Line #9 Manga/ChildrenOfTheSea


1	[[quoteright:260:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/childrenofthesea_vol01_cover_5619.jpg]]
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3	''Children of the Sea'' is a {{Seinen}} manga by Daisuke Igarashi, which ran in ''Monthly Ikki'' from 2005 to 2011. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] the Music/BlackSabbath song.
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5	Ordinary grade school girl and {{Tomboy}} Ruka finds herself thrown into an increasingly bizarre quest along with two other boys, Umi and Sora. Rather than the normal summer she might have wished for, she ends up caught up in the midst of what might be a massive mythological quest involving the origins of the boys and what the sea really is. Others interested are Jim, a tattooed surfer with a mysterious past, as well as Anglade, a young prodigy and scientist. Along with a lot of the scientific community at large, they seek to find out why aquariums around the world are losing fish under strange circumstances, as well as the other unique phenomena the boys appear to be causing.
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7	''Children of the Sea'' is replete with a lot of SceneryPorn and a strong environmentalist theme. Apart from ''Witches'', this is Daisuke Igarashi's first major series, and probably the only work of his English speakers are likely to be familiar with. Children of the Sea has been nominated several times for the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize and has won others, notably for its quality of art.
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9	A film adaptation by Creator/Studio4C under the direction of Ayumu Watanabe and with music by Music/JoeHisaishi released on June 7, 2019 in Japan. Creator/{{GKIDS}} has licenced the film for release in the U.S. with plans to screen (in both Japanese and English) later in 2020, and Creator/MadmanEntertainment has picked up the Australian & New Zealand rights, premiering it at the Sydney Film Festival on June 15, 2019.
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11	!!Tropes present in ''Children of the Sea:''
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13	* AmbiguouslyBrown: Umi, especially when compared to his brother. [[spoiler: Turns out they aren't blood-related, though how they ended up together is a mystery.]]
14	* AmbiguousInnocence: Sort of. Used with Sora and Umi to further show their otherness.
15	* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Ambiguous example as it never specifies if it’s platonic or romantic. [[spoiler:As Umi’s physical body is turning into cosmos and is being eaten by fishes, Ruka swims towards him and begs him to take her with him so they can always be together.]]
16	* BittersweetEnding: The anime movie. [[spoiler:The festival succeeds and produces a healthy amount of fish for the fishers, but Sora and Umi are both gone with the former dying before the festival took place and Umi sacrificing himself for Ruka. While Ruka is still sad about her friends dying, she presumably apologizes and befriends the girl whose nose she broke, she becomes a big sister, and she retains her memories of Sora and Umi.]]
17	* CaughtInTheRain: In a non-romantic sense, Ruka and a seagull that might be Sora.
18	* CompressedAdaptation: The movie provides a rather bizarre and magistral example. As much as every character was almost completely deprived of all the immense backstory that was given to them in the manga, all the characters are still present in the plot at the more or less their most significant points...although with nigh to zero explanation as of why they are there or sometimes of who they even are. The result is a movie whose characters seem to enter and exit the action with barely to almost no connection with each other whatsoever, rendering it practically a RandomEventsPlot.
19	* CreepyChild: As mostly benevolent examples, both Sora and Umi have elements of this, though Sora more neatly fits it. [[spoiler: And so do the other "sea kids" we see examples of.]]
20	* FriendToAllLivingThings: Umi and Sora. [[spoiler: Though the tie might be more malevolent than assumed, since those sea creatures also eat Sora.]]
21	* GenericDoomsdayVillain: At a few points in the manga, we are told that a mysterious organization is spying on Sora and Umi to possibly take advantage of whatever they are trying to achieve in a non-better specified way. [[spoiler: Apart from [[BreakTheCutie setting Anglade's]] [[DisproportionateRetribution house on fire]] for his decision to not tell them about the "Event", they never show up nor they have any meaningful impact on the story]].
22	* LittleGirlsKickShins: Ruka messes up a player on a rival soccer team in a roundabout of this trope, though she isn't a little girl anymore.
23	* MarriageOfConvenience: in the manga Kanako hastily seduced and eventually married Masaaki as a way to escape from her family and a possible life on a secluded island. Not suprisingly, by the time the story begins, their marriage is in tatters.
24	* RaisedByWolves: Sora and Umi were raised by dugongs.
25	* RousseauWasRight: in a later part of the manga, Anglade gaves Jim a speech about language and animal sounds that boils down to him being convinced that humans are, or at least used to be, this.
26	* SleightOfTongue: Before he dies, Sora gives Ruka a piece of the meteorite via a kiss.
27	* AStormIsComing
28	* {{Tomboy}}: Ruka.
29	* WhiteHairBlackHeart: Sora, in spades.
30	* YourDaysAreNumbered: Sora has very little time left before he dies. Jim tries to ensure he lives long enough for the festival to happen, but his time is shorter than anticipated.

Context Manga / ChildrenOfTheSea