A film from 2012. I donāt know why I havenāt seen it until now. Spoilers ahead, so read with caution. The story is narrated from the daughterās point of view. This is about a woman, named Hana who meets a mysterious person one day while she was at college. Though his name is never known, they end up getting to know each other and fall in love. He finally reveals that he is an extinct wolf species and that he can transform into one at will. They later have two kids. The eldest is their daughter, Yuki and conceiving another child a year later, their son, Ame. One day her lover doesnāt return home, so she goes out looking for him, finding him being dragged into a garbage dump in the form of a wolf. His death was also unknown, only that he had died, probably trying to find dinner, with the clues of bird feathers still on his fur. She then moves out to the country side to make a life away from neighbors, in fear that they may find out about her children and their ability to turn into wolves. So once Hana starts making a living on the country side, she fails at growing crops. She soon attracts attention of local farmers, as she is a single mother trying to grow crops and living off of her fatherās savings. They build a bond and she shares her harvest with the others all while getting the help from an elderly, grumpy man named Nirasaki. Yuki finds out about school and wants to go, but afraid of what might happen, Hana declines, until eventually getting the trust that Yuki will not turn into a wolf while away at school. Ame soon joins after and a few years go by. Yuki is now in middle school and meets a transfer student named Sohei. He says she smelled like a dog, which brings fear that he might find out, because sheās been trying to live as a human-being so not to make her mother fearful. Yuki is followed one day by Sohei as heās trying to find out why she has been avoiding him and they get into a tussle, in which Yuki unleashes a part of her wolf form scratching a part of Soheiās ear. Yuki doesnāt go to school after this. At this point, though Ame had been fearful to be a wolf, while reading books about wolves being hunted by humans, he starts to get mentored by an old fox that lives up in the mountains. He starts to take on more of his animal form and learn about the lifestyle in the wilderness. Ame and Yuki one night argue, because Yuki wants to continue to live on her life as a human, mean while Ame wants to become a part of the wild as he had been training with his sensei, the old fox. Ame and Yuki soon fight one another and end the scrimmage when the home is in shambles. They do forgive each other after. Soon, as Yuki has started going back to school again, while building a relationship with Sohei within that timeframe, a huge storm is on the horizon while Yuki is still at the school. Ame feels the call of the wild to save the mountain from the brewing storm. Parents are called to pick up their children, but Hana is distracted when she has to go find Ame in the mountains and ends up slipping down a hill and getting knocked unconscious. So, Hana never gets to pick up Yuki, as Sohei and her daughter are the only last two students in the building. That night, Yuki reviews her true self and he says he knew all along already and accepted her for who she is. Ame finds his mother and brings her out of the woods and as Hana wakes, he had already jumped back into the forest, leaving Hana to accept his fate as he has grown up to want to be a wolf. Years go by and Yuki is dorming at the junior high school now and Hana still lives by the countryside. I loved the story, telling about Hanaās single parent life, raising kids she has no clue how to raise because theyāre half beasts. As well as the identity crisis of the children. One choosing to be human, the other, wolf. So a class of culture and single-parenting made it a heart-felt film. (10/10 āØ)
