Right after the first few minutes you also meet your constant sidekick Issun, a louse (although never call him a louse!) who is more or less your communication channel to the humans around you. Probably because it would have looked strange if a wolf could talk ... although I'm not really sure why a talking louse is any less strange.
Anyway. After the first hour or so you will have liberated your village and the world will finally have a sun again, making the whole region look way more friendly and colorful. And this is now where I am currently.
Great game so far, apart from the stupid speech-replacement :-? If you think that what you hear in games like Zelda is bad and annoying ... Okami definitely tops that. But probably the most frightening thing about it is, that I already got used to it ...
Btw.: Amped 3 still rocks ;-) I'm now done with the story and also have more than half of the achievements, so I guess I can start writing a review now.