Wolf Children (2012): Movie Review

Parenthood is no easy task, especially when you’re a single parent with lack of proper knowledge how to take care of a child. Either way you try to find the best ways to raise your children to being kind people and to make proper choices for their path. In this award winning anime feature by Mamoru Hosoda shows us all the struggles of parenting in an original form, which if it were possible in real-life I bet half of the people would lose their minds. I saw this movie last year while staying at a hotel with a few friends, it was a heart-warming story and I decided to watch it again because it was that good. Felt very emotional and endeared towards the children and their relationship with their mother, and how they both choose their own way to live. The main character is very admirable in the way she goes the extra mile for her children’s wellbeing, trying to balance everything on her own and at the same time sacrificing many things for her kids to live a normal life because they have a secret: they are half-wolves.

It all begins with Yuki (the female half-wolf) narrating the story’s events, starting from the beginning of it all. Hana (Yuki’s mother) was a university student who lived on her own and sustained herself with a part-time job. One day Hana sees a mysterious guy in one of her class lectures, once he tells her that he isn’t a student at the university she decides to help him learn as much as he can. They start a relationship and later on he confesses to her that He is actually a werewolf (and probably the last of his kind, since he is able to transform himself from human to wolf), then they move in together and eventually they have two kids: Yuki and Ame. Everything was going great, until one day He didn’t come back and when Hana went out to look for him finds that He had been killed while hunting for food; the only thing she had left of his was his driver’s license she found in his wallet. From that moment on Hana had to raise Yuki and Ame on her own; if you thought parenting kids is hard then imagine having to raise kids who are half animals. Yuki is always hungry, gets easily cranky which leads her to change form uncontrollably and she manages to wreck the house many times (the same thing puppies do, they love to bite, so they just break everything they see). Meanwhile Ame tends to be shy, innocent, fearful and a bit of a crybaby. Things get really tough for Hana, losing her sleep to breastfeed Ame, cleaning up after the kids, and worst of all when either child gets sick (she doesn’t know whether to take them to a Pediatrician or a Veterinarian, which is pretty understandable when you think about it. I mean what if the kids got taken away from Hana to do research on them. No thanks.) This leads to trouble with social workers when they notice that neither child has been vaccinated and also neighbor complaints about Ame crying or dogs howling in the middle of the night. Hana then decides to move out into the countryside with the kids, to a a house with no neighbors next door and enough space for them to run around in. She manages to fix it on her own and with the help of a few neighbors she begins to plant her own crops. Eventually Yuki starts going to school which in the beginning is very strange for her since she doesn’t know how to act like a girl, meanwhile Ame is always by his mother’s side (he went to school for a while but then stopped). When Ame almost drowns while trying to hunt a bird during the winter time he begins to feel more confident, and eventually starts to spend more time in the wild. The siblings then have a fight over being human or wolf, which is something Hana had feared for a while because it meant her kids were finally spreading their wings. In the beginning Hana fears for Ame to live in the wild after his sensei had been hurt, since she was her youngest child and feared for his safety. But  after having collapsed while searching for him, and having a short dream where she reunites with the children’s father once more, she realizes that it is Ame’s choice whether he wants to be wolf or human and whatever he chose was alright. In the final sequence Yuki went to study in junior high, moving into a dorm, while recounting how her mother once mention dhow raising them was like a fairytale also adding that she was very proud of how she had raised them.

Not going to lie, a lot of mothers should follow Hana’s example. I’m not saying be exactly like her, but many should learn to be self-sufficient most of the time like she did; not saying it was easy but it wasn’t impossible either. There’s many young women that just leave their kids to their parents while they have fun or sometimes they can’t bear to raise kids, it becomes too much for them and they just take out the frustration on the kids who don’t really understand anything. The lesson from this movie is parenting is a mission that it’s complicated but it gets easier when you find balance. Another thing is that watching your kids grow up can be scary when you think about how they are finding their way and how soon they will be independent with their own actions beyond your control, but that means that you raised them well when they manage to make the right choices. This is an endearing movie that talks about the social aspect of parenthood and combines with a fantasy element which I loved completely. It was cute, endearing, creative, and made me feel so connected to their family as the kids grew up and found themselves. Sometimes I got sad because of how the father died and he wasn’t able to raise his kids as well as explaining Hana about raising wolf children from his own childhood experience.

The movie received many awards such as: the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year, the Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film, the Animation of the Year award at TAF, two awards at the Oslo Films from the South festival in Norway, and the Audience Award at the New York International Children’s Film Festival. Some have actually compared Hosoda with Miyazaki, in the way he makes things seem cute but at the same time he implies social issues into his stories which is amazing.

Hope you guys watch this movie, it’s heartwarming and it will make you appreciate all the things your parents went through to raise you and if you have kids you will value the time you spend with them too. It’s a film for everyone and it should be enjoyed throughly, it has become one of my favorites. Please give it a chance, hope you enjoyed this review. Write to you soon!