Bubble

Unfortunately, being animated and having music aren't merits worth giving this one any time of day you have.

Reading further will lead to spoilers so if you wish to avoid that: Bubble isn't good enough that you should put your time here rather than something better, whether it's for its visuals or not.

You've read the original The Little Mermaid story, right? Then you've seen the film. The story very explicitly references the work throughout the experience but rather than taking the work and being transformative with it, it just plays out exactly as you would expect. It's not as if taking reference from other works and using it is wrong, but the problem lies in that if nothing is done with that inspiration, what would be the point in watching that work over experiencing the original instead.

There are stories that reference old material all the time and remain unique by doing something new with it, to give an example in anime the Your Name movie comes to mind as it takes from an old 80's novel in Japan. And in Your Name is adds more which previous body swap stories didn't have including a unique theme. This makes the story of Bubble feel forgettable in comparison as it has no theme or message that hasn't been done in countless stories before. To add to how pointless and forgettable the film is the fact that there's a lot of characters that could be removed from the plot yet not affect it meaningfully whatsoever. To let my point sink in, try a thought-experiment if you seen the movie and remove one character with a speaking role from every scene and estimate how little the plot would change or how easily replaceable they could be by another character. I claim this to be a flaw since time is being put in these character and yet will be immediately forgotten the moment the credits roll, it makes the film feel incomplete. To be more clear, my point is side-characters that don't contribute to the plot or story yet still take your precious time feels like mismanagement.

To add to the previous point of feeling incomplete, there's more than plenty factors in the world of Bubble that's left with no clear conclusion. Although in it defence as well, those plot points don't really have to be focused on as they're irrelevant to the story. I'll also take the chance to praise the film for thinking deep enough about the world to have people inhabit destroyed Tokyo for believable reasons like scientists researching the bubble and juveniles being juvenile. This is likely due to Urobuchi's hand in the writing for the film.

And with all this said, is there a point to the story? At the least, this movie does have a message to give to the world, but it's told to the audience so directly it'll disengage you from the experience. The message being it's worth risking pain to connect to others. No thought is needed to be put in to understand it, A boy that closes himself of from others because it hurts him to hear and an alien girl who can't touch him tries to connect with him.
It plays out exactly as you'd think...

My issue isn't that it'd predictable, my issue is that it's been done before AND better in other works and so I ask what actually makes this special. We're all thinking it was a little disappointing and you aren't wrong in thinking so.

4/10 for being so uninspired