owner) and Hidetoshi come to Hokkaidō to investigate an army of dogs led by Weed moving to the place. Upon reaching the site, they saw the dogs howling over the unconscious Gin. Daisuke shouted for his former pet to wake up, and with The Power of Friendship and love, it worked.

• Animal Control Does Not Exist: While in the first volumes we hear about Hook's time in a shelter and see a dog catcher in volume 3, the amount of abandoned dogs, especially purebred ones, is staggering. There also seems to be a sort of 'meh' mentality among the owners about their pet, since only once does anybody come to look for their pet who escaped to join Weed. And even then the dog leaves permanently later
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Kotetsu, the younger brother of Koyuki.
• Anthropomorphic Shift: Sasuke, GB and Hiro are the main culprits of this in the comedic moments.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • Murder S (Sniper) has implanted metal legs.
  • Kite has these in the anime, but a number of fans were rather unhappy about this.
• Ax-Crazy: Shogun the gelada baboon. Literally in this case since his main weapon is an axe.
• Babies Ever After: Weed and Koyuki at the end of the manga
• Bears Are Bad News: In the last volumes of the manga, gigantic bears terrorize the dogs and humans.
• Big Brother Instinct: Happens many times when the younger sibling is in trouble. One such instance is that when George was injured by Hybrid Bear and just as he was about to get killed, Ken rushed in just in time with a battle aura and a howl from Ben's spirit saved him.
• Body Horror: The Not Quite Dead deformed Murder S (Sniper) and Aramu.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Hiro plays this trope straight in the manga more than the anime. Moss is kind of an example of this too.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Hiro's puppies and Kotetsu in the manga.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Poor GB pisses all over the ground in fear when he first runs into Kaibutsu.
• Busman's Holiday: Weed tried to have a honeymoon vacation with Koyuki but it was interrupted when his close friends brought the news to him about his father fighting Victor in Hokkaido.
• Catapult Nightmare: The injured captive Gin wakes up from a nightmare about Weed being ambushed and killed by Hougen.
• Chickification: Unfortunately, this happened to Lydia after her Heel–Face Turn in the later arcs. It also applies to Cross, though it started in the first anime/manga.
• Combat Medic: Akame is not only an old ninja dog who fights but also a medic who helps the injured dogs with herbs and even putting the injured Tesshin's intestines back in its place in an Ōu soldier-style surgery.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: When GB witnesses Weed's mother die, he tries to sneak away, thinking how it's not his problem. He changes his mind shortly after however, realizing he can't leave a puppy alone.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Nero's death in the manga. Nero had all four of his legs ripped off by Hougen's minions and his face was peed on by Hougen himself before he finally dies.
• Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: Mel was brainwashed by Blue into his slave. When his mother Lenny arrived with Weed to see him, he was forced to fight against his mother but with the help of Weed, Hook, GB (by fighting Blue and his minions) and Lenny's Power of Love by talking him down, it worked when Mel finally managed to overcome the brainwashing and turned on Blue.
• Demoted to Extra: Happens to some dogs as the manga progresses, most notably Mel, Hook, and Shigure.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: In the manga, the dying GB asks for Weed to hug him. Needless to say, his wish is fulfilled, and GB dies as Weed is still embracing him.
• Disposable Females: Happens to many female dogs in both the manga and anime. Especially for Sakura, Lenny, Minnie and Joe's mate, Hitomi.
• Emphasize EVERYTHING: Every narration in the manga is always filled with descriptions that glorifies Weed or bearhound blood.
• Evil Cripple: Sniper comes back under the name Murder S in the manga with a wheelchair when he heard that Gin was captured by Hougen. When Hougen and his soldiers had to move to Gajō, Hougen decided that Murder S was useless by burying him alive but the old doberman convinced him with his wits before the act was carried out. Then, after Hougen dug him out of the soil, Murder S wakes up and breaks his cart which also revealed his metal legs. Murder S then trained himself to fight with using his metal back legs turning him into a deadly opponent.
• Eye Scream: Happens to Hiro in a flashback and recently to Musashi in the manga.
• Gasshole: Near the beginning of the manga, GB gets so nervous that he accidentally farts in front of his boss Nero. But then again, he might do it on purpose because Nero and his dogs had just smelled Weed nearby, so GB's fart effectively hid his scent from them. When the dogs get mad at him, he replies "I don't have that much control when nature calls!".
• Gentle Giant: Moss may look intimidating, but he is actually very sweet towards puppies.
• Hammerspace: During the moment when Reika gave birth to her four puppies, the tearful Sasuke was able to produce a handkerchief out of thin air!
  • As well as GB and Sasuke's comic relief moments when they were insulting at each other with a long pole! See it for yourself...◊
• Heel–Face Turn: Buruge, Bat, Kite, Toube, Maxime and Lydia.
• He's All Grown Up: Daisuke has become a mature and handsome man by the time of this story, and also mentions that he's in a relationship.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Shouji Sudou the retired policeman had a hatred for dogs ever since Hougen and Genba had killed his partner on the fateful mission. He is so determined to ensure that there are no other dogs who follow Hougen's example that in one case, he was ready to shoot Moss and the injured Tesshin who stayed behind to rest. Fortunately, he heard the other dogs' howls which stopped him from shooting both just in time. In the end, he finally shot the worn-out and heavily-wounded Hougen after the final battle.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Lydia the only female of the Russian Dog Army betrayed Victor after falling in love with Jerome who was briefly taken captive.
• Identical Grandson:
  • Weed's oldest son Sirius looks exactly like his father and grandfather.
  • Weed's second oldest son Orion looks like his great-grandfather Riki.
  • Weed's oldest brother Yukimura looks a lot like Riki as well.
• I Want to Be a Real Man: Takeshi, who is one of Kyōshirō's followers, is a scared little puppy who got kidnapped by Kamakiri. After he escaped with the help of a Heel Face Turned Toube, he saw Kyōshirō in trouble fighting against Hougen's minions. This pushed his Berserk Button; he rushed in to help his mentor to fight them, but fails to when the minion beat him to near-death. Thankfully, it got better when the other heroes turned up in time and saved Kyōshirō from death as well as reviving the unconscious Takeshi.
  • Even though foreign readers could read very little Japanese in the manga, they could guess that he was screaming "I'M A REAL MALE!!!" in that scene when he rushed for Kyōshirō to help him.
• In a Single Bound: The dogs have jumped over plenty of gorges, usually succeeding with one leap. Just see how stunned they looked when they see a puppy fly over the gorge! However, the old handicapped Smith almost fails this, but he gets saved by Ken and Kagetora just in time
• Interrupted Suicide: Chōrō the oldest Kōga dog was dismayed when he found his disciple Tesshin befriending Weed instead of defeating him. The upset Chōrō went to the cliff and tried to jump off to drown in the river below when Weed, Tesshin and his friends managed to turn up on time and saved him. After Weed talked him out of suicide, Chōrō found his purpose by becoming a mentor of the puppies who were left behind.
• Lightning Bruiser: George, the second son of Ben and Cross may look weak for a saluki-mix. Unlike his Great Dane-mix brother Ken, he is not only fast but also has his father's strength.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Victor and his Russian Dog Army in Hokkaidō arc.
• Mutual Kill: Weed's oldest brother Yukimura and the Big Bad Shogun both died from injuries they inflicted on each other.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Aramu got very guilty when he was ordered to kill his friend Maxime and throw him into the gorge where the Ōu dogs were held captive by Victor's orders (though Maxime wasn't really dead). However, he finally got over his guilt when he drowned both Victor and himself underwater as Weed was unable to finish off Victor.
• Nightmare Face: When Murder S (Sniper) loses the metal plate on his left face, the results are not very pretty.
  • Also, Aramu's face as he had a missing skin and nose on his fleshy muzzle.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: During Gin's captivity, he's eventually visited by the ghosts of Smith and John, who encourages him to attempt to escape. They appear before him a second time when he nearly passes out in the attempt, ultimately causing him to succeed, with some luck as well (he's found by humans just in time before Hougen's followers gets to him.)
• Off with His Head!:
  • This happened to Jerome's subordinate Noss when Kaibutsu decapitated him in the tunnel by biting his neck hard before throwing his severed head to the waiting dogs outside Gajou Mountain.
  • This also happened to Kamakiri's minion Stone when he got beheaded by Murder S in the match.
• Only Known by Initials: Again, GB.
• Plot Armor: Near the beginning of the manga, Weed gets shot. A lot (there were at least 34 bullets in him, according to a later scene). Not only is he back on his feet after a few days, but he is also showing absolutely no signs of being shot over thirty freaking times afterwards. Did I already mention that the protagonist in question is a months old puppy? No wonder the anime took this out (although to be fair, the anime did also add in the ridiculous scene where Weed uses the Battōga on a dog before having any training or even knowing what it was).
• Redemption Equals Death: Subverted when Buruge used to be Hougen's Mook until he quits his mook job and joins the Ōu Army, he doesn't die in both arcs (Battle for Gajō arc and Dogs vs Monkeys arc). Later on in Hokkaidō Arc, Buruge dies from fighting against the militant German Shepherds as an Ōu Soldier.
  • Toube the tosa mastiff fits more in this trope
  • While GB isn't a bad guy, he often curses himself for his cowardice, until they fight the hybrid bear in which he finally finds his courage and furiously attacks and wounds it. However, he suffers lethal wounds in return and dies shortly afterwards while Weed cries and hugs him.
• Retired Badass: The old dogs who used to be Ōu warriors in Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin.
• The Reveal: Weed has two older brothers, Joe and Yukimura. They were taken care of by another dog as Sakura had been too sickly and weak to care for three puppies.
• Sadistic Choice: In GB's backstory where he reveals to Weed that he had met Hougen once before during a time when he had looked after a couple of abandoned puppies, a minor villain character had been faced with this. One day GB decided to risk showing the puppies to Nero, only to arrive the same day Hougen was controlling Nero's territory. Upon seeing the puppies, Hougen threw a fit and questioned Nero where they came from, blaming him for breeding without his consent and hiding females from him. Nero desperately tried to explain the puppies weren't his, to which Hougen then ordered for the puppies to be thrown in front of him... and asking him to kill them if he was telling the truth. Nero, knowing Hougen would kill him instead if he refused to kill them, conceded. While poor GB was watching. And Hougen was laughing.
• The Chew Toy: GB and Sasuke are always mistreated in every comic relief scene in the manga.
• Tunnel King: Mole the dachshund may look small and useless to the group but he proves to be a useful ally when he uses his digging skills to dig through a tunnel to Gin's prison for stealth purposes.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Hiro and Reika.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Averted. Gin and Weed gather thousands of dogs, both pets and strays, to fight the villainous dogs Hougen and Victor. The humans are startled at the sight.
• Villainous Breakdown: Happens to Victor when he's really, really pissed off
• Wasteland Elder: Chōrō the oldest Kōga dog in the ruined Kōga territory. Though the territory is not exactly ruined, he and the new generation of Kōga dogs reside in the underground cave.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: George's fear of water.
• Would Hit a Girl: Played straight in Hokkaidō Arc with the Ōu Soldiers and Victor's army were fighting in the gorge. When the reformed Lydia tries to defend Jerome from the German Shepherd Mook, Victor's brother Bozlef grabs her tail and slams her to the wall temporarily knocking her out.
• You Shall Not Pass!: A worn-out and injured Moss the mastiff tries to fight a horde of militant German Shepherds while the young dogs try to escape from the gorge. Unfortunately, he died of his injuries and the concerned young dogs ran back to him.
• Xenofiction: Much like its predecessor, the manga and its anime are about feral talking dogs living the wild and fighting against injustice.

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