Anime Review: Bubble
I recently watched the new anime movie on Netflix Bubble and did a review for it on my YouTube channel but I thought I would share some of my thoughts on it here as well.
The hype around this movie was so big because of the incredible amount of skilled veterans in the industry who were on the team to create this. It is from Wit Studio, which is the studio and director that brought us the first three seasons on Attack on Titan and Great Pretender. It also had some great voice actors like Yuki Kaji, who is Todoroki and Kenmas va, as well as Mamoru Miyano, who is Dazai’s va.
Despite the voice cast, music and directing teams being so amazing, I was very disappointed in the actual writing done for this movie. However, I will get into that in a bit.
Animation + Music
Before getting into the actual meat and content of the storyline, I wanted to talk about this gorgeous animation style. I wasn’t surprised by how stunning the art for this movie was because of the studio that was producing it. I would have really loved to experience this in theatre’s for just the animation.
The visuals and art were absolutely stunning. The world that they created was aesthetically pleasing to the eye, while also being in this strange dystopian world. The soundtrack was the perfect accompaniment to the visuals in the movie, including one of the main characters singing. What I like about the animation is there are moments where it changes its style from being farther out and simple to becoming so gorgeous and detailed before going back to the more simple style thats easier to animate.
There were moments and certain scenes where it felt like they were very inspired by studio ghibli with the style of the florals that they use, but giving it a modern twist with the crumbling city around them. Which I really enjoyed and thought was very pleasing to watch.
Story/Plot
I would describe this as a weird dystopian parkour competition romance.
It’s about a bubble over taking Tokyo and once inside you can defy gravity. The city was evacuated and became an abandoned dystopian. Most of the people who choose to live inside are young kids who are orphans from the incident. What’s weird to me is people can come and go from the bubble dome as they please, even though it’s blocked off. They hold parkour racing contest called battlekour where teams of five race for a flag to win supplies for their team.
It follows hibiki who has intense hearing and is the only one who can bounce off the floating bubbles safely. He keeps claiming he can hear singing coming from Tokyo tower where the center of the explosion originally occurred. One night when he goes to hear it closer he falls into one of the pits and is saved by a mysterious girl and that’s where the romance side of things picks up.
She doesn’t have a name so they call her uta which is from utao to sing and uta is also song in Japanese. She acts very cat like and curious
My Thoughts
They kept hinting at and referring to the little mermaid, the book and tragedy not the Disney movie. Referring to how hibiki was like the prince and uta was like the mermaid who couldn’t speak, which I thought was cute but even still it’s not fully developed into a plot line. It’s a very common outsider/otherworlder has to learn how to speak and blend into society story.
I was also expecting this to be more of a romance but it felt awkward and mediocre. It felt more like a bonding friendship but I think they had so many opportunities to make this great if they had had the right writers.
The story felt rushed at parts and not fully developed into a plot line. It felt like lots of pieces that almost blended together into a puzzle but just wasn’t there yet. I wished that they would have explained more of like the black holes and the bubble and things like that.
I wish we had learned more about the characters and their backstories to really bond with them. You only hear little bits and pieces, how most are orphaned from the explosion. The other characters were only there in order to help develop the main character and that was very minimal. I only really remember shin and usagis names besides hibiki and uta.
Spoilers From Here On
This movie left me with more questions than answers, which automatically lowers my score for a movie or show. I was so confused by the introduction of new characters, the mention of unnecessary characters and the way they didn’t fully explain or develop ideas
First, I question why they mentioned hibikis mom if she’s so minimal and her impact on him doesn’t affect the plot of the movie. They also never fully explain why hibiki was put in a facility by his parents because he had a hyper sensitive hearing disorder? They mention it very briefly and vaguely and then never bring it up again.
A small thing but, I found it weird the undertakers team also helped them save uta and the rest of the city when earlier they kidnapped the female scientist and had no problem almost killing people by pushing them into the black holes. I thought that they would be more like the villains in this scenario, which could have made the plot more inter. Especially if they were working with it as sister
Another thing, I understand there is a mystery behind not knowing about the bubble or how it works until the end where you see more with uta. But they throw in the fact she has a sister out of no where and how she “fights” her to save hibiki and the rest of Tokyo.
I thought if they incorporated that into the plot earlier on and kept it throughout that would have been really interesting. I wanted to know more about her and her sister and why they were there and why they made the bubble and things like that. And why she had to turn into the bubbles again and leave hibiki like that.
I think it was overhyped for what it was in the end. I wouldn’t say this is the most deep or complex movie I’ve ever seen but it was fun to watch and visually appealing so I’ll give it a 7.5
