Wolf Children

The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki
Directed by	Mamoru Hosoda
Screenplay by	Mamoru Hosoda Satoko Okudera
Story by	Mamoru Hosoda
Produced by	Yuichiro Saito Takuya Ito Takashi Watanabe
Starring	Aoi Miyazaki Takao Osawa Haru Kuroki Yukito Nishii
Edited by	Shigeru Nishiyama
Music by	Takagi Masakatsu
Production companies	Studio Chizu Madhouse
Distributed by	Toho
Release dates	June 25, 2012 (2012-06-25) (France) July 21, 2012 (2012-07-21) (Japan)
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	US$48,039,794

The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki (おおかみこどもの雨と雪, Ōkami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki) is a 2012 Japanese animated film directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The film stars the voices of Aoi Miyazaki, Takao Osawa, Haru Kuroki and Yukito Nishii. In Ame and Yuki, Hana falls in love with a Wolf Man. After the Wolf Man's death, Hana decides to move to a rural town to continue raising her two wolf children Ame and Yuki.

For the production of the film Hosoda established Studio Chizu, a studio that co-produced the film along with Madhouse. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto of the Evangelion series serves as character designer on the film. Ame and Yuki had its world premiere in Paris on June 25, 2012, and was released on July 21, 2012 in Japan.

Plot

Hana, a nineteen-year-old college student, meets a man who sneaks into her collage for lessons and falls in love with him immediately. They soon start dating.

One day, the man reveals his identity to Hana; he is a Wolfman and the only surviving descendant of the Japanese wolf. Undeterred by this fact, Hana invites him to stay with her. A year later, Hana becomes pregnant, much to the Wolfman's happiness. Although she frequently feels nauseous, Hana decides not to visit a hospital out of fear that her child would be a wolf. Their daughter, Yuki, is thus born at home. Their second child, a son named Ame, is born soon after.

Not long after Ame's birth, the Wolfman suddenly disappears. Hana searches frantically, only to discover that city workers were working to remove a wolf's carcass from a canal. He had died accidently while hunting to feed the children. Although devastated of the loss of her beloved Wolfman, Hana resolves to take good care of her children by herself, even though she does not know how to raise wolf-children.

Hana discovers that living in the city with her children was extremely difficult. Yuki, who is temperamental, often switches between her human and wolf form, creating a lot of noise, making the neighbors unhappy. Child-protection officers have been hounding Hana because her children had not gone for the compulsory immunization program. Making matters worse, her landlord receives complains that she was keeping pets at home due to the wolf cries made by Yuki and Ame, and threatens to evict her because the apartment forbids pets.

Hana decides to move to the countryside and stumbles upon a dilapidated house that was virtually rent-free, but requires a lot of renovation work. Most importantly to her, however, is the fact that the nearest neighbor is miles away, and the house is surrounded by nature.

Hana gets down to work immediately, repairing the house and later tried to grow crops. Initially skeptical of her at first, the other villagers warm up to her and help her to settle in. One fierce old man who treats newcomers harshly even shows Hana how to grow her own farm. Eventually, her farm blossoms despite the villagers warning about wild animals destroying the crops. Hana suspects that Yuki's urine might have chased the wild animals away.

Meanwhile, Yuki loves the new environment, while Ame dislikes it. One day, Ame finds the will to chase after a kingfisher, but loses his footing and falls into a stream, and nearly drowns. After that day, Ame became a more confident person.

Soon, Yuki reaches school-going age, and she begs her mother to send her to school. Hana agrees on one condition: that Yuki must never transform into a wolf in front of people. Although Yuki does not fit well into the school environment initially due to her background, but she soon adapts and makes many new friends at school. At the same time, Hana tries to find ways to educate her children about wolf survival in the wild. She eventually gets a job as an assistant in a nature reserve to learn more about nature.

When Ame enters school, he does not adapt well and is bullied. He soon refuses to attend school, and frequently wanders into the woods behind their house. Later, Hana discovers that Ame was taking lessons from a wild wolf about hunting and survival in the wild. In school, Yuki's class receives a new transfer student, Shohei. Shohei tells Yuki that she smelled of an animal. Fearing that he would uncover her identity, Hana avoids him. However, he follows Yuki around the school until Yuki, unable to control herself, transforms into a wolf and scratches him.

Haunted by this incident, Yuki refuses to go to school. However, moved by Shohei's persistence in sending her homework and foodstuff every day, Yuki eventually returns to school, and even became good friends with Shohei.

On one stormy day, Ame's 'master' dies. Ame wants to take over his role in the woods, but despite Hana's objections, he slips away without Hana knowing. During her search for Ame, Hana slips and falls, but is rescued by Ame, who is a matured wolf. She watches in awe as Ame howls and disappears into the distance. Meanwhile, Yuki, who was left in school with Shohei, reveals her true identity to Shohei, and admits to him that she was the wolf who attacked him. Shohei admits that he knew this a long time ago, but keeps it secret. He has already forgiven her.

Yuki later attends a boarding middle school, making a lot of new friends in the process and despite Ame's disappearance, his howls could be heard far and wide. Hana still lives alone in her old home.

Voice cast

• Aoi Miyazaki as Hana
• Takao Osawa as the Wolfman
• Haru Kuroki as Yuki
• Yukito Nishii as Ame
• Momoka Ono as Yuki (young)
• Amon Kabe as Ame (young)
• Takuma Hiraoka as Sohei
• Megumi Hayashibara as Sohei's mother
• Shota Sometani as Tanabe-sensei
• Mitsuki Tanimura as Doi's wife
• Kumiko Aso as Horita's wife
• Bunta Sugawara as Nirasaki

Reception

Critical Reception

The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki received positive reviews from film critics. Mark Schilling from The Japan Times compared Hosoda to the acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki, saying that "The Miyazaki influence on Hosoda's own work seems obvious, from his cute-but-realistic style to his concern with pressing social issues and the messy emotions of actual human beings". Moreover, he said that the director "has integrated fantastic elements into otherwise everyday settings". However, Schilling added that he felt that this film was "on the conventional and predictable side". He added that the film was like "appealing to "Jane Eyre" fans in one scene, "Call of the Wild" fans in the next", with him taking issue with "the well-worn, stereotypical rails on which the stories ran". Overall, Schilling gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

The French newspaper Le Monde rated this film as a "Excellent", and gave it a rating of five out of five stars. Singapore newspaper Mypaper also praised the film, saying that "There is a magnificent understated eye for detail, from the grain of wood on doors to the lovingly captured forest scenes, that help lift the movie above regular animation fare."

External links

• Official website Template:Ja icon
• Wolf Children (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Wolf Children at IMDb