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Children of the Sea Manga Gets Anime Film by Studio 4°C

Studio 4°C (Mind Game, Tekkonkinkreet, Harmony) announced on Monday that it is producing an anime film adaptation of Daisuke Igarashi's Children of the Sea (Kaijū no Kodomo) manga. The film will be the first long-form anime film adaptation of an Igarashi manga.

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.

Igarashi launched the manga in Shogakukan's IKKI magazine in 2007, and ended it in 2011. Shogakukan published five compiled book volumes for the manga, and Viz Media published all five volumes in English. The manga earned nominations and awards of excellence from the 38th Japan Cartoonist Awards, the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association, the School Library Journal, and the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards.

Igarashi's Little Forest manga inspired two live-action films in 2014 and 2015.

Igarashi launched a new manga titled Designs in Kodansha's Afternoon magazine in 2015, where it is currently ongoing. Kodansha published the manga's third compiled book volume on January 23.

Sources: Anime! Anime! (Katsunori Takahashi), Comic Natalie