Children of the Sea is the story of Ruka (Mana Ashida),the daughter of marine biologist, who befriends two boys at the local aquarium during her summer vacation. The only peculiarity being that the boys have been raised in the sea by a group of dugongs and are somehow connected to a mysterious gathering of sea life soon to be on the way. But what's her connection to all this?

It's a very nice looking film. The character models are somewhat simplistic, which seems to be all the rage in modern anime, but the backgrounds and especially all the underwater scenes are simply breathtaking. Definitely one of the nicest depictions of sea life I've seen, in anime or anywhere else for that matter.

That story though. It starts out nice enough. Ruka is nice and spunky, and I like that she's in no way perfect as shown right from the start. The boys are more of a mixed package. Umi is rather unobjectionable but Sora is so very... anime. He stands out from the other character, who are for the most part more realistic, and in a rather jarring manner. Then again... there's that old woman sea captain, who's simply nightmare fuel, so perhaps Sora is not the only one to stand out.

But back to the story. The first two thirds are fine. But near the end the film suddenly and with no warning whatsoever goes all Tree of Life style art film on us. And I still, weeks later, have no idea what exactly happened.

It's not a bad film and perhaps that ending will find a following of its own as the years pass. But I can't really recommend the film to a more casual anime fan.

As evident from the majority of the reviews here, this film presents incredible and unique animation-- and a story line that will confound the best. It is beyond me why an entire production team would create a film that absolutely no one in the audience is going to understand. This is a very self-absorbed non-story that builds up all kinds of suspense and mystery, with zero delivery. That's not a spoiler; that is the essence of what (at this time) is stated in every viewer review.

There are so many strings left hanging here, with "clues" that go nowhere. Where did the boys come from? What part did the girl play? What did the computer data have to do with anything? What actually happened... at any time during the film? None of these questions are answered nor even close to answered. Perhaps the writer and director thought they knew what story they were telling, but one would have to be psychic to understand it. When a director stumps the entire audience... he's failed to understand the difference between art and absurdity.

I understand that art doesn't necessarily require a story, but it is so much better when it does. This movie is so "Zen" even a Buddhist Monk would be scratching his head. At least we don't see the typical, "I got it and you didn't nya nya" type of reviews... because everyone has had the honesty to admit, "I didn't understand a thing that happened here". Kudos at least to the reviewers who admit that this one is WAAAY over the audiences head.

Or maybe the director and animators had way too much weed easily available. Who knows? It was an interesting roller coaster ride, but in the end one can't help but wonder if the car actually moved.

Beautiful tale about nature, magic sea wild connection with humans and universe. Don't try to understand the meaning, just enjoy the mysticism.