A tear-jerker that shows the importance of family no matter who you are, even if you’re half wolf.

Going into a film called “Wolf Children” you never know what to expect, especially when the film is an anime.  After years of watching anime I had become used to the over the top special effects, voice acting and amazing art styles it comes with, but I’d not seen anything like this in my life.

The film centres on Hana, a former college student.  While in class one day she notices a strange boy in the lecture she’s attending.  After a few days she brings up the courage to talk to him and slowly gets to know him bit by bit.

It’s a relationship which we can feel developing as the story progresses and, while this is largely the prologue of the film, it makes the relationship feel real with the voice acting, emotions shown on the characters faces and real world setting.

Their relationship blossoms and Hana’s boyfriend now reveals to her his secret, he is in fact a werewolf.   Not a full moon transformation savage kind of wolf but one who is able to take the shape of one under the light of the moon.

Undeterred by this Hana and her love continue their relationship and eventually have two children together.  Unfortunately her partner is killed in an accident and she is forced to raise two children, both of whom cannot yet control their transformations, alone.

The saddest moment in the film is the death of Hana’s mate.  He is not given an official name but just from watching the two spend time together the relationship feels more loving than that of a few other werewolf romance stories, yes I’m referring to Twilight.

Hana shows deep love for her children and the film doesn’t fail to entertain and bring tears to my eyes each time I watch it.

The film focuses on the children growing up and learning to live with their wolf tendencies in the second half through to the end and this makes for some nice laughs and cute moments as we see them grow from babies to young teenagers.

Whether dubbed or subbed the voice acting is amazing and helps set the mood for a film which really feels more engaging that many Hollywood BlockBusters, for us AltFans anyway.

For this and more amazing anime feature films like this check out the University of Lincoln’s anime society.  Films are usually shown on Sundays at 2pm.