It’s impossible to describe the plot of Children of the Sea beyond this: a girl named Ruka Azumi goes through puberty. That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t make sense — in a way it’s one of the most visceral visual representations of a young cis woman going through puberty that I’ve ever seen — but that it’s more symbolism than action. What begins as a simple coming-of-age story for Ruka ends in a beautifully-animated barrage of visual analogues. I personally loved Children of the Sea, but can certainly see why viewers would be completely turned off by it, especially as the movie progresses. In many ways, Children of the Sea has a lot more in common with the imagery-heavy first half of Hannibal‘s third television season than it does with other anime movies or series.
One of the most used visual shortcuts in Japanese animation is flower language and imagery. Children of the Sea is no exception, using the hibiscus flower as an emblem of Ruka’s adolescence and a wilting sunflower as one of the film’s final images.
Ruka’s transformation that occurs later in the series is prefaced by several shots of red hibiscus flowers as two characters talk about what has already happened (a character named Sora disappearing) and obliquely reference what is to come for Ruka and Umi. It’s a turning point in the movie because this is one of the last scenes that seems grounded in reality before the film becomes an animators’ showcase of symbol after symbol.
Hibiscus flowers mean “gentle” in Japanese hanakotoba or flower language. Ruka has been shown to be anything but gentle. Her introduction involves her injuring a classmate in soccer and she initially seems both fierce and somewhat guarded. Yet a large part of her transformation through puberty involves Ruka coming to terms with herself. When she admits at the end of the movie that she knew nothing, an older mentor tells her that she’s perfect as she is, and to have faith in herself and her chance encounters throughout the movie. Her gentleness shows in how she interacts with both Umi and Sora. At the very end of the movie, Ruka happily throws a ball back towards the girl she hurt in the beginning, indicating that Ruka is going to reach out to other people more often, inspired by her fleeting relationships with Umi and Sora that summer.
Furthermore, in western flower language, the hibiscus flower is specifically tied to femininity and women. One of the meanings behind a hibiscus flower in western floriography is an ideal woman or ideal wife. In Victorian flower language, hibiscus flowers were given to tell the recipient that they had delicate beauty. Red hibiscus flowers specifically represent love and passion (like many red flowers). These meanings all act as a framing device for Ruka’s adolescent summer.
“And that is everything that happened that summer.”
-Ruka Azumi, Children of the Sea
At the very end of Children of the Sea, a wilting sunflower is shown as Ruka finishes her narration. It signals the end of her summer (and the end of her initial transformation). In Japanese hanakotoba, sunflowers mean respect, passionate love, and radiance. In other flower languages they can mean bright (like the sun), radiance, lasting happiness, positivity, and strength. Despite the fact that the flower is wilted, the sun shines brightly behind it and Ruka’s narration is happy, albeit a finite conclusion to her summer, so it’s doubtful that the wilting is supposed to represent a perversion of these meanings.