Wolf Children Movie Review

Full Review

Pro: Refreshing telling of a coming of age story, animation and music are pretty spot on.

Con: Tries to juggle too many story elements and only a few sink in, 2 hours long???

Final Thoughts: Nevertheless, Wolf Children is an astounding animated film and well deserving of all its praise. If you want to take a break from typical studio ghibli topics this movie is a breath of fresh air. Some people will go crazy for it and others (like me) will acknowledge that it still could have been better if it was given more focus. This is a 2 hour film that does not have much if any action or major drama. It likes to tell the story in a laid back pace so some people might find it a bit boring at times. Even so, I encourage you all to give it a chance and see if it will keep you sucked in. Also check out the manga version!

Story: The story tries to cover too much ground. Granted it has a total of 2 hours to do so, but in reality this would have benfitted from just focusing on the coming of age story thread or just splitting this into two different movies (since the story seems to focus on that part more.) The turning point is when the family first moves to the countryside. It is no longer a romance, instead becomes a coming of age. We follow Hana and her children as they grow up becoming a mix of human and wolf. It covers a whole 13 years or so of their life. The climax goes on a little too long to tries to come around full circle. In the end, I would have really liked more focus. The time skips do not trouble the story too much, but it may leave you with mixed feelings and may even cause you to forget what the first third of the story was about. This is hard to admit, but I cannot give it a star here.

Characters: Characters are more driven by the story than anything else. But since the story goes all over the place and tries to cover so much ground the characters can suffer for it. However, you end up attaching to Ame and Yuki as you see them grow up. Hana, their mother is also fun to watch simply because she is frankly a super mom. It is almost too good to be true in how perfect she is. The scenes that stand out for her is when she is not smiling and happy (when she is upset or scolding the kids). Overall the characters work pretty well and you enjoy spending time with them and seeing their interactions.

Art: Hisoda's identifiable character animation is all here and fits the tone for the most part. The backgrounds and nature shots are also very nice. The best scene is when they run through the snow on the mountain and HOWL! Overall it is satisfying and I was impressed on how well they did the transformations between wolf and human.

Sound: It can sometimes get too loud, but it is very pretty to listen to the whole way through. The English dub by funimation is pretty solid. No major complaints here.

Final Score: 4 stars

Recommendations:

Summer Wars/ The Girl Who Leapt through time/Princess Mononoke

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