- “Only the journey home, my son.”
- ―Aniu to Balto
Aniu is the overarching protagonist of Universal Studios' 1995 animated film Balto and its straight-to-video sequel, Balto II: Wolf Quest. She is Balto's deceased mother who serves as a spirit guide in the Balto series.
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- Aniu means "snow" in Inuit.
- Some fans still dispute as to whether or not Aniu and the white wolf from the first film are the same wolf, even though director of Wolf Quest, Phil Weinstein, declared in an interview that they are in fact the same wolf.
- In the Junior Novel, the White Wolf is referred as a "he"
- During an interview with Simon Wells (Director of Balto not the sequels), a question was ask to him about the White Wolf/Aniu's appearance and Simon's reply:
"Whether the White Wolf is Balto's father or some kind of ephemeral Spirit of the Wolf is deliberately unstated. The White Wolf Sequence is still my favorite part of the movie, and James Horner's extraordinary score that accompanies it still raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
We wanted to keep it mystical and vague - is this a real event or is it some kind of hallucination that Balto is experiencing? All of these were reasons to not have the White Wolf speak or in any way explain himself. Perhaps the Wolf is a manifestation of Balto's inner voice, telling him to take ownership and use that part of him that he has always been ashamed of - certainly that is the message Balto takes from the encounter, real or not.
(And by the way, if it was really his dad why didn't the old man help him drag the antitoxin up the cliff?)"
The sequels made the White Wolf to be Balto's mother which is completely false as Simon Wells stated that Balto's wolf side came from his dad."