Review of Wolf Children (2013) by Dawdlingpoet — 23 Nov 2021

This is a Japanese anime (animated - 2D animation), mostly family friendly drama film, covering themes including the supernatural, metamorphosis and love. It is made by Studio Chizu, rather than Studio Ghibli, alrthough the animation is definitely still of a decent quality, albeit perhaps not quite as impressive as that of Ghibli. It has quite a dreamlike, almost fragile sense to it, with pleasant, light, almost sort of float-y sounding piano tunes played and a quiet, near whispering vocals sung in the background during the first few scenes, as the plot slowly starts to develop.

As I've noticed with other similar anime/manga films, I was very much impressed with the voice artistry present, as the woman who voiced the main character of Hanna sounded really quite expressive, voicing her emotions at key times. I found myself thinking that the voice of the wolf was particularly apt - sounding quite quiet and shrewd. Cast wise, Takao Osawa voices said character, with Aoi Miyazaki voicing Hana and Tamio Ohki as Yamaoka. Sound effects were also well added to the animation, so that you could hear the traffic moving as you could see them driving by, hear the trains running past while seeing them move through the city in the background and so on and so forth. I tend to find these sort of films surprisingly immersive due to this and its very much applies to this film as well.

While the film definitely starts off sounding and appearing quite optimistic, it is relatively sad at times and I did find myself feeling quite sorry for Hana, given her situation ( imagine its hard enough to look after two human children, let alone werewolf hybrid ones!), although it is quite floaty and dreamlike in tone for the most part. I found it to be an easier watch than perhaps it could potentially have been but if you cry easily at emotional films then you may be wise to have a few tissues to hand just in case. I found it really quite charming overall.

Content wise, the film contains a few mild profanities, some mild depictions of partial nudity (breast feeding being depicted is one example) and there is some mild violence but otherwise there's little to offend people. There are a few scenes which could be slightly frightening for very young children but I wouldn't have thought it likely to be the sort of film that slightly older children would be at all scared of, as such. Its been given a PG rating on this basis (according to IMDB and the DVD sleeve (I rented it via Lovefilm), although I've also see it advertised with a 12 rating and im not sure why - any sex related elements are very brief and not at all graphic or embarrassing, at least I didn't think so anyway.

While this is an English language version I watched, there are the ocassional subtitle - translations for shop names and Japanese writing in books etc. featured in the animation. There isn't a great deal of it overall, so it shouldn't greatly put you off watching the film in general, I reckon but its worth being aware of all the same.

I felt there was some good motion-centered camerawork (if thats the term?), with angles used from the ground perspective showing said wolf children running fast in the forest, along grassy ground with grass, stones etc. passing by. Its the equivalent of a good use of camerawork, only, of course, this is an animated film, so it ocassionally shows things from a good angle. Yes I would recommend this film as being quite immersive and having a nice musical score, with some decent quality animation and good voice acting, its worth a watch if you like Japanese animated films.