Wolf Children

Mamoru Hosoda set up Studio Chizu with Yuichiro Saito in 2011 in order to make this; Wolf Children is the studio’s first feature, co produced with Madhouse. The fantasy premise is closed off early, because the father dies shortly after Ame is born, and what follows is the administrative weight of raising the children alone. Neighbours complain about the noise, social services call because the children have no vaccination records, and once Hana has moved to the country a gruff old farmer called Nirasaki teaches her to work the land. That countryside is Kamiichi in Toyama, the director’s home town, whose former mayor had asked him to make a film set there. The forest is not hand drawn: Digital Frontier modelled it in Maya and laid hand painted textures over the computer models, so in the snow sequence cel animated children run through a digital wood, composited to read as flat drawing. Its world premiere was in Paris, a month before the Japanese release. The film was named Animation of the Year at the 36th Japan Academy Film Prize and took the Mainichi animation award. A good fit if you want transformation handled as a matter of paperwork, schooling and crops rather than suspense. Not for anyone who needs one of the two children to be proved right.