Bubble

Don't you just hate it when it seems like media focuses much more on animation and graphics than telling stories with three-dimensional characters? That's what Wit Studio's newest movie, Bubble, unfortunately turned out to be. Basically, five years ago, gravity-altering bubbles fell upon the world, followed by an explosion destroying Tokyo and trapping it in a bubble dome. Since then, kids have been using the gravity defying bubbles as a means to engage in dangerous catch-the-flag gang wars for fun. A young man named Hibiki tries a reckless stunt and almost drowns, but is saved by a mysterious wild girl who he names Uta. The two of them bond, and Uta comes to know Hibiki and his friends, but another phenomenon threatens to decimate what's left of Tokyo. Yeah, not exactly a novel premise, but I'm of the philosophy that execution is important, and that even cliched characters and premises can be done well if you care and utilize them as much as you're able. Sadly, as much as Bubble tries, narratively it's kind of a mess.

For one, the anime doesn't make much of an effort to really expand on its setting. Yeah, Tokyo's been destroyed and a bunch of its citizens flat out left, but how has the government reacted to it? Did the government just leave the illegal citizens to their own devices out of apathy, or are they perfectly okay with letting a bunch of kids running around so long as Science Lady is there to supervise them? The movie never really bothers to answer these questions, or really explore how Tokyo being destroyed affects the psyches of all the characters involved, other than saying that kids who lost their families gravitated there. It feels like the decimated Tokyo is more a prop and set piece for all the parkour action, and the gravity bubbles seem similarly put there just to justify having a bunch of teenagers performing stunts that realistically would be impossible for them to pull off. Plus, even the so-called gang wars themselves seem to serve little purpose to the story other than to give the movie a thin sense of conflict that doesn't really give it a lot of stakes. Basically, the movie's trying to tackle a bunch of different concepts and premises but failing to utilize any of them to their full potential.

This also extends to the characters as well. Other than Hibiki, none of the characters are remotely interesting or three-dimensional whatsoever. Hell, we barely learn anyone's names outside of some members of the main group. One character, Kai, never even so much as gets his name mentioned until an hour and ten minutes into the damn movie! If you can't even be bothered to name one of your main characters until late into the movie, that just shows you don't dare. Plus, Kai has this weird subplot where he's weirdly jealous of Hibiki for reasons the movie never elaborates on, but barely anything is done with it, and we also never learn why Shin and Makoto, the only two adults there, are taking care of this ragtag group of kids to begin with. Uta herself is little more than just a mysterious, feral waif who's there to be Hibiki's doomed love interest and a prop for tragedy porn, never being able to develop any sense of self. Also, the other parkour teams are just a complete waste of animation and are just there to provide artificial conflict that ultimately leads to nothing, especially since the movie never bothers to develop them beyond their assigned stereotypes. Ironically, Hibiki fares somewhat better, and the closest the movie gets to actually being good is having him suffer from some kind of auditory processing disorder, and a surprisingly well-depicted depiction at that. Honestly, had the movie done more with that and cut out all the other unnecessary stuff, it might have been good.

Alright, that's all for the bad stuff, so let's get on to the good stuff. It's no surprise that Wit Studio went all out for the animation department, and it really shows. From the beautiful background art and eclectic but still down to earth character designs, to the epic action and sweeping camera angles watching every move from every direction, to the lighting and shot composition, the whole movie is visually stunning. I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as it's your typical Sawano fare, and while it is good, it feels like Sawano is just repeating the same sound he uses for all his other OSTs. He really ought to break out of his shell and do different things once in a while. Also, whose bright idea was it to give the movie a full anime opening sequence? It looks nice and all, but I feel like it was unnecessary. It didn't work for Your Name, and it doesn't work here. I really hope this doesn't become a trend for movies. And again, Hibiki's backstory was the best thing about the movie. Had Bubble gone all in on either Hibiki's drama or just being an action movie about a bunch of gangs, it probably would have been able to find stable footing. Alas, twas not to be.

Sorry, Bubble. I really wanted to like you, and the movie does have some redeeming value. But in the end, Bubble made the grave mistake of trying to do too many things and never excelling at any of them, which proved to be its downfall. It's available for streaming on Netflix if you want a nice little time killer, but Bubble doesn't really offer anything beyond pretty animation and high paced action.