Children of the Sea's reviews
Media reviews
Slashfilm
But the film truly comes to life whenever we go under the water, as the movie shows us a completely new and mysterious world full of magical creatures and strange wonders, all while reaching visual heights that would make James Cameron and James Wan envious. You?ve never seen a whale as magnificently animated as in Children of the Sea, which gives excruciating detail to the textures of both the sea creatures and the water around them
Variety
?Children of Sea? catches you off-guard, if only because it so convincingly establishes a sense of realism in its opening stretch. Watanabe?s team takes the trouble to show a crushed beer can settling in its recycling bag, to show sunlight playing across a foyer as the door opens and to linger as a set of wet footprints evaporate in the sun.
Cinemanía
It's true that its script is simple and it takes a little while to take off, but after the first half hour 'Children of the Sea' is an absolutely delight for the senses, a beautiful animated movie, risky, that breaks the rules of the media in order to work from an experimental film format such as 'Belladona of Sadness' and counts on a 20-minute climax that is among the best that anime has had in the last two decades.
Screen Daily
As the plot grows more mystical and challenging, the animation has the echo of a prolonged 2001: A Space Odyssey trip through the seas and stars expressing the way Ruka?s personal history and compassion tie her to the wider universe but also suggest that she is the universe in one human individual.