Favorite Romantic Anime and Manga

Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (Anime Movie)

Plot:  Nineteen-year-old college student Hana meets a young man who sneaks into her classes for lessons and falls in love with him immediately. They soon start dating. One day, the man reveals his identity to Hana; he is a Wolfman and the only surviving descendant of the extinct Japanese Wolf. Undeterred by this fact, Hana invites him to live with her. A year later, when Hana becomes pregnant, she decides not to visit a hospital out of fear that her child will be born a wolf. Their daughter, Yuki ("Snow"), is born at home on a snowy day, along with her brother, Ame ("Rain"), who is born a year after her, on a rainy day. Not long after Ame's birth, Hana's lycanthropic husband is killed in an accident while hunting on instinct to feed his young. Although devastated by the loss of her beloved, Hana resolves to take good care of their wolf-children by herself and moves to the countryside to a derelict house.

My Opinion:  This story doesn't have a lot of romance… as you can see in the plot, it is mainly about this widow trying to raise her two children by herself. It was actually a very touching and very emotional anime movie that I have ever seen. It was very sad and touching at the same time. I had came across this movie when I was on Mangahere.com, looking at their Healing Your Soul manga recommendations and somewhere within the list of the manga, I found the Wolf Children manga and started reading it but came to the last updated chapter quickly (only has 10, the 11th is to come out soon) and as I read people's comments, I realized there was a movie to this. From watching the movie and reading the manga, the manga and movie are pretty close. I'm really glad I came across this. It was so very touching.

Favorite Character: Hana is my favorite. She was like super Mom raising two children on her own and trying to provide for her children. I loved her character and how sweet, hard working, kind, and tough character she was. Even though she  lost her husband and has to raise two wolf children on her own when she has no idea what to do, she still would smile and give it her all for her children. Yuki and Ame would be my second and third favorite characters because Yuki was so adorable, funny, loved chasing things and catching critters and so much more while she was younger and Ame was the quiet, clung to his Mom and scared to do dangerous things but then when they later grew up in the movie, they switched roles.

Favorite Couple: Yuki and Sōhei! There was a small hint of romance between the two like you could tell they liked each other. I do wish the movie had progressed a little longer in the years to show you if these two ended up marrying and living in the house Yuki grew up in, I mean, I was really hoping for Yuki to explain what happened over the years, talk a little about her mother and how her mother passed away to join their father up in heaven kind of thing, how her brother is doing, and then explain about how she is doing and show her little wolf children running around the house and her cooking and yelling at them to behave or something… that was the vision in my head but… the ending didn't happen like that sadly but I am still satisfied with the ending… besides this story was more of the child explaining the story of her mother and how she had raised them…. I still think though that they could have added that ending >.>

This movie was so touching and was so very sad. I actually cried watching it and so this makes the third anime that has made me cried since Clannad. I do love tragic stories where one of the lovers die, like the story shows you the love between them and then at the end one of them DIES *Grug's voice from the Croods* so when I read the plot to this story and saw that it basically starts off with one of them dying and show you how the lover that lived continues on living without her lover, I was totally interested in reading that because stories that have the ending where one of the lover dies, it doesn't explain how the other lover is doing… like does the she or he fall in love again or what? But I can understand because the story is about their love, not about their love and then now that guy or girl #1 died it is time for the main character to fall in love again and explain how… it would be a long story… but you could just break it up in two stories like book 1 and book 2… um anyways (I was just babbling on right there) realizing that this story gives you a brief history about the love between Hana and the Wolfman (I never caught his name) and then just goes right to his death and how Hana must learn to raise her children on her own, it looked so interesting, I just couldn't pass it and not read it and when I realized there was a movie, I just had to watch it. The soundtrack to the movie was so beautiful, I loved it. Watching how Hana raise her children from just babies to just before the teen years was so touching and she was an amazing mother that worked hard to raise her children on her own. The moments she thought about her dead husband or when the children talk about how they want to see their Dad was emotional. I kept thinking how for once I actually want it where both of them (Hana and Wolfman) lives and raise their children together.

If you are looking for an anime movie with a touching story and a short romance, this one is for you then! I would recommend anyone watching it! It wasn't really inappropriate in my opinion, the children are often shown naked but nothing inappropriate is shown, one scene that implies Hana and the Wolfman making love but that scene shows nothing inappropriate and then yeah it shows you Hana nursing Ame and her nipple was briefly shown but it is like blink-and-miss. Just throwing that out there for people who might like to know that information. Just trying to be considerate <.< Anyways, again, the movie wasn't bad at all and a very touching tale.