Bubble (2022)

Bubble
To think this is the same studio behind three seasons of Attack on Titan and Spy × Family.
Genre: Anime Animated Post-apocalyptic Directed by: Tetsurō Araki Produced by: Tetsuya Nakatake Mirai Kase Written by: Gen Urobuchi Naoko Sato Renji Ōki Starring: Jun Shison Riria lice Hirose Mamoru Miyano Yuki Kaji Tasuku Hatanaka Distributed by: Netflix (International) Warner Bros. Pictures (Japan) Release date: April 28, 2022 (Worldwide) May 13, 2022 (Japan) Runtime: 1h 41min Country: Japan Language: Japanese

Bubble is a post-apocalyptic anime film produced by Wit Studio. It was first released on Netlix worldwide in April 28th 2022 and was released theatrically in Japan later in May 13th, 2022.

Plot

One day, Tokyo was covered by tons of bubbles, but after a big explosion in the Tokyo Tower, a bubble huge in size covered the city and strange anomalies happens in this one. Today, boys with life's issues enters in the big bubble and makes clandestines parkour challenges for foods and possessions. The main protagonist, Hibiki, after reach the bubble's center, fell off in the water, but an odd bubble-girl named Uta saves him and became friends.

Bad Qualities

1. The main problem with this anime is that, at some point, one feels obligated to love it, and after anime films for niche like Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop, which have received universal acclaim for their originality and good story, it's easy to understand that this film tries in every way to attract critics to show all its history, characters and their stories, resulting in a weak and predictable first impression, also due to the problems that will be listed.
2. On this subject, the film lacks originality, because it shows things that people have already seen a lot of times in the cinema or in other media, because the film is wannabe inferior to other franchises that share similar ideas but done before and better. For example, the film borrows elements from The Last of Us, Your Name, The Little Mermaid(as in the 1989 Walt Disney Animated Film), Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop as mentioned before, When Marnie was There, Ponyo and even other anime shows such as A Lull in the Sea with the premise about some form of water that also covers a city, they even rip-off some SpongeBob SquarePants episodes like "Bubble Buddy"(in that the plot is about a liven being made from bubbles) and "It Came from Goo Lagoon"(in that the plot is about a giant bubble).
   • By the way, the plot of the film is just another one of those generic anime love stories between a boy and a girl who suddenly know each other, have nonsense here-and-there at the beginning but then manage to love each other. Even the ending is predictable, because we know that then they will have to separate for generic reasons and live in their worlds.
3. The pacing throughout the film is poor, with useless plot's scenes receiving more time than useful ones, and poor camera movement that lacks energy in most non-parkour-centric scenes.
   1. Even the way the plot is structured is questionable: for example, at 3/4 of the film, the protagonists will have to rescue Makoto from the Denki Ninjas with a lethal parkour contest, and it sounds like the ending of the film due to the huge climax and of the choreography of jumps between Hibiki and Uta, only for the viewer(s) to find that there are another 30 minutes left before the end of the film, resulting in exhausting by many fans.
4. The film has many petty, questionable and downright mean-spirited moments, such as the scene where Usagi opens a food drawer and is nearly strangled by Kai for "not respecting good manners"(by the way, both Osawa and Isozaki just stand there and do nothing while this happens) and the scene where Uta discovers, plays and jokes with chicken eggs in the hen house, infuriating a rooster who later attacks Hibiko for literally no reason!
5. The characters are pretty clichè and uninteresting:
   • Hibiko is the protagonist that nobody understands and is antisocial.
   • Uta is a generic girl who wants to discover the world the love at first sight of the protagonist and the girl he will have to leave behind in his world.
   • Hibiko's friends, the Blue Blazes, are only there to support the protagonist and make jokes, as well as have generic personalities and even rip-off characters from other media:
     • Usagi is a generic lighthearted jokesters of the group with an annoying "Cool" kid voice from the 1990s, he's also a rip-off of Beast Boy from Teen Titans(as in the 2003 version), right down to his personalty.
     • Osawa is the basic "main mentor" of the group that does nothing more then support the gang, he also looks very out-of-place in the film in terms of design, and looks like a rejected Static Shock character.
     • Kai is a "Love Wanna Be"-type character that has been done with much better characters previous, and can even come across as a jerk (as stated in the #4 segment).
     • Isozaki is the stereotypical "main brains" of the group that's also already been done in much better media.
     • Shin is a generic character who had a tragic accident and now has a robotic right leg.
   • Makoto is the besieged and intelligent scientist who tries to discover the causes of the event of the shower of bubbles.
   • Denki Ninjas are the generic opponents who hides their identity and barely do anything about the plot.
6. Mediocre writing that requires more work.
7. There are noticeable plot-holes that are never explained.
8. No real villains besides the Denki Ninjas.
9. The film obviously doesn't know what logic is, as it has so many inaccuracies that it makes it seem like the producers hadn't studied physics. For example:
   • In the scene where Makoto talks about the bubble event, he mentions that inside the giant bubble there is a strange force field, which makes no sense because, apart from the black hole in the Tokyo tower, there is no a real center that attracts the elements, so it would be more correct to say "a strange gravity" rather than the other.
     • By the way, the strange force field makes cars, trains and pieces of buildings levitate as if they were soap bubbles (no pun intended), in all of this, it does not fly neither humans nor water, which should definitely be lighter than other bodies.
   • What's a black hole doing in the bubble? Don't the makers know that black holes are formed with the death of a specific star? And if the black hole was created by some strange event in the bubble anyway, why hasn't it already sucked up the entire world?
   • The falling bubbles event itself is out of place and makes no sense, because there is no gravity in space, so it is too unlikely that they all fell to Earth without even the effect of the atmosphere. Also what are these bubbles made of? It can't just be water, because it's too dense a substance to make them fly.
10. The reason Tokyo is flooded and full of bubbles doesn't come until 12 minutes after the film, where Makoto states the whole event in a flashback, which makes this look rushed.
11. Much like Beast Machines: Transformers and High Guardian Spice, it's very inconsistent with its tone, with some moments being way too dark to be a kids film, while other times being too goofy to be a teenager/adult film.
12. While the soundtrack is catchy and relaxing, it becomes extremely annoying, because (we're not kidding) it plays 16 times in the movie.
    • Speaking of music, after the title of the film, an opening theme song is played which, while also great, feels extremely out-of-place for an anime film and would fit better in a TV Series, not something before a feature length Film, it's as if Bubble was originally intended to be an anime TV Series, but was eventually made into a feature length anime Film. Just like The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (which ironically, came out the same year three months before Bubbles came out).

Good Qualities

1. The animation is great thanks to being animated by Wit Studio, the same animation studio behind Spy x Family and Attack on Titan.
2. The soundtrack, while repeated ad nauseam through the film, is catchy and relaxing, with "Bubble feat. Uta Eve", the film's opening, being the hightlight, despite being out-of-place.
3. The voice acting is great in both Japanese and English, especially from Zach Aguilar (Tanjiro from Demon Slayer) and Erica Lindbeck (Loona from Helluva Boss).

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