The short follows two children, Port and Umi, as they find themselves stranded in a small seaside town while on an important quest. They seek the aid of a local inventor to repair their ship, but the task may not be as it seems.
The pilot
released on YouTube February 22, 2024.
Port by the Sea contains examples of the following:
- All There in the Manual: The official website revealed background information on the two main characters.
- Port and Umi are childhood friends.
- Port wants to grow up to be like his father, a famous sailor.
- Jolly Roger (Port pet crab) was his first catch and became his lifelong friend.
- Umi never knew her parents would like to learn about them someday.
- Ankle will be a very important character who appears in unexpected places and, for some reason, doesn’t seem fond of the ocean.
- Ambiguously Human: Port and Umi have Cute Little Fangs that resemble canine teeth that no other human characters seen in the pilot have.
- Bait-and-Switch: The inventor hasn't been able to do much of anything ever since he lost Bonnie during "the shatter", and a picture shows him with his wife and a goldfish. It's eventually revealed that Bonnie was the goldfish, which was mutated into the sea monster Port and Umi were hunting in the beginning of the pilot; the wife was upstairs the whole time.
- Detonation Moon: The opening illustrations depict a shattered moon that would come about if the titan Tiamat should ever escape his imprisonment. And indeed, the moon is eventually revealed to be shattered, with Port and Umi on a quest to repair it.
- Eyelid Pull Taunt: Port does this while confronting the sea monster after he realizes it's Bonnie.
- Fish People: The trio find a cave full of humanoid fish creatures they call imps.
- Gotta Catch Them All: It's eventually revealed that Port and Umi are looking for pieces of the moon in order to repair it.
- Historical Gender Flip: A mythological example; Tiamat is the name of a Mesopotamian goddess, but the titan of the same name is referred to as male.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The setting includes anthropomorphic animal people as part of its populace, such as the elderly bird shopkeep and even one who's an actual tiger.
- Lucky Charms Title: The "O" in Port by the Sea is an image of the setting's shattered moon.
- Magic Compass: Umi has one which points where a shard of the moon is close by.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The opening text explains that the titan Tiamat, having turned evil and attempting to drown the world, was sealed inside the moon by his fellow titans. And as we find out later in the pilot, the moon has been shattered…
- Sea Monster: The pilot opens with the kids trying and failing to fight a giant sea serpent. The creature is later defeated and revealed to be the inventor’s transformed goldfish.
- Shout-Out: One of the people they talk to is a miner working on some pipes who looks like Luigi.
