Wolf Children - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Wolf Children



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
While I’m a huge fan of Mamoru Hosoda films (with Belle being my absolute favorite along with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time), I’ve embarrassingly never seen Wolf Children. Released 13 years ago by Funimation, I meant to pick it up and give the film a spin, but for some reason (guiltily looks at my rows and rows of discs due to this job), I simply never did. Now, with the Funimation disc being long out of print (grumble, whine, stupid crunchyroll merger, , moan, and gripe), I was excited to see that Gkids and Shout! Studios were releasing the film once more in both traditional Blu-ray and an Amazon exclusive 4K UHD Steelbook edition (which we are grateful to Shout! Studios for providing for this review). So, pop the popcorn (shameless plug for my trusty whirly pop and clarified butter in making movie theater correct popcorn), grab a cherry Coke, and it's time to dig in.

Mamoru Hosoda’s films are diverse and vary in tone, and generally have a morose undertone that permeates the fantastical tales in his repertoire. But I wasn’t prepared for Wolf Children being a heavy HEAVY slice of life story that only utilizes fantasy as a delicate thread throughout the story, rather than it being the centerpiece. Our film introduces us to Hana and Okami during their college days. Okami is that morose outsider who catches the prime and proper Hana’s eye, only for the pair to fall in love like you would expect. But there is a giant secret that no one but Hana knows about: Okami is actually a wolf who has taken human form in order to interact with our world. Despite this little “oddity”, Okami and Hana’s love bears fruit in the form of their children, Yuki and Ame. But shortly after Ame’s birth, Hana is widowed due to an accident.

Forced to survive as not only a single mother, but a single mother with two human/wolf hybrid children, the desperate young parent moves out to the countryside where the prying eyes of humanity are less likely to discover the secret parentage of Yuki and Ame. There, she and the young ones are allowed to grow up in peace, figuring out what makes them special in this world, and striving to fit in as best they can.

Describing the plot of Wolf Children is rather pointless when looking at the film through the lens of your typical three-arc plot line analysis, as this is TRULY a slice of life film. The film simply watches from the shadows as Hana and her children live their lives. Utilizing Yuki as the narrator, and seen through the eyes of Hana herself as she struggles to provide for her children in more ways than one. It’s a fascinating take as it allows us to “hear” Yuki’s struggles and points of view as seen through a mature lens looking back, while the visual part of the story focuses on Hana and her life as a single mother. The poor girl is so desperate to make sure that she gives her children that edge in life that they need to succeed that she almost loses sight of the big picture, while Ame has to figure out just how his wolf nature fits in with the world. The story is sweet and meandering, but at the end of the day, it thrives off of subverting fantasy expectations with the slice of life “familial” twist. The film works incredibly well on a smaller scale than most Hosoda films, and personally, I think it was a benefit. Hosoda usually takes a larger-than-life approach to his filmmaking, so this more subdued and intimate setting is refreshing. And now I’m horribly disappointed that I waited this long to see it!




Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

Shout! Studio's press release stated that the film underwent a 4K restoration, but I would be hesitant to use the word “restoration” considering that this was animated in 2K for the original release, and this was simply upscaled and color timed for HDR. I would personally just say “remastered” or whatnot, as restoration implies actual restorative work due to age, print damage, etc. But that niggle aside, the result is quite nice. The 4K upscale looks very pleasing compared to the Blu-ray, with slightly enhanced detail levels and upgraded color grading thanks to the HDR. The film uses a lot of red outlines and pale blue/greens throughout, and that little bit of “oomph” to the color grading is so nice. It’s not a wild re-do of the grading either, but rather a slight tweak to the SDR look and the benefits of deeper blacks and slightly richer colors. I didn’t notice a massive increase in dimness either, which is something HDR and Dolby Vision are known to do, and overall I would consider this a modest upgrade over the Blu-ray (sadly, I never saw the 2012 Funimation disc to compare) and sort of “fine tunes” the Blu-ray a bit considering this is a 2K to 4K upscale.





Audio:

I’m just guessing here based upon historical precedence, but, since we don’t have an Atmos track, my best guess is that Shout! Studios and GKIDS simply used the same 5.1 mix from the Funi disc, and re-encoded it in DTS-HD MA instead of Dolby TrueHD (if anyone has any information to the contrary, I’d love to know), and since the old disc had a VERY highly regarded audio mix, I’m assuming I’m right, as this is a doozy of a track. Fidelity is spot on, with a wide dynamic range that thrives off of quiet dialog centric moments, contrasting with explosive and intense nature based immersion throughout (the rain at the 19 minute and 35 second mark where Hana finds out about Okami’s death is just AMAZING. And the 1 hour and 31 minute mark with the thunder crack almost had me leaping out of my chair) that really creates an immersive surround experience. Adding a beautiful score by Masakatsu Takagi is just icing on the cake. I’d rate this a perfect 5/5, but there are a few moments during the middle act of the film where the dialogue gets a bit “crunchy” when dealing with the farmers. Great mix.








Extras:

• Stage Greetings
• Director’s Cut Trailers
• Interview With Director Mamoru Hosoda
• Teasers & Trailers

Final Score: ​

Wolf Children is a wonderfully calming and tender slice of life drama/fantasy film by one of Anime’s most prolific directors. The film flies by despite being 2 hours long, and I don’t think I once looked at the clock the entire run time. Extras are a bit truncated and seem VERY similar to the Funimation extras (all extras found on the Blu-ray), but the new 4K disc looks quite impressive and faithful to the hand-drawn SDR source (when compared to the included Blu-ray), making this entire package quite the catch when you include the collector’s packaging of the steelbook. Just a reminder, since this is an Amazon exclusive, that means finding this anywhere else BUT in steelbook packaging form is not going to happen. That being said, this is a great film, with a great video encode and solid enough extras. Well worth checking out.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Aoi Miyazaki, Takao Osawa, Haru Kuroki, Momoka Ohno
Directed by: Mamoru Hosoda
Written by: Mamoru Hosoda
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, English, French, Spanish
Studio: Shout! Studios
Rated: PG
Runtime: 117 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 5th, 2025

Recommendation: Fun Watch

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