This anime is amazing. But it is also one of the rare few anime where I actually preferred the dub over the sub. The 5 star review is for the Dubbed version not found on Crunchy. I would have to drop my review down to 3 or 4 stars if I was only reviewing this subbed version. Which is weird since I usually prefer subbed versions. Usually the sub versions are better as they stick truer to the original style and emotions of the original anime. However, in rare occasions I find the English dubbed preferable, such as this one. These situations are usually because there is just too much dialogue going on that I am forced to read which makes me miss the action itself. There is a little bit of that here, but in reality the main reason I prefer the dub version is the thing which makes this anime unique - the Narrator. Back during the 80s and 90s animated fairy tales were popular and always started off with a narrator starting it off with, "Once upon a time, long long ago..." then the narrator would go silent except when needed for scene transitions or closing up the story with "and they lived happily ever after. The end." There also were two popular movies around this time called The Princess Bride and Ella Enchanted which also had a live narrator but poked a bit of fun at it. I bring all of this up because the one thing which makes this anime unique is the Narrator and how she breaks the fourth wall while poking fun at both the characters in the story and the genre of narrated fairy tales. The problem for the sub version is that while both the sub and dub versions do this, the subbed version causes too much text to be on screen and vanishing at once since the narrator and regular cast are speaking at the same time, and simultaneously the Japanese voice actors are hard to hear over each other. In general the dubbed version handled this far better by using voice highlighting to keep both voices audibly separated and clearly understandable. This makes it so that no information is lost and you don't have to constantly pause and rewind the anime because of missing information. More importantly even the original Japanese voice acting is hard to hear one from the other so watcher's cannot bask in the original tones and themes. Moving on from the issues with the subbed version of this anime and on to the anime itself... The story of Okami-san featuring a main charater with the same name, aka the big bad wolf, is a modern day school setting telling the lives of some students in a school where a club has been setup which does favors for people, but then requires return favors at a later date. They theme it as a banking scheme and require equal deposits as withdrawals. The main character, an enforcer / agent for the club, Ryoko Okami-san is usually referred to by fans of his anime as a tsundere - and honestly she is to some extent. However, to simply label her as one does a disservice to her character. Unlike most tsun's she has a reason behind her behavior that gets explained in the overall plot as the anime series continues. Okami-san in her earlier years of schooling got close to a boy she thought was a friend. However he proceeded to rape her, and her rapist then went on to ruin her reputation at school by making it sound like she was a slut. As if the sexual rape was not bad enough, then her entire school treated her like trash and took a friendly cheerful girl and turned her into a broken and insular person who was afraid to get close to any other human being. She changed schools and moved districts just to get away from her rapist and her reputation, but the damage had been done and she was now afraid to give any form of attachment to others. However all of the spoilered content occurs in flashbacks told later on in the series. The series starts out with Okami-san acting like a true tsundere without the backstory explaining her behavior. To add cuteness to the "thug" personality, Okami-san's weapon of choice is a pair of battle gloves designed to look like black and white kittens. When her punches land on a person it results in a one hit knock out that leaves her victim's with an indent in their face of a kitten sticking its tongue out. Literally adding insult with injury there. Throughout the series characters are introduced that are based on various stories from various sources such as Aesop's, Grimm's, and various oriental myths. They always are stylized in some way to fit their "roll" and usually have a name referencing it. Most amusing however were the frequent fourth wall breaking comments by the Narrator which usually was insulting to the characters. My one true complaint with the series is that there is a long complicated plot built up of the fight between the two schools with the protagonists in one and the rapist and his minions in the other, then nothing happens to punish the bad guys or resolve the conflict. Instead a filler final episode happens almost like an after-climactic ending. I liked the Match Stick Girl episode, but I would have far rather had resolution to the school rumble and justice for Ryoko. It was a tragedy that they ended it like that. On the plus side they knew in advance that there was never going to be an anime season two and the final episode ended in an upbeat way which let fans guess as to how things would work out for everyone. On the downside the rapist villain gets let off with just a single relatively light slap after his foul crimes and all of the trouble he caused the two schools with the rumble plans. If only the anime's narrator could speak this next line, "Oh, yes, I am sure that will teach him never to do anything mean again