Headscratchers / Ringing Bell

• Chirin goes straight to Woe in anger after his mother is killed. And somehow, the wolf doesn't simply eat him. Granted, the story would be over too quickly but the lack of intent of the wolf to make a meal of Chirin is odd.
  • If he was already starting to feel his age, it's possible that he decided that having someone to hunt by his side might ultimately be worth more in the long run than a quick short-term snack, especially if he was already full from his previous kills.
  • In the book and other versions, Woe's stomach is already full.
• Does Chirin eat meat as he lives with a wolf? How did he thrive on a diet of animal flesh, which herbivores can't digest?
  • He may have simply hunted and killed animals alongside the wolf, not necessarily eating them afterward. Mountain vegetation is the diet of wild sheep species, after all.
  • Additionally, even herbivores will occasionally eat meat when the chance presents itself, with cows, deer etc. having been observed to eat birds and other small animals fairly often.
• Whoever owns that farm should simply repair the hole in the fence.
  • Justified, since no humans are seen.
• Why are almost all the sheep ewes? Is Chirin the only male lamb out of his entire flock? Why are there no rams in the flock?
  • Immaculate conception could be the answer. It is an animated film after all.
  • Or this is due to the likely fact that farms are segregated by sex.
  • The prototype version of the story fixes this by giving Chirin a father.
• Why did the sheep just sit there when Chirin breaks down into hysterical weeping over his mother's corpse? Why did they not even try to offer help or comfort to him?
  • Although they are shown mourning for Chrin's mother, it is very likely that they needed to give Chirin space. That or the writer's way of preventing the story coming to an end with Chirin finding comfort from the other sheep, since the original book by Takashi Yanase called for all of the sheep to be killed by the wolf with Chirin as the only survivor.
  • They knew it was not their place to interfere, similar scenes involving a crowd of people gathered around a person mourning the loss of a loved one can tell a person that.
  • It's also possible that they don't particularly care, as long as their own lambs are safe.
• If Chirin could headbutt right through a thick tree, why was he unable to headbutt right through Wolf?
  • Chirin kept his limits, most likely. Same for all of his prey...
  • After his transformation, Chirin is able to smash solid rock with his horns. That's the level of power it takes to take him down. He's just so strong that he's tougher than a tree.
• Why did Wor not put up much of a fight against Chirin in their final battle? Suicide by Cop perhaps?
  • At this part of the story, he seemed fond of Chirin and even tried to talk him down for a moment. While Woe didn't regret getting killed by Chirin, he probably liked having a powerful son. If Chirin had the ruthlessness to kill his own kind and remained loyal to Woe, the We Can Rule Together speech Chirin made would have been a reality.
  • The film mentioned that Wor was old. We never actually see the wolf hunt by himself after Chirin grows up; for all we know, Wor's age caught up to him, leaving him feeble and slow. He may have lacked the reflexes and sheer strength to fend off Chirin. Wor also may have decided that death in battle was better than death by old age, especially if Wor's age prevented him from hunting large, aggressive prey by himself at that point in the film.
• The collar around Chirin's neck just seems to mysteriously get larger when we see him as a adult. It should have either fallen/broken off by then or cut into his neck.
  • Elastic material, perhaps?
• Why does Wor apparently kill for sport? He doesn't seem to be interested in eating his kills.
  • Believe it or not, it can be Truth in Television.
  • He does eat his kills as it is mentioned many times, but this may be due to censorship.
  • He presumably ate the body of the first lamb he killed. The kill of Chirin's mother was accidental, he was going for the much smaller Chirin, whom he could have dragged off into the mountains to maybe eat later.
• Does Chirin look like how a ram should? No wonder the flock couldn't accept him.
  • His unnatural form could be the cause of this since the horns of a regular ram are curved and Chirin's are straight.
  • He does not look like how a ram should at all. This may be Hand Waved as a result of his grueling training, lifestyle completely antithetical to that of a normal sheep, diet potentially boosted with meat and sheer determination shaping him into a form honed for killing.
• How does Wor know Chirin's name when he did not properly introduce himself to him?
  • Averted in the picture book where Chirin does introduce himself to Wor properly.
  • Maybe he heard it mentioned somewhere. Or it was a lucky guess.
    • To add, "Chirin" is the Japanese Onomatopoeia for the sound of a ringing bell. Chirin wears a bell around his neck.
• The Wolf’s speech about how “the weak die so the strong may survive” goes against his actions, at least on a “Everyone needs to eat” way. He at first goes after Chirin even when he has his mother’s carcass in front of him, and he still tries to go after the sheep inside the pen even though he also killed the dogs guarding it on the first place, which would, you know, provide the meat he wants. And that’s without mentioning how he wants Chirin to massacre ALL the sheep inside the pen for him, far more than he would need to eat (And also quite impractical, after all, if all the sheep are dead, he will lose his easiest and fastest way to acquire food) All in all, he seems to attack the sheep more for kicks instead of an actual need to eat. Hypocrite, much?
  • Pretty sure the meat of carnivores such as dogs tends to be unsavory to other carnivores, so there's no reason he would eat the dogs unless he was starving. His going after Chirin is also justifiable, since lamb meat is tastier (he may also have been trying to secure a morsel he could easily drag off into the mountains to eat later). He didn't say anything about refusing to waste food, the kills just need to serve some kind of purpose. More delicious food is a purpose. Him commanding Chirin to slaughter the entire farm is harder to justify, but this might have just been a ploy to test how far Chirin was truly willing to go to become a predator. It is possible that, if Chirin had accepted, Wor would have been content of his loyalties and stopped him after one or two kills.

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