Title: Wolf Children (Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki)
Genre: Drama, Romance
Publisher: Studio Chizu (JP), Funimation (US)
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Screenplay: Mamoru Hosoda, Satoko Okudera
Music: Masakatsu Takagi
Original Release Date: November 26, 2013
The moment that sold me on Wolf Children when I watched it the first time at the NYCFF was the moment our female lead Hana watched her soon to be husband transform into a wolf man. The moment is extremely simple, and yet, something about that moment when he reveals his secret to Hana resonated with me at the time, and the quality of the film didn’t let up from then on. In watching the film again for this review, it was again this small moment, along with the timing of the background music, that convinced me to pay close attention to what I was watching for the rest of the hour and something minutes. And in that time span, Mamoru Hosoda created a work that incorporated tragedy, the struggles of a parent, and how suddenly a person can change due to a number of factors. With its glorious visuals and solid, but not exemplary, soundtrack, Wolf Children is the perfect title for all ages.
Hana is a college student living by herself when she meets a man in her class that’s distant, and apparently not a part of the class she’s in, as he tells her he’s not a registered student there. After that moment, she falls for him, and soon enough they both start a relationship. One day the man reveals to Hana his secret: he’s a wolf man, a descendant of the Honshuu wolf which became extinct about a hundred years ago. Despite this reveal, Hana stays with him, and they both end up having a happy relationship. They even end up having two children, Yuki and Ame, and it seemed the story would revolve around the life of this family.
Well, in a way it did, but not exactly as expected: not long after Ame is born, the wolf man dies. After that happens, Hana has to take care of her children and, with their half wolf tendencies, taking care of them is made more difficult than it should be. After having trouble taking care of them, to dealing with the neighbors, and being questioned about the health of her children, Hana decides it’s time to move away. And so, they end up moving around the mountains and away from city life, and into a creaky, old house in need of repair, and surrounded by country folk. From this point on, the story starts to shift from Hana to the lives of Yuki and Ame and how certain events in their life change them, for better, or for worse.
There’s a lot in this film to ponder, and some of it borders on spoiler territory, so I won’t reveal who changes or what, but the themes present– the life of parenting, changing personalities, and growing up to leave your home– make their presence felt in this work. When I watched the film the first time, these things were noticeable immediately, and in watching Wolf Children a few more times, that has not changed. Obviously, parenting is tough, and it only gets tougher for those who have to do it alone. It’s a bit more extreme in this case since Hana has to take care of kids that are half-human, half-wolf, and, more often than not, she has no idea how to deal with that side since their wolf tendencies take over more often than their human ones. No other moment shows how tough Hana has it when Yuki manages to get sick and she has to be taken to get treatment. I can’t elaborate more since it will ruin the joke, but let it be known that it should be hilarious the first time you see it. Second time not so much, but it is the perfect example (for me at least) of Hana having to deal with a lot of trouble, and at some point, you just have to feel sorry for her.
After that, the movie really just becomes about Yuki and Ame’s life, from their childhood, to them growing up into young kids in school. Both of them experience events in their life that effectively change their personalities, and make them choose a path that, at the start, you wouldn’t have expected. The best part about that is that while their growth is simple, it’s a reflection of life in general. Everyone will have certain personality traits as kids, while living with their parents, or certain likes as a kid. Then you head into the rest of society, and immediately, there’s a cultural shock, as things you thought were cool, instead you realize are not as cool. When you get around your 20′s or so, you learn to not care all that much; for someone that’s 6, you do care deeply how kids your age look at you. That’s a product of getting taught by society, and that spirit is reflected in here. There’s the other side of it though: what happens when you can’t do well in school? You either find yourself in a precarious position in society or you forge your own path to success, and with Yuki and Ame being half wolf, half human, they have to make decisions that they’ll live with for the rest of their lives, and they can’t go back on then. And despite it being fairly simple, it’s executed extremely well.
It also helps to have solid, recognizable characters. Of course, for a movie like Summer Wars to stand out despite having a smorgasbord of characters that manage to be somewhat charming and not dull, I’d expect Hosoda to properly nail down a smaller starting cast, and he does. Hana is a somewhat carefree, but mentally tough woman that’s hard to hate, even though, as the best character in Wolf Children, Grandpa Nirasaki, laments, she smiles way too much. Yume is extremely hyperactive and unbearable as a child and would probably be a parent’s worst nightmare; Ame, on the other hand, is a bit too weak and doesn’t appear to take change all too well. That said, he does like to have fun and laugh at times too, so it’s hard to hate them too much. With these characters doing their jobs, everything else in the film falls into place, from the nice animation, slick background visuals, and great character designs, to the musical score, which I find works in spots and seems suited for the film, though the majority of it doesn’t seem like it’d be good listening to standalone, it all comes together and makes this a lovely watch every time.
