This notoriously gory, surreal and horrifying dog adventure was an enduring kids hit in Nordic countries and virtually everyone in my generation has a nostalgic fondness for its uncut glory I believe. When I now rewatch the scene in which our adorable puppy protagonist avenges his dad's violent murder by performing a flying spinning saw attack to decapitate an impossibly gargantuan grizzly, resulting in a geyser of crimson hell, I can only think to myself: they don't make em like they used to...

UK being like: "We'll make a political genocide story of corrupted totalitarianism. But with animated bunnies. For children." Japan enters the chat: "Ah, yes. Children's animation. How 'bout shuriken dogs that decapitate bears with sheer body mass velocity. And a guy cuts off his own leg to feed to his starving dog. Good ol samurai spirit. Kids like samurais, amirite?" Fucking hell kids animation in the 80's was wild.....

This is just a bad mixture of styles. The show is really bloody, so it convinced me to take it seriously and not as a children's story and it really gave me a serious adult story about huntsmen vs. the wilderness until about episode 7... when it suddenly changed style and in a few episodes it started to use cliches, repeating story-lines and ended as a children's story. The end result is really garbage. Individual episodes are enjoyable, but it should really pick a single genre and stick to it.

Even despite the terrible finnish dub, and non-sensical editing, this is such a thrilling adventure and a great hero's journey, that a lesser show couldn't overcome those handicaps. One day i'll watch the original japanese version, and i'm sure i'll love it even more.