Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

Hana, a hard-working college student, falls in love with a mysterious man who attends one of her classes though he is not an actual student. As it turns out, he is not truly human either. On a full moon night, he transforms, revealing that he is the last werewolf alive. Despite this, Hana's love remains strong, and the two ultimately decide to start a family.

Hana gives birth to two healthy children—Ame, born during rainfall, and Yuki, born during snowfall—both possessing the ability to turn into wolves, a trait inherited from their father. All too soon, however, the sudden death of her lover devastates Hana's life, leaving her to raise a peculiar family completely on her own. The stress of raising her wild-natured children in a densely populated city, all while keeping their identity a secret, culminates in a decision to move to the countryside, where she hopes Ame and Yuki can live a life free from the judgments of society. Wolf Children is the heartwarming story about the challenges of being a single mother in an unforgiving modern world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hana Main

Miyazaki, Aoi Japanese

Ame Main

Nishii, Yukito Japanese

Yuki Main

Kuroki, Haru Japanese

Ookami Main

Osawa, Takao Japanese

Fujii, Souhei Supporting

Hiraoka, Takuma Japanese

Nirasaki Supporting

Sugawara, Bunta Japanese

Shino Supporting

Kobayashi, Rino Japanese

Horita Supporting

Aso, Kumiko Japanese

Keno Supporting

Kamishiraishi, Mone Japanese

Hosokawa Supporting

Nakamura, Tadashi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Saitou, Yuuichirou Producer

Inoue, Shinichiro Producer

Hosoda, Mamoru Director, Theme Song Lyrics, Original Creator, Screenplay

Reviews

Nov 9, 2024

Zeno_Artaxerxes

Recommended

A movie that tells the story of a powerful mother trying to raise her 2 kids alone, which are half human half werewolf, and the numerous (hard) decisions that she needs to make to fullfill her wish of raising them both the best she can, as she doesn't know much about half werewolf kids and their needs.

This anime was quite a bag of emotions, from really tragic ones, to really happy, to really peaceful. Truly showing the adventure of the mother and her journey to raise her kids alone, and the kids journey to find their own paths in life and have the ability to ... choose exactly what they want, which the mother really tries to give that to them, while also experiencing the unknown of motherhood alone (for a very well explained reason). The love of the mother is felt troughout this whole movie, something I wish every kids feels in their lifes when they grow up. It is the kind of movie that is both for kids and for adults, the kind of movie that are masterpiece level to me, those type of movies that we remember from the "old days" and hardly find these days anymore... Each demographic has something to take from this movie, more or less.

It is a single movie, so I will not enter too many details, as I feel like this movie is best experienced without knowing too much and having too many expectations. But there is a reason why it earned so many awards... And I personally can see why, even if I have some questions of my own, but I feel like those questions are some things that the story wants you to ask yourself as well of, or at least I believe so. As I've said, depending on the life experience you've had, I think you might see differently this anime (not to the point you're watching completly different stories tho).

Story: 9 -- A story that felt perfect for all ages.

Art: 9 -- Good art style for what it was.

Music: 9 -- The songs really put scenes in way better light. It has quite a few moments where the sounding is used very perfectly.

Characters: 10 -- Loved all of them!

Enjoyment: 10 -- It's a story that made me questions certain aspect of life, especially given that I am just at the start of my adult life, and seeing it made me think more about my mother as well. It resonated with me on quite a few different levels, which I didn't expect. So yes, for me, this felt at a personal level as well. Loved it because of that (and more).

Overall: 10

Right now it has 8.56 from 467.645 votes Ranked #114 Popularity #236 Members 829,609.
I highly recommend this anime to anyone wanting to see a journey for both parent and kids, in which each questions the other and can put a bit more towards the perspective of the other. Might reach some conclusions to certain problem, or create new ones, but it surely might put some questions in your head, or you can just watch for the interesting story and concept that it has and how it handles it. All I know, is that you won't be dissapointed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Sep 27, 2021

Maximus7680

Mixed Feelings

I was more of a watcher of movies than I was an anime fan. Strangely enough for a lot of people, Wolf Children was actually one of my first encounters with the anime industry a few years ago. As a casual viewer, I was more than elated to say I thoroughly enjoyed the film, though there were certainly a few scenes that were problematic. However, a few years later and after a rewatch, I had garnered some thoughts of mine about this film. As a viewer, I’d still continue to like the film, but as a critic (personal anyways), I had a few things I’d ... like to opine about the film. It’s by no means a bad film, but it had its fair share of problematic scenes that is veiled behind its aesthetically pleasing scenes.

I’ll guess I’d go with a couple of pros first to show my appreciation for this film so this review of mine wouldn’t be downright asinine for some people. Mamoru Hosoda’s movies had a special kind of design when it comes to his characters, on first sight it feels like an overly simplistic design with minimal amount of approach when it comes to drawing the characters’ faces. But after finished watching the movies and a few years of watching anime, I’ve definitely come to cherish the designs, its minimal shading and lighter tones allows greater freedom to express the character’s facial emotions, enables a more fluid approach for the characters to convey their facial expressions rather than a downright generic anime character with large dead fish eyes and facial responses that resembled cupboards then actual humans. That’s definitely worthy of praise in my humble opinion. Another would be the establishing shots of the film. The film, under the directing of Hosoda had no major problems when it comes to directing (expected of Hosoda), it had really amazing establishing shots, some of them includes Hana’s husband transformation into a wolf, or the shot when Hana moved to a countryside and the slow reveal of the house and the surrounding environment is an engrossing experience mingled with its beautifully constructed cinematography. Hosoda had his own quirks in directing films, notably his tendencies to include cumulonimbus clouds, weathers that largely take place in summer for his settings and aesthetics. At first sight it seems banal, but Hosoda had his style when it comes to handling the vibrant atmosphere of summer, rather than resorting to simple propensities of including sounds of cicada for the umpteenth time, he would usually focus on the portrayal of floating white clouds which is contrasted with the skies and usually, his portrayal of joyful characters. In an interview, Hosoda had voiced his opinion about his proneness to include summer days to emphasise on character growth, and I’m inclined to agree with that. His films, Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time had usually utilised this background subtly to complement the character’s growth and it’s wholly commendable.

Before going through the cons, let’s have a brief introduction to the rough plotline of our story here. Hana's life as a single mother is difficult, after the death of her beloved husband who died tragically while having wolf instincts of hunting for his children. Yuki and Ame constantly switch between their human and wolf forms, bearing extreme similarities with wolves and lack of a child’s normal behaviours and quirks other than superficial traits of having human faces, etc., and Hana has to hide them from the world. After she receives complaints from neighbours of the rambunctious noises and a visit from social workers concerned that her children had not received any sort of vaccinations, Hana moves the family to the countryside away from prying neighbors, to keep her family’s private life secured at all cost. She struggles to repair a dilapidated house and essayed multiple failed attempts in planting crops. With help from an old man named Nirasaki, she finally learns how to farm adequately and efficiently and becomes friends with some of the locals. I’ll start with the first and most troublesome part of the film. The personage in particular, Hana. I view Hana’s struggles as a mother to be particularly interesting and worth exploring, but what the script rewarded me was something that confused me, and subconsciously repelled me in my rewatch a few days ago. It was exacerbated by the tendentious themes the film was trying to depict, but ultimately failed by a long milestone. Gundam’s creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino had complimented the film as being ‘realistic’ and ‘surrealistic’ in the depiction of ‘character’ and ‘atmosphere’ respectively and had launched a new worldview in the anime industry and hailed it as a new milestone. Needless to say, I’d vehemently disagree with Tomino on this. I’d refer to Hana as a caricature, or a framework, or at best a lesser character in the form of the film’s personage, rather than calling her a ‘realistic’ characterization of a single parent. Tomino obviously had no idea when it comes to the depiction of realistic single parents. Hosoda’s films had its problems when it comes to character development, most of his characters are presented as joyful, vibrant, positive and overly exuberant in nature. But when it comes to Hana, his approach to her character is caricaturistic in depiction. The movie was marketed as a portrayal of a single mother raising two wolf children who have different personalities and even more varying instincts of wolves that are contradictory to humans. Coming from an Asian backdrop, I could quickly identify the grotesque nature of the film; it's one of the most conservative viewpoints of asian communities towards a ‘mother’. Caring, utterly kind and loves her family unconditionally. Hosoda, in the film, seemingly created Hana simply to convey the message of a mother unconditionally loving her family, rather than developing the idea that a single mother struggles under the soul-crushing pressure of raising a kid, much less two children with wolf blood in their veins. It seemed to be upon this rewatch that Hana had only begun living in the first minute she appears, she was thoroughly empty. Hana is perfected to the core where she is no longer human, she can instantaneously tolerate her conditions, she never complains and would always be ready to adapt to her environment. That’s a caricature, where a trait of mother’s ‘loving nature’ is taken for granted, Hana never faced any mental issues or problems even under extreme pressure: (How to vaccinate her children? Would her children be discovered in school? Would their natural instincts surge and appear?) Did she have no family? Friends? Acquaintances? Any sort of relation other than his werewolf husband? Why did she automatically accept raising her two wolf children as her sole life mission? Did she have no other hobbies with no other personality trait other than being kind and caring towards her children? Did she exist solely to take care of the two children?

It’s trite. Threadbare by stripling Hana down to a few basic traits. As aforementioned, I’ve stated Hana was predominantly empty. I would rather call Hana as a stereotype of a thought experiment than referring to her as a person. How would a mother who loves her family unconditionally raise two wolf children? And not ‘How would a single mother raise two wolf children?” Precisely that she is empty, and hence she could resort to loving her children unconditionally without questioning their compatibility, until she was developed into a perfect mother that is no longer realistic. In her book about poverty that exists within single parents, Michiyo Nishimori mentioned the film briefly and argued that the depiction of single parents is inherently flawed. Hosoda wanted her character to be perfect, hardworking and accepting no matter how hard the situation is. And that’s precisely the same thing that most single mothers can never hope to accomplish. I’m inclined to agree with that. As someone who had a friend of mine who was raised by a single parent, the condition is not as good as the film portrayed, and there are numerous shots emphasised on Hana struggling to take care of her children and after a few struggles she was able to accomplish anything. Raising her children, tending her family, no longer lingering over her feelings for her deceased partner, moving, farming. All are accomplished with a minimal amount of struggling and suffering without complaints. It seemed to me a grotesque characterization of Hana, not depicting the suffering of a single mother, but the romanticization of suffering as to how Hana could ‘manage’ every obstacle possible. It may seem that I’m making myself a fastidious lout who mumbles over the minutiae details of the film, but some of the details of the film would cause an jarringly obvious misfire in the film, in my opinion. This theme is taken way too moralistic to the extreme, and I would have the conjecture that this lesson the movie was trying to convey resembles a dying satyr, it has a mind of deep thought and serious inquiries, yet the flimsy and spindly legs are failing to support the weight of the ambitious brain. It needs more proofreading and reflections.

Though I had pet peeves with Hana’s choice of characterization and her husband’s lack of distinct and distinguishable character persona, I’d reserve a great deal of praise for the script revolving around the two children. Even though it’s predictable for the storylines, it presents causality in a film script pretty neatly. Two of the wolf children faces choices, makes decisions, the decisions had an ultimate impact on their outcome and it shaped them as different persons in the end. It was wrapped up nicely and I found the change of Ame from a timid boy exploring his insecurities as a wolf boy (the part where he discussed with his mother about the depiction of wolves in fairytales was particularly visceral and melancholic) to a grown wolf who became the guardian of the forest to be really great. The same goes for Yuki, though I would question the choice of giving some sort of ‘romantic notion’ by giving her another plotline that concerns another boy of similar age, which I found to be underwhelming since her personal connection with the boy was half-baked and scant in the large sense. But alas, it didn’t take away the character development of Yuki if we were to take into account the overall plot of the film and I’d praise her characterisation.

However, the final act of the film was a bit sleazy and overly melodramatic for the sake of inserting a dramatic sequence in the film. It was eccentric to add the part where the mother questioned herself whether she had done enough for her son in the forest where it is raining, and cried for her son who she thought might have abandoned her. That part had further thrown Hana’s character into the dustbin yet again, as that line was not coming from the character but rather as the writer’s mouthpiece in an attempt for Hana to develop a trait of her everlasting ‘self-doubt’ that the film thought that it ‘subtly’ integrated. There are a few reasons that I don’t particularly enjoy this. First of all, it’s his son who seemingly ditched his mother there, yet Hana who took care of them carefully without complaints seemingly took the blame yet again, which is honestly banal and contradicts what the film had previously shown. A selfless and loving mother that Hana was. Or else not even the insecure Ame would have love his mother so much while he was still a little kid. Two, it further undermines Hana’s possibility of ever becoming a character that is ‘human’ in nature. She carried whatever her weight herself, and laments over how she had done inadequately, when she had raised her two kids, one to become a capable human, another to be a naturally grown wolf? How? Again the writers had butchered her by deifying her into some sort of mother who was far too loving and never questioned her son’s actions or behaviour. It’s relentless in the film, and it contradicts itself again by having her forget that her daughter was in the school trapped by a typhoon which could be potentially dangerous for her to spend almost a night there. Did they proofread this? Or did they have her intentionally forget her daughter so her daughter could have a side plot line as well? That’s wholly unnecessary and a surprising discrepancy that undermines Hana’s character while trying to develop Yuki.

Overall, it’s a 6 for me. It had its great moments (editing, directing, sound), but a large part of writing had its issues for it to be completely overshadowed by the pros, but it’s largely enjoyable. So I hope to see how Hosoda improves his movies with Belle, which I’m looking forward to watching in the future.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 3, 2024

MisterK

Not Recommended

Sappy story, with extra bestiality.
This film is a reminder that some ideas or projects are just doomed because how bad they are.

Story follows some average girl who starts sleeping with super cool and edgy guy, who turns out to be an reverse werewolf. Wolfmanwere?

There are few bits, enjoyable moments, like that one where ex-student, now bestiality enjoyer mother moves out into sticks and lives a "simpler, closer to nature" life, with her bastard mutant children. But that's it.

Except one deus ex scene, to trigger mentioned above change of scenery, film is predictable and boring.
Story is simple, and boy oh boy, does someone had hots ... to put some doggy x student girl action, am I right? I am.
Also finale build up is so obvious and poorly delivered, I had to pause for a moment to rethink why should I keep on living, when I waste my life watching such crap movies.

Music is forgettable just like voice acting. Backgrounds are best part of this whole film, chara design fits my preferences but is obvious cost-wise pick and doesn't fit story that well. Plot holes are large and everything else is just barely working together. Very so-so.

Final verdict:
vaush/10 (but with dogs, instead of horses)

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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