A Casual Review of "Children of the Sea" | Cinema Nippon

No, we're not talking about that. No, we're never talking about that. We're never talking about that, ever. We're talking about Children of the Sea. So, Children of the Sea is the latest feature-length film to be... I don't know why I said it that way. It actually is a feature-length film. I guess because it's late and you're hitting that sleepy phase. It's like 3am. It is not 3am. So, Children of the Sea is the latest feature film to be released by Geek Kids and Shout Factory. It is the baby pet project of Ayumu Watanabe who has come up previously as the director of the After the Rain anime, which you've seen, but I haven't. We watched the movie, though. Right, but you were holding out on me with the anime. Yeah, I specifically would wait until you fell asleep and then watch it at night, in bed. Yeah, and then you cancelled our Amazon Prime subscription so that I couldn't watch it. It was strategically planned. It is not just directed by Ayumu Watanabe, but also it has a soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi, who has done almost every film by Hayao Mizuki. Maybe every single one? I think every one. At least every one. They are definitely like... No spoilers, don't worry. The film is about a young woman who meets two young men and their adventures during one of her summer vacations. I mean, obviously the ocean is involved. And there are children. That's about it. There are lots of sea creatures. Actually, part of the bonus content revealed that there are over 40? Somewhere around 40. At least 40. We'll say that. At least 40 marine creatures make an appearance in this film. No, so that is one thing about this movie. We went into it... I don't know if I can speak for both of us. I think maybe I can. We went into it expecting one thing, and we got something completely different. I thought it was going to be like A Letter to Momo, or like Rider Wave, or like... It would just be kind of like a slice of life type deal. I had this like, like you're talking about, this notion. It was going to be like Rider Wave. It wasn't. It was not. I'm not disappointed. It dove a lot deeper. I think I was going in expecting kind of like a literal movie. Yes. And I think what it turned out to be was there is a lot of metaphor. It uses the imagery and the idea of the ocean to describe a lot of things about being human and about recognizing your place in the world and in the universe. And it becomes a lot more existential than I would have ever expected. Usually I prefer to watch movies that have like a definitive story. There's not a lot of analysis involved. You don't have to think a lot. Not always. A perfect example being this. I tend to be, I need to ponder it and let it sit and think about it for a long time. So when I'm watching a movie I'm too focused to be able to be thinking. Anyway, that's tangent. But I enjoyed this one. Even though it was not at all... I didn't think it was coming. I didn't know it was coming. I think a really good way to describe this movie is one of the ways that the CG director was talking about how you should watch this movie from your heart and not from your mind. I really like this style. They did a really well done marriage of CG animation and traditional animation. There are some parts where you can be like, that's CG. But in the special features there was a series of composites that showed here are the half a dozen different shots that are being put together for this one scene. A lot of the scenes that they showed were ones where I didn't notice it at all. For every scene where you do notice it, there's probably like 10 where you don't. Where you're not noticing it at all. Because it's so well integrated. The bonus material was really neat for learning about how they did the animation. Because they used so many different programs and used methods of integration with all these different programs. There's an interview with Joe Hisaishi and it was funny because while I was watching the movie, I wasn't actively thinking the music is different. But I definitely at least one or two points I was like I'm surprised there's not more music here. I come to find out through the interview with Joe Hisaishi that was purposeful. I just think it's really cool that he has a strong enough style and voice that it comes through even when he's doing something different from anything he's necessarily done before. I was kind of jumping back to the animation. I don't know how to describe it. It's not like clean, crisp. There's a reason for that and they talk about that in the extras. So I really like that homage in the way it was constructed. Some people would be like oh the animation is ugly. But I think in a lot of ways this kind of breaks boundaries in terms of animation, in terms of musical accompaniment. There are going to be certain people who are turned off just by how it looks. I would agree with that. But there's a lot going on and I still think you should give it a shot even if you're not necessarily too keen on how it looks initially. As much as I enjoyed it I don't think it's for everyone. I don't know what to expect because I could see reviewers being like yes, yes, this is an amazing film. I could see that but I could also see people being like this is vapid and there's nothing here. The directors even touch on that. They do. They said in their interview we had an idea of what this is about. But it's also designed so that anybody can have their own take on it. So I guess if you really are like me and you don't like movies that are meant to be interpreted this might not work for you but I really enjoyed it but that's coming from somebody who just really likes to look at pretty anime and there's so much you can think about and so much you can explore and I honestly feel like it has a lot of rewatch value because you can go in from different angles and so I think it's one that if you like it you're really going to like it. Yeah, I think if you're looking for something that is more cerebral or surreal you'll probably like what you find and if you like if you're looking for something that's more experimental in terms of art style and kind of even in terms of storytelling so if you're in one of those camps I'd say definitely watch it. And if you're outside of those camps then at least give it a shot because the story and the art are both elevated enough that even if you don't like one the other might be enough to make it a good movie for you. Obviously we don't have the DVD. Because 2020 happened. Right now we're receiving a lot of our review copies over the internet. Yay for the existence of the internet. As we've already mentioned we have watched the content that comes with the movie. You basically get two boobies. There's like so much that comes with this movie. It's a lot. Here's a list. There's a lot. In addition to an entire other documentary there's all these interviews and behind the scenes stuff. There's a lot. In regards to the other documentary thing if you like cerebral you will love that. If you want a bunch of things to think about that will give you all kinds of things to think about for a very long time. In a way watching the extras made me have a deeper understanding and also appreciation for what went into making the film. It was crazy to learn that they took a five volume manga and turned it into a two hour movie. But it did make me feel like I am very curious about this manga. Are there parts that I'm missing that might fill in some of the gaps? That were dropped for time? Yeah. That's how you do it. You go like this and then it goes like that. There's like a... This has been Learning How to Adjust Your Glasses with Cinema Nippon. That was the whole point of this video. Yeah, that's all you really needed to know. This whole video is a giant Trojan horse just to teach you about that. Thanks for stopping by. On that note, let us know Children of the Sea It's out. Digital Blu-ray DVD. It's out today. Today, right now. Today, unless you're watching this after the day that it's out. In which case it is still out today. It is technically still out today. So we're not lying. Go check it out. Let us know what you think of it in the comments below. Or if you haven't seen it, what do you think about it now that you've seen our review of it? Are you going to watch it? You're not going to watch it? What do you think? Totally forgot to mention. All the lighting is gone. This is just the way it's going to be. There is a bonus after credits scene. So if you're going to watch this movie, watch it all the way through because there's more. It's almost like two minutes worth of content. So make sure you watch it. He's a hungry man. He needs to eat. You hungry? Hey! You're drooling! Okay, that was it. Bye!