Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Unlike so many kids today, I didn’t grow up watching anime. Sure, I’d check out the Saturday morning episodes of Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh! every now and again. But I never even heard of Studio Ghibli or of films Akira and Ghost in the Shell until my young adulthood. So, in catching up with cinema classics over the last few years I’ve also better familiarized myself with some older and newer classic anime flicks such as Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, Naoko Yamada’s A Silent Voice, and Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name.
After seeing all those movies and more, what’s the one that I would recommend to anyone? It is none other than Mamoru Hosoda’s 2012 masterpiece Wolf Children. Why is this movie worth your time? Keep reading to find out. 😊 What’s It About [NOTE: This section contains minor spoilers for “Wolf Children.” If you’d rather see the film for yourself, skip to the next section. Also, I’ll be crediting the cast of the English dub since that’s the version of “Wolf Children” that I watched.] The story of Wolf Children centers on a young woman named Hana (Colleen Clinkenbeard) who befriends, and ultimately falls in love with, a strange loner (David Matranga) while at college in Tokyo. Not long into their relationship, the man reveals his ability to transform into a wolf which does not deter Hana’s affections. The two end up moving in together and having two half-human, half-wolf children: their firstborn girl Yuki (Lara Woodhull and Jad Saxton), and their only son Ame (Alison Viktorin and Micah Solusod). However, once tragedy strikes, Hana is forced to cease her education and raise her two children by herself. Recognizing the inherent dangers of bringing up half-wolf kids in a populated urban environment with neighbors and the government prying into their lives, Hana decides to relocate her family of three to the Japanese countryside. While working to upstart a successful farm, Hana also fully commits herself to giving Yuki and Ame ample space and opportunities to grow up as human or as wolf as they wish. Throughout the course of the film as both children age, Hana’s motherly devotion shines brightly while Yuki and Ame experience a variety of situations that help them decide who they want to be and how they want to live in this world. Ultimately, Hana must come to terms with the choices that her children make and accept her potential shortcomings in order to realize whether or not she gave each of them what they truly needed for the future. Why It’s Worth Watching Going into Wolf Children, I was unsure if I would like it or not. I had seen three of Hosoda’s movies before: Saban Entertainment’s 2000 film adaptation Digimon: The Movie (which he co-directed with Shigeyasu Yamauchi), the 2006 sci-fi romance The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and the 2009 sci-fi adventure flick Summer Wars. As a kid, I owned the VHS tape of the first and watched it on repeat but I acknowledge now that it’s not a well-structured movie. I did not really enjoy the second one, but I did enjoy the third one despite and because of its quirkiness. Luckily, Wolf Children did not disappoint. In virtually every way, it felt like a step up from all of Hosoda’s previous films which makes it not only my favorite movie in his repertoire but also one of my favorite anime movies. Period. Much of my love for Wolf Children is based on the characters that Hosoda co-wrote with frequent collaborator Satoko Okudera (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars). Our protagonist is Hana, a smart and capable young woman trying to get an education when her path crosses with the mysterious, enigmatic loner who turns out to be a werewolf. Honestly, it’s these first twenty-ish minutes that are the weakest of the movie but they’re still very good. Hosoda and Okudera’s screenplay expertly settle you in for what you think is going to be a wholesome family story about two young people overcoming life’s struggles to race their mixed-species children. But life (or the writers) has other plans, putting Hana’s story on a different path of being a single mother of her kids Ame and Yuki. From this point on, Wolf Children becomes a compelling drama about the trials and tribulations of motherhood with the added twist of a human trying to raise her half-wolf children without a half-wolf partner around to help out. Moving forward, every decision Hana makes is about raising her children in a safe environment where humans will not discover the secret behind her children’s dual identity. From not knowing to take her sick child to a doctor or a veterinarian to leaving the city to avoid social services who have received noise complaints from neighbors, Hana’s predicament and the grace with which she handles allows Hosoda to evoke incredible amounts of empathy from his audience for his protagonist. For a little over half the film, Wolf Children is Hana’s story. It is a gripping and lovely tale of the unconditional love parents have for their children, which alone makes it a great film. But sometime during the second act, you start to realize that the movie’s about more than that. As Ame and Yuki get older, they experience journeys of their own in confronting the truth behind how humans view predators like themselves as well as going back and forth between which part of themselves to uphold more wholeheartedly. Thus, Hosoda effectively shifts the film’s narrative to a thematically rich coming-of-age story where Ame and Yuki either suppressing or embracing their wolf selves symbolizing the universal identity crisis that all kids experience as they get older. And, to top it all off, the conclusions of the kids’ journeys perfectly tie into Hana’s arc. She has spent so many years of her life being a hyper-protective mother keeping her children safe from the darkness of the world, but towards the end of the movie her overprotective nature puts her own life at risk. Ultimately, she must accept that she has done all she can to raise her children well and allow them both to move forward with the paths they have chosen. As the audience, you feel the bittersweet mixture of pride and heartbreak that Hana feels in these moments even if you don’t have or have never had children of your own (as a single, unmarried man in his mid-20s myself, I qualify as the non-parenting viewer 😊). If this powerful story isn’t enough, Wolf Children boasts some breathtaking animation for being ten years old. From the very first shot, it is clear that the movie will be a vast visual improvement from Hosoda’s earlier films. The animation team excels at grounding this fairy-tale-like story with how they conceive nature as a hopeful and vivacious place in sharp contrast to the somber aesthetic that defines the city (and thus the film’s tragic beginning). On top of all of that, I was initially worried that the look of two children that regularly transform into wolves would be too cartoonish and, therefore, distract from the grounded narrative. Fortunately, the animators seem very aware of such wariness and never let the audience come away from any scenes involving Ame and Yuki’s wolf selves feeling that they have stripped away the realistic elements dominating the rest of the movie. Simply put, Wolf Children is more than worth your time on a rainy Sunday afternoon or a Friday family movie night. It has plenty of humor and kinetic action for young children, compelling characters and plot for adolescents, and mature, relatable themes for adults. And if you’re not a parent, you’ll feel like you’ve gone through the ringer of being one by the time the credits begin to roll. 😉 If you’re unsure of where to start delving into the anime film genre, you certainly won’t go wrong starting that journey with this masterpiece. Have I convinced you to check out Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children? What’s a movie that you feel is underappreciated? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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