Bubble

Let me start by saying this is my first review for anything, so keep that in mind while reading this review. I was also really hyped for this movie for like half a year now but kept my hopes at least down.
(Also wrote this at like 11 PM)

I have written this review right after finishing the movie and let me just that's really visually appealing from all angles from the animation, world, and just the style of things you would expect from WIT. I'll start this review by mentioning the good parts of the movie which are everything other than the narrative and story.

THE GOOD THINGS

The animation is just.. so fucking good, excuse my language but my god is this just amazing, WIT Studio has been flexing their animation skills for at least a decade now ever since the release of Attack On Titan back in 2013 when they first showcased their amazing blend of 3D and 2D animations so smoothly that many studios have also adapted in their shows and movies.

But I have gotta say it feels like WIT just had the idea of some parkour anime with gravity and just wrote the story around that premise

The music is of course a banger with the opening by EVE and a soundtrack composed by the Hans Zimmer of Japan, Hiroyuki Sawano.

__THE NARRATIVE AND CHARACTERS
__

The characters are a midpoint in the movie with the quiet but skilled MC, a mysterious blue-haired girl that just came from nowhere. A ragtag group of orphans with a drunken scientist taking care of them, and some other characters that are just too basic and one-dimensional in my opinion to mention.

But this was honestly a disappointment if you account for the many notable staff members involved with this movie. Like everybody including me leading up to the release of this movie was hyping it up with it being like the next big anime movie of the decade like what Your Name, A Silent Voice, or Mugen Train did.

The story structure however just comes down to a Disney-structured story with lots of exposition scenes from even the first 5 minutes, but this necessarily isn't bad as this is an anime-original movie with no material to adapt so you can move past that and just enjoy the narrative.

The narrative is a simple disaster premise about a quiet boy and a mysterious girl that eventually leads to some weird thing by the end that doesn't get resolved which is unfortunate. In-between these moments are some of the best-looking animations I have seen this year which is obvious as this is a feature film after all. The battles are really simple in their plot with a ragtag group for our main cast and an "evil" high-tech group as the opposing force for these fights.

In short, BUBBLE is a delightful and beautifully made fiction that just stumbles a bit in the narrative department but still delivered on its promise.

(Update: June 2025, lowered score from 88 to 74)