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Lost in the World– an analysis of Wolf Children's ending

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Several weeks ago, I was lucky enough to find myself with an evening free to relax in the face of upcoming finals, and to my great pleasure I spent it watching Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, Wolf Children is the story of a Japanese woman named Hana who falls in love with a man who turns out to be half-wolf. After a heartbreaking early separation of the couple, Hana is forced to raise her two half-breed wolf children on her own. The narrative is both heartbreaking and endearing and if you haven’t yet seen the film: please do before reading further. This film is definitely worth your time and most of what I will be discussing from this point on involves the film’s ending.

 

It’s no small secret that Mamoru Hosoda has a brilliant track record in animation within the last decade, or even further if you thought that Digimon: The Movie (2000) or One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005) weren’t train wrecks. (I can’t speak on the One Piece film, though, as I’ve never seen it… I think.) Hosoda’s last four projects have been especially impressive, including the entirety of the television series Samurai Champloo (2005) and films The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), Digimon: The Movie: Director’s Cut– also known as Summer Wars (2009), and now Wolf Children (2012).

 

Of the films of his I’ve seen, Wolf Children is by far the most emotionally compelling to me. Time and time again, the film was drawing out and nurturing feelings that I, at times, found hard to specify– and there’s a reason for that.

 

Hosoda has shown in Wolf Children a remarkable knack for creating a scene, or moment, that elicits two completely opposing emotions at the same exact time. The first time I noticed this happening was when the father was found dead in the river. Hana’s horrified realization that her husband had been killed and fit of agony as she tries to recover his body is matched by the situation it takes place in. Her husband died in wolf form, so the image we get at the same time we’re being bombarded with negative feelings is a comedic one of a woman crying and fighting to get at a dead wolf that has been dumped into a trash bag and thrown into a garbage truck. This dichotomy of emotions is something that pops up often throughout the film.

 

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The most notable instances usually involve the fear that the children’s secret will be discovered alongside a full flood of adorableness. My favorite of these scenes is when Yuki is seen by some of the townsfolk in wolf form and manages to trick them into thinking that it’s their pet who just happens to wear the same coat– and gets away with this all while actually transforming in front of them. Constantly, the viewer’s fears of Yuki being found out– an emotion matched by her own mother’s emotions– are countered with just how adorable she is throughout the whole exchange.

 

Hosoda also uses the dichotomy for character development in the form of the tsundere of the film, old man Nirasaki, who straddles the line between viewers’ love and hate by being a crotchety old man and someone who helps Hana survive on the mountain.

 

The technique he uses evolves throughout the film from its early moments, peaking at the very end of the film in Ame’s parting scene. The past ten minutes of the film drew everything from ire and hatred towards Ame’s ignorance of his mother’s feelings, to fear of what will happen with Yuki letting her secret be revealed, and exhilaration when she is accepted by Souhei. Many films have bittersweet endings, but very few build to them through the very structure of the scenes preceding it. Ame’s decision to leave is a moment that will stick with me for a long time to come (even though I have my qualms with how it was handled) because of how well the film handles the confliction between Hana’s wont to be with her son and keep her family together and her understanding that she has to let him go.

 

But Wolf Children’s ending is far more complex than the build up of structural confliction throughout the film. While the motif does tie the film together nicely in a structural sense, it does not work as well alongside one of the biggest themes of the film– that of assimilation. Throughout the film, Hana and her children spend every second of their lives trying to find a way to fit into the world around them, eventually leading to the movement into the countryside where she can better enable Yuki and Ame to explore their wolf-side without increasing the chances of their secret being revealed.

 

It is this exploration of both their sides that leads the film’s discussion into themes of race and belonging. There are innumerable stories in literature and film about mixed race characters trying to find their identity between each half of themselves, and this idea is something often discussed in genres such as science fiction and fantasy– Wolf Children, obviously, belonging to the latter. While their mother’s struggle is, for the most part, an outer one of survival and raising children, Yuki and Ame’s struggle throughout the film is inner, as they attempt to make their own identities between their wolf and human sides. In doing this, they attempt to find where they belong.

 

What’s most interesting in this discussion is how Hosoda uses the two children to explore assimilation in two opposite directions. While Yuki is entirely focused on assimilating into human life and abandoning her bestial side by the time she’s older, Ame explores the wilderness, gaining a wild fox as a teacher and avoiding human interaction almost entirely. Their two sides eventually come to clash in a dinner scene brawl that ends in an injured Yuki and an Ame who has very obviously fully accepted the beast inside of him.

 

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The fight itself came about from Yuki and Ame each attempting to convince the other that they should join in on accepting the other’s position, and the refusal of either side to come to a conclusion not only highlights the struggle of coming to terms with one’s own plurality, but the film’s inability to even explore whether it’s possible to have that plurality. Ame and Yuki each conform to either side, without much willingness to really accept their other half.

 

Yuki is the most interesting of the two in this regard, however, as she actively fears her wolf half. She has every right to be, obviously, as she has no idea how humans would react to knowing she could turn into a wolf. Her fear manifests most greatly when she ends up getting backed into a corner and cuts Souhei’s ear with her claw, almost giving away her secret entirely. In the end though, there is a very big positive, as she ends up showing Souhei her wolf-half and he fully accepts her for who she is. In that sense, Yuki manages to assimilate into human life without entirely giving up her wolf-side. But it still shows up more as something she has to live with rather than something she’s proud of. Whether she truly accepts her wolf-side into the equation is never that apparent.

 

Ame’s conclusion, on the other hand, is much clearer. He follows through on his abandonment of human life- but not out of hatred or fear, but out of instinct and the desire to. It likely doesn’t justify most of his actions in the second half of the film, but it’s something. And even so, I don’t think Hosoda’s final portrayal of Ame’s decision is anything but positive. His mother cheers him on as he climbs the mountain he has decided he would be the king of (which, by the way, is still the dumbest line in the entire film), and even though she’s disheartened that he would leave her, in the end, she is fully accepting of her position.

 

But in the end, I feel Hosoda’s point has nothing to do with the choices Ame and Yuki make, themselves. His use of those characters is to portray and explore the concepts of finding acceptance as best he can. The choices they make are just that: choices that children make in life. Really, the true meaning in the film comes not from those choices, but the wolf children’s ability to make them. Hosoda’s biggest argument comes through Hana, who tries her hardest from start to finish to give her children what they need to find themselves– even at her own expense, and even if the choices they make are ones she doesn’t view as successful.

 

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The final question she asks, whether Ame has learned anything from her, is one that is left unanswered– and even viewers are left without any real knowledge to what that answer could be. You’d assume he did, simply based on his growth under her wing, but his final abandonment throws everything up in the air. Yet even then, even when it becomes completely unclear if she has done anything to teach Ame anything, Hana is still in support of his decision. And looking back, that had always been the key, even when Ame was unsure of himself.

 

Wolf Children’s most important argument is that in a child’s search for identity, the best and most important thing a parent can do is allow them room to grow and offer support even if you dislike exactly what identity they’ve chosen– because that identity is who they are and finding yourself and where you belong is one of the most important missions in anyone’s life.

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  • 1 year later...

The 10 Anime Best Suited for a Hollywood Adaptation

 

Despite how often they’ve done it, Hollywood seems really bad at adapting works from other media to the big screen. And while producers have found hits adapting books and now comics, the two things they’ve constantly seemed to fail at is adapting video games, and, specifically for this article, anime.

 

It often seems that producers just don’t understand what would make a good film, often just taking whatever is most popular, leading to such travesties as The Angry Birds Movie or Dragonball: Evolution. And even if they make a good decision on what to adapt, often they’re dragged down by decisions made along the way, the most significant of which– that can drive away interest from a potential fan base– is the whitewashing of non-white characters. Such decisions likely doomed several projects that could have succeeded otherwise, such as Prince of Persia or Edge of Tomorrow. Many were destroyed before they even started, receiving awful press for similar reasons, such as the cancelled Hollywood adaptation of Akira.

 

It’s easy, however, to understand why whitewashing happens– executives and producers are scared that the movie won’t succeed without a white lead (which is an opinion easily contested, but that which exists nonetheless). It’s why the upcoming Ghost in the Shell film cast Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi, yet still for some reason tried to digitally alter her appearance to look more Asian– a move that, once the public got wind of it, was heavily criticized. It’s certainly possible that Ghost in the Shell will still succeed, assuming the script is well written, but it’s clearly not making it any easier.

 

So here’s my pitch to studio executives and producers alike: I will lay out here the 10 (+2) anime that would be the easiest to adapt to a Hollywood film while still being able to be true to the source material, not alienate a fanbase, and target a mainstream audience. It’s a win-win-win, really.

 

Honorable Mention #1: Redline

 

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There are a few reasons that this did not make the full list. A film like this would require a high budget, and while “death race in space” is a really cool concept that should be easy to sell people on, the kind of flair the visuals would require, and the quite wacky characters involved might turn people away. But hey, if it worked for George Miller, it can work for you too.

 

Honorable Mention #2: Code Geass

 

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Despite mostly taking place in Japan, many of Code Geass’s characters are white citizens of the fictionalized “Britannia”– a vast empire spread across the entirety of the Americas in an alternate world where Great Britain moved its capital overseas (among other things). Featuring huge plot twists, a large cast of well-designed characters, and giant robot battles, it’s the type of series that easily catches your attention.

 

So why is it only an Honorable Mention on the list? Mainly: Commitment. Code Geass as a series is 50 episodes, meaning a single film would not be capable of covering every significant turn in the plot. Add in the budget that this film would require and it’s obvious that risks would need to be taken– and a top-tier writer be hired– to make movies a success.

 

#10. Heroman

 

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This is probably the easiest choice you could have. Superhero movies are really popular right now. Taking place in the fictionalized “Central City,” loosely based on Los Angeles, Heroman is a superhero story co-created between Studio BONES and Marvel’s very own Stan Lee. The only reason it’s not higher on the list is that the anime was never localized in English, so its fan base is much smaller than other series you could choose from.

 

#9. Hellsing 

 

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How about a real vampire? If a studio were to put the money into a Hellsing film, the expected end result might looks somewhat similar to the Resident Evil films– themes of horror and monsters abound, but mainly just a whole lot of action set pieces. Also a lot of blood. If Hellsing isn’t R-rated, don’t even bother.

 

Coincidentally these are all reasons why the show is only #8 on the list… But a secret organization employing a super-powered vampire in an attempt to defeat an army of Nazi Vampires from conquering the world is a great descriptor for the marketing department to have a field day with.

 

#8. Fullmetal Alchemist

 

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Taking place in the fictionalized Amestris, which has many parallels to a fantasized pre-WWII Germany, Fullmetal Alchemist follows two brothers who lose an arm, a leg, and a body in an attempt to use alchemy to revive their dead mother, before being pulled into service as alchemists for the Government– one that slowly, throughout the course of the story, is revealed to be ever more darker and dangerous the longer light is shed upon it.

 

Fullmetal is lower on this list for much the same reasons Code Geass is. It is a long series that would require the production of several movies and the money for special effects that a studio may not be willing to provide. But if they do, this is a series with one of the highest ceilings of success on this list.

 

#7. Akira

 

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All right, I said no whitewashing and I’m maintaining that, but I also said to stay as close to the source material as possible and that is where this choice will differ. When in pre-production, the cancelled Akira film had several changes to the story: 1. It took place in Neo New York City rather than Neo Tokyo; 2. The characters’ races had been changed from Japanese to White; 3. The plot differed significantly. If I am to suggest that Akira be adapted for an American audience, I feel that one and a half of these changes should be implemented.

 

The plot should not change. Akira’s heavy themes– including destruction of self worth, a quest for power in the face of powerlessness, self-destruction by one’s own hubris, government control, and rebellion against authority– can and should be easily transferrable to a film targeting an American audience. What’s most interesting is where I’ve often seen these themes elsewhere are in Black American media. There’s a reason someone like Kanye West is a fan of Akira, once owning a replica of Kaneda’s iconic red motorcycle and basing the music video to his hit single Stronger off of scenes from the film.

 

So here’s my suggestion for a Hollywood adaptation of Akira: set it in Neo New York City if you must, but instead of whitewashing, build a cast of African American actors. It will work, I promise.

 

Though Ken Watanabe should still play the General, I think everyone should be in agreement on that casting.

 

#6. Pet Shop of Horrors

 

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It’s about time I got to a real scary movie in this list. A horror/thriller-type series, Pet Shop of Horrors is about a shop in Los Angeles’s Chinatown run by a shady character that sells exotic animals to black-market buyers who often seem to wind up dead as a result of the creatures they’ve purchased, and the detective sent to investigate the root cause of these deaths and to stop them from happening again.

 

Horror films are notoriously critic-proof, so even if the film gets a whole bunch of bad reviews, a good trailer and a good understanding of horror conventions can make the film a success. Plus, of all the anime listed here, it would probably require the smallest budget.

 

#5. Monster

 

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Since we're talking about anime thrillers, I'd be remised if I were not to include the most important one. In post-Cold War Germany, a brain surgeon chooses to save the lives of young children injured in a massacre over that of the city’s mayor. Years later, he finds out that one of the children he saved had turned out to be a killing machine– the titular “Monster,” and vows to correct the mistake he made in saving him.

 

Mystery thrillers never really grow old, and Monster, despite how long the series is, is one that could easily see adaptation into a single movie (albeit, perhaps, a rather long one). Though it is important to note how revered the anime is, so cutting anything out might be a risk all on its own.

 

All else fails, I know you have the funding, Netflix.

 

#4. Baccano

 

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Baccano is a hard show to really explain. At best, I could say Pulp Fiction meets old-school mafia films, with a heavy dose of supernatural elements between the folds. The show jumps constantly between events over the course of 3 years: the militant takeover of a train heading from Chicago to New York in 1931, a girl searching for her missing, mafia-involved brother in 1932, and the creation of a group of immortals in New York City in 1930 that are at the center of the events in the following two years.

 

Often it feels very much like watching a Quentin Tarantino movie– it is very much a 30’s period piece, its storytelling is very reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, and violence comes in spurts– often out of nowhere and with a whole lot of blood.

 

When making this list, I had even considered making it #1. However, considering that the series overall is about 5 hours long, and how hard it is to imagine what one would even cut to make it a length viewers would not tire of, I had to knock it down a few pegs. Still, if there are areas that a writer finds they can eliminate to cut that time in half, Baccano is the one anime I would be most excited to see an adaptation of.

 

#3. Black Lagoon

 

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All of the top 3 anime that are best fitted to be Hollywood adaptations are so because of how easily it would be to keep to the source material while being capable of producing a 90 minute film that feels complete despite not making use of the original anime’s plot completely. Black Lagoon is one of those anime.

 

Featuring a multicultural cast of characters including a fish-out-of-water Japanese businessman, a black ex-marine, Vietnam vet, and a Chinese-American street-urchin-turned-merciless-mercenary, the story follows the Black Lagoon mercenaries as each episode they take on an odd job– the missions slowly tying together throughout the series.

 

While it would require the budget most high-octane action movies might require, it is much less of a commitment than other films on the list due to how if a first film flops, it could still stand alone without a sequel, while if it succeeds, it is open for multiple, episodic films.

 

#2. Lupin III

 

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The top 2 anime on this list possess similar qualities. An interesting band of characters, a jazzy sort of style, and episodic storylines that make it easy to adapt into a series of self-contained films.

 

Lupin III follows the antics of it's titular, globetrotting anti-hero as he commits only the flashiest displays of high larceny. Accomplices to his daring deeds include his partner and gunman Jigen and the stoic Samurai Goemon. 

 

Opposing him in almost all of his deeds– all of which he announces before attempting, of course– are the INTERPOL Inspector Zenigata, who has dedicated his life's work to catching Lupin, and Fujiko Mine, a woman who has jumped constantly between being Lupin's friend, lover, enemy, and rival– with a reputation for being a better thief than even the titular character himself.

 

Lupin III has had quite a lot of different anime adaptations over the years, but the most significant work– and most certainly the best example of how well this franchise would work as a Hollywood film– was 1979's "The Castle of Cogliostro" a film that was co-written and directed by the animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, and has been widely influential, being referenced in animated features from The Great Mouse Detective (1986) to The Simpsons Movie (2007) and beyond.

 

There have even been longstanding rumors that even Steven Spielberg was influenced by its action sequences in his own films such as the Indiana Jones films and The Adventure of Tintin (2011), and that he had been quoted as calling the chase sequence in the early moments of Cogliostro to be "one of the greatest chase sequences ever filmed." 

 

Of course, these are obviously rumors, but the very fact that they have perpetuated for so long give credit to the portrayal of such action scenes within the film, which are prevalent in most Lupin III works.

 

You could pick and choose virtually any Lupin III story and find elements to piece together a cohesive and entertaining narrative conducive to a 90 minute film, which is why it's so high on this list.

 

#1. Cowboy Bebop

 

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It should come as no surprise that Cowboy Bebop is #1 on this list. It is one of the most accessible anime in existence, often discussed as the gateway anime of the 21st century. It’s got style. It’s got space bounty hunters. It has a giant settlement on Mars that’s an amalgamation of several easily recognizable cities from around the world. It’s got a great cast of characters, an exceedingly interesting backstory, and one of the best soundtracks in any visual media, bar none.

 

Most importantly though, everything I said about Black Lagoon’s episodic storytelling applies here. Virtually every episode of Cowboy Bebop could be expanded into its own film (although, if one were to adapt it to a Hollywood film, I would rather suggest simply making up a new story) and its own animated feature film is still one of the best anime films ever made.

 

Keanu Reeves, who has written a script for a Cowboy Bebop live-action Hollywood film, has often said that the reason it hasn’t been green-lighted is due to how large of a budget it would require. Well let me be the first to tell any executives or producers that likely won’t be reading this: 

 

Cowboy. Bebop. Is. Worth. Every. Penny.

 

And you can take those wulongs to the bank.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owgu_DxlwVU

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I tend not to think about the idea of Hollywood adapting anime given how film adaptions in general turn out, but I found your list very interesting to read. I think out of your list, Lupin III would most excite me if Hollywood made an adaption for it.

 

I'd say another reason Redline wouldn't make the list is because it's so over the top amazing and fantastic in every way no live action adaption could hope to live up to it no matter the budget. But that's just me.

 

And I'm assuming this list is specifically for Hollywood. Because Japan makes live action adaptions of things all the time, like the FMA film coming out next year.

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Real talk that was worth the read if only for the fact that I learned

"Keanu Reeves, who has written a script for a Cowboy Bebop live-action Hollywood film"

This.

He actually wrote it several years ago, in the hope that it'd get picked up and he'd star as Spike. Those who have seen it apparently think it's amazing, but just really expensive.

 

I tend not to think about the idea of Hollywood adapting anime given how film adaptions in general turn out, but I found your list very interesting to read. I think out of your list, Lupin III would most excite me if Hollywood made an adaption for it.

 

I'd say another reason Redline wouldn't make the list is because it's so over the top amazing and fantastic in every way no live action adaption could hope to live up to it no matter the budget. But that's just me.

 

And I'm assuming this list is specifically for Hollywood. Because Japan makes live action adaptions of things all the time, like the FMA film coming out next year.

Yeah, I was trying to think through what series would be easiest to adapt without completely funking up and where the executives wouldn't feel the need to disrespect the source material in a feigned attempt to garner a larger audience.

 

Honestly, the only reason I want a live action Redline is so that people will watch the animated Redline.

 

Definitely only for Hollywood. Japanese live action films are fine, but they don't have the types of budgets Hollywood does and their special effects just always look bad. Also they only cast Japanese actors which is weird for films like FMA or AoT whose source material both rely in themes and historical references that I feel would likely be lost in translation

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  • 2 weeks later...

That was a solid list, I actually think Hellsing and Black Lagoon could be great Hollywood movies.

 

Akira's also a no-brainer, although you're the first I've seen to suggest casting primarily African Americans for its cast. I could actually get behind that, I'm hoping they'll get around to Akira within the next decade or two. Depending on how GitS goes, that'll probably be the next franchise to get greenlit.

 

I think Baccano and Monster have too much going on to get movies, but HBO/Netflix series? Absolutely.

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