Hana is a young university student in Tokyo with a pretty ordinary life. That is, until she meets and falls for a mysterious new male student. After they first meet, Hana learns he can shapeshift into a wolf but this does nothing to put her off him. In time they have two children: elder daughter Yuki, and younger son Ame. Their family life is going wonderfully, until the man is accidentally while scavenging for food. Now the widowed Hana chooses to move to the country where she is left with two half-human, half-wolf kids she doesn't know how to raise and who (like most siblings) frequently fight, and ultimately find their loyalties pulling them in very different directions.
Director and co-writer Mamoru Hosoda, who previously made 2009's Summer Wars and later 2018's Oscar-nominated Mirai (both also superb), is unquestionably one of the best animation filmmakers working today, and Wolf Children is him at the top of his game. He invests this deliberately metaphorical yet relatable narrative with the same familial message he would express even more overtly and successfully in Mirai, but this film stands on its own by simultaneously exploring the contemporary and traditional sides of Japanese life, through Yuki's and Ame's character arcs.
Visually, of course, it's mouth-watering, with painstaking attention to detail and continuity, and Masakatsu Takagi's music and Shigeru Nishiyima's editing both also enhance the consistency and emotional impact. The only fault I found with it is with one of the English-language version's vocal performances; Micah Solosud, at 22, sounds just far too old as the preteen Ame. But despite that minor drawback, these Wolf Children are a delightful pack.
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