Pros:
I've noticed that across all the genderswap stories I've read, my favorite ones are the ones that have a more of a grounded slice of life aspect to them. Where the characters have to deal with unnatural issues(in this case the genderswap) in their daily lives and the reader sees how they cope with that issue and change because of it. The reason I bring this up, is because I got this same enjoyment out of Wolf Children. Instead of a genderswap, the unnatural issue is that Hana's children are half wolf; half human

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and that they have the ability to switch between their human and wolf forms. Hana deals with it by moving to a rural village, where there will be less scrutiny towards her children from others. From there she has to fix up the house they moved into and learn how to grow crops to save on money. It's nice seeing the community come together to help her out.

The more interesting part of the story and what is used for the main plot of the movie is how the children, Yuki and Ame deal with being half wolf. The movie establishes early on the importance of how the children grow up, due to Hana's deliberations on how to raise them. Should she raise them as humans or as wolves?

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Choosing to stay halfway isn't conveyed as an option due what happens to Hana's husband, Wolf Man. He tries to live with her while still going out as a wolf for food and he dies for it. When revealing his identity to Hana, he also mentions how his species had been hunted down and is close to going extinct due to trying to fit into human society.

Thus the main hook of the story is set, which path will Yuki and Ame choose? The question makes each scene in the rest of the movie interesting, despite it not having any traditional plot threads pushing the story forward. The movie keeps the watcher guessing,

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by having Yuki and Ame switch what path they're going down partway through.

This could potentially come off as cheap, but Wolf Children pulls it off well, by clearly showing us why they made the choices that they did.

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Yuki likes her wolf form more, until she starts going to school and starts interacting more with people her age. She wants to fit in within her friend group and doesn't want to stand out so she decides to start acting more like a human. For Ame it's the opposite, he likes his human form more until he discovers the joy of the hunt. From there on he starts spending more time in the forest and learning the art of hunting. Through Yuki the movie also shows that, while the children need to choose a path to go down, complete rejection of their other form isn't the solution either. Yuki is so afraid of Sohei finding out about her wolf form that she makes the problem worse by avoiding him entirely and subsequently attacking him. That weight on her shoulders disappears once she confirms that he doesn't mind wolves and lets him know about her wolf form.

Wolf Children also manages to hook the watcher at the start of the movie,

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before the children are born, by having Yuki be the narrator. It makes the watcher is ask themselves, how Hana is going to get wolf children. (As if the title of the movie didn't already put that at the forefront of their minds.)

The movie has some very visually striking shots. The ones I found noteworthy were when

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Ame was running through nature with his mentor and when Yuki revealed her true identity to Sohei. In the former scene it was the broad vistas that emphasized the scale of their exploration and in the latter its how Yuki's transformations are masked behind a fluttering curtain from Sohei's point of view, making the reveal more impactful.

Neutral:
The only minor nitpick I have for the movie is that I wish

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Ame got a similar scene to Yuki where we see that he still retains and accepts his human form to some capacity. It could've been him visiting his mother at the end of the movie, showing he still cares about their relationship. It would be a bit sad if they never saw each other again.