Wolf Children Were Shoved into a Narrow Little Box

I was excited to watch Wolf Children. It was another film by Mamoru Hosoda. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars were excellent. Both in story, characters, pacing, and animation I could never have asked for more. I hoped that Wolf Children would be the same.

I wasn't disappointed… for the first half of the film. The beginning, up until the point where Hana gets help from her new neighbours was endearing and just the calibre storytelling I expected. Her children were rambunctious little creatures, but they were full of life and charm. Yuki was a riot as she picked up snakes, bugs, and changed her form ten times a sentence. Ame was timid, but his nature was sweet foil to his energetic sister.

But then the movie went from being happy-sad to that rare kind of sad that made makes me angry and bitter.

Instead of coming to terms their dual nature Hosoda has the children choose between one life or the other – human or wolf. And it was a decision that destroyed the characters that were so lovingly built up in the first half of the movie.

Yuki was unique in the first half. She was a little wolf-girl who peed on wild boars and collected animal skulls, but then she goes to school, and in order to make herself fit in, fades herself into a bland stereotype. She forces herself into dresses and jewellery, until she so boring that you find yourself repeatedly checking how much longer her story could possibly drag on for.

Ame who was timid about being a wolf embraces his wolf nature so much so that he decides: screw humans I’m never coming out of the woods. He really doesn't really even try to be human, which makes him as dull as his sister.

Why did the two of them have to choose? Their father didn't choose. He hunted for his mate and then

cooked the dead rooster on the kitchen stove of their 4x4 little apartment in the middle of the city. Ame and Yuki were a mix of two worlds. You can’t just cut out one part of yourself in order to fit into society’s narrow little box of understanding.

It would have been impressive if they had made a place for themselves in their rural town where their crazy, wonderful selves could shine.

And then the film had the balls to suggest that Hana's kids didn't need her any more - they had found their place, so long and thanks for all the fish. To a degree, that’s okay. Yes, as we grow up we don’t ourtheir parents in the same way, but let’s be real here, no matter how old we get we still need our parents in some capacity. Hana and her kids had a strong emotional bond that was nuked at the end of the film.

But the part that really pissed me off was how Hana was handled at the end of the movie. Her goal was to raise her children well, and despite all odds she does that. But then Ame and Yuki go off and Hana is just left alone like she is going to sit in that house for the rest of her life and go into robot-mother sleep mode.

All I could think was: that was it? She’s 30 years old and all she is going to do with her life is reminisce about how great a job she did raising her kids until the day she dies? It was insulting. She had been going to school. She had dreams before her children came along. Where was Hana’s place?

Wolf Children did make me cry, but instead of a refreshing catharsis I found myself angrily balling my eyes out and crabby. What it said about women and about growing into ourselves was disheartening.

I still have faith in Hosoda. I can’t wait until he produces another film, but I hope that next time he keeps up the beautiful animation and clever stories, but I also hope he takes a little more care with his characters and doesn't try to shove them into a narrow little box that they will never fit into.