Children of the Sea
Year: 2019
Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery
Studio: Beyond C., DMM.com, Whateversmiles, Shogakukan, TOHO, SANKYO, PARCO, STUDIO4℃, Phoenix Entertainment Group, ORIX Investment, Wander Pictures
Director: Ayumu Watanabe
Cast: Mana Ashida, Hiiro Ishibashi, Seishu Uragami, Win Morisaki, Goro Inagaki, Yu Aoi
Crew: Ken Yamamoto (Key Animation), Hirokazu Kojima (Key Animation), Tatsuzo Nishita (Key Animation), Kazuhiko Yabumoto (Key Animation), Kenichi Konishi (Second Unit Director), Kenichi Konishi (Supervising Animation Director)

This film epitomises the risk that filmmakers (both live-action and animated) take with adapting a long-running or ongoing manga - a vast amount of material has to be peeled back to the core essentials to make a film with a feature-length running time. Sometimes you can shorten the plot of the manga considerably, add in scenes and motifs and end up with a timeless piece of art like Katsuhiro Otomo’s ‘Akira’. Chop out too much or pick the wrong elements to keep, and you can sink even a film as visually rich as ‘Children of the Sea’ beneath waves of turgid storytelling. - Jake Watt Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-children-of-the-sea-sunk-by-a-soggy-script Head to https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/sff for more Sydney Film Festival reviews.