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Children of the Sea Anime Film Screens in U.S., Canada in April
posted on by Alex Mateo
GKIDS announced on Tuesday that it will screen Studio 4°C's anime film of Daisuke Igarashi's Children of the Sea (Kaijū no Kodomo) manga in select U.S. theaters in April. GKIDS and Fathom Events will screen the film in Japanese with English subtitles on April 20, and with an English dub on April 22. GKIDS will begin the film's limited theatrical run on April 24. The film will also screen in Canada on April 22-23. GKIDS began streaming an English-subtitled trailer:
The film will screen with an interview with director Ayumu Watanabe and CGI director Kenichiro Akimoto. Tickets will be available on March 12.
Children of the Sea opened in Japan in June 2019 and ranked at #5 in its opening weekend. The film earned a cumulative total of 316,860,800 yen (about US$2.95 million) as of June 23. The film screened at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June in the festival's new Contrechamp category. The anime screened in competition for The Ottawa International Animation Festival's (OIAF) Grand Prize for Features award in September. The film was submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 92nd Academy Awards, but no anime films received nominations.
The anime is based on Daisuke Igarashi's manga of the same name. Viz Media published the manga in English, and it describes the story:
When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea as she does.Ruka's dad and the other adults who work at the aquarium are only distantly aware of what the children are experiencing as they get caught up in the mystery of the worldwide disappearance of the oceans' fish.
Joe Hisaishi of Studio Ghibli fame composed the music for the film. Watanabe (Space Brothers, After the Rain) directed the film, and Kenichi Konishi (Tokyo Godfathers, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya) was the animation director and character designer.
