What's stopping Ame from being able to just pop down the mountain and visit Hana every now and then? Even if he doesn't want to/can't return to his human form for some reason, I never understood why he can't just pop down on his birthday or something every now and then just to see her and let her know he's doing fine?
Nothing. Think of it like a child leaving their parents to go off to college/get married - the parents know their child is going to be fine, but it's difficult to let go of them because of all that they have done and they could still have done. Add that to the fact that Ame is around ten.
Hana: But I still haven't done a single thing for you...
It's heavily implied though, that Ame let completely go of his human side, as in all of it, meaning no occasional trips to check in on his mother and sister. At most I'd imagine that he'd come to look at them from the top of a hill sometimes, out of their sight, before disappearing again, never actually getting close to them. Or else I don't think it would have been played that dramatically.
Except that doesn't make sense. That's like saying Yuki would never be able to turn into a wolf because she chose being human. Or, even more to the point, their father. He lived as both a human and a wolf, having no problem transforming. While Ame may chose the lifestyle of a wolf, he is still part human.
While he likely can still change into a human, my impression was that he chose not to, just like Yuki decided the opposite. While their father seemed comfortable with both forms, I'm guessing the point is that his children would each choose their preferred forms for their stories sake. If I can take an example from Fables, the werewolf there had the choice to transform himself into whatever he wanted, like his brothers did, however, because his dead mother was a wolf he swore that the wolf form would be his only form (next to a human), to which it eventually became the only form he could transform into, because it was what he wanted. I'm guessing it's a similar case with Ame, he'll forever stay as a wolf because it's what he wants. If it really was just a case of him wanting to live by himself, he could just tell his mother "I love you and all, but I think it's time I get my own place. Don't worry, I'll come by often" and pack his bags and leave during the day while telling her and his sister goodbye. Instead he runs away in the middle of a storm and doesn't answer to any of his mother's calls, which is usually what someone who doesn't want to be found does. Although, I'm not saying it's impossible for him to pay them a visit, even so I'd just guess it'd happen very rarely.
First, maybe he does visit Hana once in awhile. Second, remember that he's serving as the Guardian of the Mountain now that sensei is dead. Perhaps the mountain suffers somehow if its guardian ever neglects his duties. So maybe he can't leave the mountain and/or turn human for more than a few minutes, without causing some kind of negative consequence. (As far as we know, sensei never left the mountain.) And if something goes wrong with the (magic) mountain ecosystem, that would probably affect Hana too. Maybe he needs to stay away, for her sake.
The manga epilogue of the movie confirms that Ame does occasionally come by to drop a fruit by their door, though it's unknown if he directly speaks to them.
Why did dude just leave like that?
Why did Ame just leave his unconscious mother in the middle of a parking lot in the rain? Was somebody just supposed to find her and help her? Before or after they hit her with their car?
He probably felt this was the best place she would be seen by humans, and therefore be likely to get help in the event she needed medical care. It was also probably the closest man-made area, as she was probably far away from their house when she finally collapses. Fortunately for him she wakes up and seems fine, but he had no way of knowing what condition she'd be in when he first picked her up.
I like to think that sensei taught Ame how to intuitively sense the health states of other living beings. So he knew that she would wake up in 30 seconds, and he knew that she had enough strength to make it home without any permanent injury. He simply carried her as far as she needed to be carried.
Let's face it, Ame's not the greatest son.
Do wolfkids hulk out?
Won't Yuki have... err... "Hulk problems" once she finds herself a boyfriend that might make it hard for her to keep up the whole "I'm a completely normal human act"? Even her father, who grew up to werewolf parents who presumably taught him all about how to control himself clearly had issues when it came to that.
It didn't look like he had issues to me, he decided himself when he showed Hana his wolf form. Yuki was pretty good at controlling herself even though slip ups happens when you're a kid. As a teen or adult, she'll probably have mastered it. If it's about the wolf man dying when trying to hunt a bird however, we don't know if he unconsciously transformed to jump after it, or knowingly did so without considering his jump well in which the latter would just have been an accident, which can happen to anyone.
I was referring to the fact that one of the shots during the introduction very strongly suggests that he changed into a wolf while having sex with Hana. Either he lost control of himself, or Hana is a deeply disturbed woman with very odd fetishes.
Or, you know. She loves him for what he is.
Maybe I remember wrong but I only saw him being in wolf form right before they were about to have sex, which was funny but most likely he transformed into a human before they got to it (well or so I hope anyway).
It's not that he lost control, Hana is just not against it apparently.
It's also possible that he could only spread his lineage while in wolf form.
One assumption could be that she eventually dates Souhei, who knows her secret.
It's implied that she'll end up dating Souhei, and probably end up marrying him as well. Much like Hana towards the Wolf Man, Souhei didn't seem to mind seeing Yuki in her wolf-girl form, so would probably be just fine with her if they decide to have children.
Who's in the wrong here?
It bothers me how the movie seems to treat how Yuki reacted to Souhei like she was in the wrong. Yes, she wasn't open to him, but that doesn't justify him chasing around school, cornering her, and grabbing her arms when she tells him to leave her alone. It's no wonder she nearly took off his ear when he acted like that.
It didn't portray Souhei's action of chasing her around to be "okay", Yuki simply felt there was no use telling the adults he provoked her when in her eyes, she had disappointed her mother for breaking the promise of not transforming while at school. It was all that mattered to her.
The fact that Souhei never apologizes for his actions and yet becomes friends with Yuki is what makes it seem like the movie handwaving what he did and putting the blame on Yuki.
I took his bringing her food/stuff (my memory fails me right now) and coming by everyday to check on her was his way of showing he was sorry, clearly being concerned for her.
Seeing how he knew the wolf was Yuki, saying that "A wolf did it" might have been an apology by way of covering for her, since the adults (save for Hana) wouldn't have made the connection. He took her homework to her place as well since she left school early. Seeing as he literally had to go out of his way in order to go by her house, I think it's pretty obvious he was sorry and trying to fix things.
They where both in the wrong.
Tomboy to girly-girl?
For that matter, it bothers me that Yuki's coming of age took the form of her conforming to what was "normal" for little girls aka being more graceful, elegant, etc. I know Japan is a very conformist society, but I still think that it's a bit iffy.
Like it says on the YMMV page, this goes into Alternative Character Interpretation, whether or not Yuki simply became more girly on her own, or if she got shamed into it. If it's the latter it definitely falls into Unfortunate Implications.
Then again, don't forget about cultural Values Dissonance. The Japanese consider conformity a sign of discipline and maturity, and Japanese culture generally looks down upon nails who stick out.
Hana actually mentions this, though she doesn't push the issue (likely because Yuki is stubborn enough that she well knows arguing is pointless). It's a decision a lot of girls make at the end of the day, and it's pretty much portrayed as is, without any approval or disapproval behind it.
Don't forget that turning into a wolf is a very un-girly thing to do. (I mean, turning into any animal is weird of course, but wolves in particular are regarded as masculine.) Yet she shows Souhei her true form in the end. You could take this as a sign of self-acceptance. Likewise, perhaps she eventually learns to accept the other non-girly aspects of herself. Perhaps she shares her love of snakes with Souhei, even if she can't share that interest with other girls.
What I want to know is, if none of the girls in Yuki's class shared her interests, why didn't she go find other kids who did? She couldn't be the only girl in her school to like snakes and animal bones. And even if she was, couldn't she hang out with the boys instead?
Another explanation is that Yuki's scientific ("tomboyish") interests are being expressed in a different way, just not that we see on onscreen.
Mis-ID'd species
When the dad dies in his wolf form, how is it that no one recognizes him as a wolf and instead they just throw away his body like a common dead animal? I figured a freshly dead wolf in Japan would reach national headlines indicating that there may be some undiscovered wolf pack that has survived extinction, and that the body would be taken by a professional research team instead of a dumpster truck.
The way I see it there are three options: 1. They did decide to take him in for researching, but being garbage men they had no better way to bring him with them and simply went with the quickest solution. 2. It's the same as in Wolf's Rain, wolves have been extinct so long some people have never seen a wolf before and thinks it's just a big dog, or 3. Rule of Drama: Seeing him being taken away by scientists wouldn't have been as tragic/terrible as seeing him being taken away in a garbage bag.
At one point after Hana moves to the country side, she has two of her "neighbors" over. Yuki is within view as wolf form and while the wife assumes it's a wolf, the husband says it can't be. It's best to assume everyone figures the wolves are just mixed breeds.
Plenty of dogs look like wolves. The real question is, when the sobbing woman comes running up to the dead canine, why do the workers not put two and two together and assume it was her dog? Instead they just toss the carcass in the garbage.
A pet dog would have a collar or some sort of identification on it as proof it belonged to someone. Since the wolfman wasn't wearing one when he died, the workers probably thought he was just a common stray, especially with Hana not claiming otherwise. Maybe they thought the dead dog was just an animal Hana had seen around or she was just a sentimental animal lover. Alternately, they were too preoccupied with finishing their job to really pay Hana any attention.
To address another point, wolves had been extinct in Japan long by this point (the last one being killed in about 1901ish), so outside of pictures, not too many would know what a wolf looks like.
Two of the relatives being missing?
Why did nobody wonder where Hana's husband went? The guy was a registered member of society, and he just vanishes from one day to the next.
It's definitely a curious situation. Right after his death, it is mentioned that her husband left her some money, and if that went through any official channels whatsoever and wasn't literally just a sack of cash lying around the house, she would have needed a death certificate and so forth to claim it. The whole issue of his human self's sudden disappearance is kind of sloppily glossed over.
Lots of people disappear. Generally after a set period of time and some investigation, a person can be assumed legally dead for the purpose of life insurance/transfer of savings to spouse etc.
The "set period of time" tends to be measured in years, but there's no mention that Hana had to wait for the money. More likely it was just physical cash in the house, or else they had a joint bank account and Hana just accessed her cash in the usual way. So there's no need to officially declare death. (In fact, perhaps she just told people that her husband went on a trip or something, and only started calling herself a widow after she moved to the country.)
This would be an acceptable explanation if it weren't for the fact that he had a job. Unless he was being paid under the table, they'd likely have raised some alarms before their employee had been "on a vacation" for three years.
Artistic License - Law, most likely (it's not new at this point). But there were other coworkers close to him, even working with him on a regular basis, who then likely asked Hana what happened when he never showed up... even the vague 'he's gone' (ie dead) would've been enough to solve that question for them, the company, and legal services through that. And people would understand her not wanting to say more (being torn up about it)... they might raise an eyebrow that there wasn't a funeral, but overall, it wasn't enough to draw real scrutiny. Plus, having been living together for awhile, Hana could no doubt still access his funds, by means of things like sharing a bank account.
That trope mostly applies to American/Western Laws, so it probably wouldn't apply to Japan the same way. That aside, as mentioned below with Ame, a possible cover story could be that Wolfman took work overseas, left to go somewhere, or that they divorced (or, since they likely weren't legally married, just left). Also, since he did have a job, he probably kept to himself and it's not said if he only that job. Alternatively, he might have had periods where he was gone for awhile.
Similarly, why does nobody wonder or care why Ame disappeared? You'd expect that the police would have some questions about the kid who doesn't turn up at school anymore.
They are out in the wilds, where such a thing could go without investigation for a while. They could just say that he died or ran away, and it's not like they have any evidence of wrongdoing on the families' part.
Perhaps Hana told everyone that Ame went to live with a (fictional) relative on the other side of the country. It'd surprise people for being so sudden, but after awhile they'd accept it.
Worse time to run away?
Why did Ame run off on the worst possible day? He could have guessed that his mother would come after him, tenacious as she is. She easily could have gotten herself killed. Worse: once he finally finds her, he simply drops her on a parking lot, where she could have died from hypothermia.
I got the impression his "instincts" told him to leave that day, as he acts weird for a long while and his behaviour right before doing so looks like he's thinking "It's time", plus it was clearly meant to coincide with his Meaningful Name. Then again, you also have Rule of Drama. As for leaving his mother at the parking lot, I think it would be close to a building with people and it was sunny and warm even if it had just rained so I don't think the cold would be a problem, and he didn't actually leave her until after she woke up.
Sensei was the Guardian of the Mountain, right? Presumably the mountain needs a guardian, for some magical reason. Ame knew that sensei was dying and that only he could become the new guardian. So he had to leave on that day, because otherwise there'd be a gap between guardians and presumably that's bad in some mystic way that humans would never understand.
Evading CPS
How did Hana keep social services at bay? It's not that they will forget about you simply because you move to the countryside, especially not in Japan.
Maybe she changed her name and adopted a false identity, keeping the name "Hana" but changing her family name and other info.
Mmm, in the US, there are stories of people evading CPS by moving cities or states, so, in this case, when Hana moved to a different prefecture, CPS couldn't investigate beyond the prefecture she moved from. That said, CPS doesn't function in Japan the same way they might in the US.
Don't tell the fam
How come Hana never considered letting her family in on her children's secret? She told Wolf-Man her dad died and the light novel implies that her mother is either dead or left the family, but she does say she has other relatives. If the light novel is considered canon, then this is even more perplexing since Hana's aunts and uncles had offered to let Hana live with them and pay for her tuition when she first entered college, so it's not like there's any bad blood between them. Sure, learning they have wolf kids in the family would be shocking at first, but maybe they would have pitched in to help raise Ame and Yuki?
Remember, what spurned her to move is people potentially prying into that she has wolfkids and possibly whatever negative consequences to come from that, so, there's another layer as to why she probably didn't tell them. Though, it's possible that she may have grown to be estranged from them around the time she met Wolf Man (not too out of the realm of possibility).
Waiting until they're sixteen?
Why didn't Hana agree with her kids that they will remain fully human at least until their sixteenth birthday, and then decide how they will live? That way, their decisions would have been more mature and well-rounded.
She actually does start saying things along those lines when Ame starts talking about living as a wolf, but the problem is that, by then, he already feels so much more connected to his wolf side than his human side. He wouldn't obey her. And the point is raised that ten years old actually is adulthood for a wolf.
Also Rule of Drama. Having 16 year old Ame decide to settle as a wolf and leave would still be sad but not as dramatic since children are expected to become independent and leave their parents around that age, however, a child Ame, who hasnt even reached puberty yet, leaving his family seemingly forever without a goodbye is more shocking for Hana and the audience.
You'll notice that children who chose to remain human (Yuki) basically act like human 10-year-olds + grow as such, while those that chose to embrace the wolf side (Ame) act + grow closer to the wolf's age progression (as stated above, 10 is adult for wolves). There's no one age or timeline set on this bloodline, it seems; it's flexible, until the child chooses which side to embrace overtime.
Why do they even need to make a choice to begin with? Hana asks them early on whether they want to live as people or wolves if they could only be one thing, but it's a false dichotomy. As hybrids, they're always going to have a foot (or paw) in both worlds. Their father seemed perfectly capable studying and working as a human in the city while going out to hunt as a wolf and Hana knows this. Why didn't she assure Yuki that it's okay to spend some time in the woods as a wolf after school or help Ame develop some human hobbies or connect with other nature-loving people even if he didn't want to go to school?
Wolf Man tried to do both and that didn't end well. That said, it's probably easier to live as one vs both.
Using actual canine sounds
Why didn't they use real wolf or at least dog howls for the howling scenes? Surely there must be recordings they could have used.
This seems to be a common thing with movies/shows about dogs/wolves, actually. While you do have the ones where real howls were used, there seems to be equally many simply using human voices. I have no idea why though, it sure sounds alot better just using real ones, but it could be it's hard to get a hold of recordings like that? Or the creators thought the actors sounded close enough to a dog/wolf they didn't deem it necessary to make it more complicated.
Maybe it was important to hear that it was still Ame's voice, despite him being a wolf. A real wolf recording would have too inhuman and presumably have strong sad/scary implications.
More about family
Yuki mentions that Hana never thought of asking the wolfman about his childhood and how his parents raised him which made taking care of Yuki and Ame more complicated after he died. I have to ask though, why didnt she? You'd think she'd be curious about her husband's life plus there arent any books or other sources on how to raise werewolf kids. For instance, what foods are safe for them to eat/ How do you curb their instincts or discipline them? Even if she wasnt expecting her husband to die so soon, what if something happened to him, in which he couldnt help care for the kids such as going on a business trip or being hospitalized, then how would Hana deal with the kids? They had Yuki and raised her for a year before Hana had Ame and the wolfman died shortly after, why couldnt Hana inquire during that time?
It could be that they only discussed issues as they came up, and not ones that could happen in the future. The wolfman wasn't very talkative, and aside from his job at the moving company, he was there most of the time. Perhaps she did ask questions over that first year, but it was never said that Yuki ran into any wolf-specific problems until she was three, and it was implied that Ame was a much fussier infant than his sister.
Never getting sick
If neither of the kids have any vaccinations, how do they cope with getting sick? Hana got lucky when Yuki ate the silica packet, but what about chicken pox or measels or some other more dangerous diseases that require a doctor's treatment? And what's going to happen if Yuki ever needs a medical/vaccine record for school or a job later down the road?
If it helps, their immune systems might be stronger than the average hume's and chickenpox and measles are anthroponotic, so the wolfkids might be more resistant to them (though zoonotic diseases might be an issue). This was somewhat alluded to when Hana whether or not to take the Ame to the vet or a doctor.
Wolf form growth discrepancy
If Ame being an adult wolf is because he's chosen to embrace his wolf side, does that mean Yuki's wolf form is always going to look like it did when she was nine because she chose human? Or will she be able to turn into an adult wolf once she reaches adult age for a human?
Proportional Aging. See, 6 months old in wolf terms is about 10-17 in human years, so, 9-10-yo Yuki would be practically full grown in wolf terms, thus, technically, he's not so much "adult" in wolf stage, just that he's an older juvenile.
Unfortunate Implications.