The 2020-2021 Film Journal Entry #21: "Children of the Sea"

2020-2021 Film Journal Entry #21

by Xavier E. Palacios

"Children of the Sea"

3 out of 5

Directed by Ayumu Watanabe

Premise: Based on the manga by Daisuke Igarashi, Ruka Azumi (voiced by Anjali Gauld) is a teenage girl who cannot communicate properly with anyone, particularly her troubled mother, formerly a marine biologist like Ruka's father. At the start of her summer vacation, Ruka encounters two teenage brothers, Umi (voiced by Lynden Prosser), inviting and sweet, and Sora (voiced by Benjamin Niewood), pragmatic and strange. They have been raised by dugongs and are intricately connected to the sea, and she finds friendship with the pair. Soon, the three become involved with the local aquarium's research into mysterious ocean phenomena, like mass fish migrations and a fallen comet that relates to a coming, ambiguous birth. Ruka joins Umi and Sora as they investigate their purpose in this cosmic event that will irrevocably change their lives. A compelling set-up with an unsatisfactory, uncanny, and inoffensive conclusion, the film is also an astonishingly magical piece of animation.

"No Rating"

My Thoughts

"The sea calls us home," Elrond says in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King film. In recent years, I have noticed that stories of the ocean have attracted me with greater awe and compulsion than in the past. Maybe because the aesthetic is special with colors, shapes, tones, and landscapes as wondrous as an imaginary world and tangible as the night sky. There is a sense of playfulness, danger, tranquility, and discovery which I love. Or the interest may be genetic; an internal recollection from my cells remembering humanity's birthplace. Yes, memories. I can feel that anxiety I had when, as a boy, I first heard that God would someday be done with the ocean upon the creation of the New Earth. I can still feel my childhood trip to the aquarium in Monterey Bay, California. I once found what director James Cameron is famously obsessed with vaguely interesting. Now, the sea invites and inspires me with magical escapism.

I feel a pull while listening to the original music for EPCOT park's "Living Seas" pavilion. I have been tempted to buy a ticket to sleep before the great tank of the Atlanta Aquarium. I find myself a little breathless, awed, and pure when I think about the watery settings of The Little Mermaid or Aquaman tales. Heck, even the fact that SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons are set under the sea now excites me. I have no idea why I have been drawn to these kinds of stories. There must be some bit of the Elves of Middle-earth in me. Children of the Sea overwhelms me with these sensations and that fantasy of visiting a world twixt the waves.

This anime film is an enjoyable one, featuring wondrous ocean visuals. I am sad I could not see this flick first in a theater, for that would have been a terrific trip. Children of the Sea may be the most astonishing and awe-inspiring animated film I see this year. The work of these animators, layout artists, and clean-up crews is precisely why I heavily criticized the overrated worshipping of computer animation in my entry for Earwig and the Witch. This film's animation is nothing short of gorgeous. No, I mean, Gorgeous. The film's settings overflow with that enchantment of the sea, from the marine biologist and strange central characters; ocean odysseys; aquarium laboratories; beachside conversations; and dozens upon dozens of different fish species. The plot has one of the best set-ups I have seen this year, with great intrigue, investigation, and exploration. Yet, unfortunately, the picture's last forty-minutes offer only ambiguity, rushed dramatic conclusions, characters continuously philosophizing not emptily but unhelpfully to the plot, and, for me, just the feeling of an exceptional anime. Children of the Sea pulled me straight into the story but, once completely submerged into the narrative, I only found vague discussions and unfulfilled potential. A mixed bag. But, golly, what a bag this film is!