Occasionally anime films come along that rival Studio Ghibli in both visuals and storytelling. One that definitely does this in recent years is Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki. This translates to "Wolf Children Ame and Yuki". What the film's title promises is accurate, but this is secondary to what the film is actually about, because this movie is entirely about the enduring and triumphant nature of maternal love. The story covers 13 years about a college student named Hana who encounters and falls in a "fairy tale-like" love with a were-wolf. After marrying him, Hana gives birth and raises two wolf children: an older sister named Yuki and a younger brother named Ame. The story then follow Hana's struggles with this new maternal role (especially after the father's death) and how she deals with the difficulties it throws forward. Anyway, I was truly taken aback by the way this film was able to show me the struggles and perspectives of being a mother. I would like to point out that this is obvoiusly an exaggerated version of events, obviously because it is impossible to have wolf children (or is it??). Despite this the things The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki showed are true nevertheless.
First, this movie displayed the hardships a mother must go through and how she works hard for her children. Hana works hard everyday cooking and cleaning for her family, just as the father works hard to earn money for the family. This however becomes intensified after the father's death (during a search for food in his wolf form) as Hana must also manage what little finances the father left behind. Hana is of course the perfect character to face these struggles as her name reminds her fight through her trials and keep smiling. So although she spends long restless days and nights looking after her two overly demanding (because they are animals as well as being human) children. We see how this takes its tole on her as she goes about her daily chores in the beginning of the film. She must stay up all night to comfort her children if they are ill or sad, and she must be attentive in the day when they want to play and misbehave, not to mention she must cook, clean and balance the books. She must also make sure her children are behaving and take the blame from neighbours and fellow parents if her children are not. Being a mother is certainly a struggle. Just when she gets used to everything in her life new struggles are thrown forward: school and helping kids get adjusted to this, helping kids accpet themselves and their personalities, and helping them find their paths for later life. I will discuss these in more detail below. Furthermore, a mother must help her children stay safe and healthy.
Obviously this continues throughout the film, but is especially emphasised when she moves to her new house, which is really a symbolic and crucial part of the film in portraying this idea of struggle. To start with it shows how mothers must effectively give up their life for a totally new life. Hana's physical relocation represents the relocation of her responsibilities from study and part time work (trivial things compared to what she must do) to raise her offspring. Likewise the house she rents represents her family. It is rundown and in disrepair, just like family was after the father's death, especially financially. Just as Hana works hard to repair the roof and clean the place she is working hard to improve her family life and give her kids what they need. When she scrubs the sink hard enough she gets rid of the dirt and discovers the shining stones underneath, just as she works hard to improve her children she will discover the shining personalities they have. And although the hard she works on the house the more cuts she must cover up on her hands, the happier she is for her effort, the same with the effort she gives for her kids. At the same time as she cleans the floor and the wolf in the children (namely Yuki) dirties it with the frogs and bugs she finds, as Hana works to help her children the duality (usually the wolf part) of them will throw a spanner in the works and create more hardship.
During her attempt to build a nice family life for her wolf children Hana, still stuck in her student ways, reads books on parenthood and gardening, in order to grow food for her family and save what little money they have in the process. However, Hana only succeeds in this venture when she seeks and receives help, namely from the grumpy yet concerned old man Nirasaki. For me the second piece of maternal life that was displayed in The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki is how difficult motherhood is, not only because of the hardwork it demands, but due to being a first time mother is something that women have never done before. This is of course sounds obvious but if is not really something we address in real life looking at our parents. Hana constantly admits her ignorance at being a mother, especially for two such challenging children. She knows she must teach them how to live but does not know how to teach them. Yet throughout her time in the city she must hid her children due to their duality, becuase she cannot risk revealing their wolf side for fear of the unknown, yet almost certainly disastrous, consequences. She cannot take them to the doctor or to the vet if they are sick and she cannot ask the government for help. One of the purposes of moving to the mountainside was to hide them from the public. Even when in her new place she tries to hide them from her new neighbours. Thus Hana attempts to hide her children and face all her hardships by herself.
However, the more she tries to bear the load by herself, the more difficult it becomes, exemplified by her garden situation. At the same time as hiding her kids however, she looks for help. She constantly wants to know how to raise her wolf children and looks for the answers in books and from the wolf at her new work. However, it is only when she seeks support from those around her does she find what she is looking for. She is able to grow more than enough crops and as she partakes more in the community the more they help her. Although Hana cannot ask someone about her problem directly (which I am sure she would love to do) or ask some family member for help but when she looks for support she finds it. The film shows how mothers are new at their job and may not feel as though they should look for support but they certainly should, because if they hide all their problems away it is very hard to get things right (and there are thigns you cannot learn from books). Although mothers themselves are new at their job, there are others who are not new at it, and they must be looked to for help and advice. Hana even realises this after the community support her.
This then leads to the next part of The Wolf Children, which shows what a mother's true job is. As mentioned above (briefly) Hana's struggles to be a mother includes helping her children to love themselves and who they are. In particular she must help Yuki, who was more inclined to be a wolf, to love herself as a human and help Ame, who perfers to stay in his human form, to accept and embrace the wolf side of himself. For Yuki this is particularly established in her desire to go to school and be like a normal kid, despite the fact she is anything but normal and is all too easily excited and quick to transform into a wolf. Hana helps Yuki with this though by making her a nice dress and by giving her a "magic spell" (more of a calming mantra) to say in order to stop her transforming. Both of these work as Yuki loves her new life at school as a human and from then one wants to be a human. Likewise (yet in total contrast, Ame dislikes his wolf form and struggles with it. This stems from the fact that he is untalented at hunting (sort of like a test for true wolves I guess) and that when he read a book about wolves they are hated by people. Hana must convince him to accept and love that he is part wolf. She says how she loved his father and his wolf side and that not everyone hates them. She also brings himto her new work to communicate with the encaged wolf and help Ame embrace the other side of himself. This again works and we see that Ame learns to love this part of himself and often wanders off into the mountainous woods as a wolf.
Hana does such a great job, in fact, of getting her kids to accept and embrace those parts of themselves that they did not originally like, that there is an almost total role reversal. Ame is now more inclined to the ways of the wolf, whereas Yuki prefers her human state. This all leads to conflict within the family and the next task of Hana as the exemplary mother emerges from this. The two fight between the two children is about which path is the right one to choose, with Yuki saying Ame should come to school more often as he wasting his time as a wolf, but Ame voices the opinion that Yuki is just hiding he true self, the wolf part, and that she needs to let go. This fight gets physical as both turn to wolves and set upon each other. Ame, who has obviously spent much more time as a wolf, easily has Yuki on the ropes quickly and chases her into the bathroom. Hana thus must pick up the piece and assert that anyway in life that they choose is the right way. In fact, Hana realises early on that as a mother she must not only help her kids accept themselves but let them choose their own paths. One key reason she moved to the country side was to allow the children to choose their lifestyle. She even tells them they must make this decision soon after they move to the mountains.
It is one thing to let someone choose their own path, it is another to support them fully and let go of what control you have over them. Hana then does the best she can to support Yuki's life and when Yuki does not want to go back to school Hana helps push her back on the horse per say after she turns into a wolf and scratches Souhei. She also helps Yuki reconcile with Souhei. Hana likewise continues to support Ame in his decision to be more wolf like and is impressed with how he has found a mentor in the old fox who is the guardian of the forest. However, Hana starts to rethink and resist this decision when this means that Ame is put in danger, as he must help his mentor do dangerous tasks (like help out during the heavy storm) and because it means she might lose him because he will take up residence in the woods as his mentor's replacement. Ame goes against his mother's wishes and during the storm goes into the forest, instead of travelling with his mother to pick up Yuki from school. In an attempt to guard and protect Ame, Hana follows him but this all proves futile when treking through the dangerous woods, she slips and is left semi-unconsious. Ame rescues her and only then does she realise she must let go and let him take up the place in the world that he desires to occupy, only wishing that she could have done more for him. However, after she makes this decision she feels happiness, seeing him howl in the sunlight, realising she has done all she can. It seems as if Hana learns and grows from this experience. At the end of the film we learn Yuki goes off to boarding school. This time there is no fight from her mother, there is only support. Hana has learnt that she cannot change the past and that the only other thing she can do for her children is to let them go on, without her by their side, following their dreams. It is alright to guard them from dangers but too much becomes more restriction than safety. This it seems is the hardest part of motherhood, letting go of those babies you raised into the world, with the feeling that you could do more to help.
Although Ame creates the main problem in the film and for mothers (namely Hana), Yuki is not unimportant even if we are talking about maternal love. It is during Hana's biggest task that Yuki is able to communicate with Souhei, the boy whom she avoided, attacked and then began to like. He lets us into a bad example of a mother's love, as illustrated by his mother. He tells of how his mother is ignoring and basically abandoning him because she will marry a richer man and is pregnant with his baby. This of course is the complete opposite of Hana, the good mother, who abandons all her desires for (or rather transforms them to become one with) the needs of her children. Souhei's mother abandons her child, who says he will become a boxer to survive. I think it is important, not that we see this happening, but hear it from the victim Souhei, the forgotten son, so that we can get a better perspective of the pain and hardship it causes if a mother neglects her maternal duty for her own desires. Souhei's mother was already shown as nasty when scolding Yuki and Hana but now she comes across as downright despicable. We reflect on Hana's struggles and think of how great a mother she really is.
There is one last observation that can be made about mothers from this film and that is a mother's perspective of what the worse thing in the world is. This is that they would lose their child, ie their child would die. This is addressed when Ame, starting to accept his wolf side, tries to catch a bird s he has never been that good at hunting, especially when compared to his sister, and now that his mum has vitalised his spirit he feels the need to prove himself. He suceeds, however, in the process he falls into a stream. Although Yuki is able to save him from the rushing waters, because it is winter with snow on the ground, the cold really affects him and we can see the fear in Hana's face. They are able to help him recover, partly (I assume) because he is part wolf but we learn from Yuki's narration afterwards this was her mother's scariest moment. More than anything else Hana feared losing her baby. I think that this is why, later in the film, letting go for Hana, and I guess mothers in general, is such a struggle. When your greatest fear is losing the one you love and you must let them go with no control of their outcomes it can be a daunting prospect, however it is, as we have seen, the best thing to do.
Although they are happy now, Hana's scariest moment was almost losing Ame to the cold: http://www.zerochan.net/1666884
The closing theme nicely summises all the issues within the film. It mentions danger, responsibility, looking after kids, loving their inner personalities, their symbotic relationship for happiness, and most importantly how mothers must let go eventually. Although the film is named after the children this film is truly about their mother and what it takes to be a mother. Sure the wolf children are extreme and obviously imaginary examples, but the idea of motherhood being a struggle is true nevertheless. This film not only is an amusing and interesting but it also makes me thankful for my mother due to the way it presents Hana and her trials as the mother of two wolf children. Often it is hard to see these things when you are in the middle of the mother-child dynamic so it is great to see a film that allows the audience to view our own relationship through a third party perspective and become better for it. It is easy for us to forget things like how difficult motherhood is and how this is a new experience for women who are expected to be perfect right off the bat. A film that can convey such a message and give an enjoyable story at the same time is definitely worth a watch.
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