Children Of The Sea (2019)
Children Of The Sea (2019)
All things are connected, all animals human and non human are all connected, the ocean and the stars, all living things are born of star-stuff. Or as Carl Sagan once said "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff". That is the message in the 2019 Japanese animated film Children Of The Sea, the message that we are all connected, and we need to listen to the ocean, and take a moment and be more conscious of the world around us. I think that this film quite literally illustrates the "We are made of star-stuff." that Carl Sagan famously said. This is a film that gets its message out more through beautiful art, than it does through dialogue. Children Of The Sea isn't a film that bluntly tells you its story, it has a vaguity to it, encouraging you to think about the meaning of the images, what did it mean to you, rather than just having it spelled out for you. So therefore this is a thinking film, one that you must actively watch, and not a simple film that you can passively watch.
Children Of The Sea is about a young girl named Ruka, that doesn't really feel like she belongs, and she feels like she is invisible to the world around her. Then she meets a young boy named Umi at the aquarium that her father works at. Umi is a strange young boy raised by dugongs, as was his brother Sora, they were found and adopted by the marine biologists at the aquarium. Ruka develops a powerful bond with the two brothers, and she learns to communicate with the ocean and the creatures within.
Children Of The Sea was directed by Ayumu Watanabe, and produced by Eiko Tanaka. The film was based on the manga of the same name by Daisuke Igarashi. Children Of The Sea was produced by Studio 4°C, and distributed by Toho in Japan and G-Kids for the US English language version. The film was released theatrically in Japan and world wide in 2019, and was supposed to open theatrically in the USA in 2020, but due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, it never received a theatrical release in the US, and went straight to a DVD release. The film was met with mixed reviews, with most critics praising the beautiful artwork in the film, but criticizing it for its story, and it's long meandering plot.
For the cast of the film, I am going to focus on the English Language cast, because I don't speak Japanese, and it is easier to watch and review a film in English when possible, so that I can focus my eyes on the images, and my ears on the dialogue, I miss a lot when I watch subtitles. The English Language cast stars Anjali Gauld as Ruka Azumi, Lynden Prosser as Umi, Benjamin Niewood as Sora, Beau Bridgland as Anglade, Marc Thompson as Ruka's father Masaaki Azumi, Karen Strassman as Ruka's mother Kanako Azumi, Michael Sorich as Jim, and Denise Lee as Dede. The film has a great cast, and I feel like the voice actors convey a strong emotional feeling in their dialogue.
There is a lot to praise this film for, including the beautiful images, the wonderful voice acting cast, and the beautiful and deep story. So I will just say that this is an absolutely beautiful film, and that it is very wonderfully done. However... I do feel that though the mix of CGI and traditional animation is usually really good looking in the film, there are some parts where I found the CGI to be distracting, simply bad looking, especially towards the beginning of the film with some of the backgrounds, and early on this really distracted from my ability to enjoy the film. The pacing of the film is also something that needs to be mentioned, the pacing is agonizingly slow, and it feels like that maybe it would be better as an anime series than as a feature film, for much of the film, it just meanders through the plot, often times have little to no point at all, to the point that the film seems to lose the plot at the point. Some people comment on how the film is hard to figure out, and I don't think that it is necessarily hard to figure out, but rather that it is just soooo slow moving that it is hard to follow where the film means to take the viewer. That said, there are some moments in the film where it looks absolutely breathtaking, and the story itself is actually a really amazing story that makes the viewer think (that is if they hadn't lost interest and found something else to think about, because of the slow pacing). However overall, it is an amazing film and one I highly recommend checking out. I don't think that it is a must-see, or that it will even be enjoyable to most viewers, however if you haven't seen Children Of The Sea, I highly recommend checking it out, it is a breathtaking treat for the senses.
Children Of The Sea is about a young girl named Ruka, that doesn't really feel like she belongs, and she feels like she is invisible to the world around her. Then she meets a young boy named Umi at the aquarium that her father works at. Umi is a strange young boy raised by dugongs, as was his brother Sora, they were found and adopted by the marine biologists at the aquarium. Ruka develops a powerful bond with the two brothers, and she learns to communicate with the ocean and the creatures within.
Children Of The Sea was directed by Ayumu Watanabe, and produced by Eiko Tanaka. The film was based on the manga of the same name by Daisuke Igarashi. Children Of The Sea was produced by Studio 4°C, and distributed by Toho in Japan and G-Kids for the US English language version. The film was released theatrically in Japan and world wide in 2019, and was supposed to open theatrically in the USA in 2020, but due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, it never received a theatrical release in the US, and went straight to a DVD release. The film was met with mixed reviews, with most critics praising the beautiful artwork in the film, but criticizing it for its story, and it's long meandering plot.
For the cast of the film, I am going to focus on the English Language cast, because I don't speak Japanese, and it is easier to watch and review a film in English when possible, so that I can focus my eyes on the images, and my ears on the dialogue, I miss a lot when I watch subtitles. The English Language cast stars Anjali Gauld as Ruka Azumi, Lynden Prosser as Umi, Benjamin Niewood as Sora, Beau Bridgland as Anglade, Marc Thompson as Ruka's father Masaaki Azumi, Karen Strassman as Ruka's mother Kanako Azumi, Michael Sorich as Jim, and Denise Lee as Dede. The film has a great cast, and I feel like the voice actors convey a strong emotional feeling in their dialogue.
There is a lot to praise this film for, including the beautiful images, the wonderful voice acting cast, and the beautiful and deep story. So I will just say that this is an absolutely beautiful film, and that it is very wonderfully done. However... I do feel that though the mix of CGI and traditional animation is usually really good looking in the film, there are some parts where I found the CGI to be distracting, simply bad looking, especially towards the beginning of the film with some of the backgrounds, and early on this really distracted from my ability to enjoy the film. The pacing of the film is also something that needs to be mentioned, the pacing is agonizingly slow, and it feels like that maybe it would be better as an anime series than as a feature film, for much of the film, it just meanders through the plot, often times have little to no point at all, to the point that the film seems to lose the plot at the point. Some people comment on how the film is hard to figure out, and I don't think that it is necessarily hard to figure out, but rather that it is just soooo slow moving that it is hard to follow where the film means to take the viewer. That said, there are some moments in the film where it looks absolutely breathtaking, and the story itself is actually a really amazing story that makes the viewer think (that is if they hadn't lost interest and found something else to think about, because of the slow pacing). However overall, it is an amazing film and one I highly recommend checking out. I don't think that it is a must-see, or that it will even be enjoyable to most viewers, however if you haven't seen Children Of The Sea, I highly recommend checking it out, it is a breathtaking treat for the senses.
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