Den Mother: A Review of Mamoru Hosoda's "Wolf Children"
Motherhood, coming-of-age, and the struggle between man and nature all come together in this modern animated family masterpiece.
I loved, loved, loved this film.
Movies about the relations between parents and siblings always hit me hard, and by the end of Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children I was a complete sobbing mess.
Plenty animated family films have jokes or references aimed at parents, but very few incorporate parents into their narratives in any meaningful way. It’s even worse for mothers, who are lucky if they aren’t already dead at the start of the story. You can imagine my shock then, when I realized that Hana, the mother of the wolf children, is essentially the main character, and quickly became one of my favorite animated mothers.
Hana is a normal college student in Tokyo living a normal life until she meets and falls in love with a mysterious man who turns out to be a werewolf. Not the kind seen in the old Universal Monster movies or YA romance novels — he can change forms at will and is cognizant as a wolf, but with intense animal instincts. He warns her to stay away. When she refuses, he asks how she could love him, she says, “Because it’s you.” One of the first of many almost funny if it wasn’t so sigh-inducing sincere lines. It doesn’t hurt that he’s drawn like a moody Jpop idol either.
Together they have two children: a girl, Yuki, and a boy, Ame. Both inherit their father’s wolf powers. They live in domestic bliss until he dies in a hunting accident, and Hana is left to raise her children alone, without any guidance for how to raise her “unique” kids.
Undeterred, she dedicates herself to their well-being, living off her husband’s savings, reading books on child rearing and living with wolves between meals, baths, and naps.
Eventually, the family relocates to the Japanese countryside, and this is was my favorite part of the movie. Hana’s unassailable nature in the face of adversity wins over her suspicious new neighbors. With the help of her new community she, Yuki, and Ame refurbish their new home and learn to live off the land. I doubt anyone could watch Hana’s struggles as a single mother and not want to call their own immediately after the movie ends.
This first half almost feels like an intentional way to guilt trip the kids of single parents, but Hosoda is careful never to let the story become maudlin. There are moments of tragedy, humor, and touching kindness between strangers – the kind Hosoda excels at, and always bring a tear to my eye. I swear, I could have watched an entire movie about the budding friendship between Hana and her crotchety old neighbor who reluctantly teaches her how to farm.
Once Yuki and Ame begin to grow up, however, then the POV shifts to them, and their struggle to choose between the human world and the way of the wolf . Hana takes a backseat at the point, but I wasn’t disappointed. Yuki’s attempts to fit-in at school while always having to hide a part of herself are handled with a sensitivity and attention to detail of the best slice-of-life anime. You don’t have to have been a little girl or a werewolf to relate to her struggles. Ame, meanwhile, begins to lean towards his animal nature side in the nearby mountains. These are the more fantastical aspects of the story, none of the animals talk, despite the Yuki and Ame being able to understand them, and so most of it is played in silence. The pure nature scenes don’t have the same emotional impact as the human ones, perhaps because Hosoda and his team have the time and budget of something like a Studio Ghibli film to make the scenic views of nature visually pop in the same way.
Don’t misunderstand, this is a gorgeous film, and if you ever have the chance to see it on the big screen, it’s worth the effort. Hosoda’s films have an unmistakable look, low detailed, but distinct character designs, a clear line style, and a smart use of earthy tones and pastel colors. It’s not overly idealized and “pretty” like some animated films *cough* Ghibli *cough* tend to be that’s refreshing. There is an attention to those tiny details of everyday life, both in the natural world, and especially the more urban environments, that create a grittier lived-in quality, one that I’ve always tended to prefer.
That realism extends to the character animation as well. There’s a frailness to the way he renders bodies; a delicate and graceful way they move that makes every character a pleasure to look at. Hana’s design and charcater acting stands out particularly in a genre that usually concerns itself with youth and high school aged characters. Yuke and Ame’s wolf designs are cute but never step over the line into Disneyfication. When a fight breaks out between Yuki and Ame, they aren’t afraid to really nash their teeth and draw blood like real wolves. Watching this domestic violence made me realize just how much I had come to care about them. I was on the edge of my seat during that scene more than any of the actual thrillers from this year so far. I was truly scared that one of them might bite Hana by mistake. I don’t know if I could have forgiven Yuki, Ame, or the movie for that.
Over the course of my viewing I really came to love Hana. She’s one of my favorite movie mothers of all time, and one of the most idealized mothers in any film I’ve ever seen.
Unfortunately, that does lead to my major criticism. Hana’s eager self-sacrifice makes her easily likable but also keeps her character from being as interesting as it could have been. Her constant sacrifice is moviegoing, but it left me yearning to see more self-actualized. Beyond keeping her children safe and happy, what does she want out of life? There is a brief mention of medical school before she gave up her education for motherhood; later she takes on a menial conservationist job. Does she still want to be a doctor or a nurse, or has her experience with wolves changed that passion for medecine to conservationism? The movie doesn’t answer that, nor does it suggest a future love life for her after her husband’s passing. These all feel like missed opportunities to really explore the challenging aspects of single motherhood beyond child rearing and would have made a great character even richer.
Perhaps they ran out of time. In truth, there are too many ideas and themes for the movie to thoroughly explore in its just under two-hour runtime. The friendship between Hana and the old farmer I mentioned earlier is one of my favorite parts, but once Yuki and Ame take center he disappears. Still, I’m also glad the film is smart enough not to overstay its welcome, although by the end I still wanted to to know what would happen to this family now that Yuki and Ame have chosen their paths, and if one of the biggest problems I can have with your movie is that I didn’t want it to end, then you must be doing something very right.
The first anime director that I ever became aware of was Mamoru Hosoda. I discovered him over the course of my hundreds of re-watches of Digimon: The Movie on VHS. That was the first time I took the time to study the end credits of a movie. At first just to know the names of the amazing ska songs, but I also noticed Hosoda’s credits as well. Since then, I’ve followed his career from those early proDIGIous days (that’s very clever if you’ve watched the 4Kids Ocean dub of the OG Digimon), to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and most recently, Belle. His film’s explorations on family, technology and nature, and our desire for human connection in the modern world have always touched me in a particularly sensitive way. So, I’m not sure why it took me so long to get around to what many consider his masterpiece. But thanks to a theatrical re-release courtesy of the fine folks at GKids, I finally got the chance to check it off my list, and my only regret is that I didn’t get to it sooner.