Review – Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki

• Characters 3
• Story 2
• Enjoyment 2
• Art .5
• Animation 1

Overall Score: 8.5/10

If I were to describe Wolf Children in 1 word it would be…deep. 

The story is centered around Hana who meets and falls in love with a man who is also a wolf. She has his children, a girl named Yuki and later, a boy named Ame. After some events (that I won’t talk about for the sake of keeping this review as spoiler-free as possible) Hana decides to take Ame and Yuki far away from the city, into the mountains, where they can grow up having the freedom of whether they wish to follow their wolf half or human half.

The characters are all wonderful. All the way from Hana, the determined and hard-working mother, to her two children Ame and Yuki who are polar opposites.

I couldn’t get enough of this family. The sibling relationship between Ame and Yuki is portrayed realistically, which is more than I can say about 90% of the anime I see now. And the character development is off the charts. The way Ame and Yuki mature and the way Hana does her best to learn how to raise her wolf children properly is fantastic. There’s a perfect mix of drama, comedy, and scenes that just give you warm fuzzies. :3

The art gave me somewhat of a Hayao Miyazaki feeling. And the backgrounds often gave off the same tones as those in Kimi ni Todoke. The light, warm, artistic ones.

 

After watching Wolf Children, I felt like I couldn’t watch another movie for a while. Just because I wanted to sit down and think about the psychological themes within. It might sound kind of weird, but I just wanted to let the entire movie sink in before moving on.

The only cons I can see with Wolf Children is the art and the Wolfman (Ame and Yuki’s father). Occasionally, the character’s faces look somewhat stretched and a bit off and the concept of the Wolfman is only briefly touched upon. They don’t really go in-depth about his past or his character.

That being said, the distorted art is only occasional and there are plenty of animation scenes that are done beautifully to make up for it.

So to sum it up:

Pros: Deep and thought-provoking. Strong, interesting, realistic characters. Incredibly well written. The music is beautiful and so are many animation scenes. Pure and clean.

Cons: The art is occasionally a bit distorted. It would be nice to have known more about the Wolfman.

Worth watching? Definitely. Especially if you’re a fan of josei or slice of life. If people ask me for a good anime movie to watch that isn’t a Studio Ghibli film, Wolf Children is always what I suggest. I would even say that it’s one of my all-time favorite movies. So if you’re looking for a clean, wholesome, well written, deep movie; something different from the average, check out Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki.

Stuff I Like

Anime

• One Piece
• Baccano!
• Kimi ni Todoke
• Deadman Wonderland
• Samurai Champloo
• Beelzebub
• Usagi Drop
• Daily Lives of High School Boys
• Fairy Tail
• Kare Kano
• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica

Manga

• Dogs: Bullets and Carnage (Though there is a 4-episode OVA)
• Itsuwaribito Utsuho
• Jack the Ripper: Hell Blade
• Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom
• Deadman Wonderland

Characters 

• Ace (One Piece)
• Senji Kiyomasa (Deadman Wonderland)
• Haine Rammsteiner (Dogs: Bullets and Carnage)
• Badou Nails (Dogs: Bullets and Carnage)
• Erza Scarlet (Fairy Tail)
• Naoto Fuyumine (Dogs Bullets and Carnage)
• Aoi Kunieda (Beelzebub)
• Mugen (Samurai Champloo)

And pretty much the entire cast of Baccano!. Especially Claire Stanfield.

 

How I Rate My Anime

I am a HUGE fan of DraconisMarch.

(If you don’t know about him, you can find his youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/DraconisMarchVII 

and his MAL account here: http://myanimelist.net/profile/DraconisMarch )

His brother came up with an ingenious way to rate anime called the “Karmic System”. (http://myanimelist.net/blog/DraconisMarch)

I love it. It’s so easy and makes so much sense. Therefore, it’s what I’ll use for my own reviews. Only, with a few tweaks.

I’ve never cared much for sound when it comes to watching anime, in fact, the only soundtrack that I’ve ever fallen head-over-heels for was the one used for Samurai Champloo (Nujabes ❤ ) and Baccano!. While music does set the mood, it’s never been something I pay close attention to.

Therefore, rather than counting sound as a factor, I’ll just be putting it under “enjoyment”. And I’ll be adding an “art” category. (Art and animation are two completely different things in my eyes.)

So for my ratings, it goes:

• Characters: 3 points
• Story: 3 points
• Enjoyment: 2 points
• Art: 1 point
• Animation: 1 point

Add it all up and the highest possible score is a 10.

Rating Scale

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• 1=Poop     5=Average     10=Masterpiece

Fill in the blanks and the scale will build itself.

I try to keep my reviews as short as possible while still hitting the key points. Therefore, I won’t usually go as in-depth as I’d like. If you have questions for why I rate why I do, go ahead and comment/message. 🙂

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Also, there’s a clear difference between liking something and giving it the proper rating it deserves. You can like something all you want, but to say it’s “good” is a completely different subject.

Nice to meetcha~

Hey guys, I’m Amp.

I’m a beginner anime reviewer/critic, so try to go easy on me. I’m definitely not the most eloquent speaker, but I’ll try to get my points across as clearly as possible while trying to stay somewhat interesting and entertaining.

I guess I should introduce some of my favorite series first, eh? Here we go. (These don’t go in any particular order after 1)

1. One Piece
2. Dogs: Bullets and Carnage
3. Baccano!
4. Deadman Wonderland
5. Fairy Tail
6. Samurai Champloo
7. Beelzebub

and so on and so on. From the list above, you’ll probably notice that I’m a huge fan of action anime, especially ones with a little bit of a darker twist. That being said, I also love series with lighter comedic aspects such as Kimi ni Todoke or Ouran, while also being fond of psychologically deeper things like Wolf Children or Angel Beats!.

What I don’t watch –

yaoi/yuri, hentai/ecchi, series with bad writing, bad characters, bad story, bad etc.

You’ll see more of what I like and hate as I begin writing reviews.

Thanks for dropping by~