I originally wasn't going to review anything today because I haven't finished Daredevil yet (quick summary so far: I love it!) and Avengers in my country comes out next week. Yet today on the recommendation of Anime America Podcast (good channel watch their content) I watched Wolf Children a film that really surprised me in how good it was.
Wolf Children is a 2012 Japanese Animated film about thirteen years in the life of a young women named Hana and her Children her eldest daughter Yuki and her youngest son Ame. When Hana was 19 years old she met a man in her college seminar (whose name we don't learn in the movie) they fall madly in love but it's revealed the man is a werewolf, yet she doesn't care, they move in together and have two half-human, half-werewolf children but sadly the man dies and Hana is forced to raise her children ,who can transform at will into werewolves and humans, alone.
At first the premise is really outlandish and sounds silly but really this movie is just a slice of life story about a parenthood and growing up and it is completely delightful. Sometimes you don't need a badguy, an exciting tale of adventure or conflict to create an interesting and good movie and this film shows you that. I love slice of life movies especially focusing on the subject of family so this film was right up my alley.
This film is really realistic and relatable movie showing what parenthood and growing up is like. It's challenging, confusing, scary, sad and often times it gets you down but at the same time it's happy, funny, wonderful and comforting. As the film progresses you see these characters grow and change rapidly and by the end of the film they end up in very different places from where they started.
The characters are very likeable and relatable. Hana is a cheerful, loving person who often tries to be a good mother yet sometimes gets way over her head and doesn't know what to do like most parents, you see her struggle to teach these kids how to be people (or wolf-people) from a young age teaching them and giving them guidance as they grow. Yuki and Ame are also very likeable and relatable- Yuki is a manic ball of energy who has a bad temper and is kind of spoiled while Ame is a quiet, sweet, shy young boy but they don't stay that way throughout the film. As the film progresses, they grow up and start to form new personality traits with each event of the film. You see their triumphs, their losses, their insecurities, their desire's, their lessons and their thoughts unfold and it's very fascinating.
The side characters are also very good too, the werewolf dad was a very likeable and understandable guy and you can buy the romance between him and Hana. The neighbors were a lot of fun my favorite being Grandpa Nirasaki, I love those old men in films who appear as complete hardasses at first but turn out to be loving grandpa type figures. Sohei a character I wasn't too fond of at first turned out to have a very sweet and innocent relationship with Yuki later and made me really like him.
You can say if this is a slice of life why does it need the whole werewolf concept and that's because it helps develop the story and intertwines with the whole idea of parenthood and growing up. It helps emphasis Hana's worries over not be able to raise her kids properly (like most parents constantly fear), Yuki's insecurities and Ame's growing discontent with his world as of then.
The animation is also very beautiful especially the snow day part of the movie, when they're playing in it is completely magical. I watched the English dub of this movie and it's very good, the stand out being Colleen Clinkenbeard as Hana who has this very soft, warm and gentle demeanor in her voice but when she's required to show negative emotions she does a fantastic job at it and she has a lot of range. The other voice actors do a really good job as well.
The ending of this movie is very bittersweet, my favorite kind of ending, where everything closes up and for the most part things are happy but their is still this lingering sadness prevalent.
I give this movie a 10/10~ It's almost perfect and I really recommend it, now if you don't like slice of life stories and think the whole wolf complex is just too strange for you that's find but I still say give this a chance, it's on YOUTUBE currently so check it out.
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