Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
elumizu
Children of the Sea is a visually ambitious and philosophically driven movie that approaches storytelling less as a straightforward narrative and more as a meditation on humanity’s connection with the natural world. The story follows Ruka Azumi, a middle school girl struggling with anger, isolation, and an uneasy relationship with her family. After being suspended from her school’s handball club, she spends time at the aquarium where her father works and encounters two mysterious boys, Umi and Sora. The boys appear strangely attuned to the ocean, almost as if they belong to it rather than the human world. As Ruka becomes drawn into their presence, strange global phenomena begin unfolding. Marine life behaving unpredictably and mysterious lights appearing across the seas, hinting at forces…
Read at the sourceHERMIT_PAIMON
Fantastic, top of the line, hand drawn-C.G.I. hybrid animation, and a story that was so much bigger than I was expecting. I thought I was in for a little story about some kids swimming around with dolphins, and whales. What I got was something more thematically inline with "Tree of LIfe" .
It's a bit slow, but if you accept that and let yourself ride along then it's pretty good. Or you could just watch it in pieces.
4 degree studios really performed well in terms of art , music literally every details . Problem is that many people dislike children of sea because of poor plot theme ...It's too much philosphical for auidence who aren't into anime for a long time or in philosphical subjects/theories . So, there is always room to improve .
Looking forward to watch more work from this studio…
Read at the sourcetonaruto044
What the f did I just watch?
I honestly got 0 clue on what I just witnessed. Universe spiralling into the sea? The kid's now the universe???? Wtf? I don't really understand a single thing going on in this movie.
I might be stupid, but someone please tell me what the past 1:30-ish hour have told me. The story - confusing, the dialogue - convoluted, the characters - completely impossible to understand.
They show us concepts that we weren't explained to: The party? What party? We are the same as the universe? Wtf? What are you even talking about? The wind carries the memories? Ok this honestly sounded pretty cool, but put into context wtf????
Honestly I felt like if it weren't for my friend watching along I would've dropped around ~40 minutes in. The only things got going for it is the vi…
Read at the sourceliterallysolame
The Children of the Sea is a film I would recommend a friend to watch by themselves at 2-3am with little to no explanation.
The film is very alluring and captivating even with visuals alone. Some of the best animated sea life there is. From ribbon eels to false killer sharks the scenery is illuminating and stunning.
Very good at keeping your attention by going from a melancholy sunny scene to something darker and more fast paced.
Some of scenes were genuinely so intense (not content wise but by use of sounds and visuals) that I was taken aback or caught off guard.
If you are not a fan of films that are more emotional in nature rather than literal than this may not be your flavor of tea. There is a lot of fantastical elements that can be hard to attach to in terms of a plot. At times…
Read at the sourceSiaksx
I dove into "Kaijuu no Kodomo" with an open mind and came out truly mesmerized. I've read several reviews where people expressed disappointment with the storyline, but for me, it was captivating. The themes explored in the movie, like the parallels with birth and the poetic notion of us being part of the vast universe, were both romantic and inspiring.
Regarding the characters, I did feel a tinge of longing for more depth in the side characters. However, this might be an intentional reflection of the transient nature of childhood and adolescence – friends coming and going, parents grappling with their children's emotional landscapes. It's a thought-provoking perspective.
Watching this movie was like experiencing the sea itself. At times, I felt a peaceful calmness, and at others, I was c…
Read at the sourceYaroster
This is a tough one to review. First off it's clear that the animation and artstyle is both beautiful and thoughtfully executed. However, the difficulty in reviewing Kailua no Kodomo mainly comes from its story. Here's a more precise explanation:
Animation (8): A beautiful mix of 3D elements that don't feel too out of place and a well thought out charadesign makes this movie one of the prettiest ones to hit theatres the year of its release.
Story (4): This is where it's really hard to have a concise opinion, at first I felt like maybe I didn't understand the thought process behind a lot of the final 1/4 of the movie, with all of the classic maternal representation and space-related metaphors we get nowadays from Shinkai movies. But just like Shinkai's Kimi no nawa, this feels like a shoe…
Read at the sourceWDUNE
"At all times, we are connected by a place deep inside us. The most important promise isn't made with words".
I really enjoyed this movie, both visually and story-wise, so in short, do I recommend Children of the Sea aka Kaijuu no Kodomo? YES.
It was a new adventure in a new style, I think. It was one of the best 3D movies I've ever seen on the animation level. The animation was on point though in some scenes you can notice the CGI easily. Where in most of the movie I thought it was a Hand-drawing style. And it turned out to be that the producers used mixed Hand-drawing and CGI styles in this movie, which is the style most known in Disney movies.
I can see the effort they made in making this movie present a wonderful work with very detailed cinematography.
Great work drawing characters a…
Read at the sourcenozomiEX
Kaijuu no Kodomo is the personification of a teenager smoking weed for the first time and spilling into incoherent babble about life and the universe. "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude the seas and the stars are one... We're all, like, totally connected." Without any hint of self-awareness, prattling on about romantic-sounding yet entirely vacuous germs of ideas about "listening to the song on the winds," "we're all made of the same matter... whoaaaaaa..." and other such flowery, inconsequential drivel. The characters and plot are superficially there to laboriously drone on about shallow musings on life and the universe. What little there is in terms of narrative in the first half entirely falls away for a second half of self-indulgent spectacle, pretty to look at but utterly devoid of any substance, yet…
Read at the sourceCuteChaff3503
Why was this so confusing!! I was wracking my brain trying to figure out the story, and still couldn’t understand. But it seems I’m not the only one who doesn’t get it so, if you are confused, so are everyone else. :D
It is really beautiful though I will give the movie that.
Story:3/10
It is a very confusing story! I still don’t understand what went down.
I thought if I watched until the very end they would at least give me something but no, they didn’t.
Art:8/10
Very beautiful! Nice and detailed. The manga kinda style was a little off putting but nothing wrong with trying something different.
Sound:6/10
It was alright, I don’t know if it was just me but, some of the sound effects didn’t actually sync that well.
Character:3/10
Erm, hm, well I wanted to know more about the mother to be…
Read at the sourceLllama1
This was such breathtaking and beautiful animation. I was just so fascinated with everything concerning the visual aspect of the story.
STORY 5/10
I honestly want to know what happened. In the beginning, Everything was just very intriguing and i was a little interested. But then halfway thru the movie everything is just so confusing. They were talking about a FESTIVAL, then The GALAXY/UNIVERSE whatever the heck they were talking cause i wasn't focused. Honestly i only really stuck around becuz of the art. They didn't really explain anything which was what made everything confusing. I really wanted to know what the hell was going on.
ART 10/10
Like everyone else says the art is so amazing and fascinating. The close up animation looked weird but still so fricking nice and very pleasing t…
Read at the sourceMiniMinja
Let's get this review started with the ART. The art was absolutely phenomenal. It was different than most other things I've ever seen but it was absolutely beautiful. The animation was also just awesome. Then comes the MUSIC, Joe Hisaishi... need I say more (It's amazing). Also the Theme song called Spirits of the Sea by Kenshi Yonezu is sooo good it gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. The CHARACTERS were interesting, personally wasn't too attached to any of them but I was interested in all of them. Then we get to the ENJOYMENT. I don't think there were many dull moments in the show, I was always invested and interested in the movie and I was just starstruck by the amazing visuals and sounds. Finally the STORY. It has the tags: drama, mystery, supernatural. It was all of the abo…
Read at the sourcekylevyrel
First of all the movie is visually fantastic. I wouldn't think twice if you told me that clips of the movie can be seen in a museum.
The problem of it looking like an art showcase is that the story feels like it's just there to somehow tie different pieces together. Don't get me wrong, the story is not horrendous or unimportant in scope, it's just that it delves too much into surrealism that it feels contrived and unimportant. At a specific point you will ask yourself "what is happening?" and let me tell you going back and rewatching some scenes won't help you.
That's the thing with this movie, you ask "what" but not "why is this happening" because they basically keep on saying "why" it happens. My statement may not make sense now but it will after you watch it.
Although I cannot say…
Read at the sourceXenonitee
Chuldren of the Sea is about a girl who met 2 boys that has adapted to the sea and found life there. Umi - one of the boys, found near the coast of Philippines met Ruka - the shoujo mc, who injured a girl in the nose and ended the beginning of her summer, Restarted and said that her long long summer finally began. She met Umi in the workplace of her dad and she learned more about the sea and what is within it. Sora - one of the boys, is same as Umi but he is different in some ways like he carried the meteor that Umi called "Will-o'-the-wisp" and guided the whole sea towards the universe hiding within Sora.
This anime is very underrated. It's underrated in every aspect. Let's talk about the animation. The studio who animated this also animated berserk movie which is a whole cgi and by watc…
Read at the sourcepollyspocket
I really tried to like this because it's been awhile since I've seen a good anime movie, but wow this movie is really boring.
I read an entire article about the impact fast fashion has on the planet with the movie on in the background and didn't even realize until after.
There's nothing hooking you in at all it's just so boring, not only is it boring, the original looking art to imitate the mangas art style can be wildly unsettling sometimes and even hard to look at sometimes so it was off putting sometimes.
the music is.....like not there? when it is its boring and sleep inducing.
ASMR during the rain scene though? 10/10
Read at the sourceMindreader
The animation and musc were wonderfully done but I gotta say the characters and story was a let down. We didn't learn a lot about the characters and many of them seemed one dimensional as the movie emphasised one trait and the story lost me in the last third. Ruka, Uma and Sora were the main characters but i didn't care about them as much as I could have. You could feel that a lot of it was cut out from the source material. A good experience nonetheless. The visuals and sound truly carried the film. Probably won't rewatch tho. A light seven.
Read at the sourcetaipumun
Glad I'm not the only one who found the story is like an extrem hurricane rollercoaster, the prologue was good, then the middle of the story is starting to be confusing and somehow 'parting away' from what they introduced in the start of the film, I also can't digest the climax, the ending is leaving too much questions, honestly I feel like the film is not worthy my time. Maybe the movie is not for me because I'm not that phylosophical.
Aside from that, I like all the characters, I can't not smile everytime I see them, Umi is personally my favourite even though I don't really like chara with that 'sunshine sunbright sunlight' personality, I understand Ruka's feeling of wanting to protect him. "he's a baby in teen body holy frick"
Read at the sourceLunaarity
The beginning of the anime was very cute, I liked where it was going. I thought it might be a cute story about love and friendship, and I was hooked on it until I kept watching it and halfway through the movie then I quickly lost interest. It didn't make any sense at all! I think it tired too hard to be philosophical and mysterious. The writing just took such a wide turn that I was so lost. I watched it all the way through and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. I think I got the overall message, that we are one with the universe. And the universe is within us. Something like that.
Beautiful animation and music is great too. But I give it a 5 because I was very confused.
Read at the sourcery_psd
NO SPOILERS <3
As someone who works at a movie theater and has seen the ad for this movie only about a million times, I was excited to finally sit down and watch this movie that has been on "my list" on Netflix for a long time, but I have to say I was a little disappointed. To preface, I have not read the source material and I watched the English dub, which I thought was decent. Or at least the dubbing matches the monotone dialogue of the film.
STRENGTHS: The art style is incredibly unique and beautiful. A solid 10/10, besides the fact the eyes were accidental jump scares to me at a couple points in the film lmao. I really thought most of the character designs were nice too despite the faces perhaps lacking in expression once animated. What it lacks in somewhat rough movements at parts,…
Read at the sourcelizzziziz
a breathtaking dream. this was what the movie felt like to me.
first quarter of the movie was pretty simple. *first quarter*. you have your main character ruka who is struggling with her relationships both at home and at school. she goes to her father's workplace, the aquarium, a place she's always took interest and peace in and she meets an energetic boy there, umi. she quickly learns that umi isn't exactly "normal" as apparently he was found with his brother, sora in a beach and was said to be raised by dugong's so they had to be in water a lot.
things started to go from 1 to a 50 to a 100 to a full fucking thousand after that. it went from kids and the ocean to meteors, a sea festival, to quantum shit, to the full fucking universe. crazy shit. didnt understand a single thing after tha…
Read at the sourceCureFaith
What an absolute spectacle. This is the sort of film that gently draws you in by the hand, stroking you with gentle breezes, lapping at your bare toes as the distant calls of whales echo by your ears.
And then proceeds to faceplant you into the sand and screech like a dying seagull as you hallucinate from a lack of oxygen.
For the first hour of the film I was completely hooked! Ruka, Umi and Sora are familiar but enjoyable archetypes, and no time is wasted in building a bond between the trio and getting into the mystery. The side characters have next to no focus, but they work into the setting well enough to not take away from the story. And, of course, with every frame being pure eye candy, you easily lose yourself to the world and watch the plot flow with the waves...until the plot b…
Read at the source
